Pre-School 2025 - 2026

Welcome to Pre-School Summer Term 1 2026  

Welcome Back! We hope that you have enjoyed your Easter break together. This week we will be starting our first Summer topic 'Minibeasts and the Natural World' please enjoy looking at the topic web in the file section below.

We have lots to look forward to this half-term including all our walks around the school grounds and our minibeast hunts talking place in the woods and field areas of school and our mini Pre-School garden.

Routines, Reminders & Messages for Children starting Reception 2026: 

• Tapestry – If you have not yet sent any family photos or photos of special times for your child then we would love to share them in class. Please upload a photo of your child’s family as soon as you can, thanks so much!  

• Book Bags – Please look out for your child's book bag day. Each week we will continue to add a new letter and sound to explore and practise togteher.

• Reading for Pleasure' books - Your child will choose a 'Reading for Pleasure' every week.  These are lovely books for you to share with your child at home and are wonderful as a bedtime story or snuggling up on the sofa to read together. These books are also changed on your child's specific Book-Bag Day and again we have a limited supply, so would appreciate your support in ensuring they are returned on time to be available to be chosen by another child.  

• Phase 1 Phonics- We will be learning about how to hear and say sounds at the beginning of words. We will start with letter s and work on a new letter each week will follow. Each week you will receive a small poster with instructions on how to model the pure sound and practise new words at home together. 

• Lunches - You may change lunch option at any time for your child so if you wish to switch to a school lunch provided by our kitchen, please do not hesitate to let us know, an order form and menu can be obtained online or from the school office.   

• Passwords - We require a password for every child. If you have not provided a password on your registration form, then please inform myself or Miss Moss at drop-off or pick-up time so that we can update our records. Also, if there are any changes to normal collection routines, please let us know on the day or contact the school office.  

• Tapestry Learning Journey - If you are new to Tapestry as a family then please look out for an email with instructions on how to get started by the end of this week. If your child has an older sibling and you already have an Tapestry login then please reactivate your previous account, it will be accessible by the end of this week. If your child attends another setting we can share accounts with the other setting with your permission. If your child had a previous account at another setting then we can continue their Learning Journey by accessing a Key Code from the manager, please contact your previous setting and ask the manager to email Rode Heath Admin with the key code and we can then transfer the data to our Pre-School. As always, please let us know if you have any problems.

Week Commencing: Monday 13th of April 2026

'This week we explore how to look out for signs of Spring' 

Communication & Language:

This week we will talk lots about what we got up to over the school break, the Easter Bunny and the bluebells and blossom around us. This week we will enjoy learning new words in relation to springtime such as bulb, shoot, petals and stems. We will enjoy exploring the repetitive phrases and the phrases that rhyme in the story 'Walking through the Jungle' by Julie Lancome. It will be exciting to add movements and sounds as we perform this story with a melody. What can I see? Is it a lion chasing after me?

   Personal, Social & Emotional Development:

This week we will also have lots of fun playing a game called ‘Easter Bunny Where are you?’. We will sit in a circle, the Easter Bunny will sit in the middle and close their eyes and listen carefully to try to guess who has said ‘Easter Bunny, where are you?’.

Physical Development:

This week we will enjoy following the movements through the story. We will wade through the jungle, hop, skip and stamp through the jungle and follow a rhythm as we do it. We will also be creating petal shapes with playdough to make flower pictures, using the cutters and playdough knives.

We have been so impressed with everyone's progress with their cutting skills, so using our dominant hand, we will try to hold the scissors using the correct finger positioning, thumb at the top and cut along a straight line. We will choose three pictures, to add a challenge the pictures have to then be placed linked to the correct starting sound of the word, i.e. s for snake, a for apple, and t for tap. Let's see if we can complete the challenge.

Literacy:

This week we will enjoy the delightful rhyming story of 'Walking Through the Jungle' by Julie Lancome. The children will really enjoy this funny and playful story that not only rhymes but adds little extra fun with opportunity for making individual animal sounds and acting out the story as if we were in the jungle. We will be focussing on moving across the page of a book from left to right and begin to discover how rhyming sounds work in words...can we repeat those rhyming phrases? We will begin to notice some familiar graphemes in the words in this story, focussing on the letter s, a and t, to begin matching pure sounds to its corresponding grapheme. Can we remember what action or sounds comes next in the story?

Phonics:

This week we will have lots of fun exploring how to make the pure sound 'c’, using our tongue correctly pushed up at the back of our mouths. We will enjoy playing our I spy game together as we say many words such as caterpillar, cat,cup and many more. We hope you enjoy playing eye spy together!

  Mathematics:

This week we will practise sorting items and comparing them. We will begin to use the terminology of a collection. Can we collect all the bean bags, can we collect all the different types of fruit for the Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet. In this counting story the children will use the finger puppet to help the caterpillar to count each piece that he has collected. We will also enjoy playing tea parties and collect plates and cups and recognise when two plates are the same. We will also challenge each other to find large and small examples of different play eqipment such as balls.

    Understanding the World:

This week we will learn to recognise that the season has changed to Springtime. We will explore the fields and forest around us and look for many signs of spring including shoots and buds and leaves beginning to open. We will learn about blossom and what is special about fruit trees. We will also begin our new sequence of learning about Minibeasts and their habitat, starting with spiders and their webs.

   Expressive Arts & Design:

We will paint a variety of different sized sponges and explore two particular colours, white and red to create a beautiful pink blossom picture. We will role play with jungle animals and small world minibeast creatures. We will practise weaving webs like Incy Wincy, with a variety of ribbon and wool.

We know that the first few weeks at Pre-School can be a bit of a scary time, even for mums and dads! If you have any worries then please come and talk to us- mornings at the door can be a bit busy but we have more time to talk at the end of the day. Please email the office directly if you would like a phone call or a meeting.

Our door is always open, please contact us for help at any time.  At busy times, please telephone to leave a message or email and we will respond as soon as we can.