Summer

Special Events:

The ugly bug ball is a celebration of the magnificent minibeasts in our world. We have creepy crawly fun dressing up as bugs. As well as singing, dancing and moving to all our favourite minibeasts songs.

Special Events:

We celebrate the end of the summer term with a fun Beach Party. We play outdoor party games and have a picnic.

By the summer term, the children are much more independent and we encourage them to be responsible for small tasks during the session.  We continue to learn to share during freeflow and take turns through whole class or small group games.

The children build on the friendships they have made and learn to engage in larger group conversations. We also model ways in which they can resolve small conflicts by themselves amicably.

We continue to help children recognise and express their feelings and help to develop their awareness of the feelings of others. 

The Summer term is the perfect time for developing gross and fine motor skills through our minibeast and seaside topics. Moving and climbing like minibeasts, playing with water and sand as well as climbing on the trim trail enables us to use our large muscles. 

The children continue to use a range of writing tools to help develop a comfortable writing grip and by the summer term, show a preference for a dominant hand.

The children independently use the nursery toilets and are able to wash and dry their hands. Plenty of opportunites are provided in dressing up, putting on aprons and having a go at taking their sweatshirts off. 

In the summer term, the children are given opportunities to continue to use a wider range of vocabulary based on our topics eg chrysallis, web, cocoon, anemone and shade. 

Through play and our carpet sessions, children express their thoughts and ideas, respond to why questions, eg why is the caterpillar growing bigger and fatter?

Playing with the children allows them to chit chat and hold a conversation responding to friends and adults ideas. W continuee are able to model, develop and extend the child's language and vocabulary.

Role play encourages the children organise and express their own thoughts and ideas, eg Let's go on the aeroplane, I am the pilot, you sit there...

The children also gain practise in anticipating key events in a story. In the book, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt', the children  love to guess what terrain the family will face on the next page. The children even have a go at predicting what might happen at the end and sometimes make up their own alternative endings.

Through exploring and talking about the objects they find in a story sack, the children learn to structure more complex sentences and recall simple events in the correct order. 

Playing games such as 'Hunt the Hippo' the children learn to understand and use simple prepositions such as ‘under’, ‘on top’, ‘behind’ and 'next to.'

We continue to encourage the children to look at books independently in the book corner. Story props help develop children's ability to retell a story, recalling the characters and events. 

We continue to learn new rhymes and songs based around our theme eg I'm a ladybird and I'm very small, slip slop slap song [keeping sun safe] which also highlights alliteration. The children love hearing and pointing out the alliteration when the 'slippery snake slithers and slides' in 'Rumble in the jungle'.

Examples of some of our focus stories are, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider and Sharing A Shell.  In our carpet sessions we develop new vocabulary and engage in extended conversations about the stories. As the children's sound knowledge develops we continue to give challenges, eg who can see a m, d sound in the story. Can you think of another word that begins with a? 

Ongoing throughout the year, using Read Write Inc. the children continue to learn individual letter sounds. Segmenting and blending simple cvc words is a daily activitiy.  

Plenty of mark-making opportunities are provided when observing our caterpillars, chrysalis and butterflies. Using their sound knowledge when writing a shopping list for the hungry caterpillar, eg writing p for pear.

Maths, number

In the ice-cream parlour the children explore money and put prices on the different items in the seaside souvenir shop. 

We count bugs and shells and have a go at estimating, making amounts the same, adding more and taking away to make fewer. 

Shape, space and measure

Using large construction , we invite the children to build lighthouses by placing numbered bricks in order and build lighthouses of different heights to compare.

The children use different equipment to measure weight, length and capacity and have a go at recording their findings.

We have a large number of construction resources, whether they are large wooden bricks, duplo, stickle bricks and shapes. We enjoy listening to and supporting the children in telling us about what they have made or how they have arranged their construction. 

The children can make patterns or arrangements using stones, cones and shapes 

We love getting our magnifying glasses out and go hunting for shapes and talking about shapes in our environment. 

Using magnifying glasses and bug pots we encourage the children to search for minibeasts hidden in their natural habitat in the outdoor area and mud garden. We have our very own bug hotel and think about how we can make it more welcoming for bugs and think about what things they may like to eat. 

In class we look after our very own caterpillars. We name them and learn about their lifecycle as we watch them grow into beautiful butterflies. The children have a go at recording what they observe.

Our role play area is transformed into a minibeast investigation laboratory. The children have access to minibeast-themed books, and look closely at small world minibeasts.

After half term, our focus is on the seaside. The children talk about their experiences and think about what they would pack in their bags for a trip to the beach. We teach the importance of staying safe in the sun and at the beach. We find out what lives in rock pools and have fun creating our own. 

We make good use of our large sandpit to make sandcastles of different sizes and investigate what happens when we use dry and wet sand. 

The children develop their imagination, creativity and their ability to use media and materials themed around animals that live in jungles and savannahs. 

As well as the children learning some new animal themed songs, they may also make music for the giraffe in the book, 'Giraffes Can't Dance' to dance to or create a dance for Elmer the Elephant. The children are also provided with plenty of opportunities to play with with colours, textures and design. They may even invent a brand new species.

Following the children's interests, the role-play area is transformed into a jungle cafe or a animal rescue centre where the children further develop their imagination which often involves negotiating roles with others and creating their own props to help build their 'story'. 

We start the summer term with our topic 'Good News'- everyone has good news to tell. we encourage the children to share all their good news. We then introduce 'Pentecost'- when Jesus sends the Holy Spirit and the joy and happiness it brings.

Our next topic is 'Friends'. We look at how we make friends and how we can be a good friend. This leads us to talk about 'Jesus had friends and we can be friends of Jesus'. This topic teaches the children to 'love one another'.

Our final topic of the summer term is 'Our World'. This topic is all about what we love and wonder about the our world. God created the world-(the story of creation) and how important it is for us to take care of it. We talk about fairtrade and what we can do to make a difference.