Busy Zone – Pre School & Reception
Ms Emma Sumpter
Class Teacher
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
Marvellous Machines
Our New topic for Summer 1 will be Marvellous Machines. We will start our unit off investigating all the different types of machines we can find! Making lists, writing descriptions, and adding exciting adjectives! We will explore the work of Henry Matisse, looking closely at his abstract work, using this as inspiration for creating our own machines inspired abstract. We hope to make our own Art Gallery and invite you in for a tour! Following this we will focus our learning on trains, looking back at trains of the past and comparing these to the modern trains we see today. We will look at changes over time and begin to understand how we can place these changes in order. To help our investigation we will be taking an exciting trip to Helston Railway, to have a look at the engines, talk to the conductors and even have a ride on the train!! (Please let me know if anyone would like to help – free train ride included). We will then turn our attention to science where we will be investigating forces and motion using ramps, vehicles magnets and gears. Our Music investigation will focus on machines, using voices, bodies and instruments to explore different types of transport, identify and mimic transport sounds and interpret and perform a simple score.
Our RE study this term will focus on what places are special and why, we hope to be able to visit Sithney Church and investigate the special role a church plays in Christian life.
To end the term, we have an exciting whole school Sustainability project to explore, more details on this will follow shortly.
Spring 2 - Beside the Sea...
This half term we will be learning all about the seaside! Building on our learning about our local community and our visit to the Boating Lake, we will explore the wider locality considering the beach and seaside where we live, exploring the features of the environment and how these compare to what we know about other places. We will then look at beach locations around the world, comparing and contrasting what we have seen locally. We will hopefully be able to fit in our own visit to the beach where we can create our own maps as well as working on our sculpture skills with sandcastles and cairn building. This will lead on wonderfully to a study of the Artist Andy Goldsworthy. Continuing from our beach exploration we will use our foraged materials to build collaborative art inspired by the beach. In Science we will look at the animal life on the seashore, before moving into the seas and oceans. Children will learn about the different habitats under the sea, group fish based on observations and label the basic anatomy of a fish. We finish our science exploration with an experiment to explore floating and sinking. To end the term, we will learn about the celebration of Easter, recognising and retelling stories connected to the celebration of Easter and understanding why this is a special time for Christians.
In Music we will be looking at moving to music, using under the sea tunes to inspire dance. We will look at some of the songs from The Little Mermaid to link in with our topic and help us to understand life under the sea.
As a wonderful coincidence our PE this term is Swimming! The children will be enjoying a half term of swim lessons provided at Helston swimming pool each Tuesday.
Spring 1 - Once Upon a Story...
This half term we will be immersing ourselves in the imaginary world of storytelling, from traditional tales such as Goldilocks and the Three bears to newer stories like What’s in the Witches Kitchen. We will investigate goodies and badies and use this knowledge to change events, characters, endings and even make up our own adventures!
We will begin with the story of The 3 Billy Goats Gruff, linking this to our learning about the world around us, exploring the weather and seasons, and setting up our own weather station! Moving on we will look at the story of Jack and The Beanstalk, having a go at growing our own beanstalks, amongst other very exciting planting projects. We will be preparing the green house and planting beds as well as building a bug hotel or castle. Linking with our Art we will be studying the work of Vincent Van Gogh, taking inspiration from ‘Starry Nights’ and ‘Sunflowers’ to create our own Artwork. As we end the term, we will be exploring the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, learning all about fairy tales of the past the skills of storytelling. This will lead on to sharing the story What’s in the Witches Kitchen where we will use all our knowledge of traditional tales to make up our own interesting adventures!
Busy Zone Autumn 2 2023 - 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 in art, linking this with our bonfire learning, creating shadow pictures and puppets. We will then use the story ‘Peace at Last’ to explore night and day, learning about sounds all around us, both outside and inside of our homes, identifying those we can hear as well as creating our own.
We will then move on to consider how animals cope with Autumn. Using the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ we will learn about all the different animal homes in the woods, 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 understanding 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 Jolly Postman Christmas Special, using the text to help us explore different aspect of Christmas now and in the past. 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. There will be lots of opportunities for children to practise their joining skills learnt during Outdoor Learning when creating Christmas decorations.
Busy Zone Autumn 1 2023 - Marvellous Me!
In computing we will start to develop mouse and keyboard control using a computer with the programme ‘Paint’
We will learn about what our bodies need to keep healthy and clean and start our PE curriculum- beginning with locomotion. 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 opportunities to explore colour and colour mixing and share our creative ideas through a variety of art mediums. We will study the work of Jackson Pollock, using our gross motor skills to large scale collaborative pieces.
