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 20th of April 2026

'This week we will learn all about Caterpillars

Communication & Language:

This week we will enjoy learning new words in relation to caterpillars and in particular the different stages of growth that happens during a caterpillar’s journey to a butterfly. The type of butterfly that we will study is the Painted Lady. We will all enjoy the story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and through this story we will practise the names of the days of the week and discuss what the caterpillar eats each day.

   Personal, Social & Emotional Development:

This week we will begin to relate my emotions, such as sad/happy/angry to emotions cards, to begin to communicate about how I am feeling. We will explore the ‘Relax kids process of Meerkat teddy –freezing to think before a reaction-’how do I feel, then how to process’, can I pause before I make an action?

Physical Development:

This week we will be practising using bats and balls and extending or throwing and catching skills. We will have lots of fun exploring the field area and begin to use the field to race and skip and jump and hop around.

We will also be starting new pencil challenges, choosing a dominant hand to practise making letter shapes to correspond to the letter sounds that we have been learning. This week we will try the letters in our phonics rhymic challenge work booklet. This booklet can be found in your child's Book Bag each week.

Literacy:

This week we will enjoy the delightful story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. We will focus on how the caterpillar grows and changes and how much he eats every day. We will enjoy the funny parts together and discuss how some foods that the caterpillar eats are sweet treats and some are much healthier.

We will be focussing on moving across the page of a book from left to right and begin to predict what comes next in the story using our knowledge of the days of the week. We will begin to notice some familiar graphemes in the words in this story, focussing on hearing and saying the letter sounds s, a and t, to begin with. 

Phonics:

This week we will have lots of fun exploring how to make the pure sound 'u’: to make this sound correctly you need your mouth to open wide softly, place your tongue central and make the sound quickly with the air when you breath out, voices on in the throat area.  We will enjoy playing our I spy game together as we say many words such as under, umbrella, up and many more. We will start our new games this term using rhyming words to make a chain. Our words this week are; run, fun, sun, bun. Practise segmenting each word into its individual sounds s-u-n, then blend together ‘sun’. What other words can you think of to add to the rhyming chain?

  Mathematics:

This week we will complete our exploration of a wide range of nursery rhymes by joining in with action sequences and songs and sing rhymes independently. We will recall on familiar repeating stories such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear and copy art-based simple patterns such as grids and circular patterns. We will also explore our own line and repeating patterns in art using the Elmer the Elephant story pictures and paintings by Henry Matisse.

    Understanding the World:

This week we will explore the fields and forest around us to look for different minibeast habitats. We will learn about caterpillars and go on a caterpillar hunt.

   Expressive Arts & Design:

This week we will enjoy collaging and cutting and sticking a variety of patterns for our caterpillar pictures. We will role-play with insects and small world minibeast creatures.  We will also enjoy dressing up as minibeasts explorers to hunt for eggs on leaves and signs of ladybird larvae too!

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.