We will be going on an Autumn walk around the nursery and will talk about all the different things that we can see. Children will be encouraged to use full sentences and descriptive language.

This term the children will spend time working in small groups. The children will be given opportunities to listen to other children and to respond to others’ ideas and conversations. We will continue to practise taking turns in conversations, listening to others and building our self confidence to speak in front of a familiar group.

We will be exploring many different books this term that will take the children on a journey through different worlds including ‘The Lion Who Wanted to Love’ and ‘Forget Me Not: Friendship Blossoms. The children will practise sitting and listening skills and will be encouraged to join in on repeated phrases and rhymes within the stories that we read.

During this term we will also be spending time learning how to say and hear rhymes in different contexts. We will practise this by playing rhyming games, singing rhyming songs and reading rhyming stories. The children will be able to practise rhymes in different activities like silly soup, matching different rhyming pictures and rhyming walks.

This half term we will be focussing on the following two characteristics:

• Playing and Exploring – being willing to ‘have a go’ at a range of activities.
• Belonging — to our class and school

Time will be spent focusing on our emotions, how we feel and how are friends around us are feeling.

During circle time we will play games to think about how others are feeling and ways in which we can respond to these feelings.

We will be developing different ways for the children to confidently move. In the outside environment we will be experimenting with being different animals and how they move: slithering like a snake, hopping like a rabbit and jumping like a kangaroo. Inside, the children will have the opportunity to develop their dance skills through listening to a range of different music.

We will continue to develop fine motor skills through a range of activities such as threading, play dough, small construction and finger painting.

We will be using a wide range of writing tools which are available both in our indoor and outdoor environment. We will be teaching the children how to hold writing tools correctly so they begin to develop good habits.

This half term there is still a strong focus on shape names and counting to 10 and matching quantity to number names. We will be going on number and shape hunts around the nursery, both inside and outside, for the children to pick out numbers and shapes that they know. There will be different activities set up for the children to extend and secure their number knowledge.

We will also start to talk about size and comparative language while looking at different animals and their habitats. We will be sorting animals according to whether they are ‘big’ or ‘small’ and categorizing them based on key questions e.g. ‘do they have wings?’ and ‘’does it have four legs?’.

Imaginative play takes place daily in Nursery through a variety of play situations, particularly in the role play area. This half term our role play area will be turned into a hospital. Children go to the doctor and dentist and are interested in what happens when they are there. This is the chance to explore and to learn more about people who help us.

There will be many opportunities throughout the term for the children to experiment with colour and materials through painting, printing, junk modelling and cutting and sticking.

We are going to look at the different seasons.

We will start with Autumn and observe how the world changes around us as we get closer to Winter. Children will be encouraged to comment and ask questions about animals, plants and the world around them.

We will extend our learning around the topic of ‘people who help us’ by looking at different occupations. Who are the people that help at the supermarket or at the dentist, what is the job of a firefighter?