In Nursery our topic for Spring term is ‘Food and Farming’. We will be focusing on the stories ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ and ‘On the farm’ to help support our learning. We will also be using non-fiction texts to help us to find out more information about animals (bears/ farm animals) and recipes.

During Literacy lessons we will be using ‘Talk for writing’ to support our oral retelling of stories.

There are three stages to ‘Talk for writing’:

1) Imitation - the children learn a text and the language they need.

2) Innovation - the children adapt the model text with ideas of their own.

3) Invention - the children create their own text using the language and skills that the model taught them.

In Nursery we will be focusing on the imitation stage whereby the children will have lots of practice at retelling the story using repetitive actions and phrases, so that they become familiar with the key vocabulary and story line. Once this is secure, we will then introduce the concept of innovation together, so that they are exposed to adapting a part of the story such as changing a character or the setting.

Early Reading in Nursery

We will have daily story time sessions where the children will have the opportunity to listen to one of our quality texts being read to them. We will begin to link some of the VIPERS reading skills into these sessions to support the children's understanding and vocabulary development. You will find more information on VIPERS in your child's Home School Learning Journey. We will give your child a picture book to read at home together, these books are fantastic for encouraging storytelling, vocabulary and communication. Please make sure your child has their Home School Learning Journey in school each day. Your child will also choose a book from our school library box for you to share together at home, the children get very excited about choosing their own book!

Phonics in Nursery

At nursery, your child will be learning key early phonic skills;

Aspect 1 – General sound discrimination – environmental

This raises children’s awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills. Activities to support; listening walks, drumming on different items outside and comparing the sounds, playing a sounds lotto game and making shakers

Aspect 2 – General sound discrimination – instrumental sounds

This develop children’s awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers. Activities to support; comparing and matching sound makers, playing instruments alongside a story and making loud and quiet sounds.

Aspect 3 – General sound discrimination – body percussion

This develops children’s awareness of sounds and rhythms. Activities to support; singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary.

Aspect 4 – Rhythm and rhyme

This develops children’s appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech. Activities to support; rhyming stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the syllables in words and odd one out.

Aspect 5 – Alliteration

This focuses on initial sounds of words. Activities to support; I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound.

Aspect 6 – Voice sounds

This helps children to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting. Activities to support; adult segments the name of the object in a robot voice – /c/-/u/-/p/ cup, with the children joining in.

Aspect 7 – Oral blending and segmenting

This develops children’s oral blending and segmenting skills. To practise oral blending, the adult could segment /c/-/u/-/p/ and see whether the children can pick out a cup from a group of objects. For segmenting practise, the adult could hold up an object such as a sock and ask the children which sounds they can hear in the word sock.

Essential Letters and Sounds Phase Two: 

We will then learn to recognise letters and their sounds.

s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

As soon as each set of letters is introduced, children will be encouraged to use their knowledge of the letter sounds to blend and sound out words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds s-a-t to make the word sat.

Writing in Nursery

Starting to write

Children begin writing by exploring making marks, they will use thick crayons to make big circular and straight lines. This is an important step in learning to write, because children are trying out new things to see what happens.

Marks with meaning

The marks children make slowly begin to have more meaning for them, and you will be able to see this by listening to what they say when they write or draw.

Name writing

Children begin to write their name by copying and trying to write the letters in their name, they then work on recording these letters in the correct order.

There are many ways of helping children to write.

• Exploring mark making with pens and pencils
• Using chalks to draw outside on the ground
• Painting with water and a brush outside
• Writing messages or cards for family and friends
• Writing shopping lists together.