Autumn

Enquiry

Throughout our enquiry sessions this term we are going to be answering the question, "Where do I belong?". We will be discussing how we go to Nursery at Forest Glade Primary School, and we live in a house. We will describe, paint and make our own strong house for Builder Paul. Through reading and re-telling the story, "The Three Little Pigs" we are going to discuss the best material to build a house. We will even conduct an experiment where we are the Big Bad Wolf and we have to blow a straw, stick and brick house down. 

It is important that we know we live in Sutton-In-Ashfield and know the features of our local environment - sun dial, church, Lammas Leisure Centre, cenotaph etc. Councilor Sam Deakin is going to come and speak to us about our environment, and we will make posters about our area. We are going to compare Sutton-In-Ashfield to the country Canada, where we will compare flags, weather and animals in both places. 

In order to answer our main enquiry question, “Where do I belong?” Each week will we answer a question towards our main enquiry question.

Week 1 - What does nursery look like?

We will find about what is it like at school and what the Forest Glade values are.

Week 2 – What do I look like?

We will find out what we look like and draw, paint portraits of ourselves. We will learn the parts of the face.

Week 3 – Who lives in my house?

We will discuss who lives in our house and who is in our family.

Week 4 – How do I change?

Throughout this week we will discuss birthdays and how we change over time from a baby to an adult.

Week 5 and 6 – What does my house look like?

We will be looking at our houses on Google Street view and discussing what they look like. We will be also building a strong house for Builder Paul and creating houses out of various construction materials.

Weeks 7 and 8 – What is the best material to build a house?

We will be exploring the story of The Three Little Pigs and learning to re-tell the story. We are also going to become scientists and conduct an experiment where we are the Big Bad Wolf.

Week 9 – Where do I live?

We will be looking at our local environment of Sutton-In-Ashfield and discussing what we can do in our area.

Week 10 – What makes you happy?

We will be looking at how we can express our feelings and emotions by reading the story, “The Colour Monster?”

Week 11 and 12 – Where do other people live?

We will be comparing Sutton-In-Ashfield to the country of Canada, looking at the flags, weather and community.

Week 13 – Where do I belong?

We will be putting all of our learning from the term together to answer our enquiry question.

We will also be making poppy wreaths and taking them down to the cenotaph and Councilor Sam Deakin is going to come and speak to us about our environment.

On a Wednesday we have an enrichment opportunity with Reception. This term they will include making faces with natural objects, walking to the cenotaph (Remembrance Day) and Library, making cucumber sandwiches, clay pigs and other exciting activities. Below is our enrichment timetable for the Autumn term.

Here is the sticky knowledge we are learning throughout this term. Sticky knowledge is knowledge we would like the children retain throughout the year.

 

Phonics

In Nursery this term we are going to be focussing on Phase 1 phonics.

Phase 1 is divided into seven aspects. Each aspect contains three strands: Tuning in to sounds (auditory discrimination), listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) and talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension). See the seven aspects below:

• Aspect 1 - General sound discrimination – Environmental Sounds The aim of this aspect is to raise children's awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills. In Nursery the children would go on a listening walk, drum on different items outside and compare the sounds.
• Aspect 2 - General sound discrimination - Instrumental Sounds This aspect aims to develop children's awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers. Activities in Nursery would include comparing and matching sound makers, playing instruments alongside a story and making loud and quiet sounds.

• Aspect 3 - General sound discrimination - Body Percussion The aim of this aspect is to develop children's awareness of sounds and rhythms through the use of their body. Activities would include singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary.

• Aspect 4 - Rhythm and Rhyme - This aspect aims to develop children's appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech. In Nursery we would share plenty of rhyming stories, engage in games such as rhyming bingo, clap out the syllables in words and spot the odd one out rhyming pair.

• Aspect 5 – Alliteration - The focus is on initial sounds of words, with activities including I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound.
• Aspect 6 - Voice sounds - The aim is to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting.
• Aspect 7 - Oral blending and segmenting - In this aspect, the main aim is to develop oral blending and segmenting skills. To practise oral blending, we would say sounds, such as /c/-/u/-/p/ and see whether the children could pick out a cup from a group of objects. For segmenting practise, we would hold up an object such as a sock and ask the children what sounds they can hear in the word.

Literacy

In order to answer our enquiry question, "Where do I belong?" we will be reading a selection of high quality texts in our story time. These include, the traditional tale, The Three Little Pigs, In Every House on Every Street, The Colour Monster and Only One You. Here are the stories for you to watch online to help with your learning.

 

Maths

Children in Nursery will study numbers 1-3 throughout the Autumn term. Each number will be taught separately and in greater depth. The children will explore and study a variety of different representations for each number. Throughout the term, children will begin to recite numbers in order to 5, we use number songs to help support this learning in a more interactive and fun way! We want children to be able to use number names accurately in play and know that numbers identify how many objects are in a set. As well as matching numbers to quantity and comparing groups, identifying if they have the same number - more or less. Throughout this term in Nursery, your child will also explore shape, space and measure. They will study each of these through group led sessions as well as within their play, discovering and having hands on experiences within the provision. In group time we will look at 2D shapes and hunt for them in the environment and in the water tray they will come across and experience capacity and volume.