Nursery

Nursery

Autumn Term 1&2

Literacy

Our special book will be ‘Owl Babies’. The owl babies wake one night to find that their owl mother is not in their owl home! Although the owls are scared, they work together and are very brave until their mother returns.

We will play early phonic games which include listening to musical sounds, exploring rhyming words and tapping out simple beats and rhythms. 

We will be beginning to recognise familiar words and signs, such as our own names, the names of people who are special to us and our favourite shops and foods.

We will be gaining control over writing and drawing tools, making pictures, lines, circles and crosses which have meaning to us and using our name cards to copy the letters from our names.

Maths

We will learn lots of number songs and we will use equipment, toys and actions to support our counting skills. We will be counting groups of objects to 10 and counting out small groups of toys from a larger group.

We will be going on shopping trips in our local area, counting out our money. We will count out our one-pound coins and count the items that we buy.

We will play lots of games which will help us match and recognise numbers to 10. This will include musical numbers and dominoes.

We will learn the names of everyday shapes and think about their properties, such as how many sides they have and if they have straight or curved edges. We will use food and cooking activities to explore everyday shapes.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We will be establishing friendships, talking with others and being friendly with the other children and the grown-ups we know.

We will develop rules for using and sharing the Nursery equipment, finding ways to share toys and make sure everyone gets a fair turn.

We will develop our independence in putting on our own coats ready for the cold weather outside. We will be trying to do up our zips and buttons.

We will help the teachers with getting out and tidying away the toys and resources we play with.

Communication and Language

We will begin to listen and join in during circle times, we will listen carefully and follow instructions. We will sing lots of familiar action songs and also learn some new ones. Through the exciting activities around the nursery we will develop our confidence to speak with our friends and teachers.

We will be taking part in our exciting new projects such as ‘shoppers’ and our ‘bike it’ project where we will be developing our communication skills and learning new vocabulary in real life contexts.

We will be introduced to a range of stories, such as ‘Dear Zoo’, ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear’, ‘Whatever Next’, and ‘Owl Babies’. There will be lots of toys and resources which will help us to become familiar with these tales and we will be encouraged to retell them ourselves. 

We will be extending our vocabulary, learning and using lots of new words related to our topics. This will include extending our descriptive language and sentences e.g our ‘Brown Bear’, will become ‘a furry brown bear’ or ‘a soft furry brown bear who likes honey’.

Understanding the World

We will be digging our garden area over and planting bulbs ready for spring. We will look at the leaves and weather, observing the changes we see and feel. This will help us to develop an understanding of changes that occur over periods of time. 

We will explore the religious festivals celebrated by ourselves and our friends. We will look at the similarities and differences between the celebrations and begin to understand why it is important to behave respectfully towards special objects and the beliefs and practices of others.

We will retrieve information from computers such as watching 'Espresso' videos about different festivals and celebrations and we will use our iPads to take pictures.

Physical Development

We will be learning how to use the climbing equipment safely. We will practise moving in different ways such as jumping, hopping on one foot and skipping. We will continue to develop our confidence on the climbing and balancing equipment.

We will focus on holding and manipulating a range of tools such as pens, pencils, rolling pins, dough cutters and paint brushes to make marks, pictures and letters. We will be using scissors to cut and makes snips in paper, and we will practice cutting straight and zig-zag lines.

We will be practising our self-care skills; making sure we put our aprons on when we play in the water, washing our hands and putting our dirty tissues in the bin.

Expressive Arts and Design

We will be developing independence in the art area, this will include making textured paint to create different effects, putting on our own aprons, writing our names on our work and washing our hands when we are finished.

There will be lots of bright colours as we make glittering Divas for Diwali and shiny stars for Christmas.

We will use our role-play areas to explore the stories we have been listening to, and there will be lots of different zoo animals to be sent to our homes and some lovely feathery owl nests.

We will use role-play and small world to extend our imaginations, acting out our own experiences like cooking dinner or feeding the baby. We will also make up our own exciting stories such as superheroes rescuing people or animals eating grass.