Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to the Summer term. This term we will be continuing to use a subject based curriculum in our lessons, while personalising and incorporating the children’s individual targets. 

Maths 

In maths we will be exploring number and shape. We will incorporate a range of activities to develop one-to-one correspondence, including number songs, construction, cooking and IT games. We will also incorporate exploring numerals. For shape we are exploring 2D shapes of different sizes and working on our identifying and matching skills. We will also be starting to explore patterns. We are continuing with our colour of the day during our morning circle time, including identifying and sorting colours. The colour for that day will be the same every week; do join in and talk to your child about that colour when they get home: Monday is blue, Tuesday is yellow, Wednesday is Green, Thursday is Purple and Friday is the children’s choice. If you would sometimes like your child to wear something to match the colour of day, this would be most welcome.  

Phonics

In phonics we will continue developing our sound differentiation skills, listening to and beginning to recognise different environmental and musical sounds. We will also be exploring rhythm, through poetry, stories and playing rhythmic and repeated patterns on bells, drums and through body percussion. We will also be exploring rhyme, through rhyming stories, poetry, rhyming sets and beginning to identify rhyming pairs.

Communication

We will continue with the development of our listening and communication, turn taking and choosing skills in all areas of our curriculum. We will also continue with sessions focused solely on the children’s communication targets and skills. We will continue to develop our communication skills through Makaton, Grid 3, visuals (e.g. photographs and symbols) and objects of reference to support the children’s understanding and for them to use to express their wants and needs. We will also be working regularly with the speech and language therapists to support the children’s individual communication targets.

Physical development

This term we will have special Yoga, dance and swimming on a weekly basis. Our swimming days are Wednesday or Friday. Sometimes extra swimming slots open up on other days, so please feel free to send your child’s swimming kit into school for us to keep in case this happens, and we will send it home once it has been used. We will also be working regularly with the physiotherapy team to support the children’s individual physical targets.

Science

In Science our topic is Plants. As part of this we will be visiting the park and the different outside areas of school to see what variety of plants we can find. We will be exploring and planting a variety of flowers, growing beanstalks, arts and crafts involving plants and growing some fruit and vegetables as well. This will give children the opportunity to watch the lifecycles of plants and examine how they change. We will also be introducing the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ as a sensory story, linking literacy to our science topic.

ICT

In ICT we will be exploring the early stages of programming and giving commands to technological devices, for example using switches to switch different apparatus on and off, such as blenders, lamps and fans. We will also begin to explore bee-bots and giving them directions to move.

Art & Design

This term we will be looking at landscapes in Art and Design, with a focus on the sea side. We will explore the colours and textures that are found at the sea side. We will explore sand, water and do a range of arts and crafts to create our own seaside display. 

PHSE

This term our topic for PHSE is Family. We will be exploring this topic through stories and songs. It would also be fantastic if you could send in some photos of your family, some individual photos as well as a group one.

Please email us to let us know how your child is doing during the weekends or any news you would like to share with us – we love to hear about what the children are enjoying outside of school.

Best wishes,

Melanie and team