Summer 1 2024
Personal and Social Development
We will once again welcome some new Seahorses and help them to settle in. All children will be encouraged to follow the rules and share. The older Seahorses will be encouraged to develop more focus and concentration when working on adult tasks, ready for Reception. The youngest Seahorses will learn our daily routines and begin to follow our rules with adult support.
Understanding the World
Our topic this half term is an 'Understanding the World' topic where we will learn all about our world, starting with our immediate locality, Amble. Our topic will start with a talk about the local area and what we can see on our way to school and when we're out and about. We will share any news of places we have visited, whether in the UK or further afield. We would love to see photos of these visits so keep your eyes on Tapestry asking for family photos of your adventures. We will use stories set in different countries as a stimulus and then compare the weather, the food, the animals and the landscape to see what differences there are. We will use simple maps and atlases to identify where different places are in the world. Why not have a look at the simple map of the world below and talk about the different places in the world, how many have they heard of? Our learning about the environment and how to protect it will continue once again, as the children are really interested in this and it is a very worthwhile topic to delve deeper into!
Our new Seahorses will work on numbers 0 to 3, counting and saying numbers in the right order. The older Seahorses extend their current knowledge, working with numbers up to 10. The children will learn to represent numbers in different ways and match numerals to quantities. The children will learn to order numbers up to 5, using blocks, cut and stick activities and games to practice. They will build on their existing knowledge of shapes, naming shapes and describing them. The children will be extending their mathematical vocabulary when talking about length, size, weight and capacity. They will engage in play based activities to learn the key vocabulary needed to compare objects. The children will work on patterns and use resources to create their own, building on the learning they did last half term. Take a look at the shape game below which is great for naming shapes and problem solving!
Monster Phonics will continue to develop the children’s phonic awareness as they learn to say, name and use sounds. The older children will learn to identify different sounds and to sort objects and words by their initial sound, while the newer Seahorses develop listening and attention skills and pre phonics skills. Early writing will have a big focus as the children learn that sounds can be represented correctly in their writing. Different types of writing will be modelled by adults then the children will be encouraged to have a go themselves. In small groups, the children will share and talk about books, using inference to answer questions about the story. They will develop more confidence in noticing and using rhyming words through games and discussions about stories.