1. All Around Us Personal, Social and Emotional Development
We will help all the new children to settle into our Foundation Stage Unit and share experiences of starting school. Children will be encouraged to develop self-help skills, cooperative play and to help each other as they learn new routines and expectations. We will develop our unit code and earn ourselves rewards as we fill up our treasure jar for following the rules. We will develop an awareness of using resources appropriately and tidying up areas of learning when we have finished working in them, so that they are ready for our friends. We will encourage the children to share their experiences as we discuss our homes and communities.
Communication and Language
We will focus on retelling stories connected to our topic including a variety of versions of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. We will use information books too, to find out about homes and our local environment.
We will focus on looking at the person we are talking to, taking turns in conversation and listening to and accepting the thoughts and opinions of others. As always our main focus will be to develop the children’s spoken language and vocabulary skills linked to our topic.
Understanding the World
Our science will involve investigating the properties of different materials as we build our own houses similar to those of The Three Little Pigs. We will investigate which materials are the strongest and therefore the best ones to use as we test to see if the big bad wolf can blow them down! We will look at different houses & buildings locally, comparing their features and building materials. Our local environment will be explored as the season changes and children will be encouraged to talk about the similarities and differences they observe.
Marsden Infant & Nursery School
Early Years Unit – Autumn
All Around Us
What can we find out about our local environment?
Expressive Arts and Design
We will be looking at different houses to represent in drawings, collages and paintings. Our design & technology will involve making houses from a variety of constructional resources. Our singing will include songs about homes, building and The 3 Little Pigs. We will explore rhythm by tapping out words associated with the story. Our role-play area will include a home corner which will allow us to imitate some tasks in the home such as cooking pasta and a construction area where children develop building skills, constructing different types of buildings. We will enhance this area to enable the children to act out the story of The Three Little Pigs.

2. Literacy
Nursery children will practise recognising their names as they arrive, whilst reception children will also write their names.
In phonics, nursery children will be developing their listening skills to tune into environmental sounds. This will help them to hear the initial sounds in words. Reception children will continue to develop these skills and will be encouraged to write down the sounds they hear. We will explore different mark making and writing skills including labelling and writing simple words and captions.
We will enjoy a wide variety of books and stories and find sounds or words we recognise. Children will be encouraged to retell familiar stories in their own way.
We would be delighted to see any drawing and writing your children are doing at home. You can share this on Tapestry or let your child bring it in to show and tell.
Mathematics
We will learn lots of songs and rhymes to help us to count and understand number. We will learn about counting with one-to-one correspondence, for example the number of pigs in our story, the number of beats in our names and the number of letters in our names. We will match numerals to sets of objects using different countables throughout the environment such as the playdough, sand and water play areas.
We will continue to develop our numeral recognition through ordering number lines to 20, as well as using other mathematical resources including numicon and tens frames. Children will also begin to write numerals to 20.
We will learn about shapes and how to describe them as well as making pictures using 2D shapes. Children will look for shapes in the environment, both indoors and outdoors.
Physical Development
We will experiment with different ways of moving with increasing control as we respond to instructions. Outside physical play will be available daily for children to develop gross motor skills using a wide variety of equipment
Weekly ‘scrimbling’ sessions to music will develop upper body muscles in preparation for writing. Fine motor and manipulative skills will develop through building with different construction resources, manipulating play dough and clay and through the use of tools for mark-making and painting activities. We will practise holding a pencil in a tripod grip in order to develop control as we form letters correctly.
We will undertake regular P.E. sessions in the upstairs hall and children will learn to get ready independently. In nursery we take off our own socks and shoes for PE. Children are encouraged to put them on again after the session.