🌸 Foundation Stage Spring Term

This Spring Term has been alive with excitement as children explored new ideas, developed early literacy and maths confidence and immersed themselves in experiences that sparked wonder and curiosity. Across all curriculum areas children demonstrated increasing resilience independence and a real passion for learning. Our EYFS themes On the Move and New Life provided rich opportunities for the children to ask questions make connections and deepen their understanding of the world.

🚗 Spring 1 On the Move

📚 Phonics

This half term marked an exciting milestone as children began Phase 3 of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme. They enthusiastically explored a wide range of new grapheme and phoneme correspondences including ai ee igh oa oo long oo short ar or ur ow oi ear air er Through songs, games, blending challenges and teacher modelling children practised reading and writing longer words and confidently tackled double letter spellings.

A wonderful development this term has been the childrens growing confidence in writing complete sentences. They are beginning to use capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. Children applied these skills in meaningful ways such as writing labels for their artwork creating simple fact sentences during outdoor learning and composing short captions linked to our topic books. They also learned tricky words including was you they my by all are sure pure which they are now recognising in both reading and writing activities.

🌿 Understanding the World Outdoor Adventures

Children embraced the outdoors as a space for discovery. They watched water race across different surfaces tested how leaves moved in the wind and followed animal footprints around the grounds. This sparked fantastic conversations about force movement and the natural world. Children used magnifiers to examine textures on bark soil and stones and they compared the sounds made by different natural materials. These adventures encouraged the children to become scientists exploring cause and effect making predictions and building rich vocabulary such as smooth, rough, shiny, heavy, light, soft and crunchy.

🎨 Art Andy Goldsworthy Sculptures

Inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy children transformed natural materials into their own nature sculptures. They arranged petals in circular patterns built towers from smooth stones and pressed leaves into clay to create textured imprints. These creative experiences strengthened fine motor control spatial awareness and expressive thinking. Children showed great pride as they explained their ideas to others developing confidence in communicating creatively.

🔬 Science Colour and Seasonal Changes

Children investigated colour by sorting natural objects discovering how sunlight changes colour and exploring how water can be used to blend and separate tones. They observed budding plants, spotted early flowers and described how the weather was shifting from winter into spring. These activities supported children in developing observation skills and using scientific vocabulary with increasing understanding.

🔢 White Rose Maths

Maths this term has been energetic practical and full of discovery. Children used natural objects pebbles pinecones and outdoor resources to instantly recognise small quantities without counting. They practised making groups representing numbers on tens frames and comparing sets using language such as more, fewer and the same. Nothing excited the children more than investigating weight and volume. They compared heavy and light objects by using balance scales, collected water using containers and predicted which items would sink or float. Through trial and error children learned to estimate test and explain their thinking. Children explored numbers 6, 7 and 8 by composing them with counters linking cubes and natural collections. They identified doubles explored patterns and challenged themselves to spot odd and even numbers in playful activities across the environment.

🐣 Spring 2 New Life

📚 Phonics

Spring 2 focused on reviewing consolidating and strengthening all Phase 3 graphemes. Children revisited longer words double letter patterns and endings such as s and es. Daily practice helped children become steadier and more fluent in their reading and writing. Their sentence writing continued to flourish with children independently attempting short pieces that included correctly placed capital letters full stops and finger spaces. They also enjoyed using their phonics skills in themed writing tasks linked to animals lifecycles and spring changes.

🐾 Science Animals and Seasonal Changes

Children observed real evidence of spring new leaves animal tracks and tiny insects emerging in the warmer weather. They explored lifecycles through stories, models and hands on investigations. Children sorted animals based on features, discovered how frogs grow and discussed what living things need to survive. Their scientific vocabulary expanded to include words such as lifecycle, habitat, predator, prey and transform.

🕰️ History Adventures Through Time

Children explored how people grow and change by comparing photos of babies toddlers and themselves. They sequenced events discussed their own histories and created simple timelines. Children shared personal experiences which helped them understand past, present and the passing of time.

🔧 Design and Technology Melting Chocolate and Ice Eggs

These exciting experiments helped children understand how materials can change. They predicted what might happen when chocolate is warmed and ice is exposed to different temperatures. Children loved using warm water droppers to release small hidden objects from ice eggs gaining early understanding of melting dissolving and temperature.

🔢 White Rose Maths 

Children used measuring tools and natural materials to compare lengths, heights and sizes. They created simple timelines of their day and used vocabulary such as first, next, then, after to talk about sequences of events. Children explored the numbers 9 and 10 using ten frames and noticing number patterns, doubles and how numbers can be composed and decomposed. They played games that required them to add find missing parts and build confidence in working with ten. Through building dens, junk modelling and outdoor construction children explored 3D shapes such as cubes spheres cones and cylinders. They tested which shapes rolled stacked or balanced and talked confidently about faces edges and surfaces.

🌟 A Truly Magical Spring Term

This term has been filled with joy creativity and impressive progress. Children are becoming enthusiastic readers, confident mathematicians, curious scientists, expressive artists and thoughtful friends. Their independence, resilience and communication skills are flourishing and they approach every learning opportunity with excitement!

🌸 Foundation Stage Spring Term 

This Spring Term has been filled with hands on learning, curiosity and rapid progress across all curriculum areas. Alongside our EYFS topics On the Move and New Life, children followed the carefully sequenced Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Phonics programme to develop strong early reading foundations.

🚗 Spring 1 - On the Move

📚 Phonics

This half term, children made exciting progress in phonics as they began Phase 3 of the Little Wandle sequence. They learned a wide range of new grapheme and phoneme correspondences including: ai ee igh oa oo long oo short ar or ur ow oi ear air er as well as reading and spelling words with double letters and longer words. Children also learned new tricky words such as: was you they my by all are sure pure

🌿 Understanding the World Outdoor Adventures

Children explored our outdoor environment, observing movement in nature such as flowing water, blowing leaves and the tracks left by animals. These experiences helped them develop knowledge of the natural world and strengthen language linked to describing changes and seasonal features.

🎨 Art Andy Goldsworthy Sculptures

Following our long term plan, children created their own natural sculptures inspired by the artist Andy Goldsworthy. They experimented with texture, form and natural materials to develop expressive creativity and fine motor control.

🔬 Science Colour and Seasonal Changes

Children investigated colour through natural materials, observed weather changes and identified early spring growth.

🔢 White Rose Maths 

Children explored numbers to 5 including early subitising and representing numbers in different ways. They practised comparing quantities and used language such as more fewer and the same. We explored mass and capacity with real objects comparing heavy light and full empty. Water play and outdoor resources supported meaningful hands on learning. Children have also developed a deeper understanding of numbers 6 to 8 working on composition, subitising, early doubling and identifying odd and even patterns.

🐣 Spring 2 - New Life

📚 Phonics 

During Spring 2, children revisited and strengthened all previously taught Phase 3 graphemes. They practised longer words, words with double letters and words containing s and es endings. No new tricky words were introduced so children focused on confidently recalling all tricky words taught in earlier terms. 

🐾 Science Animals and Seasonal Changes

Children explored lifecycles, habitats and the growth of animals. They observed signs of spring, used scientific vocabulary and asked thoughtful questions about how living things change.

🕰️ History Adventures Through Time

Children compared life stages including baby toddler and now to develop an understanding of time and change. They sequenced events and discussed how people grow and change.

🔧 Design and Technology Melting Chocolate and Ice Eggs

Children explored how materials change when they melt or freeze through practical investigations. They made predictions, observed changes and used simple scientific language.

🔢 White Rose Maths

Children compared lengths and heights using natural objects and construction materials. They sequenced events and used early time language such as first next then and after. Children developed confidence with number bonds to 10, doubles, odd and even numbers and composition of 9 and 10. Children explored 3D shapes such as cubes spheres cones and cylinders during construction, junk modelling and outdoor play. They described features using mathematical language.