Nursery and Reception

Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Our Reception teacher is Mrs Croxall. Our Reception teaching assistants are Mrs Powling and Mrs Woolley.

Our Nursery teacher is Mrs Thorne. Our Nursery teaching assistants are Miss Botham and Mrs Martin. Miss Jarvis joins Nursery for lunch time.

Our Autumn 1 half term topic is "I'm Super, I'm Me!"

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

Ziggy, Luna and the Rainbow Jars
Ziggy and Luna go to School
All About Families
Family and Me
Super Duper You!

Our Autumn 2 half term topics are "Celebrations", "Dinosaurs" and "Christmas".

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

The Leaf Thief (Autumn Day
Bonfire Night
The Best Diwali Ever
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs
Mad about dinosaurs!
Stomp Dinosaur Stomp!

Our Spring 1 half term topics are "Off on a cold Adventure" "All Around the World!"

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

Arctic Animals
Lost and found
Jonty Gentoo – The adventures of a penguin
Around the world with Max and Lemon
Emma Jayne’s Aeroplane

Our Spring 2 half term topics are "Blast Off!" and "A Jungle Journey".

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

Whatever Next!
How to catch a star
Meet the Planets!
Rumble in the Jungle
Monkey Puzzle
The animal boogie

Our Summer 1 half term topics are "Magical Mayhem" and "Pirates".

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

Room on the Broom
The Magic porridge pot
Winne the Witch
Zog
Pirates love underpants
The Night Pirates
The Troll

Our Summer 2 half term topics are "Mythical Creatures" and "Bears".

Here are some of the stories that we will be sharing this half term to help lead our learning:

Gruffalo
The Singing Mermaid
There’s a dragon in your book
Monstersaurus
We’re going on a Bear Hunt
The Bumble Bear
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Teddy Bear’s Picnic

Reading

We love reading in school and share at least 2 stories daily with all of the children. We aim to install a love of reading in all children! All Reception children will read with a grown up at least twice a week in school. We encourage children to read at least 5 times a week at home. Just 5-10 minutes a day will make a real difference to the progress that your child makes. If your child reads at least 5 times a week at home, they will receive a voucher for the Golden Box. Each week, a name is picked out to win a free book to keep! Please record all reading in the reading records to ensure that we can monitor your child’s reading.

All children in Nursery and Reception will visit the library weekly. We really promote a love of reading and we encourage this at home too!

Phonics in Nursery

Children in nursery have important steps to learn before they are ready for learning the letter sounds. At Ashbourne Primary School we use pre-phonics skills to develop a child’s ability to listen to, make, explore and talk about sounds. This phase of phonics is referred to as phase 1 phonics and it is a vital phase that should never end for children. Throughout this phase children will also develop their speaking and listening skills. Children in Nursery will develop their phase 1 phonics skills daily, through a range of games and activities.

This phase is split into 7 aspects that are explored and developed through games.

Aspect 1 – Environmental sounds – The aim of this aspect is to raise children’s awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills.

Aspect 2 – Instrumental sounds – This aspect aims to develop children’s awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers.

Aspect 3 – Body percussion – The aim of this aspect is to develop children’s awareness of sounds and rhythms. Activities 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 and song.

Aspect 5 – Alliteration – This aspect focusses on initial phonemes in words.

Aspect 6 – Voice sounds – The aim is to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting.

Aspect 7 – Blending and segmenting – In this aspect, the main aim is to develop oral blending and segmenting skills.

Phonics in Reception

Children thoroughly enjoy phonics and great progress can be seen rapidly! We have a phonics session each day in Reception class, following the Unlocking Letters and Sounds scheme. Please see below to see the sounds and words that we will learning this year. We will continue to focus on listening skills, rhyming, hearing sounds and oral blending, alongside our phonics sessions. The sounds and words that we have been practising will be sent home each week.

Phase 2 Sounds and Words

- s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, l, ff, ll, ss

- the, to, into, go, no, I

Phase 3 Sounds and Words

- j, v, w, x, y, z, zz qu, sh, ch, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, or, ar, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

- me, we, be, he she, was, you, they, all, are, my, her

Phase 4 Words

- said, have, like, so, do, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what,

Outdoor Learning

Reception and Nursery will both be enjoying an outdoor learning session each week. Please ensure your child has a pair of wellies that are kept in school to use in our outdoor learning session and in our outdoor classroom in the wet weather. We also access our outdoor classroom daily, in all weather!

Key information

Drop-off time is between 8:40am – 8.45am. Pick-up time is at 3.10pm. Please drop off and collect your child from the blue gate outside the EYFS classroom.
Please ensure your child brings their book bag to school daily with their reading book inside (Reception children)
Children will have fresh water available each day. Please send a plastic, named cup to school. Children will be encouraged to fill their cup and drink water throughout the day.
Free fruit is provided for the children every afternoon. Please send in a healthy, morning snack for you child. This can either be a piece/pieces of fruit or vegetable.
PE will take place each Monday for all children in Nursery and Reception. Please help your child to practise getting changed for PE independently. PE kits will stay in school and be sent home at the end of each half term.
We visit the school library each week. Children can choose a book to bring home to share to encourage reading for pleasure.