Darwin Class

Class teacher: Mrs Dickerson

Learning Assistants: Mrs Earl, Mrs Lutchman and Mrs Adiyah

This term:

Wider Curriculum

This term, our Wider Curriculum focus is Technology and we will be answering the question, ‘How have structures influenced our lives?’ 
We will be exploring the following principles within each of the specific areas:

Understanding the World
• The World: We get light from various places; some lights are natural light and some are man-made lights. Electricity and fire can both provide us with light but need to be used safely.
• People and Communities: Throughout the year, there are different celebrations people celebrate. Diwali is a Festival of Light celebrated by Hindu communities. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and a star led the way to the stable where he was born.
• Technology: Not all lights look or work the same. Light is turned on by a switch.

Mathematics
• Children will be counting forwards as well as backwards from 5, 4 or 3.
• Children will show an interest in shape and will be learning the 2D shape names and how many sides they each have.
• Children will be learning about pattern and making a pattern of AB/ABC using different resources. 
• Children will be learning to order objects by length and use more positional language in their play like shorter, taller, longer and wider.

Expressive Arts and Design: Exploring Media and Materials:
• Children will explore construction materials and make a variety of objects with these and enclose spaces to form 3D structures.
• Children will select materials they want to use for a lantern.
• Children will experiment with joining materials together and learn how to do this.
• Children will create an individual lamp/lantern.

We will continue to focus on the following prime areas:

Communication and language: the number and quality of the conversations that children have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children's language effectively. Reading frequently to children and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive.

Physical development: Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness.

Personal, social and emotional development: PSED is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others.

Reading

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and nonfiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems, and songs together.
Our Read Write Inc phonics scheme starts in Nursery, with the children beginning to learn the rhymes that match the letters.
This term, we will be continuing to build the foundations to early phonics by teaching children to discriminate sounds, including environmental, musical, body percussion and voice sounds. At this stage in children’s development, rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration are important, so do please read lots of Nursery Rhymes at home to support our work in class.

Talk Through Stories 

Our Talk Through Story sessions inspire our children in Nursery. We love exploring new texts and really getting to grips with the story line, identifying the problems, the solutions and becoming familiar with the key characters within each story. This term we will be focusing on: 

• We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger
• Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper
• Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
• Meg and Mog by Helen Nicoll
• Shubh Diwali! by Chitra Soundar
• First Festival: Diwali by Ladybird
• Oscar and the Moth by Geoff Waring
• The Light in the Night by Marie Voigt
• The Christmas Pine by Julia Donaldson

Talking

Below you can find a useful document including activities to help you support your Nursery child's speaking and listening skills.