Our topic over the next half-term is called "Starry Skies"

We do this at this time of year for several reasons.

There are lots of festivals at this time of year that use light and dark as part of their celebrations.

The stars are particularly noticeable at this time of year.

But most importantly, all of a sudden the nights have drawn in,  it even gets dark as we are finishing school. Soon even the mornings will be dark too.

Lots of the children find the dark quite a scary thing and we want to provide a safe environment where they can talk abut their worries with each other and see that they are not alone in their fears about the dark.

Some stories in our topic are chosen to start conversations about whether they like to have a night light on because they are afraid of the dark or possibly worry about the shadows they see when the lights go off. This is part of their PSED curriculum (personal, social and emotional development) We always put the story on the website on the Friday before so that you can get to know the story too at home with your child and should they have any questions or worries you can let us know via tapestry. Mostly children find stories a comforting way to work through their fears but there are times when a story can worry them ... so just drop us a line on Tapestry or let us know when you see us in the morning  if your child has not responded well to the story. 

As you will see below........ even astronauts can be afraid of the dark.

This story was actually written by a real astronaut! Someone who has actually been into space and seen how dark it really is up there! As a child he was a little worried about the dark, so he thought he would write a story for all of the children who perhaps need a little help getting to sleep at night. Here he is reading his own book and introducing you to his dog Albert!

The sounds linked to the stories this week will be the single letters d and k found in the word dark.

I wonder if d d dinosaurs were afraid of the dark?

  

For the children learning "special friends"  we will focus on the Trigraph (three letters, one sound) "igh" This trigraph is used in lots of the words we will be introducing over the next few weeks such as  night, light, bright, sight, fright!

Our 5 minutes of movement each morning will be "Little Pluto"

Later in the week when we do Our PE lesson we will be reinforcing the letter d in our warm up. Why not have a go at home and get your exercise in.

 

Our signs of the week will all be about day and night.

 

For more information about our "Big Ideas' for this half-term take a look at our posters below.

They show you the knowledge we are going to be teaching the children. The enquiry questions that will lead the learning and the key Vocabulary that we will be teaching.

We are combining two projects "Starry Skies" and Sparkle and Shine"

For a clearer version scroll down to the bottom and open up the documents.