Welcome to Year R

Welcome to our Year R page. 

Wow, what a super busy and fun filled half term we are having! We have been spending lots of time getting to know each other and building new friendships, as well as having fun exploring the school environment and learning the new routines. The teachers have been so proud of how the children have settled into our school. During this term, we look forward to getting to know all about the children’s interests and abilities. Our topic is ‘Being Me in my World’ and through this we will talk about our families, our likes and dislikes and what is the same or different between us and our friends. 

Important Information

P.E days - Monday and Thursday

Library day - Friday

Here is a photograph of our EYFS team.  From left to right we have:

Miss Whitehead (Early Years Assistant) Mrs Lowe (Early Years Assistant/ HLTA and PPA cover) Mrs Drewett (Early Years Assistant) Miss Green (Birch Class Teacher), Miss Khan (EYFS Lead, Rowan Class Teacher,  SENDCO and DSL), Miss Canfield (Rowan Class Teacher). 

Autumn 1

Wow, what a super busy and fun filled half term our Early Years children have had!

We have enjoyed lots of settling in activities including discussing the children’s ‘All About Me’ work which they produced over the Summer, and using our Jigsaw circle times to get to know one another in our classes.

We have produced lots of seasonal work this half term including baking yummy hedgehog bread, and exploring our woodlands in our learning.

During our school Diversity Day, the children enjoyed learning about the Diwali festival and how it is celebrated.

The children are thoroughly enjoying ‘Drawing Club’ this half term. We choose a story each week and the children draw a picture each day such as the character or setting. They also learn focus words and actions each week linked to that story. The children have thoroughly embraced this concept and look forward to our daily sessions!

We have also taken part in scooter training where the children learnt essential safety skills and practised some manoeuvres on their scooters!

The children have also been engaging well in P.E, whether it be parachute games in the hall or outside with Active 360! We have been practising lots of spatial awareness skills and playing team games.

The half term ended with lots of Halloween craft such as scary lanterns and bubbling cauldrons! The children have hugely enjoyed their first half term of school and we are looking forward to what Autumn 2 brings us!

Autumn 2

Early Years have had another super busy and exciting term! 

The children began the new term by enjoying some history, learning all about Guy Fawkes and the significance of Firework night, culminating in some lovely firework pictures!

The children also took part in the Great Binfields Remembrance service in the courtyard where they sat beautifully and made us very proud of how respectful they were. They also created some beautiful watercolour art of poppies in the fields and we proudly displayed them in our classrooms.

In December, the children hugely impressed us with their amazing Nativity performance, in their retelling of the Christmas story. We spent lots of time learning our lines, song words and actions! After lots of practise, we then performed in front of KS1 and our parents and carers – everyone was so proud of what they achieved!

We have also enjoyed various outdoor activities, including our ‘Follow the Star’ game where the children had to find stars hidden in the woodland and then had to follow the actions on the star, such as star jumps and stretches! We also loved making our banana snowmen kebabs and the wonderful Christmas pantomime!

We rounded off our year by engaging in lots of fun Christmas themed activities, including our Christmas Disco and lots of Christmas craft.  We also learnt how to sew a penguin decoration and made our parents and carers a seasonal calendar as Christmas gifts! We even had a surprise visit from Father Christmas which unsurprisingly, the children were super excited about!

The children have had an amazing and fun filled Autumn 2 term and we are looking forward to welcoming them back next year after a well deserved rest!

Spring 1

Early Years have had a wonderful start to the New Year! We began with a lovely Winter themed week which took us into the woodlands so that we could observe the changes in the season. We then came back to class and created maps in groups where we plotted where the walk took us.

We also launched our new topic ‘Fairy Tales’ and the children have thoroughly enjoyed lots of play opportunities such as making stick puppets, and building castles from bricks and junk modelling!

We have spent lots of time outdoors this half term, we have made giant obstacle courses, enjoyed a phonics hunt, and most recently, completed observational drawings in the woodlands.

The children have also loved making lots of Lunar New Year craft celebrating the year of the snake.  They have made fun snakes using pipe cleaners and beads and made some lovely cards.

For Children’s Mental Health Week, the children drew pictures of themselves when they were feeling happy. In our literacy, they have been working very hard with their descriptive writing.  They particularly enjoyed writing about how ice felt, and used lots of lovely vocabulary.

The children have embraced Drawing Club again this half term, particularly ‘Little Red Gliding Hood’ which linked beautifully with our topic. They found the story very funny as it included lots of characters from different tales and nursery rhymes!

Some parents and carers also came in to enjoy reading experiences with their children and we are looking forward to welcoming more families in the new term.

The half term ended with a fabulous ‘Break the Rules day’! The children have had a super and productive half term and we are looking forward to seeing them in Spring 2!

Spring 2

What a fantastic fun filled Spring 2 term we have had in Early Years! We started our term with launching our new topic ‘Space’ and kicked things off with ‘Button Moon’ being our first Drawing club of the half term which the children loved!

We then enjoyed Shrove Tuesday by helping to prepare pancakes and then eating them! On the cooking theme, the children also enjoyed designing their own ‘planet toast’ using food colouring!

Early years have also contributed to some school wide celebrations, including RE Day, Jigsaw Healthy Me Day and World Maths Day. They particularly loved World Book Day as they could come into school dressed as their favourite characters which they understandably loved!

Our learning also took us to the woodlands on many occasions, where we enjoyed log rolling to find mini beasts, making rockets using natural resources and beginning to observe the first signs of Spring.

We have also thoroughly enjoyed lots of junk modelling and craft opportunities, including producing some large scale space art using the splatter painting technique. The children then added the various planets, In addition to this, the children took a great interest in learning about Neil Armstrong and the first moon landing.

In our writing, the children thought about what they might take to a new planet, with lots of lovely original ideas.

Our special Mother’s Day afternoon was certainly a highlight of our half term, where our mums and family members joined the children for an interactive fun filled afternoon! The children then presented their special person with a beautifully decorated jar and fresh flowers!

We ended our busy term with a fun filled Spring themed week, an Easter Disco and an Easter Egg hunt!

The children are in need of a well earned rest and we look forward to welcoming them back refreshed for the Summer term!