Autumn term learning
Our learning in the Autumn term...
Our Vehicle for this half term is “All about art.
Through this curriculum driver we will be looking ourselves, the similarities and differences between us and our friends, through the medium of art. At the end, we will put on an art exhibition for our family and friends. We will look at poetry that connects to our feelings as well as the seasons of Autumn and winter. Alongside this, we will look at different art forms, including portraits, sculptures and collages. We will look at other festivals and celebrations over this term, including Diwali, Remembrance day, Bonfire night and the feast of St Francis of Assissi
Religious Education:
Our first topic in RE is creation. Children will develop the idea of creation to include their gifts and talents as God given. They will also learn that the Bible is God’s book. We will then look at people who care for us. This unit further explores family relationships within the context of caring for one another. Importance is placed upon the value of celebration. This is further developed by hearing about times of celebration Jesus shared with his family and friends. In the unit of advent the children mark the time of advent, giving each week a focused preparation activity.
PRIME AREAS OF LEARNING
Communication and Language
The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. We continue to support the children in learning new vocabulary and developing their spoken language through using ‘My Turn Your Turn’ and stem sentences modelled by the adults, role-play activities, lots of discussion and opportunities to ask questions. Children learn more vocabulary with our daily stories, poems and literacy activities.
Personal Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives. We continue to support them to learn and develop their personal social and emotional skills through developing strong and supportive relationships with the adults in the class and their peers. Through stories and activities including ‘Circle Time’, they will identify and name emotions, and are supported to reflect on and self-regulate their feelings and behaviours. In the Autumn term, there is a lot of emphasis on learning classroom rules and expectations. We model behaviour through routines, in play and in our learning.
Physical Development
This half term the children will be learnuing fundamental skills.
We encourage the children to get changed for PE themselves. This will take a large proportion of their lessons to begin with, but is a skill they quickly get better at.
Please could you ensure that every item of PE kit and school uniform is clearly marked with your child’s name. As you can imagine – when 30 children are getting changed, it can be very difficult for them, and us, to match items of clothing with the correct child if it is not named. Thank you for your support with this.
Children will have 2 x 1 hour PE lessons. These will take place on a Thursday and Friday.
Our children benefit from continuous provision and have access to the reception outdoor area freely in afternoons. Children practise, develop, and progress in gross motor skills with a range of physical development activities.
Physical Development is also about the development of fine motor skills, including holding a pencil correctly in order to write. The children participate in lots of activities which develop their fine motor, including threading, lacing, picking up small objects with child tweezers, dough disco, scissor skills.
SPECIFIC AREAS OF LEARNING
Literacy
Children are taught to read and spell through daily phonics – Read Write Inc. sessions. They will learn and practise recognising and sounding letters, use ‘Fred talk’ to read and ‘Fred Fingers’ to spell.
We will focus on many familiar texts this term, which we will use to help us with our personal, social and emotional development. These include colour monster, hugless Douglas and Ruby's worry. We will look at th different characters in the stories whilst thinking about our own actions and emotions. We will look at the different vocabulary in the stories too.
Children learn a new poem weekly. These poems connect to the book focus. Children will listen to the poem, create actions for the poem, learn the poem and perform the poem. This helps to develop language, rhyming, performance skills and listening skills.
Mathematics
We follow the ‘Power Maths’ Scheme which focuses on mastering key skills which will allow children to gain a secure understanding before moving on, thus building the foundations for future learning. Throughout Autumn term, there is an emphasis on ‘number sense’, ensuring a solid grasp of numbers 1-5, including their composition – looking at the parts that make the whole number. During maths sessions, the children will use a variety of concrete resources and a variety of pictorial representations, as well as the abstract numerals that represent each number. Children will then be able to practise these skills in their own play.
Understanding the World
We will continue to support the children to make sense of their physical world and their community through the stories that we learn in class. Through our stories, we will look at similarities and differences of now and the past by looking at settings, characters and our own experiences. We will find places we read about on a map and create our own maps in class. We look at the Artic, and compare it to where we live. We will be learning about Autumn, hibernation and animals. We will create bird feeders and Diwali divas. We will provide the children with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematical) activities and allow the children to investigate these where appropriate.
Expressive Arts and Design
Our Art focus this half term is to explore, design and make a series of different art projects about ourselves. We will use simple tools to cut materials, stick / attach them and create collages, sculptures and paintings.
In Music, we will continue to use the Charanga Music Platform to learn to sing along with nursery rhymes and action songs, to listen and respond to different styles of music, to play classroom instruments, and to demonstrate the learning that has taken place through sharing and performing.