During our reflection sessions this term we will be finding out about "Big Bible Heroes". We will be studying thankfulness, honesty, respect, kindness and courage through stories such as "In the Beginning" (Genesis 1), "Abraham and the promise of Isaac" (Genesis 18,21), Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3) and "Gideon is courageous" (Judges 6).

We will also be studying the festival of Christmas. We will be celebrating advent day and talking at length about the countdown to Christmas and the advent wreath. We will also be demonstrating our understanding of the birth of Jesus by performing a nativity for you to watch.

We will also be looking at the festival of Diwali and how this celebration is important for Sikh and Hindu believers. 

We would love to find out more about any other Religious celebrations that you celebrate in your home, so please be sure to add these to Tapestry.

At Hazlemere Church of England we follow the “Essential Letters and Sounds” phonics scheme. 

In Nursery, we begin by teaching phase 1.  This will include games and activities that support progress in each of the 7 elements. 

Environmental sounds: for example listening walks and sound bingo games.

Instrumental sounds: for example playing a instrument barrier game in which the children are required to locate and repeat the sound made by the adult.

Body percussion: for example adding sound effects to a story.

Rhyme and Rhythm: for example finding matching rhyming pairs

Alliteration: for example making a collection of objects that begin with the same letter

Voice sounds: for example copycat sounds

Oral Blending: robot talking words

In Reception, children are taught phase 2 letter sounds intensely.  Letters are taught in groups, the first week looking at “s, a, t, p”.  The children are required to refer to their prior knowledge of letter sounds and shapes, and are begin to use this knowledge to blend, segment, read and write simple words and, when able to, phrases. 

The correct pronunciation of each sound is emphasised, and children are taught the letter name to accompany.  You can find the youtube video for the correct pronunciation here.

Our curriculum is a book based curriculum and many of our activities will be based around the books we read during the whole class carpet session. 

​This half term, Nursery look forward to exploring the stories "Everybody has Feelings", "Doris", "I love you Blue Kangaroo", "Kindness makes us Strong", "All are welcome". 

We will use these stories to help us to fully understand our new school values: kindness, love, respect, honesty, ambition and perseverance.

​Children will be supported and encouraged to: 

• Repeat and uses actions, words or phrases from familiar stories

• Ask questions about simple stories.

• Touch and handle books.

​• Notice pictures and symbols and begin to recognise what they stand for.

• Fills in the missing word or phrase in a known story.

​Reception will be studying the same concepts and values, however using slightly more complex texts such as "The Colour Monster", "Elmer", "Dogger", "Super Duper You", "You're so amazing", "In Every House on Every Street".

We will also be looking at some traditional tales, such as "The Enormous Turnip", "The Ugly Duckling", "Little Red Riding Hood"

​Children will be supported and encouraged to: 

•  Ask questions about more complex stories

• Repeat words and phrases from familiar stories

• Repeat new vocabulary in a context of a story

• Recall and discuss stories or information that has been read to them, or ​they have read themselves

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During Autumn 2, we will begin our topic "People who help us" and we will be exploring the roles of different members of the community. 

Nursery will be reading "What will I be", "When you're fast asleep", "Building a home" and "Knock Knock Superhero".

Children will be supported and encouraged to: 

• Comment and ask questions about their world such as ​ the place they live.

• Show an interest in different occupations.

​Reception will be reading "A superhero like you", "All through the night", "Mog and the V.E.T".

Children will be supported and encouraged to: 

• Talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society

Both year groups will also be reading non-fiction texts about various people who help us in our community.

We will be using these books to help us to learn new vocabulary.  

​​​In both Nursery and Reception we will be learning lots of number rhymes. 

We will use our fingers to help us when singi ​ng these number rhymes. 

In Nursery we will begin by focusing on numbers to 5, and in Reception to 10.

We will sing songs such as 1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive, and "Five Little Ducks". 

​Nursery children will also be beginning to look ​at patterns within small numbers, and begin to compare and recognise changes in numbers of things, using words such as: more, lots or same.

As part of our Maths Mastery programme, Reception children will learn to subitise to 5, looking at how these numbers can be recognised by sight in a variety of formations.

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We will be discovering and exploring the composition of small numbers, using the stem sentence "* and another 1 is *", for example "1 and another 1 is 2".

In both year groups, we will be solving lots of practical problems that involve us drawing on our knowledge of number, for example ensuring there is enough milk in the trolley and counting to make sure that each of the scissors have been put back into their basket.

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