1. Summer Term 1 Curriculum Overview for Nursery Parents Old MacDonald had a farm? & Growing COMMUNICATION & LANGUAGE The children will: Listen to stories, poems, songs, chants and action rhymes about the farm, animals and growing Retell the following story: ‘What the ladybird heard’ by Julia Donaldson Can we role play this story…acting it out and children videoing it with Tuff Cam’s? Consider character feelings and thoughts in ‘What the Ladybird heard’, ‘Pig in the pond’ and ‘Farmer Duck’. Discuss the differences between animals and lifecycles. Be exposed to key vocabulary related to farm, animals, lifecycles and growing. Use boxes to set up a sound library with letters and objects that begin with those letters. The next letter sounds we are learning are; l, h, sh, r, j and v. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT– The children will: Identify changes to their bodies during rest and exercise Move in a variety of ways such as slithering, shuffling, rolling, crawling, jumping, skipping, sliding and hopping. They will explore moving like a variety of animals; galloping like a horse, rolling (in mud) like a pig, slithering like a snake etc. MATHEMATICS Numbers The children will: Say number names in order, 1 to 10 and beyond. To recognise the numerals 1-5 To show an interest in number problems. Begin to represent numbers on paper such as in a tally chart; how many cows, sheep etc can we see? Draw animals and begin to write a number to represent how many there are. Shapes, Space & Measures The children will: Use everyday language to talk about the sizes of animals; big, medium, small and build up the language of comparison bigger and smaller. To look at the colour of animals and how they compare. To begin to talk about the shapes of objects they see; ‘round’ and ‘tall’. EXPRESSIVE ARTS & DESIGN The children will: Role play visiting our farm shop to buy food, talking about where the food comes from. Make some animal footprints using paint, chalk, mud etc. Grow their own plants from seeds and bulbs, exploring which grow the best plants; sand, soil, play dough, water etc. Build their own farms using a variety of constructions materials. Role play the stories of ‘What the ladybird heard’, ‘Pig in the pond’, ‘Farmer Duck’. Make a map of the farm just like the one in the book ‘What the ladybird heard’. Make a healthy picnic to take on a farm trip. WRITING The children will: Make a story map of ‘What the ladybird heard’ also walking through the story map and using actions to retell the story. Take part in Shared Writing e.g. Write a list of things needed for our farm visit; to develop our farm shop and letters to characters from our key books. Write speech bubbles for a variety of sounds made by animals Write invitations to visit our farm in the outdoor area. Write labels and prices of foods for our farm shop Continue to practice writing letter sounds and our names in a variety of media; sand, paint, mud, chalk etc. READING The children will: Read and explore a variety of fiction and non-fiction books about farms, animals, growing and lifecycles. Children can choose a book to take home weekly from our class library. PERSONAL SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT The children will: Co-operate, take turns, explore and talk about our visit to the farm (25/4/16). Talk about and share their experiences of animals in their home and those they experienced at the farm: Which animal is their favourite and why? Do they have any farm animals at home which they could bring in? UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD The children will: Find out about farm animals using non-fiction books, the internet – by visiting the Stockley Farm website on the PC/I pad How is a farm different to a zoo: think about when we did the ‘Dear Zoo’ book, how do the animals differ? Compare similarities and differences. What are baby animals called? (piglet, calf, lamb, kid) We will look at the lifecycle of a caterpillar (linked to ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ story book. Find out about St George- Is he alive now? Who is he? (St. George’s day 23 rd April) The children will celebrate the Queen’s Birthday, by joining in with a big school garden party on 10 th June. Where does she live? How old is she? Who is she? Our Christian Value this half term is: forgiveness The children will explore what it means to forgive their friends when they have upset them.