Lion Cubs 

       Autumn Term 

A big welcome to all our new Lion Cubs and their families!

We understand that your little one—and you—may be feeling a little apprehensive about their first day at school. Please rest assured that we will do everything we can to make this transition as smooth and positive as possible.

Our goals are to ensure that the children are settled and happy, make learning fun, and most importantly, get to know them and their families. With your support, we are confident that the start of their primary school journey will be a happy and memorable one.

Below is an overview of what we will be doing for the next half-term:

Topic/English 

This half-term our topic theme will be 'Fabulous Me!' using the topic books of 'The Friendship Bench’ by Wendy Meddour; and 'Amazing' by Steve Antony. Through these texts and others, we will get to know the children, their likes and dislikes, their families and what they can do.

                                                        

Writing  

Children will be exploring ‘mark making’, letter writing and experimenting with new phonic sounds, patterns and drawing.  This will help to foster their love of writing, their imagination and, most of all, their confidence!   

                                                                 

 Read Write Inc  RWI

Using our phonics programme RWI, short daily activities will teach the children to recognise the sounds letters make, blend them together to make words, 'Fred Talk' and in addition, they will learn how to form individual letters using a bespoke rhyme.  

                                     

Reading

For the first half of the term, your child will be bringing home stories from our library. We encourage you to support your child in using their imagination to retell the story in their own words. Please remind them to speak in full sentences, and always model the correct sentence back to them. For example, if your child says, “teddy brown,” you could respond with, “Yes, the teddy is brown.”

To help develop their vocabulary, you might ask questions such as:

• Where is the teddy?

• What is the teddy doing?

• How is he feeling, and why?

Talking about the pictures is especially important, as it helps build your child’s oracy skills.

It is also important that your child listens to others reading to them. This not only strengthens their vocabulary but also develops their inference and prediction skills—all of which play a key role in fostering a lifelong love of reading.

Speaking and Listening 

This will be a strong focus for us this term, with an emphasis on building the children’s confidence to speak and to join in discussions. Alongside developing reading skills, we will also be working on your child’s understanding of stories and pictures.

For example, you might ask:

• “Why is Teddy smiling?”

• “How do we know that Teddy is happy?”

Your child should begin to use what they see, hear, or predict to explain their answers.

As adults, we play an important role in encouraging and modelling these skills. By being good role models for listening and speaking, we can help children grow in confidence, develop their vocabulary, and become active participants in conversations.

Maths

As part of our number learning, the children will be working on counting forwards and backwards to 10 and understanding the value of each number. For example, what is 3? It could be:

• 3 sounds

• 3 movable objects

• 3 objects that cannot be moved

• a group of 2 and a group of 1

We will also be practising counting objects and matching numerals to quantities correctly.

Linked to our topic “Fabulous Me”, we will be exploring vocabulary such as long, longer, short, shorter and ordering children by height. In addition, the children will begin learning about 2D shapes and their properties.

                                                               

 

 Homework

Each week, the children will be given short activities to complete at home. This will include a ‘Talking Homework’ task, a maths, English, or topic activity and phonics videos for you to watch together.

All homework is designed to either consolidate the learning taught that week or provide pre-topic research to prepare your child for upcoming lessons.

Homework will be posted every Friday on Google Classroom, and completed tasks can be uploaded to your child’s account for the Lion Cub team to see.

Physical Development

 The children will be developing both their gross motor and fine motor skills this term.

Gross motor skills will focus on big movements such as skipping, hopping, and balancing. The children will also continue to build their independence through everyday tasks like getting dressed, cutting up their own food in the dining hall, putting on their shoes, fastening their coats, and using the toilet and washing their hands independently.

Fine motor skills will be developed through activities such as threading, Dough Disco, bead work, drawing, painting, and early mark-making/writing.

This term, P.E. will take place on Monday afternoons. Children will need to bring their P. E kit in a P. E bag. As part of their physical development, children will also be practising getting changed for P.E. independently as part of the lesson.

                                              

                                                             

 

Understanding of the World

As part of our topic this term, we will be exploring the theme of families. We will be looking at the many different kinds of families and discussing questions such as: Who are they? What do they look like? Where do we find them?

The children will learn that families can take many forms—for example, blood families, our school family, and wider community families. This will help them to recognise and celebrate the different groups they belong to and the importance of each one.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                        

RE, SMSC & PSHE

Through stories and artefacts, the children will be introduced to Puddles the cat and her adventures with Reverend Fisher. They will also explore Bible stories and tales about families, with a focus on the values of caring for one another.                                                                                            

                                                                     

Expressive Arts and Design

Through the topic ‘Fabulous me!’, the children will be drawing, sketching and making. We also like to act out stories through drama and using puppets. 

 The Curriculum

For more information about what we have planned for this academic year, please visit the Curriculum section on the school’s webpage, click on Reception, and take a look at our exciting and busy curriculum.

In Reception, we also value and follow the children’s own ideas and interests. This means that sometimes activities may not appear on our topic web, but grow from the children’s curiosity and enthusiasm. For example, we might explore themes such as sharks, Super Mario, or Minecraft if these capture their interest.

   

                     

Tapestry 

We look forward to sharing our observations with you on our electronic learning journal, Tapestry. This will give you a window into the wonderful learning and progress your child is making in school.

Equally, we encourage you to upload your own special moments from home—such as a family day out, a celebration, or a “wow” achievement. We love seeing what the children have been doing outside school, and they really enjoy sharing their photos and videos with us and talking about their experiences.

                                                                      

Water Bottles

Please ensure that they take it home every day to be cleaned and refilled. 

                                                                           

We have an open-door policy, so if you have any questions or queries at the end of the day, please feel free to ask. You can also contact us via email at lioncubs@parkgate.cheshire.sch.uk.

No question is too small—please never feel uncomfortable approaching us.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mrs Foster, Mrs Barralet & Miss Whiteway xxx