Foundation Stage

Welcome to EYFS 2022-23

Meet the EYFS Team

       Mrs Baird                   Miss Galpin                  Mrs Thorogood                 Mrs Higson

Gold Class Teacher     Silver Class Teacher                         Pink Class Teachers

Teaching Assistants:

Miss Gregory and Mrs Lamberton- Gold Class

Mrs Beardmore and Miss Fordbird- SIlver Class

Miss Webster-Haynes, Miss Newton and Mrs Dolan- Pink Class

Contact us

Please contact us on the following email addesses:

Mrs Baird (Gold) - jbaird@woodville-fed.derbyshire.sch.uk

Miss Galpin (Silver) - lgalpin@woodville-fed.derbyshire.sch.uk

Mrs Thorogood (Pink) - jthorogood@woodville-fed.derbyshire.sch.uk

Mrs Higson (Pink)- ehigson@woodville-fed.derbyshire.sch.uk

Spring 2- Me and my garden

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Spring 2. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 3- Parts of a plant

This week was Science Week in school and as part of this we looked more closely at plants.

We arrived into school on Monday, to discover that our cress heads were full of cress hair and were ready for a hair cut! We excitedly gave them a cut and washed the cress ready to eat. We made cress sandwiches, using real knives to spread the butter and cut the bread. We realised we were eating the stem and leaves of the cress. Our core value of courage was demonstrated, as we tried something new, which actually tasted delicious. It was a lovely feeling to have grown and then eaten our own food.

Next, we planted broad beans, like those in the story Jasper's Beanstalk. We are going to have to be patient while they grow, unlike Jasper!

We learned the names of parts of a plant- petal, leaves, stem and roots; singing a song, to the tune of Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, to help us remember the parts. Ask your child to sing it to you at home.

We also used our sense of smell to identify foods that come from plants e.g. orange, coffee and chocolate.

Jasper's Beanstalk continued to inspire us in our literacy work. This week we wrote sentences to explain what Jasper did on certain days of the week. Our confidence in using full stops and finger spaces is growing! This week we explored using a capital letter to start a sentence.

In Maths, we learned about 3d shapes; solid shapes that you can pick up. We named 3d shapes, cone, cube, cuboid, sphere and cylinder, and looked for real objects with 3d shapes around our unit. We explored which 3d shapes could be rolled and/or stacked, and the 2d shapes we could see on the faces of the 3d shapes. 

On Friday, we toured classes across the Federation to see what they had been up to over Science week. Some Year 6 pupils came across to our unit to share their work on fingerprints with us. We had great fun making fingerprints with them and studying the loops and whorls in our prints. Thank you, Year 6!

Week 2- Planting Cress

Our unit looked very different, when we returned to school this week- a huge plant had grown in our workshop area! It reminded us of the beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk. This led us on to share the story of Jasper's Beanstalk. We loved listening to what Jasper did every day to take care of his bean. We decided that he needed to be more patient when growing his bean! We acted out the story and sequenced the events from the story, using the days of the week to help us. 

We observed and then planted some cress seeds. We took selfies with the Ipad and stuck our photographs on to our pots to make our very own cress head. Each day we observed the changes to the seeds, recording our observations in a diary. We were very excited when 'cress hair' began to appear over the top of our cress head pot!

This week, we also practised using knives to slice and chop. We had to be very careful, making sure our fingers were tucked out of the way. Next week, we are going to use the cress we have grown to make sandwiches, using knives to spread butter and cut bread. Watch this space!

We also spent time this week studying daffodils and captured their beauty using watercolours. We have some budding artists in the unit! We were very proud of our finished paintings.

In Maths, we compared the number of objects in groups, without being distracted by size, colour or shape. We used the vocabulary more than, fewer than and equal to and thought about how we can manipulate the number of objects in two sets to make them equal.

Although we are learning about the season of Spring currently, we made the most of the unusual snow this week; working together to build a stable snowman, exploring footprints in the snow, exploring melting and freezing and bringing snow into our indoor water tray play.

Week 1- World Book Day- Peter Pan

Welcome back to another exciting half term in the EYFS! 

Monday was an action-packed day beginning with our celebration of Pancake day and ending with a parent worskhop all about supporting early maths. It was great to see so many family members working with their children, using language to help children develop early number sense. We can't wait to see how you get on at home!

World Book day fell on Thursday 2nd March this year but we decided to celebrate it all week, with our Federation text, Peter Pan. We had a wonderful week exploring the world of Neverland and thinking about what our perfect Neverland would include. The unit was filled with pirates, mermaids, and magical creatures. We loved making maps of Neverland; our imaginations went wild! We ended the week watching the Cbeebies show, Peter Pan, which has definitely inspired some budding actors within the unit. 

In Maths, we continued to explore composition of numbers, using double dice frames to explore 6 and 7 as numbers that are made from 5 and a bit. The Numberblock videos for 6 and 7 are attached below, if you would like to watch them with your child. 

This week, we talked about our personal hygiene, in relation to how to keep our hands clean when cooking. We looked at how germs are spread, using glitter to illustrate, and the importance of washing our hands carefully, singing the song Happy Birthday to help.

We also listened to the story of Pantosaurus and talked about how pants cover a private part of our body. 

Phase 3 Tricky Words

In Phonics, we are now well into Phase 3 and have begun to learn some more tricky words. These are shown below. Click on the stars below and they will take you to some ideas for how you can help support your child to read and spell these words at home.

Spring 1- Are we nearly there yet?

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Spring 1. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Number Formation

We have been practising forming numbers accurately in class. So far we have covered numbers 0 to 5. Each number has a rhyme to help the children remember where to start formation and how to form it correctly. Below is the number formation rhymes we use so you can help support your child at home.

Catie's Amazing Machines

We have loved learning about transport in our topic this half term. We watched a few episodes of Catie's Amazing Machines to support our learning about boats, cars and planes. If you would like to find out more about amazing transport, then follow the link below to Catie's Amazing Machines on BBC iplayer.

Week 6- Travel by Sea- Boats

Our final transport in this topic was boats. We started the week investigating objects that float and sink. We observed very closely, discussing the size, shape and material of objects. This led us on to making our own boats out of foil. It was fun testing them in our water tray. We investigated the size of the base of the boat which came into contact with the water and how high the sides of the boat needed to be to ensure water did not get into the boat. We counted out cubes into the boat to see how many it could hold before it sank. One boat held 25 cubes!

We compared an old boat to a new boat, noticing that how a boat moves has changed from the use of sails and wind power to engines, using propellers. 

In English, we pulled all our learning together about transport by creating our own class non-fiction book. We each selected a photograph of our favourite transport and wrote a sentence about it. Once we had all created a page, we sorted our pages into travel by road, air, sea and rail. We then numbered our pages and created a contents page to help organise the information. We are very proud to be real, published authors. Our class books are going in our reading area to share with others. This has certainly inspired us to create more books!

In Maths, we consolidated our understanding of the composition of five, investigating part and whole relationships, through the nursery rhyme Five Little Speckled Frogs. We visualised the numbers within 5 to work out how many were hidden when we knew the whole number in the set.

This week, we also celebrated Valentines Day. We thought about gifts we give to people we love and so made cards in the workshop, chocolates in the malleabe area, perfume in the water area and jewellery in the funky fingers area. We used our phonic knowledge to write labels for our creations.

What an action packed half term of learning! We wish you all a very relaxing half term holiday. Get out and about and see what transport you can spot!

Week 5- Travel by Rail- Trains

Choo-Choo! This week trains were our focus transport in EYFS. 

In English, we were introduced to a non-fiction text- My First Book of Transport. We looked at the differences between a fiction and non-fiction text, including the use of a contents page, photographs and captions. We used this book to find out about trains and how they work. We also used the book to find out about trains in the past, compared to trains now. 

We explored our toy train set in more detail, looking at how magnets make the train move. We were surprised to see that one end of the train attracted to the magnet but the other end pushed away from the magnet (repelled) so we could move the train without touching it!  

We continued to explore and be inspired by the work of the artist, Jackson Pollock. We had great fun creating our own 'action' paintings outside. We started by splatting paint but then independently explored dripping, flicking, rubbing and printing. Look at some of the examples of our work below. Needless to say, we were glad we wore all-in-one suits and wellingtons, as we got very messy!

In Maths, we looked at the ordinal aspect of numbers 1 to 5 and the staircase pattern that is formed with consecutive numbers. We quickly realised that each number was one more than the number before. We also used the ordinal numbers first, second, third, fourth and fifth alongisde these number activities and in classroom routines.

Week 4- Travel by road- Trucks, buses, lorries 

On Monday, Dave our Caretaker, wanted to get rid of our boxes in our role play area as he thought they were junk! These are very important to us, as we use them to represent many different things in our play, especially vehicles! We read the story Not a box by Antoinette Portis and then wrote three word phrases to explain to Dave what a box could be. We pulled all the ideas together to create our own list poem to share with Dave. He has now agreed not to get rid of our boxes! Our poem is proudly displayed in the unit for all to see.

We spent time looking at different types of maps this week and explored the concept of looking at objects from an aerial view. We made our own maps in diffferent ways, both indoors and outdoors. Road safety dominated our play outdoors this week, as we practised crossing the road safely. At the end of the week, we conducted a road traffic survey on the High Street. We were amazed to see so many cars pass by our school in such a short space of time. The next common vehicles were lorries and vans but we only saw one bus. Not one motorbike or bicycle passed our school! 

This week we discovered the work of the American Painter, Jackson Pollock. He was famous for his 'action paintings'; dripping, splashing or pouring paint on to his canvasses. We loved looking at his paintings and responding to them. We had some super discussions about how the artwork made us feel. Some of us felt it was 'messy' and 'scribbly', while others loved the colours and shapes that emerged in the pictures. Next week we are going to have a go at creating our own Jackson Pollock inspired artwork outside, using paints. We can't wait! Watch this space!

In Maths, we learned about the 2d shapes, squares and rectangles. We explored our environment to locate squares and rectangles and made squares and rectangles in lots of different ways. We played barrier games to describe a shape picture to a friend so they could build it too.

Week 3- Travel by road- Cars

It was noisy in EYFS this week! The sound "vroom, vroom" echoed throughout the building, as we learned all about cars. This week we had a close look inside and outside a real car to study the different parts. We found the engine under the bonnet and where the petrol is put into the car. We learned lots of new vocabulary, like wing mirror, exhaust and windscreen. Later on in the week, we studied a car from the past and compared it to a modern car. We were surprised to see it had no roof and only two seats. The wheels were very big and white! We all agreed that we prefer cars today.

We explored rolling cars through paint and down ramps. This led us to explore different heights and surfaces. It was fun to observe how the cars movement changed. We noted if the surface was bumpy the car moved slower!

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Andy from the Derbyshire Road Safety team, who helped us to understand how to keep ourselves safe near roads, particularly how, when and where to cross the road safely. We learned the key words: Stop, Look, Listen, Think to help us remember what to do to cross the road safely.

In Maths, we worked on our recognition of numerals to 5, matching numerals to correct quantities in various games. We also linked dot arrangements to patterns on a die and had great fun playing dice games and games involving a number track. 

In English, we continued our learning with the story Whatever Next. This week we thought about Bear's next adventure and what other type of transport the box could be. We came up with lots of ideas including, car, plane, submarine, motorbike and a boat. We then thought about where that type of transport would take us to. We had so many lovely discussions about what Bear's next adventure would involve. 

This week we also celebrated Chinese New Year. This year it is the year of the Rabbit. It was very interesting to find out why and how this is celebrated. We enjoyed lots of different activities to experience Chinese culture. Our favourites were acting out the story of Chinese New Year, making money envelopes and lanterns, moving to music as a dragon, using chopsticks and tasting Chinese food. 

Week 2- Travel by air- Planes

This week we found out where our mystery box came from. The bear and the box are from the story 'Whatever Next!' by Jill Murphy. The little bear flies to the moon and back, all before his bath time. We loved listening to the story and predicting what could happen next. We practised using our background knowledge to make links with the text and support our predictions. Afterwards, we used our phonic knowledge to create and label pictures of the bear and what he took with him in his box to the moon. Find a link to the story below.

The focus transport this week was planes. We learned about parts of a plane and how a plane moves. We explored throwing paper planes through the air. It was very tricky when the wind blew, as it moved the plane backwards! We experimented with balloons, balls, ribbons, feathers and other objects that move through the air. We particularly enjoyed investigating bubbles and the bubbles that were made by different shaped wands. They were always round regardless of the shape of the wand!

We also seized the weather this week to explore our school surroundings for signs of Winter. Before we even went outside, we noted changes in the temperature, as we wrapped up in scarves, gloves, hats and wellington boots! We observed snow, ice, icicles, brown or rotten leaves on the ground, bare trees and bright berries. We noted 'dragon's breath' coming out of our mouths, as our hot breath met the cold air. We even talked about how in the morning it has taken longer to get to school as our cars are all frosty and need de-icing!

In Maths, we revisited the concept of 1:1 correspondence by making sure that we matched collections of objects to their representations and began to link this to the corresponding number. We also explored the conservation of a number by investigating what happens to quantities of objects when they are rearranged.

This week we had a visit from the Active School Partnership Balanceability team. We had great fun learning to ride a balance bike. We learned that taking big strides helps to move the bike quicker. We manoeuvred the bikes around cones, gradually lifting our feet off the floor as our confidence grew. We even played a game where we had to stop on command. The importance of wearing a helmet for safety was reinforced. The session really helped to develop our balance, core strength, leg strength and co-ordination. 

Week 1- Travel by air- Rockets

This week something strange appeared in our outdoor area. We had no idea where it came from or what it was. We used our detective skills and background knowledge to look for clues and make links to form an idea. We came up with some very creative and imaginative ideas, particularly linked to space! Someone suggested that it may link to a story so we hunted high and low in the unit for a book with a bear, an owl, a picnic and a rocket! We shared many stories but have not found one yet that contains all the clues. We will keep looking next week! This exciting event though led us into a week of learning about rockets and space travel.

We used Google Earth to zoom out into space and discover what we could see. We studied planet Earth very carefully and discovered why it looks blue and green. We linked this to a world map and globe and had a go at colouring our own map of the world. 

We used the indoor and outdoor equipment to make rockets in many different forms and had great fun launching them and ourselves into space! We loved sharing books about rockets and space and using these to help us find out facts. 

In the workshop area, children got busy junk modelling, including making different types of transport. We used a plan, do, review approach to help us make our models. We were very proud of the end results and learned a lot through sharing problems we encountered and how we solved them. 

In Maths, we explored part-part-whole relations through practical experiences, with numbers to 5, to reinforce our understanding that wholes can be made up from smaller parts. We particularly focused on spatial arrangements that can be made with different combinations of the same number of objects. 

In English, we shared what Santa had brought us for Christmas, labelling pictures of our gifts. We were certainly very lucky this year!

Our first P.E lesson in P.E kit was a resounding success. We loved pretending to be stars in the sky, using our bodies to make star shapes in different ways. We moved around the space safely, creating our very first class dance about twinkling stars. We can't wait for next week!

Autumn 2- Traditions and Me

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Autumn 2. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 8- Christmas is here!

We have finally made it to the end of term! What an action packed four days we have had! This week, we have begun our preparations for Christmas. We made Christmas cards and calendars for our families. We hope you like them! 

On Wednesday, we had our Christmas party, we loved dancing to music, playing party games and eating party food. It was hard when we were out in the games but we tried hard to congratulate the winner and continue to participate in the games. We managed our emotions and feelings and the teachers were very proud of us.

Today, Santa came for a visit and told us we are all on his good list! 

Tonight, children are coming home with a bag filled with goodies from the EYFS team! This includes their cards and calendars but also reindeer food made by the children to help Santa's reindeer find their way to your homes, a special book and a homemade chocolate snowman. So, on Christmas Eve, sprinkle the reindeer food in the garden or in front of your house, eat your Chocolate snowman and snuggle up to share the story book. What a special Christmas Eve that will be! 

We wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas. We look forward to more adventures in 2023!

Week 7- Winter

As temperatures plummeted and Winter really took hold this week, we spent time looking closely at the changes around us. We observed all the surfaces that had been touched by the frost. We saw glistening spider webs, icicles and frozen water in spots we hadn't even expected, like inside our tyres and tough trays. Some of the equipment that had been left out over the weekend had frozen together. We had great fun trying to pull things apart, break the ice and watch it melt. 

Some of our toy animals had got trapped in the ice and we explored ways of getting them out of the ice. We suggested things like smashing, hammering, scraping or cutting them out but this took a long time and was hard work! We then came up with lots of ideas for making the ice warm, like holding it in our hands, putting it in the microwave or a bowl of hot water. We enjoyed melting the ice and re-freezing it again in our freezer. We kept this cycle going all week! Melt- freeze- melt- freeze!

Outdoors, we had to keep moving as it was very cold. We used tricycles, scooters and wheeled toys, as we practised pedalling and pushing, developing our gross motor skills. 

We even built a Polar Express to take us to see Santa in the North Pole. Our imaginations have been really stretched this week and there has been lots of negotiating storylines and roles, sharing and taking turns. 

This week we wrote letters to Santa to ask for our Christmas gifts. We used our phonic knowledge to stretch words, segment words into sounds and record the sounds we could hear. Santa is going to be very impressed with our writing! 

In Maths, we began to explore composition by focusing on the preliminary skills, the concepts of 'parts' and 'wholes'. We investigated our own bodies and familiar toys to help us understand that whole things are made up of smaller parts and therefore a whole is bigger than its parts. This fed into our wider provision where we constructed and deconstructed things with parts, made craft activities with parts that are put together to make a whole, even looking at moving parts on our bikes and scooters.

At the end of the week, we performed our Nativity for our families. We did an amazing job singing our songs, reciting our lines and acting on the stage. The EYFS staff and Mrs Haywood are very proud of each and every child; you all showed our core values of respect, courage, creativity, perseverance and joy this week.  A huge congratulations to you all!

Week 6- Christmas Celebrations

This week we discussed how we celebrate Christmas in our homes and saw we had very similar traditions, like decorating Christmas trees, writing letters to Santa, sending cards, visiting Santa, giving and receiving presents, eating Christmas dinner and spending time with our family. Thank you for sending in photographs through Tapestry.

Santa's workshop opened in EYFS! We got busy helping Santa to design, make, wrap and post presents. We are always watching and changing who is on the naughty and nice list!

This week, we also talked about the sweet foods and drinks that are consumed during celebrations and the impact this has on our teeth. We made teeth out of playdough, talked about healthy and unhealthy food for our teeth and practised cleaning teeth to get rid of plaque! We conducted a science investigation to look at the impact of sugary drinks on our teeth. We put egg shells (similar to tooth enamel) into water, milk, orange squash and Coke. We predicted that Coke and Squash would be bad for our teeth and that they would change the egg shell to make it brown. We were shocked to see what happened to the egg shell after a few days in the squash and Coke. It made us want to brush our teeth more regularly and carefully! Look at the photographs below.

This week we also had Christmas jumper and Christmas dinner day. It was great fun pulling crackers in the hall with our friends. 

In English, we read the story of Stickman by Julia Donaldson. We practised the skill of prediction, pausing at different parts in the story to guess what could happen next. Sometimes our predictions were correct, along the way we changed our predictions as we got more information. We loved making our own Stickmen and taking them on adventures outside.

In Maths, we explored repeating AB patterns. We made repeating patterns with actions, sounds and objects e.g. clap/click, meow/woof, red/yellow, circle/square. scissor/pencil. We even used our knowledge of repeating patterns to make wrapping paper for Santa's workshop. 

At the end of the week, the winners of the Christmas tree competition were announced. Congratulations to Blue Class who won. Photographs of all the trees from the Infant school can be found on Twitter. EYFS were very proud of their three very unique trees. 

Week 5- The First Christmas- Nativity

This week the celebration of Christmas has really begun to take over the EYFS unit. We shared the Christian story of the first Christmas- the Nativity. The children practised retelling it and sequencing the story. We looked at the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh given to Baby Jesus and how they were very different to those gifts that we would give to a baby. 

We introduced the idea of performing the nativity for our families; the children were very keen to do this. We looked at the characters in the story and allocated roles. Children have come home with words to practise as narrators for the natvity so please practise these with them at home. Songs for the nativity performance have also been added to Tapestry so your child can practise them at home.

This week, we have begun to open our class advent calendars. Instead of chocolate, our calendars contain activity books based on the books of one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson. We love counting down the days until Christmas arrives!

In Maths, we compared objects in two groups by matching them 1:1. We used the words more than, fewer than and equal to, to compare the numbers in each group.

Find a link below to the Nativity story.

Week 4- Weddings

This week, love was in the air, as the children learned about the celebration of marriage. We talked about why people decide to get married. The children explored what a wedding ceremony involves and studied artefacts from a wedding. Children shared their experiences of weddings of family members and friends. 

The children explored the different roles at a wedding, including bride, groom, best man, bridesmaids, vicar and photographer. 

We noticed that weddings have similar features to other celebrations, including invitations, cards, gifts, flowers, decorations and food. We had great fun making these different items. Building three-tiered wedding cakes out of playdough was a challenge! 

At the end of the week, each class recreated a wedding; the children allocated themselves different roles and enjoyed the wedding ceremony, reception and evening disco!

In Maths, children deepened their understanding of the number five as a quantity by linking it to their five fingers on one hand. We explored different ways of representing five. The Numberblock 5 video link is attached below to rewatch at home.

It was wonderful to welcome so many parents into school on Tuesday for our reading for pleasure afternoon. We had a blast sharing some of our favourite books with you.

Tricky Words

We have started to learn to recognise some tricky words that our phonic skills will not be able to help us decode. These are common words that you find in books and that need to be recognised on sight. We have looked carefully at these words and the tricky parts or sounds they contain. Children have been sent home with these words on card to practise.

How can I practise the tricky words with my child?

• Try a little practise every day: 5/10 minutes at a time should be enough. You might want to focus on one word at a time.

• Play bingo or a matching up pairs game.

• Make a treasure hunt: hide a few tricky words around the house and ask your child to find them from a list, ticking them off as they search.

• Display the tricky words at home, such as on the wall or on the fridge. 

• Look for these tricky words in everyday reading – in signs, food packaging or notices in the supermarket. During bedtime reading, ask your child to pick out a specific tricky word that you’ve been practising in a story book or their library book.

• Songs are a great way to practise tricky words. Below is the link to a song with have sung in class to help us learn this first set of tricky words.

Reading Update

Pink A Reading Books

Here is a video to show you how to support your child read a Pink A book at home. These are books with words that feature the letter/sound correspondences s, a, t, p, i, n, m and d.

Your child will be given a Pink A book if they can recognise the above graphemes and blend words featuring them. 

Reading Eggs and Fast Phonics

Every child in the Infant school has access to Reading Eggs and Fast Phonics to support reading development at home. This programme is closely aligned to our phonics scheme in school. Watch the introduction video to Fast Phonics below for more information.

Search for Reading Eggs in your browser, log-in and select Fast Phonics. Log-in details for your child can be found on the back of the EYFS November newsletter. 

Week 3- Birthdays

On Monday morning, we received a letter from Miss Peake asking EYFS for their help in organising her a birthday party. We rose to the challenge and spent the rest of the week learning about why we celebrate birthdays and what a party needs to include.

We discovered that birthdays celebrate the day you were born. We found out what month we were born in and identified who was the oldest and youngest in our classes. We looked carefully at baby photographs we brought in from home and discussed what we were able to do when we were babies.

Baby Beatrice came to join EYFS in our domestic role play area. The children showed so much care in looking after her and meeting her needs. We even practised bathing babies outside in our water area.

We made and delivered party invitations, designed birthday cards and decorations and we even wrapped presents! We made lists of things that a party needs and lists of party food to fetch from the shop, including cake, crisps and pop. A birthday party has to have entertainment so we explored different games like musical chairs, musical statues and pass the parcel. 

On Friday afternoon, Miss Peake arrived in the Infant hall for her party. She blew out her candles on her cake as we sang Happy Birthday. She loved her present from the EYFS children. We all had so much fun dancing, playing games and eating party food.

This week we also participated in Anti-Bullying week, starting off with Odd Socks day, and finishing the week with Children in Need. Thank you for all your donations to the charity.

All in all, another fabulous week of learning in EYFS. 

Week 2- Diwali

In EYFS this week, we shared the story Little Glow, a beautiful book all about the importance of light in different celebrations. A link to the book can be found below.

Following this, we focused in on the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and acted it out as a class. We talked about the themes of light defeating dark and good defeating evil. We then made diva lamps, which were used to help guide Rama and Sita home. These are displayed in homes during Diwali.

We used our creative skills to make mehndi patterns on hand outlines and Rangoli patterns on the floor, by sprinkling powder paint and using chalk. We listened to Diwali music and moved our bodies in time to the music; capturing aspects of Diwali in our movements e.g. fireworks, flowers, diva lamps and sweets.

In Maths, we used the words more than and fewer than to compare groups of objects. 

On Friday we celebrated Remembrance day, making poppies in different ways, and joined in the two minute silence with the Infant school at 11 o'clock. We were very respectful and stood without talking for the whole time!

You can re-watch the story of Rama and Sita by clicking on the link below.

Week 1- Halloween and Bonfire Night

We have certainly started back after half term with a BANG! Quite literally! 

This week we introduced the idea of a celebration and discussed what they involve, focusing on two big celebrations that happen this week, Halloween and Bonfire Night. On our first day back the unit was filled with witches, skeletons, pumpkins, monsters and magical creatures, as we celebrated Halloween. We loved making chocolate apples, watching the chocolate change as it melted and cooled, and exploring pumpkins on the outside and inside.

We read the story Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. See the link below to watch the animated story at home on BBC iplayer. This inspired many retellings and creations this week, including our own broomsticks!

In our outdoor space, a bonfire appeared and, through studing pictures around the bonfire, we realised it needed a guy! So we quickly set to making one. We made fireworks in different ways and explored how to stay safe on Bonfire Night. At the end of the week, we pretended to set fire to our bonfire but we had the fire brigade on hand to help out in case the fire spread! We even had our own firework display, using our bodies and pom-poms to explode into the air like a firework, creating firework sounds and moving to music. 

In our unit, we currently have a fascination with the Numberblocks! We love making them out of blocks and this week in Maths we investigated the shapes that can be made by number 4; noticing smaller groups that can be found in the larger group e.g. 2 blocks on the top of another 2 blocks or as a line of 3 with 1 on top. You can find the link to the video for Numberblock 4 below.

Autumn 1- My Family and I

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Autumn 1. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 7- Traditional Stories- The Ghanaian Goldilocks

In the unit this week, we continued to have lots of fun with our autumn finds. We used them to make faces and other interesting art pieces. Following our previous exploration of rolling pine cones we rolled conkers, investigating how the height of our ramps effected how far the conkers rolled. We also observed our autumn leaves closely, sketching and then painting them with watercolours. We were so proud of our final artwork. 

In English, we shared the story The Ghanaian Goldilocks by Dr Tamara Pizzoli. A link can be found to a read aloud version of the story below. We were brilliant at comparing this story with the original Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. We noted lots of similarities, like Goldilocks was a mischievous character, both stories had bowls of food, three chairs, three main characters but there were lots of differences too- the setting, people not bears, wardrobes instead of beds but most importantly Goldilocks was a boy! We made and tasted porridge and learned about fufu, a Ghanaian dough-like food which is often dipped into soup or stew.

In Maths, we explored how numbers can be made up of 1s and investigated the composition of 3 and 4; we used our knowledge of subitising small quantities to recognise these numbers within 3 and 4 e.g. 1 and 1 and 1 makes 3, 2 and 1 makes 3, 2 an 2 makes 4, 3 and 1 makes 4, 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 makes 4.

As our Phonic knowledge increases, we are becoming more confident to mark make and use these sounds in our writing. We are getting so good at blending to read and spelling simple three letter words on our own.

On Thursday, EYFS attended our first after school Federation event- Film night! We loved the film Luca and sat so well, listening to the story. Our sweet treats definitely helped!

As the final week of our first term draws to an end, the EYFS team would like to say how proud we are of how the childen have settled and what the childen have achieved so far. Have a wonderful and well-deserved break! Don't forget to come dressed up in your Halloween costume on the first day back.

Floppy's Phonics Programme

This week we have linked sounds to the letters t and p. The children will be bringing home two worksheets linked to these sounds to practice at home. You will notice that these sheets look virtually the same as the s and a sheets. However, there is a slight difference. From now on, the children will be encouraged to blend the sounds they have learned to read a few simple words. 

The children have also been given a plastic wallet with some letter tiles inside. These can be cut up and used to practise letter/ sound correspondences and building words to read and spell.

Below is a video of how to complete the worksheet with your child and how to use these letter tiles. Each week, as new letter/sound correspondences are learned, further letter tiles will be added to the wallet.

Remember these worksheets can stay at home for future practise. Please send the plastic wallet to school each day in your child's book bag.

Week 6- Traditional Stories- Gingerbread Man

What a busy week in EYFS it has been! Along with the other year groups across the Federation, we took part on Monday in Hello Yellow day, as part of raising awareness for children's mental health, and we finished on Friday with our Outdoor Learning day. Now every day is outdoor learning day in EYFS but we had some extra special autumn enhancements in our mud kitchen which we thoroughly enjoyed. Conker soup, leaf kebabs, autumn stew were on the menu. We had a blast using the autumn treasures brought in from home in our play. 

These autumn treasures also found their way into the classroom. They stimulated lots of close looking, awe and wonder, and raised lots of questions, leading children into very different lines of enquiry. These included: which sycamore seed spins faster a single or double headed seed, what happens if you plant an acorn, how can we make a pinecone roll further, what happens to a leaf when it falls off a tree. 

We read the story of the Gingerbread man in English. We loved acting out the story and joining in with the repeated refrain, "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread man.". In Phonics, we have now covered the letter/sound corresponences s, a, t , p and i. We are becoming more aware of print around us, spotting graphemes in our environment and beginning to blend to read and segment to spell simple two and three letter words. 

In Maths, each class was introduced to a counting puppet, who made silly mistakes when counting with one to one correspondence. We had great fun giving them strategies to help them count more accurately. 

We were also introduced to our final Core value of Creativity, which was abundant in our play and learning this week. Look at the photos below for some examples of our work.

Introducing Floppy's Phonics Programme

This week we have begun to link sounds to letters- introducing the children to s and a. The children will be bringing home two worksheets linked to these sounds to practise at home. Once completed, these sheets do not need to be returned to school. They can stay at home for future practise.

Below is a video of how to complete the worksheet with your child. 

Supporting your child with Phonics at home

For more information about how to support your child with Phonics at home, including how to pronounce letter/sound correspondences, go to the website below.

Week 5- Traditional Stories- Goldilocks

This week, we shared the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears in class. We enjoyed reading the story and acting out it out, particularly voicing the different characters. "Who's been eating my porridge, sitting in my chair and sleeping in my bed?" could be heard throughout the unit all week. We made Wanted posters for the naughty Goldilocks, using our mark making skills. 

Our Core value this week was Perseverance; this means staying positive when things get tough and trying different ways of doing things until we succeed. We practised using our funky fingers to curl paper around pencils to make Goldilocks hair; this definitely needed perseverance! 

In Maths, we quantified small sets of objects (1, 2 and 3) by subitiising rather than counting. Subitising means saying how many objects there are in a small group by 'just seeing' and knowing straght away, rather than counting. Subitising is an essential feature of developing number sense. We represented the number in a given set using different objects, named quantities with number words, matched sets to numerals and made our own arrangements that could be subitised. We also watched the number block videos 1, 2 and 3. Links to these videos can be found below.

We have started to notice the changes around us, linked to the season autumn. We found sycamore seeds on the playground and loved throwing them in the air and watching them fall to the ground. We played with pinecones, exploring how they rolled down pipes. For homework, we have asked children to go on an autumn hunt and collect some autumn treasures. Children will bring them in to school next week for us to explore in the unit. Watch this space to see what we find!

Week 4- Who is in my wider family?

We continued to talk about our families in EYFS this week. We are becoming more confident using the language to describe families, like mum, dad, step mum, step dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandad and cousin.

This week, we introduced Dough Disco into our morning routine, as part of our Funky fingers activities. This involves exercising our fingers using playdough, by completing a series of actions, like rolling, pinching and squeezing. Dough Disco and Funky finger activities help to develop our upper body skills (gross motor), our hand/ eye co-ordination and build up strength in our fingers and hands (fine motor skills), which are all essential for writing. 

In our workshop area and outdoors, we practised using masking tape and cellotape, using a dispenser. We learned about the properties of these two tapes and explored how to cut them and use them in our work.

In Literacy, we shared the story 'Oi, Frog' by Kes Gray. We had so much fun learning about rhyming words using the text. Our favourite part was the ending when the dog sat on the frog! We explored words that rhymed and made and continued rhyming strings e.g. dog, log, fog, cog, frog, hedgehog. A link to the story being read aloud can be found below.

In Maths, we sorted objects in different ways, including by colour, size and shape. We initially sorted ourselves; we noted hair length, hair colour, eye colour and clothing. We then sorted classroom objects in different ways, looking closely at ways that they matched beyond colour. We then tried to describe how a set of objects had been sorted and even tried to spot the odd one out. 

Our focus Core value this week was Courage. We explored what this means in action, including showing bravery leaving our parents in the morning and taking a risk to try something new.

Week 3- Who lives in my house?

This week we shared photographs of our families and talked about who lives in our houses. We enjoyed learning about each others' familiies; noting similarities and differences in our family make-ups. We learned that families come in many shapes and sizes but are filled with love! We made lollipop stick houses and drew inside them the special people that make up our family. We even made our family out of loose parts, like sticks, shells and stones.

In Literacy, we read the book "We're going on a bear hunt" by Michael Rosen. We had great fun recreating the story in our small world play and then using our den building equipment and musical instruments outside. Our favourite part was running away from the bear, back through the different settings. The sounds we made with instruments certainly enhanced our story telling! You can find a link to the story being read aloud below.

In Maths, we recognised matching objects and pictures. We played lots of games involving finding matching pairs and and discussed what made something the same or different. We even matched objects to their outlines! This was tricky when something was a similar shape.

Joy was our focus school core value this week. We reflected on what makes us and others happy and tried to spread joy across our unit through our actions. We noticed our achievements and celebrated the successes of others. 

Week 2- All about Me

This week, there were a lot more smiles in the unit, as we are getting braver at saying goodbye to our adults in the morning. We spent time getting to know each other, sharing our All about me bags and finding out about what makes us unique. We are learning each others names and through shared interests, friendships are now beginning to form.

We looked closely at our appearance in mirrors and sketched a self portrait, selecting very carefully our skin tone, using skin-coloured pencils. We played games to find out who was the oldest and youngest, tallest and shortest and compared our height and handprints.

We are definitely becoming more confident in our learning environment, as we continued to practise our core value of Respect. We enjoyed making marks in many different ways, including on the whiteboard, chalkboard and on paper; these even included messages about how to stay safe in the unit. Some children filled their very first stamp card with smily faces and earned a treat from Miss Peake's dippy box! 

On Friday, we took home our very first reading books. We were very excited to share these with our family. Please watch the Lilac Reading Book video below, for ideas for how to support your child read these books at home. Happy Reading!

Reading Books

Here is a video all about your child's first reading book. This is on a Lilac book band.

This video will show you how to support your child read this book at home.

Transition Days and Week 1

What an action packed first few days in school our new starters have had! We have loved exploring our unit, inside and out; playing with all the exciting resources. We have quickly picked up routines, practising 'Choose it, use it, put it away!'

We used the text 'The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas' to support discussions around how we are feeling. A link to the text being read aloud can be found below.

We have learned about the schools core value of Respect and explored what that looks like in action, through sharing, taking turns, good listening, using our manners and looking after the resources we have in the unit. We have earned lots of red smily faces in our stamp cards for showing respect!

This week we met some additional adults who will help us with our learning in school, including Mrs Haywood, music, and Jesse, P.E.

Our first few days of eating dinner in the dining room have gone well. We particularly loved sausage and mash this week and fishfingers and chips. Carrying our own trays and sitting on picnic tables has been fun!

At the end of the week, we had our first celebration assembly and each class was awarded a class of the week certificate from Miss Peake. The teachers are very proud of all the children for their bravery and resillience this week. 

EYFS Daily Routine

Please click below to see our daily routine in Reception. This will change as the year progresses.

We try to keep the routine as consistent as possible to provide the children with a level of security that comes from knowing what to expect from the day ahead.

The daily timetable is also displayed in the classroom for children in picture form, which alerts the children to any changes and provides us with an opportunity to discuss them in advance so that they are well prepared.

Woodville Infant School EYFS

Key information about our EYFS unit and how it is organised.

Useful websites 

EYFS 2021-22

Supporting your child at home

Over the summer term, we will be working towards achieving the Early Learning Goals.

A copy of the early Learning Goals can be found below.

Click on a star below to be taken to a page with ideas for how to support your child at home in relation to a specific area of the Early Learning Goals.

Summer 2- Super Me

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Summer 2. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 6- Heroes in the wider community

It was another busy week in EYFS this week. "999! Emergency!" could be heard inside and outside, as emergency services dominated our play. The children were curious about these important roles and enjoyed learning about what these jobs entail and the equipment they use. Needless to say, over the week, many fires were put out, criminals arrested and lives saved by our wonderful paramedics! 

We had four visitors who came to talk to us about their jobs in the local community.

P.C Dan came to talk to Silver class about his role as a prison officer at Sudbury Hall Prison. He talked about what he wears for work, the conditions in the prison and how he works to help the inmates become better people, training them to become plumbers or kitchen fitters.

Mrs Barnes came to talk to Pink class about her role as a paediatric nurse. She explained how she helps poorly children to feel better and make hospital a less scary and more comfortable place. The children loved being shown some of the equipment she uses, such as bandages, syringes, torches and especially the stethoscope.

Ms Simpson came to talk to Gold class about her role as a midwife. The children were spellbound as she talked to them about how she cares for mummies and their growing babies. They particularly enjoyed hearing about how babies feed and their messy nappies!

The children were surprised at how a baby's poo changes colour!

Mrs Banks, a teacher of the deaf, came to visit all three of the classes. She showed us the anatomy of a human ear and discussed what her job involves, supporting children in schools with hearing loss. She showed us some basic sign language and we even got to explore what it would feel like to wear a hearing aid.

The children were fascinated to learn about all of these roles; the questions they asked were thoughtful and showed they had really listened to the information imparted.  

What a wonderful week! A very big thank you to all our visitors.

Week 5- Finding the hero inside me

This week we spent three days in our Year One classroom with our new class mates and teacher. We studied the text 'Maybe' by Kobi Yamada and completed activities around the themes in the book of being unique, exploring feelings about change and our dreams for the future. It was fun getting to know new class mates and playing team building games. A link to the text 'Maybe' being read aloud can be found below.

We spent time familiarising ourselves with new spaces, includng cloakrooms, toilets, the Infant playground and the hall. It was great to experience what lunchtime would be like in Year One. We loved the fact we got to play on the pirate ship!

We were pleased to see that lots of things are the same in Year One, including our core values and expectations for behaviour. 

On Wednesday afternoon, it was lovely to invite our parents in to visit our new classroom so they could see what it was like and meet our teacher. 

The EYFS staff are very proud of how the children managed their emotions and feelings over the week. They showed courage in abundance and are now very excited about their move to Year One. The children definitely found the heroes inside themselves this week!

Week 4- Sporting Heroes

After weeks of preparation, sports day was finally here! We absolutely loved taking part in the competition in our houses. Every single child showed our core values of respect, courage, perseverance, creativity and joy! It was so wonderful competing for the first time in front of our families. Congratulations to Griffon (Orange) who won the Infant Sports day.

The overall Federation winners of Sports Day were Merlin (Blue). Children in Merlin house were each awarded a medal in celebration assembly on Friday. Wear your medals with pride! We look forward to next year and doing it all over again.

Sports fever gripped our unit this week and medals and trophies were made in abundance! Following on from our Sports day, we learned about the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, taking place in Birmingham at the end of July. We compared the events to our Sports day events and looked at some of the countries from the Commonwealth that would be taking part; we used our knowledge from our Dear Earth topic to think about what these places are like.

We watched Adam Peaty (swimming), Katarina Johnson-Thompson (Heptathlon), Max Whitlock (Gymnastics) and Sophie Thornhill (cycling) in action and thought about what it must take to be a gold medal winning athlete. It certainly inspired some of us, especially when we learned how young they were when they first started their chosen sports. Click on the links below to watch them winning their gold medals.

In English, we wrote our stories about Supertato and the Evil Pea at the park. 

Towards the end of the week, we had a special visit from a theatre company, who performed the story of Oliver Twist. We were filled with awe and wonder as we watched our first theatre production in school. 

Bean Update

Look at our bean plants! We were so excited to see that after all this time...and care.. our plants now have beans to pick! We can't wait to pick them next week and cook them.

Week 3- Heroes on the High Street

This week, we focused on our High Street and explored the businesses and the people there who help us. We talked about the Post Office, Tesco, Greggs and Bombay Spice but our imaginations were particularly captured by the Hairdressers. We had great fun setting up our own salon/barbers, washing, coluring, cutting and styling hair and even shaving faces...but only with bubbles and a lollipop stick!

In English, we created our own version of the Supertato story set in our local park. We picked three naughty things that the Evil Pea could do and then practised telling our stories using storytelling language. Watch a video of our story telling in action below.

In Maths, we looked at grouping objects, as a way to distribute amounts equally. We grouped buttons onto gingerbread men, flowers into flower pots, resources and snack between our friends. We also recapped taking away from 10; we played games using a ten frame and the words first, then and now to help us sequence what we were doing. 

On Tuesday, we had a visit from Traci Goode from i-vengers who talked to us about staying safe online. She shared an important story with us about being kind in our use of technology and the way we interact with others. 

Our RHE open afternoon on Wednesday, based around the theme of Consent, was a great success. We loved showing our adults around our unit and practised seeking and giving consent in our interactions with our peers. 

On Friday, we were put into our house teams for our final sports day practise. It was great fun competing with our teams in the different events. We can't wait for Tuesday 28th June now. We hope to see many parents there to cheer us on!

Animal Adoption

It is official! We have adopted an orangutan, elephant and polar bear.

This week, our certificates and animal adoption packs arrived in school. We have welcomed our cuddly animals into the unit and they have become a firm part of our classes (and our hearts) already. Thank you once again for all your support.

Week 2- Heroes in our school

This week we learned about heroes in our school that help us. We quickly identified our teachers as people who look after us and help us to learn but it took some investigating to find other people, who we may not see as much around school but whose work is valuable to the running of the school. We talked about the roles of our cook, Mrs Hopper and our dinner ladies, Ms Clarke, Ms Savage and Miss Poynton and the important jobs they do to prepare our dinner and look after us at lunchtime. We met our caretaker, Mr Welsh-Clarke, and our cleaner, Mrs Mansfield. We were amazed to find out how long Mr Welsh-Clarke's day was and what very important jobs he has, like opening and closing the school, repairing things and making sure the school is safe and warm. We certainly couldn't do without Mrs Mansfield in our unit- we would never be clean and tidy!

In English, the Evil Pea visited our classrooms and caused havoc; stealing our rugs, taping Bertie owl to the whiteboard and spreading toilet roll all over the floor. We were shocked! This led to lots of writing to the Evil Pea and we even created a new story for Supertato set in our classroom based on what had happened.

In Maths, we continued to learn about doubles. We are getting very quick now at recalling doubles to 5 + 5. This week we also focused on sharing into two equal groups. We made links with our knowledge of odd and even numbers and through practical games (and picnics), we spotted that you can't share an odd number of objects between two people. 

In P.E, all of the EYFS unit went to the field to practise our Sports day events. This week we practised the sack race, hurdles, javelin and relay race. 

On Friday, we started to feel the impact of Summer. It was the hottest day of the year so far! We talked about sun safety; making sure we applied lots of suncream, wore hats, drank lots of water and stayed out of the sun at the hottest part of the day. We managed to keep cool playing outside in a large water area we created.

Thank you to all those parents who joined us on Wednesday to break the world record for the most people wearing a sock puppet. What a fun afternoon we had!

Week 1- What is a hero?

Welcome back everyone! On Monday, children came to school dressed as a hero. It was great to see the variety of people that we believe are heroes. These included superheroes like Spiderman, Superman and Batgirl but ordinary people too, like a teacher, vet, scientist, nurse, doctor and DHL driver. Thank you for your discussions at home as a family.

The children worked together to create a definition of what they think a hero is. This is what they have come up with so far: A hero is someone who rescues or saves people or animals. They protect them, help them or make them better.

This definition will be reviewed each week as we move through our topic and learn about different people who help us.

In Literacy, we read the story Supertato. We loved following the adventure of Supertato in the supermarket, as he rescues the vegetables from the Evil Pea. The children practised retelling the story and wrote speech bubbles for Supertato. A link to the story being read aloud is attached below if you would like to share the story together at home.

In Maths, we learned about odd and even numbers. We explored numbers that can and cannot be shared equally between two groups, recognising that some numbers can be made into pairs and some had one left over. We also learned that double means 'twice as many' and used real objects and mathematical equipment to build doubles. We even used paint, folding paper to print doubles, and mirrors to see doubles.

In P.E, we started preparations for our first ever Sports Day. We talked about what happens on Sports day and the events that will take place. We loved practising the egg and spoon race. We tried very hard not to drop the egg!

    WWF Animal Adoption Update                                  

We are very pleased to announce that each class has successfully raised the amount needed to adopt their chosen animal through the WWF. Children have been very busy at home, completing chores to raise their donation for the cause.

The final amounts raised for each class are as follows:

                          Gold Class- Orangutan- £80.02

                          Silver Class- Elephant- £36.90

                          Pink Class- Polar Bear- £46.13

We as a staff are so proud of the children's hard work. This challenge has really reinforced the message that no matter your size you can effect change! As soon as we receive information about our adopted animal, we will let you know. Thank you for your support.

Daily Routine

To help prepare our EYFS children for Year 1, our daily routine will change this term. The children will attend assembly more frequently and an additional input in the morning will be added.

See a copy of the daily routine below.

Summer 1- Dear Earth

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Summer 1. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 5- Looking after our Earth

This week, we reflected on our learning over the half term. We played games identifying animals from a description and matched animals to their habitats. We each wrote a letter to the Earth to explain what we love about it. We even buried our letters in the ground so the Earth would know how much we love it!

We continued to discuss how to look after the Earth. Some of us have already done household chores to earn money for our chosen WWF animal adoption. We are well on the well to securing the total we need. We also talked about the small ways we can make a difference, like walking to school and recycling our rubbish. Each day this week, the children were encouraged to walk, scoot or park and stride to school. The number of cars on the road certainly reduced, which means less car pollution!

We loved looking after our chicks this week. They have grown so much in a short space of time. We showed real courage in holding them, as they were quite jumpy! On Friday, they went back to the farm and we were sad to see them go but they have taught us so much about how to care for living things.

This week, we also celebrated the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Red, white and blue filled our unit as we made bunting, paper chains and artwork, as part of our celebration. The children looked amazing in their crowns and royal family costumes. Thank you for your efforts. We had so much fun with our class picnic and celebrating outside with the whole school. It was wonderful to see so many parents supporting the event.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday. Don't forget to come dressed as a hero for the first day back!

Week 4- Desert Habitat

Hot, hot, hot! That is how we felt this week in the desert. We have had a wonderful time learning about amazing desert animals, including fennec foxes, meerkats, scorpions, camels and vultures. We were surprised to learn that not many plants grow there, as it is so hot and dry. We loved studying cacti and suucculents and marvelling at how they can survive for long periods of time without water- something we can't do! We even built a pyramid from our new hollow blocks. Again, at the end of the week we wrote a postcard to David Attenborough to explain what we got up to this week in the desert.  

Following on from last week, we were keen to finalise ideas for how to help the animals losing their homes around the world. We talked about the WWF and how they help to look after endangered animals, particularly through their work on animal adoption. Each class has decided upon an animal to adopt. Now the hard work begins, as we find ways to pay for the adoption of our chosen animals. A letter will be coming home next week with our plan!

In Maths, we worked on our spatial reasoning skills and explored selecting shapes to fill a given space, rotating and flipping shapes when needed. We selected shapes to match a picture, baseboard or tangram outline. We particularly liked making a camel tangram!

To help us learn more about living things and what they need, some chicken eggs arrived in the unit on Monday. We loved waiting for the eggs to hatch and were fascinated to watch a time lapse video of how the chicks grow inside the egg. "I can't take my eyes of the egg!" said one child. On Wednesday, we became proud parents of five baby chicks. Next week, the chicks will be strong enough to be handled and the children will take care of their needs, feeding them and cleaning their cage.

We hope you have enjoyed watching the live stream of the eggs/chicks through our webcam at home with your child. The live stream will be available again on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday next week. The chicks will go back to the farm on Friday.

Week 3- Rainforest Habitat

David Attenborough sent us a postcard from the rainforest this week so off we went to explore. It was hot and humid in the rainforest! We loved exploring the forest floor and canopy. Our favourite animals were the orangutan, jaguar, sloth and tree frog. This week we climbed trees; hanging like monkeys and sleeping like sloths in the branches. At the end of the week, we wrote a postcard back to David Attenborough to tell him what we did during our time in the rainforest. 

After visiting this wonderful place, we were shocked to hear that trees in the rainforest are being cut down for their wood, to make way for cattle and to make oil from the fruits of oil palm trees. Our hearts were saddened to think that these marvellous animals' homes are being destroyed. These are some of the responses from the children:

"We need the trees to help us breathe."

"My heart is cracked."

"I need to stop my eyes from crying." 

"It's our world we need to look after it."

The children felt very strongly about this issue and want to do something about it so watch this space. They have some ideas and a plan will soon begin to form!

In dance, we studied leaves from the trees in the rainforest and watched how they floated and fluttered to the ground. We created another short dance that followed the journey of a leaf from hanging on the tree, breaking off, to fluttering slowly to the ground. 

We had some new, large and small construction blocks delivered to the unit this week. We loved using these to explore shape and space, building many different models, including the rainforest!

Week 2- Polar Habitat

This week, David Attenborough sent us a postcard from polar habitats he has explored. We looked on the globe and located the North Pole and South Pole and noted that they were covered in white. We learned about glaciers, icebergs and ice sheets. We talked about temperature and how cold polar habitats are. We studied a thermometer and closely observed what happens when you put it in hot water, room temperature water and iced water. We talked about what clothing you would have to wear in these places and then had great fun pretending to explore a polar landscape, spotting seals, arctic foxes, arctic hares, reindeer, polar bears, penguins and seals. 

On Sunday 8th May, it is David Attenborough's birthday. He will be 96 years old; the same age as Queen Elizabeth the Second. We decided to make him some birthday cards to wish him a happy birthday. 

At the end of the week, we all wrote a postcard back to David Attenborough to tell him about the animals we saw during our learning this week. 

In Maths, we continued to practise recognising, building and ordering numbers 11 to 20 and practised counting forwards and backwards to/from 20.

In P.E, we studied the movements of arctic hares and created a short dance. We pretended to be arctic hares exploring in the snow and when we met an arctic fox we had to scurry back to shelter in the snow, to hide from danger. We showed real imagination in our movements and gestures.

On Bank Holiday Monday, Muslims across the world celebrated Eid. This week, Aisha shared her experiences of Eid with her peers in the EYFS unit. It was wonderful to hear about the traditions that she and her family took part in, including special clothing, decorations, food and family activities. Thank you, Aisha.

Week 1- Ocean Habitat

On Monday, we arrived back in school to find a letter and a copy of the book 'Dear Earth by Isobel Otter' in our classrooms. The letter was from Sir David Attenborough, the very famous naturalist and broadcaster. In his letter, he invited us to travel around the Earth this half term and explore four amazing habitats and the animals that live there. He explained that it is important for us to learn about the Earth so we know how to take better care of it, as the Earth belongs to us all. 

A link to the book being read aloud can be found below, if you would like to share it at home.

This week we explored the ocean as a habitat. We started to make an ocean display in the unit and had great fun making sea animals and learning facts about them. Here are some of the amazing facts we learned: An octopus has three hearts. A jellyfish has no bones, brain, heart or eyes. A pufferfish can inflate into a ball shape to avoid a predator. We discovered the ocean is so deep it has many layers and the further down away from the sun you go the darker and colder it gets.

Our role play area has changed to a vets for this half term. We loved exploring the different roles that people have in a Vets. We applied our writing skills to make appointments, record symptoms and treatments. Some of us even made our own xrays! We have shown great care and respect for the animals that we looked after.

In Maths, we counted beyond 10 and looked at the structure of numbers 11 to 20. We practised making teen numbers, recognising that these numbers have one full ten and some more. We played lots of games that helped us to practise these skills. 

This half term our P.E focus is dance. We carefully studied images and videos of starfish and then applied this to our movements. We made our first dance, sequencing movements of a starfish across the ocean floor.

Spring 2- Me and my garden

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Spring 2. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 6- Minibeasts...and the Easter Bunny!

Our bean diaries are now complete and the bean plants have been repotted, ready to go out into our garden after the Easter holidays.

Minibeasts continued to fascinate us, as more appear in our outdoor area. This week, ladybirds, worms, ants and centipedes were the main attraction. We enjoyed learning about these small creatures and the places that they can be found. 

In English, we continued to work on the text The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We planned and then wrote sentences to describe the caterpillar and butterfly from the story. We were very proud of our finished writing. 

Easter eggs-citement then took over the building for the rest of the week! We enjoyed listening to the Easter story and finding out about the significance of symbols associated with Easter, like the egg and cross. We showed creativity making our own Easter cards for our families and were very inspired by chicks, rabbits and eggs.

The week was rounded off with a visit from the Easter Bunny. The children couldn't believe their eyes. Many were heard to say: "I've never seen the Easter Bunny before!"

The Easter Bunny kindly brought us eggs so we spent a lovely afternoon hunting in the Forest School area for hidden eggs. Needless to say, they did not last long!

Happy Easter to all our Woodville families. We hope you have a relaxing Easter break.

Week 5- The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We started the week with a recap about personal hygiene. We talked about germs and how they are spread, using glitter to illustrate. We recapped hand washing hygiene and for the rest of the week the song 'Happy Birthday' could be heard througout the unit at hand washing times. We even made hand hygiene posters for key areas in the unit, to remind each other about the importance of good hand hygiene.  

This week, our bean plants have grown so tall that they needed sticks to support them. When we measured them, the tallest plants were 15 cubes tall! Very soon they are going to need to be repotted, as their roots are getting very big for the pots. Outside we spotted leaves had been nibbled by caterpillars, which led us into a week of learning all about minibeasts.

In English, we read the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We loved watching the caterpillar eat all the different foods and then change into a butterfly. We focused on retelling the story and then describing the main character, at the beginning and end of the story, using adjectives.

Following on from our discussions about healthy foods last week, we tried lots of different types of fruit, including some from our core text, and focused on describing them using adjectives. We showed courage in using our senses to try blueberries, plums, pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, watermelon and grapes. Our adjective list included words like juicy, crunchy, hard, soft and squishy. 

In Maths, we have learned more about repeating patterns, building upon our knowledge of AB patterns and the unit of repeat. This week, we explored AAB, ABB, ABC and AABB patterns. We made patterns in our learning environment and then applied this to our fruit tasting work. We decided to make fruit kebabs. We selected up to three of our favourite fruits and designed a repeating pattern. We then used sharp knives to cut up the fruit and follow our design to make a fruit kebab. We loved eating the different fruits and the whole experience left us wanting more! Why not have a go at making a fruit kebab at home?

Week 4- Healthy Eating 

Upon returning to school on Monday, we were shocked to see how much our bean plants had grown over the weekend. Most of our bean plants now have a stem, leaves and thick roots in the soil. We compared the size of our bean plants and even measured them with cubes. The tallest ones were 5 cubes tall! We continued to care for our plants outside and even tidied the pots near the entrance to our EYFS playground.

On Monday morning, we shared our work from Science week with the rest of the school. We were proud to display our seed bombs, bean plants and diaries. We visited a class from each year group across the Federation to see what they had been learning. Our favourite classrooms had investigations linked to optical illusions, electrical circuits and worms!

In our topic work, we talked about healthy and unhealthy food and linked this back to our previous work on tooth brushing. We sorted foods into healthy and unhealthy groups. We noticed lots of healthy foods are fruits and vegetables!

In English this week, we used our knowledge of instruction texts to write our own instructions for how to plant a bean. We practised saying each step out loud and then wrote the instruction, including a time connective to help show the order. 

In Maths, we continued practising pairs of numbers that total ten. We loved playing a game with ten double sided counters to see how many landed red side up and yellow side up. We also played 'hide the duck' with ten ducks and a ten frame; we had to count how many ducks we could see in the ten frame and how many were still hidden. This week, we were also introduced to 3D shapes. We enjoyed exploring these shapes; finding out which shapes would stack, roll or slide. We looked for 3D shapes around us, matching these to objects from a food cupboard. We noted that 3D shapes were made up of 2D shapes.

In gymnastics, we got out mats for the first time and practised rolling in different ways. We learned how to do a pencil roll and a tuck roll. We can now add these movements to ways to travel low to the ground. 

Week 3- Plants around us

Across the Federation this week, we participated in Science week. The theme this year is growth. This fits in beautifully with our current topic work. We planted our own broad beans, just like Jasper did in our core text, Jasper's Beanstalk. We learned from the story that we have to be patient but, by the end of the week, some signs of growth could be spotted! We are completing a bean diary to record the changes we observe over the next few weeks. 

We looked at our garden area at the front of our unit and decided it needed some plants. Each class has taken ownership of one garden space. We then used our planting knowledge to plant pansies, violas and sweet williams. We have taken great pride in these spaces and will add more seeds, bulbs and plants in the coming weeks so go over and have a look!

This week, we conducted a few science investigations, one involved following instructions to make seed bombs. We loved getting messy with the soil, flour, seeds and water and moulding the mixture to make a ball shape. When the balls are dry, we will watch them explode all over our garden space! We can't wait!

In Maths this week, we compared numbers to 10, using the vocabulary more, less and fewer. We used a number line to help us compare the size of the numbers. We began to look at number bonds to 10 e.g. 4 and 6, 5 and 5, 9 and 1. We loved making 10 sandwiches from the Numicon and using ten frames to identify pairs of numbers that make 10.

In our snack area, we continued to practise using real knives to slice and cut. This week we sliced bananas. 

On Tuesday, we had a virtual visit from Andy at the Road Safety team, to discuss safe ways to cross the road. We learned four very important words to help us cross the road safely- STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, THINK! We then went out on to the front playground and practised this on our road, using bikes and road signs. Lots of lollipop people could be seen using their signs to help children cross the road and the pelican crossing was very busy!

On Friday, we came to school dressed in our own clothes to raise money for Comic Relief. Thank you for your generous donations. 

Safer Internet Day

On Friday, all the children in the Infant School spent time in class talking about how to stay safe online. In EYFS, we read the story of Smartie the Penguin and discussed the issues that he faced whilst using his tablet. The story taught us a very important message about not trying to fix problems ourselves but instead to go to our trusted adults for help. The children recorded a video, reciting Smartie's safety message. You can find the link to the videos below.

We also used this time to go over our school rules for staying safe online, reminding us to be SMART! Please talk to your child about these rules at home. 

Bronze Award

A huge congratulations to Harlow, who has filled five reward cards with smiley faces! She has shown our core values of respect, courage, perseverance, creativity and joy in abundance. She is the first person in the Infant school to accomplish this milestone and we are very proud of her. Harlow has been awarded a bronze award badge to recognise this achievement. 

Week 2- Parts of a plant

We arrived into school on Monday, to discover that the mysterious plant in our unit had grown even more. It nearly reached into Pink class! This was not the only thing to have grown over the weekend. Our cress heads were full of cress hair and were ready for a hair cut! We excitedly gave them a cut and washed the cress ready to eat. We made cress sandwiches, using real knives to spread the butter and cut the bread. We realised we were eating the stem and leaves of the cress. Our core value of courage was demonstrated, as we tried something new, which actually tasted delicious. It was a lovely feeling to have grown and then eaten our own food.

We continued to look for signs of Spring outdoors. Bertie the owl, our R.E friend, was very interested in learning to tell the differerence between signs of Winter and Spring. We found new growth on bushes, lots of daffodils and the birds could be heard chirping away. Our daffodils buds have now opened and we enjoyed studying them very carefully. We learned the names of the parts of the plant- petal, leaves, stem and roots. Some of our daffodils have got too big for their pots so we repotted them. It was fascinating looking at the roots; we decided they looked like stringy spaghetti!

Jasper's Beanstalk continued to inspire us in our literacy work. This week we wrote sentences to explain what Jasper did on certain days of the week. Our confidence in using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces is growing!

In Maths, we practised recognising representations of numbers to 10. We loved playing Bingo to help practise this skill. We also counted forwards/backwards to and from 10 and then ordered the numerals. Our large floor tiles to 10 had lots of use this week; we would lay them out in order and then swap some of the numbers over and test each other to see if we could spot which numbers had been swapped. We were very good at playing this game. Songs like ten in the bed and ten green bottles could be heard throughout the unit this week.

In P.E, we recapped travelling forwards, backwards and sideways. This week, we explored travelling high and low. There was some super rolling, sliding, curling, leaping, galloping and bouncing to be seen. 

Week 1- Planting Cress

Our unit looked very different, when we returned to school this week- a huge plant had grown in our workshop area! It reminded us of the beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk. This led us on to share the story of Jasper's Beanstalk. We loved listening to what Jasper did every day to take care of his bean. We decided that he needed to be more patient when growing his bean! We acted out the story and sequenced the events from the story, using the days of the week to help us. 

We observed and then planted some cress seeds. We took selfies with the ipad and stuck our phototgraphs on to our pots to make our very own cress head. Each day we observed the changes to the seeds. We were very excited when 'cress hair' began to appear over the top of our cress head pot! 

In Maths, we continued to measure the height and length of objects. We linked this to our work on plants. We were introduced to the numbers 9 and 10 and had fun representing these numbers in different ways, including using ten frames and counters, cubes and Numicon. 

There were lots of other important events in our unit this week. On Tuesday, it was pancake day. We made pancake batter from eggs, flour and milk. It was fascinating to watch the ingredients change and learn some new vocabulary. Even better, was eating our completed pancakes with lemon and sugar! On Thursday, it was World Book day. We had a wonderful time sharing our completed book boxes and the stories that inspired them. Finally, on Friday, we had our first P.E lesson in the Infant hall, dressed in our P.E kits. We explored travelling in different directions and using our hands and feet. We absolutely loved it and can't wait for our next lesson!

Spring 1- Are we nearly there yet?

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Spring 1. This is what your child will be learning in school.

Week 6- Travel by Sea- Boats

Our final transport in this topic was boats. We started the week investigating objects that float and sink. We observed very closely, discussing the size, shape and material of objects. This led us on to making our own boats out of different materials. It was fun testing them in our water tray. We noticed some materials got soggy very quickly, absorbing the water and then sinking. We tried to explore waterproofing to stop this from happening. We compared an old boat to a new boat, noticing that how a boat moves has changed from the use of sails and wind power to engines, using propellers. Some of the children took this into their boat building and explored wind power by blowing and wave power, creating waves using different equipment.

In English, we pulled all our learning together about transport by creating our own class non-fiction book. We each selected a photograph of our favourite transport and wrote a factual sentence about it. Once we had all created a page, we sorted our pages into travel by road, air, sea and rail. We then numbered our pages and created a contents page to help organise the information. The finishing touches of a front cover and blurb were added and we were ready to bind our book together. We are very proud to be real, published authors. Our class books are going in our reading area to share with others. This has certainly inspired us to create more books!

In Maths, we continued to combine two groups to make a total up to 8. We played games with dominoes, number lines and dice which was great fun. Towards the end of the week, we compared heights and lengths, using the vocabulary taller and shorter and longer and shorter. 

What an action packed half term of learning! We wish you all a very relaxing half term holiday. Get out and about and see what transport you can spot!

Week 5- Travel by Rail- Trains

Choo-Choo! This week trains were our focus transport in EYFS. 

In English, we were introduced to a non-fiction text- My First Book of Transport. We looked at the differences between a fiction and non-fiction text, including the use of a contents page, photographs and captions. We used this book to find out about trains and how they work. We also used the book to find out about trains in the past, compared to trains now. 

We learned about the Flying Scotsman, which used to be the fastest steam train in the world. Did you know this was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, who lived very close to our school? It has inspired some of us to become engineers when we are older! We loved buidling trains indoors and outdoors, complete with coal! We even explored our toy train set in more detail, looking at how magnets make the train move. We were surprised to see that one end of the train attracted to the magnet but the other end pushed away from the magnet so we could move the train without touching it!  

We continued to explore and be inspired by the work of the artist, Jackson Pollock. Art pieces kept popping up all over the unit, even in unexpected places like the Maths Area! We love getting messy but the tidying up does take a long time! This led some children to sort and label the objects they had used as they tidied up.

In Maths, we continued to practise representing 6,7 and 8 in different ways. We even looked for 6,7, and 8 in nature, hunting for minibeasts outside! We were also introduced to a new maths word- pairs. We made pairs with different objects but quickly realised that our body had lots of pairs e.g. hands, eyes, ears, feet, legs. Once we spotted a pair, we couldn't stop! At the end of the week, we combined two groups of objects to make 6,7 and 8. 

Week 4- Travel by road- Trucks, buses, lorries 

On Monday, Dave our Caretaker, wanted to get rid of our boxes in our role play area as he thought they were junk! These are very important to us as we use them to represent many different things in our play, especially vehicles! We read the story Not a box by Antoinette Portis and then wrote sentences to explain to Dave what a box could be. We pulled all the ideas together to create our own list poem to share with Dave. He has now agreed not to get rid of our boxes! Our poem is proudly displayed in the unit for all to see.

This week we discovered the work of the American Painter, Jackson Pollock. He was famous for his 'action paintings'; dripping, splashing or pouring paint on to his canvasses. We loved looking at his paintings and responding to them. We had a go at creating our own Jackson Pollock inspired artwork outside, using toy vehicles and paints. It was fabulous to watch the piece grow and the colours mix together. We are very proud of our finished piece!

In Maths, we continued to explore comparing weights and capacity in our independent play and we learned about the numbers 6,7 and 8. We watched the Numberblocks videos and were very inspired by these in our play. Numberblocks were popping up everywhere! They even inspired some independent games with friends. 

At the end of the week, we celebrated Chinese New Year. This year, it is the year of the Tiger. It was very interesting to find out why and how this is celebrated. We enjoyed lots of different activities to experience Chinese culture. Our favourites were acting out the story of Chinese New Year, making money envelopes, moving to music as a dragon and using chopsticks. We even built the Great Wall of China!

Week 3- Travel by road- Cars

It was noisy in EYFS this week! The sound "vroom, vroom" echoed throughout the building, as we learned all about cars. The week started with a tour of Mrs Baker's car. We looked inside and outside the car to study the different parts. We found the engine under the bonnet and where the petrol is put into the car. We learned lots of new vocabulary, like wing mirror, exhaust and windscreen. Later on in the week, we studied a car from the past and compared it to Mrs Baker's car. We were surprised to see it had no roof and only two seats. The wheels were very big and white! We all agreed that we prefer cars today.

We explored rolling cars down ramps. This led us to explore different heights and surfaces. It was fun to observe how the cars movement changed. We noted if the surface was bumpy the car moved slower!

In Maths, we counted out up to five objects and hid some in buckets and bags. We had to work out how many were hidden from the objects we could see. We used objects, drawings and numerals to represent our work. We also explored using pan balances to compare the weight of objects and we used the words full, empty, nearly full and nearly empty to describe capacity. 

In English, we continued our learning with the story Whatever Next. This week we thought about Bear's next adventure and what other type of transport the box could be. We came up with lots of ideas including, car, aeroplane, caravan, camper van, motorbike, speed boat and even the Titanic! We then thought about where that type of transport would take us to. We had so many lovely discussions about what Bear's next adventure would involve. 

Week 2- Travel by air- Aeroplanes

This week we found out where our mystery box came from. We were right it was a rocket ship! The bear and the box are from the story Whatever Next by Jill Murphy. The little bear flies to the moon and back, all before his bath time. We loved listening to the story and predicting what could happen next. We practised using our background knowledge to make links with the text and support our predictions. Afterwards, we used our phonic knowledge to create and label pictures of the bear and what he took with him in his box to the moon. 

The focus transport this week was aeroplanes. We learned about parts of an aeroplane and how an aeroplane moves. We made paper aeroplanes and explored throwing them through the air. It was very tricky when the wind blew, as it moved the plane backwards! We experimented with balloons, ribbons, feathers and other objects that move through the air. We particularly enjoyed investigating bubbles. We made our own bubble wands, which led us onto thinking about the shape of the wand and the shape of the bubble. We discovered that using different shaped bubble wands, like triangles and squares, still made circle bubbles!

In Maths, we continued to compare numbers to five and explored equal and unequal groups. We looked at the composition of five and were introduced to the words 'whole' and 'part'. We practised splitting a whole number to five into two parts and then three parts, using practical scenarios like frogs in a pond and food on plates at a picnic.

At the end of the week, we had a visit from Steve Taylor, our chair of governor and former Rolls Royce engineer. He talked to the children about their aspirations for the future and his career as an engineer. The children learned about Rolls Royce as a local company, who design and build engines for aeroplanes. The children were fascinated with the size of the engines and the power they create to move the plane. Mr Taylor has set the children a challenge to deisgn and build an aeroplane. He will be coming back to judge the competition soon so watch this space!

Week 1- Travel by air- Rockets

This week something strange appeared in our playground. We had no idea where it came from or what it was. We used our detective skills and background knowledge to look for clues and make links to form an idea. We came up with some very creative and imaginative ideas!

In the end, we pieced together that this was a rocket ship that had come from space. The ship was surrounded by what we think was moon dust and ash. This led us into a week of learning about rockets and space travel.

We used Google Earth to zoom out into space and discover what we could see. We studied planet Earth very carefully and discovered why it looks blue and green. We linked this to a world map and globe and had a go at colouring our own map of the world. 

We used the indoor and outdoor equipment to make rockets in many different forms and had great fun launching them and ourselves into space! We loved sharing books about rockets and space and using these to help us find out facts. We used our fine motor skills to make split pin astronauts.

Towards the end of the week, we used Google Earth to zoom back from space to Earth to explore the area where we live- Woodville. We spotted our school and its different parts on the map and we were extremely fascinated using the map to explore Woodville High Street and some of the key buildings on the road. 

In the workshop area, children got busy junk modelling, including making different types of transport. We used a plan, do, review approach to help us make our models. We were very proud of the end results and learned a lot through sharing problems we encountered and how we solved them. 

In Maths, we worked on composition of 5, playing games with beanbags to see how many beanbags we could get into a hoop and how many were outside the hoop. We compared amounts to 5 to see who had more and less. 

In English, we shared what Santa had brought us for Christmas, labelling pictures of our gifts. We were certainly very lucky this year!

Autumn 2- Traditions and Me

Here is our Spotlight on the Curriculum for Autumn 2. This is what your child will be learning in school.

It's Christmas! 

We've finally made it to the end of term! What an action packed three days we have had!

On Monday, we had our Christmas party, we loved dancing to music, playing party games and eating party food. We played traditional party games like musical statues and musical bumps and Christmas games like pin the nose on Rudolph, Christmas limbo and sleeping reindeers. It was hard when we were out in the games but we tried hard to congratulate the winner and continue to participate in the games. We managed our emotions and feelings and the teachers were very proud of us.

On Tuesday, we got busy making Christmas cards and calendars for our families. We hope you like your gifts!

Tonight children are coming home with a bag filled with goodies from the EYFS team! This includes their cards and calendars but also reindeer food made by the children to help Santa's reindeer find their way to your homes, a special book and ingredients for making hot chocolate.

So, on Christmas Eve, sprinkle the reindeer food in the garden or in front of your house, make a cup of hot chocolate using your ingredients and snuggle up to share the story book. What a special Christmas Eve that will be! 

We wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas. We look forward to more adventures in 2022!

Christmas Continued

The celebration of Christmas is still in full swing in EYFS this week. On Monday, we were surprised to find that the Polar Express and Santa's Sleigh had arrived in our outdoor area. We had an amazing time travelling to the North Pole to see Santa with our friends. We enjoyed flying through the air on Santa's sleigh, with the help of his reindeers of course, and delivering presents to boys and girls. Our imaginations have been really stretched this week and there has been lots of negotiating storylines and roles, sharing and taking turns. 

This week we wrote letters to Santa to ask for our Christmas gifts. We used our phonic knowledge to stretch words, segment words into sounds and record the sounds we could hear. Santa is going to be very impressed with our writing! We have also made Christmas cards for our families and Calendars for the New Year. These will be coming home next week. 

On Friday, the Christmas tree decoration competition was judged. Each class had to decorate their own Christmas tree with a particular theme. The themes for our classes were as follows:

Silver class- Snow

Gold class- Homemade

Pink Class- Santa's Little Helpers

We are very proud of our finished Christmas trees.

EYFS Nativity 

Our Nativity productions are now finished and have been uploaded to the school website by Mrs Haywood. Each class produced their own Nativity so look out for your child's class. If you have not seen them already, follow the link below to watch them. We hope you enjoy the finished results!

Christmas

This week we discussed how we celebrate Christmas in our homes and saw we had very similar traditions, like decorating Christmas trees, writing letters to Santa, sending cards, visiting Santa, giving and receiving presents, eating Christmas dinner and spending time with our family.

This week Santa's workshop opened in EYFS! We got busy helping Santa to design, make, wrap and post presents. We are always watching and changing who is on the naughty and nice list!

In English, we read the story of Stickman by Julia Donaldson. We practised the skill of prediction, pausing at different parts in the story to guess what could happen next. Sometimes our predictions were correct, along the way we changed our predictions as we got more information. We were very happy when Stickman made it home to his family tree with the help of Santa. We loved making our own Stickmen and taking them on adventures outside.

In Maths, we learned about day time and night time and looked at when we do specfic events like having a bath, eating dinner and brushing our teeth. We sequenced events in time, using the words First, Next, After that and Finally.

Following on from our visit from Sue, the dental hygienist, we looked very carefully at our teeth. We made teeth out of playdough, sorted healthy and unhealthy food for our teeth and practised cleaning teeth to get rid of plaque! We conducted a science investigation to look at the impact of sugary drinks on our teeth. We put egg shells (similar to tooth enamel) into water, milk, orange squash and Coke. We predicted that the drinks would change the egg shell to make it the colour of the drink. We were shocked to see what happened to the egg shell after a few days in the squash and Coke. It made us want to brush our teeth more regularly and carefully!

This week we also had Christmas jumper and Christmas dinner day. It was great fun pulling crackers in the hall with our friends. 

The First Christmas- Nativity

Imagine our surprise as we returned to school on Monday to see our outdoor area full of snow! We could not wait to get out and explore. The snow was like a white blanket covering everything. We closely observed all the surfaces that had been touched by the snow and frost. We saw glistening spider webs and frozen water in spots we hadn't even expected, like our sand tray. Some of the equipment that had been left out over the weekend had frozen together. We had great fun trying to pull things apart and melt the ice. We of course built snow men, threw snow balls and made snow angels in the snow! What a great start to the week!

This week the celebration of Christmas has really begun to take over the EYFS unit. A Christmas tree arrived in our Domestic role play area. The children enjoyed putting it up and decorating it. They began to talk about what they do at home to celebrate Christmas. This led us on to why we celebrate Christmas.

We shared the Christian story of the first Christmas- the Nativity. The children practised retelling it and sequencing the story. We looked at the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh given to Baby Jesus and how they were very different to those gifts that we would give to a baby. We introduced the idea of performing the nativity for our families; the children were very keen to do this. We looked at the characters in the story and allocated roles. By the end of the week, we had acted out the story and taken photographs in our costumes. Children have come home with words to practise as narrators for the natvity so please practise these with them at home. We still have the songs to record so watch this space for the finished production!

In Maths, we learned about squares and rectangles and what makes them similar and different. We built squares and rectangles in different ways, made pictures out of these shapes and went on a shape hunt in our school environment. 

This week, we have begun to open our class advent calendars and enjoy a chocolate treat each day. Food is such an important part of celebrations and we have noticed that lots of these food items are full of sugar. At the end of the week, we had a special visit from Sue, a dental hygienist. She came to talk to us all about looking after our teeth and showed us how to brush our teeth properly. Remember, these key points:

-Use a pea sized amount of tooth paste

-Brush in tiny circles

-Brush the outside and inside of all teeth and your gums

-Brush for 2 minutes

-Spit out the toothpaste but don't rinse out your mouth

WOW Moments

In EYFS, we love hearing about what your child has been doing outside of school. It is an important way for school and home to work together to build a broader picture of your child's strengths. There may be things that your child can do at home that we don't see in school. 

To help us with this, we use WOW moment cards. The key purpose of the WOW card is for us to obtain an understanding of your child's achievements beyond the school environment and to be able to celebrate these achievements with your child and their class mates. These moments will be unique to your child but as an idea could include:

-securing a skill e.g. fastening their coat, writing their name, recognising numbers

-earning a certificate

-doing something for the first time

-performing in a show

WOW moments can be completed by parents, carers or any adult who has been given responsibility for your child outside of school hours. For example, grandparents and other close relatives, child-minders, club leads, etc. 

WOW moments are shared in class then displayed in the EYFS unit for everyone to see. Ultimately, they will be placed in your child's learning journey. 

Spare WOW moment cards are kept in the entrance to the EYFS unit. Feel free to ask your child's class teacher for more if you run out.    

Weddings

This week, love was in the air, as the children learned about the celebration of marriage. We talked about why people decide to get married. The children explored what a wedding ceremony involves and studied artefacts from a wedding. Children shared their experiences of weddings of family members and friends. They particularly enjoyed trying on outfits that people wear at a wedding! 

The children explored being wedding photographers and capturing special moments, using an ipad. We had some very interesting wedding photographs, taken from interesting angles!

Once again, we saw that weddings have similar features to other celebrations, including invitations, cards, gifts, flowers, decorations and food. We had great fun making these different items. Building three-tiered wedding cakes out of playdough was a challenge! 

At the end of the week, each class recreated a wedding ceremony, the children allocated themselves different roles, including the bride, groom, best man, bridesmaids, vicar and photographer. 

In Maths, children worked on identifying one more and one less to five. They soon realised to find one more you count forward to the next number and for one less you count back to the number before. The children explored one more and less through songs and in their play. 

Birthdays

On Monday morning, we received a letter from Mrs Wilkins asking EYFS for their help in organising her a birthday party. We rose to the challenge and spent the rest of the week learning about why we celebrate birthdays and what a party needs to include.

We discovered that birthdays celebrate the day you were born. We found out what month we were born in and identified who was the oldest and youngest in our classes. We looked carefully at baby photographs we brought in from home and discussed what we were able to do when we were babies.

Baby Bea came to join EYFS in our domestic role play area. The children showed so much care in looking after her and meeting her needs. We even practised bathing babies outside in our water area.

We made and delivered party invitations, designed birthday cards and decorations and we even wrapped presents! We made lists of things that a party needs and lists of party food to fetch from the shop, including cake, crisps and pop. A birthday party has to have entertainment so we explored different games like musical chairs, musical statues and pass the parcel. We wrapped a parcel with 28 layers, that took a long time!

On Friday afternoon, Mrs Wilkins arrived in the Infant hall for her party. She blew out her candles on her cake as we sang Happy Birthday. She loved her present from the EYFS children. We all had so much fun dancing, playing games and eating party food. All in all, another fabulous week of learning in EYFS.