Busy Zone – Pre School & Reception
Miss Emma Sumpter
Class Teacher (Monday – Thursday)
Miss Suzanne Bray
Class Teacher (Friday)
Mrs Natasha Butcher
Teaching Assistant
Mrs Jo Thorniley
Teaching Assistant
Busy Zone
Welcome to the Busy Zone, where the youngest children begin their learning in school.
The children are encouraged to be strong independent learners. Following their interests and guided by positive adult support.
The classroom and outside area are full of rich learning opportunities for play and playful teaching.
The teaching staff ensure active and challenging experiences are explored fully.
We encourage the children to talk about their learning and to be reflective about the next steps along their learning journey.
Family Learning
A fun and interactive game to help children recognise and use phonics
Oxford Owl Reading – An excellent source of Phonics information and support, with the added advantage of free ebooks to download and share as a family
Busy Zone Spring 1 2026 - Once upon a story......
This half term we will be immersing ourselves in the imaginary world of storytelling, from traditional tales such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Gingerbread Man to newer stories like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. We will investigate goodies and baddies and use this knowledge to change events, characters, endings and even make up our own adventures!
We will begin with the story You Choose, encouraging the children to ask and answer question, and use their own ideas to develop stories of interest through role play and small world. We will think about where Traditional Tales originated and how storytelling has developed. Exploration of nursery rhymes and poems will help us think about the past, and we will link this to our understanding of changes over time.
Linking with our Art we will be studying painting as a medium. Beginning with finger painting and moving on to exploring marks with different brushes we will consider how our marks on page tell a story. We will use the fairy tales that we read as inspiration to create art work, using different strokes for effect. This will lead on to a collaborate piece of work that will also explore collage, taking inspiration from Megan Coyle.
We will be investigating how to keep the Gingerbread man dry, building houses for the Three Little Pigs and designing a new bridge for the Billy Goats to cross the river.
In PE we will be learning through play, playing with equipment, taking in turns and creating games with a partner. PE days will remain on a Friday so please ensure your child wears their PE kit on this day.
Our unit of study in Music will be Musical stories, this is a unit based on traditional children’s tales and songs. Moving to music with instruction, changing movements to match the tempo, pitch or dynamic of the piece; understanding that music and instruments can be used to convey moods or represent characters; playing an instrument as part of a group story.
In RE we will be learning why the word ‘God’ is so important to Christians. We will explore the creation story and learn that Christians believe Jesus told stories or parables about how much God loves them and find out what this means for believers today.
Autumn 2 - Houses and Homes.
We will begin our learning next term with an exploration of the world around us. Sharing the story of ‘The Leaf Thief’ we will learn about where the squirrel lives and share his journey through the seasons. We will consider the changes we can see happening, explore what Autumn looks like and create our own Artwork inspired by our learning. We will learn about the celebrations that happen at this time of year, sharing our experiences of bonfire night and creating some wonderful chalk art. We will look at light and shadow and link this with our bonfire learning, creating firework pictures using paint and chalk.
This will lead into exploration centred on how animals cope with Autumn. Using the story of ‘Argh Spider’ and ’The Gruffalo’ we will learn about all the different animal homes, before considering our own homes and where we live. We will take a walk up to Plovers Field to compare the houses we can see and make our own maps of our adventures. We also hope to take a trip on the bus to Helston to expand our learning about our local area. We will be exploring the similarities and differences between places, as well as naming some of the local human and physical features.
We will finish the term with an exploration of The Christmas Pine, as well as Mogs Christmas Calamity to help us get in the Christmas spirit!. We will add a Christmas tree and decorations to our role play house (happy for any donations!) We will have lots of opportunity for list writing, making cards and of course Christmas crafts with plenty of glitter!! In the lead up to Christmas, we will learn about why Christmas is special for Christians during our RE learning.
Autumn 1 - Marvellous Me!
To start the new academic year our topic is ‘Marvellous Me!’ Throughout the term we will share what is special and unique about each and every one of us and how our similarities and differences make us special. We will explore themes of belonging which will include the belonging to a family and how different faiths welcome new babies into their family. We will share who is special to us in our own families, sharing photographs and create our own family tree. We will also take some time to look at ourselves and consider how we have grown and changed over time.
We will learn about what our bodies need to keep healthy and clean and start our PE curriculum- beginning with walking and jumping. In outdoor learning we will explore the woodland and themes of awe, wonder and thankfulness will be the basis for our activities as we observe the change to the season.
Throughout the term we will have opportunity to explore the different areas of our classroom, getting to know the different resources and being introduced to the variety if games and activities. We will spend time together recognising the rules and learning how to work together as a team.
