Layfield's Ladybirds
Welcome to St Mary's
A big hello and welcome to all our new children and their families as they begin their journey at St Mary's School.
We are Layfield's Ladybirds!
We are now into the Autumn Term and the children have settled in amazingly well, hanging up their coats, putting book bags away and making some lovely new friends.
Making new relationships is a major part of life in Early Years and it is something we focus on all year round but we make it a priority particularly in this first term. Along with Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Communication and Language and Physical Development are also prime areas in the Early Years and we encourage our children to be confident in these aspects of their learning.
We are very lucky to have an amazing outdoor area which the children have access to all day everyday. They can experience so many different elements of learning without even realising it and even though our official P.E days are Tuesdays And Thursdays, the children have the chance to complete fine and gross motor tasks as and when they choose.
"The best classroom and the widest cupboard is in the open air"
Margaret Macmillan
In Early Years, we try and follow the children's interests and in that way, the children will be more enthusiastic about moving their own learning on. Our role is to model, question, interact and observe but lead mainly by the children.
Already this term, the children have been inspired by the author Julia Donaldson and in particular The Smartest Giant in Town, and we have already seen some fantastic pattern making, drawings, role-play and discussions independently from the children.
We will be using more of Julia Donaldson's stories as a basis for our directed tasks and enhancing our continuous provision as well as other stories such as Owl Babies and Percy the Park Keeper.
Every day the children take part in small group phonics session where we follow the Red Rose Letters & Sounds program. The children take part in listening games, soundwalks, and a variety of exciting ways to learn letter sounds.
Soon, the children will be choosing a school story book to take home and read together with parents. It is a book that each child has picked because they found it interesting, it may be too difficult for them to read but we want to focus on the enjoyment side of books and the technicalities of reading ie reading left to right, top to bottom and turning the page. They will also be given a reading book which is to be read during the week with an adult and their Reading Record book signed when read.
These books are changed on a Monday.
We use numbers all the time during play and maths is often linked to most things the children do. We count cars, dinosaurs, shoes, children, steps etc and encourage the children to look at numbers in the envionment all the time. We will be following Numberland this term where we look at each number and find out all about it, what it looks like, how many it is, what comes before and after it. We do this alongside Numberblocks which we love!
Our beliefs are pretty much summed up in this little saying:
Our P.E days are: Tuesday & Thursday
Our reading book day is: Monday