Bonne Année and Happy 2022! Our theme for this half-term is ‘Happy New Year!’

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

 In RE, we will explore the topics of ‘Celebrations’ and ‘Gathering’.  Deacon Chris will join us in school to teach us about the special celebrations that take place in Church and appreciate how our Parish family gather together for these occasions. 

The children will develop respect for other cultures when we celebrate Chinese New Year.  In order to prepare for the Year of the Tiger, which begins on 2 February, we will set up a Chinese take away/restaurant in our role play area. We hope to be able to come to school wearing the traditional colours of red & yellow to celebrate this exciting festival on Friday 4 February.  We will learn about the traditions and customs of Chinese New Year through music, dance, stories and sharing real Chinese artefacts.  More details of arrangements for this special celebration will follow in a separate letter, nearer the time.

Understanding the World

We will develop our understanding of our own culture and traditions by reflecting on our Christmas and New Year celebrations.  Please use your child’s ‘special book’ to record any photos or mementos of your family’s festive celebrations for us to share and talk about in school.   We will investigate seasonal change as winter takes hold and will spend time outside using our senses to experience ‘hot and cold’; making predictions and observing the changes we see when freezing, melting, heating, cooling and boiling different materials.  We will look at different habitats and how animals and plant adapt to living in cold environments.

 Expressive Arts and Design

 Our creative work will be focussed on our New Year celebrations. We will welcome 2022 with our New Year wishes, making wish stars and wands to place outside on our ‘wishing tree’ in Forest School.  As our Chinese New Year preparations get underway, we will practise folding, assembling, cutting and decorating to create a giant Chinese dragon, as well as making cards, fans and lanterns to decorate our Chinese restaurant imaginary play area. In dance, we will play musical instruments and create our own Chinese dragon dance, parading around the school to bring good fortune to each class. We will listen to traditional Chinese music and move in time to the rhythms we can hear.   

Communication and Language

Through ‘circle time’ and ‘time to talk’ sessions, the children will be encouraged to express their ideas and opinions using appropriate vocabulary and clear, audible speech. We will reflect on 2021 by looking at photographs and talking about what we remember. We will look ahead and make predictions about what 2022 may bring.  The children will be encouraged to recount their experiences in increasing detail, answering questions such as what? where? who? how? and why? in order to structure their ideas clearly.

Literacy

 We have begun a new rotation of Read Write Inc. phonics teaching.  Your child will work with one of the Reception team every day, developing their reading and spelling through Speed Sounds, Fred Talk and Speed Writing activities.  The children will be bringing home their reading books in a zip bag, labelled with their group/teacher name.  Please practise reading their book with them every day then return to school the following morning so that the children have their book in school ready for their RWI lesson.

Mathematics   We have begun the topic Alive in 5! We will consolidate our understanding that all numbers are made up of smaller numbers, exploring the different compositions of numbers 4 and 5, noticing how they are made of two parts or more than two parts.  The children will practise comparing numbers, saying which is more or less or equal and then move onto comparing measures, experiencing direct comparison of objects, saying which is heavy/ier/iest and light/er/est.

Physical Development

The children will continue to strengthen their fine motor skills. We have planned a variety of sensory experiences to develop skills of rolling, pinching, squeezing, prodding etc using glitter, gloop, ‘snow’, clay and dough.  We will embark on a ‘chopstick challenge’ to practise picking up small object with tweezers and chopsticks.  In PE, we will work on fundamental movement skills: travelling, copying & performing actions, practising galloping, skipping, sliding, jumping, changing direction, balancing, running.

We are delighted to begin 2022 with you and your families and look forward to an enjoyable and fun half-term together.