Welcome to Lower Foundation Stage

Miss Hill - rhill@st-peters.wakefield.sch.uk

In our Lower Foundation Stage we have up to 26 children in two sessions; one in the morning from 8:30-11:30am and the afternoon session from 12:00-3:00pm.

The staff members are Miss Hill the teacher and Mrs Davys the Nursery Nurse.

Our children learn through exploring, investigating and playing. The day is broken up into sessions and includes phonics, maths and storytime in groups and free play sessions. During the free play sessions, all staff work with the children to achieve objectives that are focused and unique to each child.

Whilst your child is on their exciting journey through Lower Foundation Stage they will be developing their self-help skills and independence. You can help them with this by encouraging them to:

• Be independent at going to the toilet
• Put on their own coats and zip them up
• Put on their own shoes/wellies
• Find their own coat, bag and accessories such as hats, gloves and water bottles
• Recognise their name

Every child has a named coat peg and they are encouraged to place their belongings on their peg independently.  Please could parents refrain from entering the cloakroom.

The children are encouraged throughout the day to drink water to ensure they are well hydrated. Please send your child to school with a named water bottle.

Please note these should not be filled with juice/flavoured water.

Uniform

Your child should wear uniform which follows our school policy. In Foundation Stage your child will need appropriate clothing all year round for outdoor play. In winter, please make sure you send your child to school with a waterproof coat, hat, scarves and gloves.

In summer, please send your child with a sun hat and with their sun cream having already been applied at home.

It is a good idea to send a pair of wellies to school with your child for all year round as we will use them daily when playing on the grass, in the mud kitchen and for water play.

Please remember to label ALL items of clothing and shoes as this will help return lost property as soon as possible.

If your child is going to require spare clothes please put them in a named bag. If your child requires help with toileting please see Miss Hill or Mrs Davys.

Reading

Every child receives a book bag when they attend Nursery. We politely that these are brought daily for their pictures, information letters and reading book. 

Every Friday your child will choose a book and have the opportunity to take this home for the week. We kindly ask that reading books are returned every Friday in their book bags please.

Polite notice:

Please could parents/children refrain from placing water bottles inside their book bags as reading books are likely to get water damage and these are costly to replace. Thank you.

Learning Journey

The Foundation stage staff continually observe the children in the setting and celebrate their wonderful progress. We share this progress on the Evidence Me app. Please ensure school have an up to date email address for you to receive these updates. We hope you look forward to seeing what they have been up to!

We hope your child enjoys their time in Lower Foundation Stage. If you have any concerns or queries, please don’t hesitate to speak to a member of staff in the Foundation Stage Unit.

50 Things to do before you're 5 Challenge

In Foundation Stage, we are doing the ‘50 Things To Do Before You're Five’ Challenge. We will complete challenges and update you with our progress.     

We hope that the activities will be lots of fun for the children and completing it will contribute to their learning experiences.  Click here to see our progress. 

Lower Foundation Phonics

Please see below for some brilliant phonics activities you can try at home.

Independence Skills

Now that our Nursery children have settled nicely into their new routine and setting, it is really important that they are encouraged to develop their self-help, independence and communication skills. Below you will find some really useful videos and information that (I hope) you may find help helpful to you and your child.  We would really appreciate it if you could continue to support your child at home by showing them how to put on their own coat and shoes and recognising their own name. 

The coat trick- Really useful video to help children put their coats on all by themselves.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUaRSG6a3JU 

Guidance on helping children put on their own shoes.  

https://www.howwemontessori.com/how-we-montessori/2019/11/eight-tips-to-help-children-put-their-shoes-on-the-correct-feet.html 

Nursery rhyme- Tommy Thumb 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBITpySo8g 

Activities- Supporting your child at recognising their name. 

https://stayathomeeducator.com/52-name-recognition-activities-for-preschoolers/ 

Our ladybird larvae arrived on Monday. We have enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to closely observe any changes to their appearance.  

We enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree on the 1st of December. We took turns at placing a bauble on the tree and we turned the lights off to see all the pretty colours on our Christmas lights.  

Over the last couple of weeks, Nursery have been learning to sort objects into various different groups in relation to their size, shape and colour.   We have learned that a rule has to be followed when sorting, for example, leaves and no leaves or things that are plastic and things that aren't plastic. We went on a nature hunt outside and had a great go at sorting leaves and no leaves. We counted over 20 leaves and sycamore seeds. 

Class Acorns have been developing their fine motor skills in this week's activity.  We learnt that to help us remember how to pick up a pencil/pen, we have to face the tip towards us and use our first three fingers to pick it up and flip it back.  We read the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' and we drew various patterns to represent grass, snow, mud, wind, river and a cave.