FSU
Welcome to our Foundation Stage Unit
Mrs Emptage, Mrs Hinchliffe, Mrs Baker, Nikki, Julie, Alice, Mrs Beer and Mrs Dennis
Sunflowers (Nursery 2 Year Olds)
Caterpillars (Nursery 3-4 Year Olds)
Butterflies (Reception)
Step 2 Parent Declaration Form (January 2024) Early Years Pupil Premium Form for Children in Care January 2024 Curriculum Goals Butterflies (End of Reception) Spring 1 Sunflowers Overview Traditional StoriesSpring 1 Caterpillars Overview Traditional Stories Caterpillars Autumn 2 Curriculum Overview WinterOur Favourite Five Books
At Monkleigh School, we are passionate about igniting a love and passion for reading from the very start. In FSU, Sunflowers, Caterpillars and Butterflies all have a selection of Favourite Five books - these are five books that are always on display in the classroom. We read these books again and again over the year - they are rich in language, rhyme and repetition and are excellent stories. If you are ever looking to buy your child a book for Christmas or for their birthday or if you would like some ideas for books to borrow from the library, please take a look at our Favourite Five Reads:
Please scroll down to find out what we have been up to!
Exploring Winter and Christmas Trees
Stepping into Winter
This week in Sunflowers we welcomed the change of seasons. We recapped a very exciting snow day from last week, and explored a wintery white sensory tray. We also developed our skills with PVA glue and made our own wintery scenes, as well as some fun indoor snow. We used our book this week to talk about how we now wear items such as hats and gloves because it’s now cold outside, and why the children in the story are feeding the birds bird seed when the ground is snowy and frozen.
Caterpillars have been learning all about nocturnal animals and welcoming the changes our new season is bringing us. We were super excited to have some snow at Monkleigh! We have had some fun with torches by looking for shadows of animals that are awake at night and made our own owls too! We have LOVED exploring the icey foam and helping to strengthen our scissor skills by creating our own paper snowflakes! The children will be continuing to explore the changes of winter next week!
This week we have been learning all about the changes around us. We focused on deciduous trees and have discovered that 'deciduous leaves lose their leaves' We had a wonderful time on Torrington Commons going on a bear hunt - we also managed to fit in a play at the park! We have explored how deciduous trees change between Autumn and Winter and used our fine motor skills to recreate deciduous trees. Our singing for our Christmas performance is coming along very well!
Exploring Diwali
Whoosh, Bang, Fizzle. This week the Sunflowers have enjoyed recapping their experiences of fireworks from the previous couple of weeks. We have enjoyed a poem exploring the different noises the fireworks make, used the chalks and paints to create their own firework display pictures, and used their fine motor skills in the sand to create marks to represent the firework shapes. We have also loved making edible sparkler breadsticks for snack.
This week we have been learning about Diwali the festival of light. We have been learning how this festival is celebrated. We have shared the story of Rama and Sita and made our own salt dough diva lights. We have enjoyed exploring rangoli patterns through shape, marks inside and outside and brightly coloured rice. We have also had lots of fun with mehndi patterns.
Butterflies had a wonderful visit to Merry Harriers Restaurant at the beginning of the week. We visited for a Cafe experience before opening up our own role play Monkleigh Cafe back at school. We would like to say a huge thank you to Merry Harriers and their amazing team for giving us such a warm welcome. The children were able to visit the counter to order their delicious cakes and drinks. They even served each other! The cakes were delicious and it was a lovely opportunity to sit and chat. The children have enjoyed applying what they experienced to their own role play. We have also enjoyed learning about the Hindu celebration of Diwali. The children have illuminated our setting with their super patterns and beautiful transient art.
Fireworks Fireworks Everywhere!
Welcome back. Sunflowers this week have enjoyed the story of Elmer’s colours. We created our own colourful elephant with sponges, explored colour mixing in the shaving foam outside, and matched colours to join elephants. As well as working together and developing our fine motor skills, creating a large patchwork collage like Elmer. We also enjoyed recapping our half term break; exploring and scooping out a pumpkin.
This week the Caterpillars have been sharing a poem from the book Zim Zam Zoom. We learnt all about firework safety and have created some fantastic firework art using lots of beautiful colours and artistic tecniques such as printing, rubbing, flicking and stamping. We have helped to develop our fine motor skills by using thin chalks and cotton buds too! We have also used our fingers to create colourful patterns in the black sand. Outside we have enjoyed a sensory explosion of paint, glitter and foam. We have also shared our own experiences of fireworks we have seen this week or have got ourselves excited for fireworks we are going to be seeing!
Butterflies have had a fizzingly fantastic first week back! We have been reading poems from the book Zim Zam Zoom and have created a performance of the poem whicih we filmed for our families to watch. The children were so confident and really enjoyed the rhythm of the poem. We have been exploring firework experiments and firework art. The highlight of our week was a visit to Harbour in Bideford. We delivered all of the Harvest Festival donations from the school and helped to stack the shelves. We helped the volunteers to make Christmas Cards and create gift bags for the people who use Harbour. The children worked really hard and created some wonderful cards.
Pumpkins and Apples
This week Sunflowers have shared the story “Owl Babies”, talking about how Mummy always comes back. We continued to explore autumnal sensory trays, adding owl puppets and making cosy nests for them. Sunflowers worked really hard using their fine motor skills and precision with their marks to create their own owl babies painting. As well getting messy and free painting with sticks.
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of 'The Very Helpful Hedgehog'. They have created their very own helpful hedgehogs and enjoyed apple printing as well as painting with autumn items the children have gathered from walks in the local area. The children have also made their very own delicious apple pies too!
There has been a distinct glow of orange and aroma of Pumpkin Soup in Butterflies this week! We have been reading Pumpkin Soup and learning all about our word of the week 'Teamwork' The children have worked on their sequencing skills and sequenced the story and have been so good at using their Fred Spelling to write words to label an illustration from the book. They have developed their fine motor skills and have been wrapping elastic bands around pumpkins; creating pumpkin pastel paintings and hammering golf tees into pumpkin. We have finished the week by making pumpkin soup! In maths, we have started our journey into subitising and have been working on subitising one, two and three.
Celebrating Autumn and our Local Commity
Autumn is here 🍂 This week we have been exploring the crunch of the leaves, the colours of the trees and some animals we may experience in woodland and autumnal environments. We created our own autumnal tree using washing brushes and paint. We also made a hedgehog, introducing and practising the use of scissors and ‘runny’ PVA glue.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the sorry of the leaf thief. We have been learning about the changes autumn brings. We have been painting with leaves and having a leaf race. We have been on a walk around the school to look for signs of autumn. We have also learnt the importance of harvest and the role of scarecrows. The children have made their own collage scarecrows and have made two fantastic straw ones for the outdoor learning area too!
This week, Butterflies have been flashing back to previous learning about members of our local community who have visited us this term. They have used their learning journey floor book to help them remember. We have talked about the meaning of the word 'Community' and have thought about families, school communities and people who help us in the local community. We have been celebrating our progress in Read Write Inc and Maths. We also enjoyed a visit from Chantal Law who is a local fitness expert. She spoke to the children about the importance of exercise and gave them an exercise class! We have come so far since September! Well done Butterflies!
Introducing Autumn and Foodbanks
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of 'We're going on a bear hunt'. The children have LOVED acting out the story with movement around the room and engaging in the bear hunt with sensory experiences. They have worked hard to create their own adorable bears too. They have collected autumn leaves and developed their fine motor skills by cutting the leaves to then create their autumn tree pictures as well as creating autumn collages. The children have also been sorting leaves in different colours.
“We’re going on a bear hunt” has been the focus for the Sunflowers this week. We have explored different textures to represent the environments in the story. We had great fun with the gloop and gelli baff snow, as well as the water, rice ‘grass’, and sticks and leaves. We painted bears, and explored size with different bears in the sand. We used these bears to also explore prepositions; over, under, on top.
Butterflies have been learning all about the importance of Foodbanks within our local community. We have read the wonderful story 'It's a No Money Day' which introduces the concept of hunger and foodbanks. The children have been flashing back to previous work on emotions to think about how the characters in the story might feel. The children have explored what they could do on a 'No Money Day' there were lots of walks, bike rides and playing in the garden! The children have enjoyed exploring the mud kitchen and the outside areas. We had a wonderfully sunny trip to Weare Giffard Woods on Monday to look for more signs of Autumn. Kim from Torrington Dental Practice came to talk to us about the importance of looking after our teeth. Wow! What a busy week!
Healthy Eating and Tasting Fruits
This week the Sunflowers have explored emotions. We’ve looked at what being happy, sad and cross may look like, and how we can help us and our friends feel happy and calm. We made calming sensory bottles, explored our facial expressions in the mirrors and really focused in on modelling positive behaviours, taking turns and sharing, and saying ‘stop’ to something we don’t like.
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of ‘Be brave little penguin’ and are learning to give difficult things a go. We have been talking about feelings and the colours we link to different emotions as well as using our faces to show different emotions and drawing them too. We have also discussed what occurances make us feel different emotions. We have also been learning about the importance or oral health. They enjoyed helping to clean the dirty teeth! The children have also been learning about consent and watching the Pantosaurus. We know that our bodies belong to only us and we are in control of ourselves.
Butterflies have had an incredibly busy week this week! This week we have been learning about keeping our minds and bodies healthy. We have explored emotions and feelings through the story The Rabbit Listened. The children had great fun making their own bouncy rabbits! We have enjoyed a visit from Pete from ASDA who gave the children the opportunity to try lots of delicious fruits. The children have made their own healthy smoothies - carefully using their fine motor skills to cut and prepare the ingredients. On Friday we look forward to a visit from a local nurse who will talk to us about how the children can look after themselves and keep themselves safe - this will really help the children's role play skills in our Doctor's Surgery.
Developing Healthy Attitudes - Sleep and Exercise
This week Sunflowers became dentists. We talked all about healthy teeth and what we do to keep them shiny and clean. We looked at different foods to decide which ones would make our teeth happy or sad. We enjoyed trying some yummy fruits, exploring the different textures and colours. As well as painting and water play using toothbrushes.
This week our Caterpillars have been learning about being healthy. We have shared the story of “Daisy eat your Peas” the children have learnt about how to be healthy and what food and drink are best for us as well as knowing the importance of keeping active. They have been sorting healthy and unhealthy food and shared their own favourite food. They have enjoyed developing their fine motor skills by playing with real peas, painting with spaghetti, creating their own favourite food plates and using knives and forks to cut up playdough food they created.
This week, we have been learning about the importance of sleeping well and getting enough exercise. The Butterflies are an active bunch and have been sharing all of the wonderful activities that they like to take part in. We have devised our own HIIT routines and are using these frequently throughout the day. We have been reading and sequencing the story: Peace at Last. We are so thrilled with the effort that the children are putting into learning their sounds. They are developing their fine motor skills well during our Busy Fingers activities. Our new Doctor's Role Play area has been well visited this week.
Learning about Life at School
This week has been all about colours. Our story this week was “Brown Bear Brown Bear what do you see?”, we explored what colours Brown Bear could see, and then what we could see. We also had a go at retelling the sorry with our friends, ordering the animals in the story, introducing the terminology ‘next to’ when ordering the picture cards. We have explored different colours in the room, matched objects to the right colour and read lots of colourful stories. We have experimented with colour mixing with the rice pudding, and of course some messy hand painting.
This week our Caterpillars have been learning all things Monkleigh. We shared the story of Lulu's first day and talked about feelings and being happy and safe within the classroom. We set our own class rules and expectations. We have been looking at photos of the school staff and learning about lanyard safety. We have created our own beautiful class bunting and have been busy developing our fine motor skills by making friendship bracelets. Later on in the week we have been exploring colour mixing, we loved sharing the story of 'Mix it up' and interacting with the book, we then were able to use this book to get hands on with our learning to mix colours for ourselves which was so much fun. In maths we have also been exploring colours and have enjoyed matching them and going on hunts too!
Welcome Back to the New School Year!
🌻 Wow what a lovely start to the new school year. Sunflowers have spent their first week exploring the environment; developing our preferences for play; learning new routines, as well as amazing social skills. We've welcomed back old friends and been excited to make new ones too.
Our welcome back topic is all about Me and My Community. This week our Caterpillars have been thinking about their families. We have shared the story of 'Families families families'. We have created our own family trees, been drawing our families and doing some pet portraits! Some of the children have independently been making their pets from play dough too!
The Butterflies have made the best start to being at full time school! They are doing so well. We have been reading Super Duper Me and Dogger and have focused our learning on family. The children have used excellent communication skills to share their timeline scrapbooks from home and to talk about their homes and families. They are enjoying exploring the outside areas and getting stuck in with RWI.
