Pre-School 2025 - 2026

Welcome to Pre-School Summer Term 2 2025 

Date for your diary for Reception 2026 starters: Pre-School Graduation Thursday 2nd July 2:15pm in the school hall.

If your child is graduating from Pre-School this term then please look out for the letter listing all the details about our leaver’s celebration performance. You will receive a paper copy of this. Please complete the slip attached and return to us asap. 

We will be starting our second Summer Term topic 'Pond life...who's egg is it?' please enjoy looking at the topic web in the file section below.

We have lots to look forward to this half-term including two weeks with our hatching eggs and caring for the small chicks as they hatch! Our Chick eggs- arrive in Pre-School on Monday the 8th June, please complete the consent box on Scopay and your donation will gratefully be accepted.

• Routines, Reminders & Messages for Children starting Reception in September

  • Pre-School Graduation/Leavers Celebration - Thursday the 2nd of July at 2:15pm. You will receive further information about this via letter, all Pre-School children going up to Reception are invited to take part.
  • Graduation Photos- Look out for the letter and order form for your child's Graduation photo, we will be dressing each child in a hat and gown for the photo!
  • Move-Up Days - The children going to Reception in September will be spending some time with their new teachers this half-term.  They will visit on Wednesday 17^th of June, Thursday the 25th June and Wednesday 1^st of July.  All visits will take place during the school day
  • Book Bags- Last few weeks taking a new book home to read. Please look out for the memo when we will be requesting books back wk commencing the 7th of July and ensuring all news books are shared and returned to you.
  • Phase 1 Phonics- We will be learning about how to 'blend pure sounds' together to create each word we have segmented. We will learn how to blend them together to say the word. Each week I will add a list of words that we have been practising in our sessions, you will find this in your child's new phonics folder

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 8^th of June 2026

'This week we will explore...What is a chick?' 

Communication & Language:

This week we will discover a variety of new rhyming words and phrases through the story of 'Little Frog' by Wednesday Jones and Kitty Taylor. We will practise saying these rhyming words from the story: frog, log and bog, reeds and weeds, jelly and belly and so on. We will practise finishing the phrases of the story such as...'a happy hoppy frog'. We will also enjoy learning about the life cycle of a frog and the scientific names of each part.

We will ask questions about the hens’ eggs that have arrived at Pre-School and talk about the incubator and how it will keep our eggs warm while the chick's grow enough to be ready to hatch.

   Personal, Social & Emotional Development:

This week we will be practising using rainbow colours breathing to regulate and calm when we care feeling frustrated. We will use the strategy of breathing in the colour of yellow to paint a rainbow and repeat 'I am happy'. We will talk about how to be a team and how working together is making us all feel happy, maybe we could play with someone different and then achieve something new. 

Physical Development:

This half-term we will practise moving to music as we get ready for our leaver’s performance called 'Croak'. Each week we will listen to a different piece of music that depicts how frogs move, bees and dragonflies soar and ladybirds dance.  We will sing new songs and learn new actions. We can't wait for you to see it!

This week we will create our own rhyming page, cutting around the pictures from our rhyming game using the words frog, log and dog. We will focus on control to cut curved lines, turning our paper and checking the position on our hands and fingers. We will also enjoy creating frogspawn playdough, snipping and rolling to create tiny jelly looking balls to add to our Lilli pad cards. 

Literacy:

This week we will enjoy the story 'Little Frog'. We will focus on the information we collect from the story and begin to compare the stages of our frog as he grows. We will learn new words such as: Frogspawn, tadpole froglet and Lillipad. 

We will begin to learn how to write our names using handwriting pencils in our name writing booklets, which encourage starting at the top right-hand side of the page.

Phonics:

This week we will have lots of fun practising the sounds that letters make in our CVC words and practising bending the sounds together to read the word. Our game this week called 'happy frog' will use these words frog, log, bog, dog, jog. We will practise segmenting like this l-o-g then blend back together as we match the word to our picture cards. Please see the list of words provided for you to have fun with at home. Don't forget to pretend to be Metal Mike the robot to help you to 'sound talk' each word like this: d-o-g, then blend slowly like this....d....o...g to 'stretch out' the word first before repeating once again, 'dog!'

  Mathematics:

This week we will Continue AB patterns and create our own We will try to identify any errors in a pattern and show how to make it work. We will build constructions with simple enclosures for our special arrivals the chicks or think about nests and pens where hens lay their eggs as a starting point. We will enjoy the rhyming story Hen's Pens and look at the way she decorates her eggs with different patterns such as waves and zig zags and spots and dots. We will also create a plan of how we are going to build them and what sequence using language such as first, next and last of all.

    Understanding the World:

This week we will continue our research into pond life beginning with looking at the life of a frog, what their eggs look like and where they lay their eggs. We will learn about our hens’ eggs and discuss how they might hatch out of their eggs. What are the differences between hens’ eggs and frogs’ eggs and what do they look like when they are born?

   Expressive Arts & Design:

   Expressive Arts & Design:

This week we will enjoy comparing textures to discover the habitats of frogs and hens. We will make nests weaving with ribbon and string and add feathers to provide warmth and then enjoy getting sticky as we feel around in our messy tray challenge. Like frogs in a slimy pond. what does it feel like, can you find the frogspawn jelly? We will explore printing patterns and make pretty Lillipads.

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.