Foundation Stage 1
Welcome to Foundation Stage 1
Our Class
Welcome to FS1! My name is Mrs Thompson and I am the FS1 class teacher. Miss Giansante is the FS1 Teaching assistant. In FS1, we support each child to make progress through effective environments, engaging experiences and high-quality interactions with enabling adults. Each child is valued and respected and has opportunities to make decisions and choices. Children’s views are sought and their interests considered when provision is planned.We follow the 'planning in the moment' ethos following the children's interests and all provision and learning opportunities promote the characteristics of effective learning: playing and exploring, active learning and thinking critically . Resources are thoughtfully and sensitively planned, providing a wide range of authentic items, loose parts and open-ended play opportunities for children. Staff in FS1 have extensive knowledge of child development and each child is supported on their own individual path. Children are able to try things out at their own pace and take some risks in a safe but challenging environment. We aim to fully prepare each child for their school journey, supporting each child to develop a love of learning, independence, personal and social skills and a good level of literacy and numeracy skills that will form a strong foundation for their lifelong learning. Most importantly, we have lots and lots of fun! We look forward to making lots of memories together!
All children will need to bring a coat each day. We love to play outside, even in the rain and will enjoy a forest school session every week. Children will also need to bring a pair of name wellies to leave in school.
A bag of named, spare clothes (including socks) needs to be left in school for any times a hange of clothes is needed.
Our routine
Our timetable is planned to ensure all children have the time and space to achieve a high level of engagement with the learning resources in our indoor and outdoor environments.
Children will settle in on the carpet with a book when they arrive at school. After some circle time activities and class collective worship, the children will be in the learning environments accessing provision. We come together again during the morning for phonics, reading and enjoy circle time again before lunch. After lunch, the children will be accessing provision in the indoor and outdoor environments. Teacher-led activities will be planned throughout the week based on the children's interests and what is happening in the wider world. Forest school sessions will be held every Thursday morning.
Snack
We provide children with a variety of healthy foods and drinks for snack and children are involved as much as possible when preparing and making snacks. We will be doing lots of cooking and baking with the children. The children have 'continuous snack 'This means they can choose when to go for their snack, so they can really get into meaningful uninterrupted play and learning. This also helps children to develop a sense of independence and the opportunity to take responsibility for their own needs.
Our mission statement
Keeping Jesus at the heart of everything we do.
School prayer
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The children will learn through hands-on, practical activities. They will learn about God and being part of God's creation by exploring their uniqueness, their families, the school family and the church family. Children will be aware that God made all the people in the world to be part of his family and that they are part of it too. The children will learn about church buildings, the people in the church and what things happen in a church.
Children will learn about the bible and will explore some bible stories. During the second half of term we will begin to explore the Christmas story.
Writing
Children will begin to recognise their own name in different contexts and write some letters from it, creating marks with different materials. They will use a variety of media to create circles and lines to draw pictures. They will be encouraged to talk about the marks they make. Children will enjoy a weekly pen disco, and dough disco where they will use movements and music to practise pre-writing shapes and strengthen their gross and fine motor skills.
Reading
We love to share stories in FS1 and the children enjoy choosing their own books and spending time in our reading area. We read stories together every day as a class and the children also take home a book to share with their families. Each week we will explore a book and enjoy practical activities based on some of the vocabulary . Some of our books this term will include:
Phonics
We follow the 'Little Wandle' phonics programme and are beginning our phonics work in FS1 listening into sounds, using alliteration and singing lots of songs and rhymes.
Here is a link to some videos of how to say the different sounds:
Mathematics
The children will join in with adults counting to 5 and then beyond in everyday routines and in rhymes and number games. Children will begin to count up to 5 objects and respond to instructions such as 'please give me 2’.
We will be looking at quantities and children will develop their language using words such as 'more', ‘fewer’ and 'a lot.' Through playing in our classroom areas, the children will use vocabulary related to shape, size and capacity, such as empty, full, short and tall. They will also begin to sort shapes and objects and look for patterns in the environment. The children will develop their understanding of the daily routines at school, talking about the days of the week, months of the year and the date.
Learning experiences
Through classroom areas and experiences, along with teacher led activities the children will be learning all about their bodies, what they look like and what their friends look like. We will be thinking and talking about about our families and where we live. The children will be learning how to keep themselves healthy and how they can look after their teeth. We will be learning songs about how people say hello in different languages. Through Forest school sessions, children will enjoy exploring nature and noticing changes in the environment as the seasons change. We will be preparing and cooking different foods on the fire each week and the children will learn some basic bush craft skills. All provision in the indoor and outdoor environments is planned in line with the early years curriculum and guidance documents and will support:
Communication and language development
Personal, social and emotional development
Physical development
Childrens skills and understanding in Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the world and Expressive arts and design.
Nursery Rhymes
We sing nursery rhymes and songs every day in FS1 and the children all have their favourite rhyme! We always join in with different actions and sometimes even add in our own verses. Here are some of the rhymes and songs we will be learning this term:
Baa baa black sheep - BBC Teach
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I caught a fish alive - BBC Tea
Helpful websites
If you have any questions or would like any further information, please contact the school office and I will get back to you as soon as I can. I look forward to working together.
