Summer 1
We can’t wait for a term of sunshine and summer weather so that we can get outdoors even more. This term we are looking forward to lots of learning about mini-beasts and life cycles.
Communication and Language
The children will be able to watch the caterpillars growing and changing and discuss what they notice. In order to do this, they will learn lots of new vocabulary linked to insects and other creatures. With the story of The Gingerbread Man the children will retell the story and act out the story in our outdoor theatre.
Vocabulary: insect, creature, mini beast, centipede, millipede, woodlouse, chrysalis, cocoon, metamorphosis, colony, hibernate, thorax, antennae.
Literacy
This half-term our focus book will be The Gingerbread Man. The children will learn this story using actions and the story map. They will get excited about this story by making their own ginger bread people. They will make their own character puppets to act out the story. Outside, we can dress up and act out the story.
We will continue with our Read Write Inc sessions for phonics based reading.
In our writing areas, the children will have word mats with vocabulary linked to The Gingerbread Man. The children will look at recipes and write their own with ingredients and instructions. Linked to mini-beasts, the children will create lift the flap information about different features of different creatures. They will make alphabetic lists of the different creatures to begin to learn alphabetic order.
Vocabulary: instructions, recipe, capital letter, full stop, sentence, mini-beast, creature, insect.
Physical Development
In our PE sessions, we will continue practising ball skills. The children have been throwing and catching on our own, with a partner and then in groups. As the children practise these skills, they will add these into sports. We will play: basketball in the mugger, football and dribble the ball and then shoot into the goal. We will be outside each week on the field or the playground.
In our playtimes, we will continue to go out on the hill. The children will have access to tyres this half-term, to build up their arm strength to roll and carry them. They will be having the balance bike training. They are going to have a larger space to use the trikes with a roundabout and a zebra crossing to extend their play with what they have learnt from their pedestrian training.
Vocabulary: throw, catch, kick, goal, target, aim, shoot, dribble, pass.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
In our circle times this half-term, we will look at ‘Building Relationships’. With a focus on family and friends looking at sharing, taking turns. We will also look at what makes a good friend, teamwork and finally, celebrating friendship. They will do this by planning a party. The children have been talking about a picnic, so this is what we will do at the end of this learning. They will make invitations, decorations, party games and party hats.
In addition, we will continue to look at being a safe pedestrian, passenger safety and also online safety.
Vocabulary: pedestrian, passenger, safe, friendship, teamwork, share, kind, taking turns, invitations, decorations,
Mathematics
We will be moving on to look at numbers beyond 10. With cubes, 10 frames and bead strings, the children will compose numbers beyond 10 and see them as a 10 and a part for example, 10 and 3 is 13 or 2 tens and 3 are 23. Through daily counting and songs, we will count in 2s, 5s, 10s and forwards and backwards beyond 10. By playing games of bingo the children will match numbers to pictures of different amounts over 10. With shapes, the children will look at how they can arrange them in different ways, they will be given arrangements to see if they can replicate these. Using real objects both inside and outside through play and with adult led activities, we will be adding and taking away. Using stories such as, first there were 3 dinosaurs, then 2 more came along, how many dinosaurs now?
Vocabulary: more, less, count, forwards, backwards, bigger, ten frame, take away, add, subtract, same, different, puzzles, shape, arrange, match, rotate.
Understanding the World
With mini-beasts, we will look at where they like to be and the characteristics of the different creatures. We will compare and sort them according to their features such as wings or number of legs. We will go on regular bug hunts and use magnifying glasses to look in detail and talk about our observations.
We will use Google Earth, stories and videos to learn about other parts of the world. Particularly focusing on countries that are important to the children in our class: England, Poland, Ghana, Pakistan, India, Hungary. Hopefully, with visitors to talk about different countries. We can look at similarities and differences in languages, foods, climate, cultures, traditions and religions.
Vocabulary: antennae, legs, habitat, diet, thorax, chrysalis, cocoon, web, features, patterns, symmetrical, symmetry, north, south, east, west, North pole, South pole, Equator, globe, Earth, country, climate, language, tradition.
Computing
The children will have the opportunity to explore hardware. They will have a selection of everyday technology to explore: mobile phones, walkie-talkies, tablet/iPad, digital camera, digital clock, remote control, electric toothbrush. They can look at how these work, how to turn them on and off. It will encourage discussions about where and when they have seen them before and if they know what they are for and what to do with them.
During their play to learn, they will have iPads available for them to photograph and record things they are proud of or wow moments. Then we will go on a picture walk, where they can take photos of their friends and what they find. They can then choose their favourites to create a photo album.
Vocabulary: Camera, iPad, tablet, lens, point, shoot, capture, picture, image, hardware, gallery, record, photograph, photo, still, blurred, crisp, clear.
Expressive Arts and Design
Mini-beasts are so different and interesting, so we are looking forward to using junk modelling to make various ones. When we read ‘The Very Busy Spider’, the children will make spiders and spiders webs. With The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we will make cocoons and butterflies using kitchen rolls and tissue paper. As part of our Art lessons, we will be look at threading and craft skills. Cutting skills, making paper snakes and tissue paper flowers.
For our music lessons, we will build upon our wonderful experience with the Britten Sinfonia Concert, we will create our own musical story performance. Firstly, the children will move to music, we will then look at story telling with actions to then use instruments to represent actions. Finally, we will look at musical composition and musical story performance.
Vocabulary: join, link, cut, attach, thread, concertina, scrunch, fold, action, instrument, performance, concert, pitch, tempo.
USEFUL WEBSITES
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/topics/zf44jxs/videos/1
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html