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. Please ensure your child arrives promptly at Nursery to ensure they are present for registration and ready to start learning. If for any reason your child arrives after this time, please go to the school office. If you will be late to pick up your child at home time, please ring the school office to inform them as soon as possible. For safety reasons, children need to be collected by a known adult, so if someone new is collecting your child, please inform a member of staff. 

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

Our children learn through exploring, investigating and finding out throughout their play. In Foundation Stage, we plan exciting learning opportunities both in the indoor and outdoor environment. Our provision areas include; sand, water, role play, maths, writing, small world, reading and malleable.

Throughout the Nursery session we have structured time which includes adult-led and child- led learning.  This structure includes daily phonics, maths, literacy and continuous provision.  During continuous provision, 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 inform Miss Hill or Mrs Davys.

Reading

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

Every Friday your child will choose a book to share with their family and will have the opportunity to take this home for the week. We kindly ask that these 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.

Lower Foundation have explored the celebration 'Harvest'. We learned that Harvest is a special time for people to come together, share and be thankful for the crops that have been grown on land this year.   During circle time, we shared what we are grateful for eating and we talked about the people who ensure we have food to eat.  We sang harvest songs and we created Harvest crafts. We had lots of fun painting and printing using different vegetables. 

The children in Nursery took part in a When I Grow Up day.  They came into school dressed in their future career aspirations! We had firefighters, vets, police officers, hairdressers, doctors and many more.  The children spent the session going to 'work' trying out a few careers.  They became doctors and nursed our soft teddies back to health.  Some became bakers and made a variety of delicious cakes using the playdough.  Some even pretended to run a  hairdressers and we had lots of happy customers.   

We painted a portrait of who we would like to be when we grow up. We used a range of different sized paintbrushes and explored colours when mixed together. 

We followed the rule 'Wooden toys and not wooden toys" during our maths sorting activity. 

We have been recognising and comparing our eye colour, hair colour and hair styles. We used various tools to created our class portraits such as paintbrushes, sponges, forks and stamps. 

In maths we have been focusing on recognising colours. We have joined in with lots of games and activities such as colour hunts, aim for the colour and colour snap! 

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. 

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/