Welcome to Foundation Stage at Hillsborough Primary.

Many thanks to all families who came to our maths activity session, I hope you all enjoyed it, the feedback you gave us was very positive, thank you for taking the time to complete this it is much appreciated. 

Also a big thank you for your continued support in raising funds for the Sheffield Children's Hospital Charity and wearing red for Valentines day.  Our next event will be a sponsored walk on April 20th. 

We are hoping after this event we will have enough money to have the bear to decorate.  We have put in a bid to win an artist for the day to help us design and decorate our bear,  fingers crossed!

Once completed this bear will be on show somewhere within the city as part of Bears of Sheffield trail before beings returned to school.  

Our next charity event to raise money for the Sheffield Children's Hospital takes place on

Friday 14th February.

Please wear something red and bring £1 to donate to our chosen charity.

Our maths workshop is Wednesday 12th February.

All parents, carers, grandparents, aunts and uncles welcome.

9am to 10am.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended the 'Christmas sing along.'  It was lovely to all be together with the children and singing together.  Thank you for the donations it is much appreciated.  We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Many thanks to all the parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles who attended our Christmas mark-making and writing workshop.

Thank you also for all the lovely feedback you gave us in the questionnaires, we are grateful to you for taking the time to complete these, your feedback is important to us and we do act on any findings.  Once again thank you very much.

We all hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

                                                  18^th-22^nd November 2019

 Our ‘Rhyme a Day’ challenge will focus on each rhyme in the following order:

• • Monday 18th November: ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.
• • Tuesday 19th November: ‘Down in the Jungle’.
• • Wednesday 20th November: ‘Incy Wincy Spider’.
• • Thursday 21st November: ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’.
• • Friday 22nd November: ‘Two Little Dickie Birds’.

We will be sending home an activity related to the focus rhyme of the day

Happy Nursery Rhyme Week!

The Foundation team

In class Huntsman and Sorby we have been learning all about Autumn.  We have been exploring lots of different 'Autumn treasures' which we have collected after school and brought in to share with our friends.  We have been thinking about lots of different words to do with Autumn and having a go at hearing the initial sound and writing it down.  We went on an Autumn walk in Hillsborough Park and all had a little bag each to collect natural objects.  We loved talking about them when we got back and using them to make an Autumn picture.  We founds lots of conkers, leaves and acorns of all different colours and sizes.  

FS2

You are invited to observe a phonics session in your child's class.

please see your personal invitation for the date and time.

Nursery Stay and Play

Please see personal invitation for date and time.

Hello

We hope you all had a smashing summer.

We want to say welcome back to all our returning children and a big welcome to all children new to Hillsborough.  We hope you have a great time whilst you are with us in FS!

Parents, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to speak to a member of the team.

A really big thank you to all our parents that have supported their children with the sponsored walk for Sheffield Children's Hospital.

The children raised a whopping:

 £1070.50.

We are all very proud of our children and glad we could support such a worthy cause.

Well done everyone!

Our sponsored walk in aid of Sheffield Children's Hospital 

will take place on Wednesday 22nd May 2019

Evil Pea was on the loose!!

In Class 1 and 2, we read Supertato.  We met the characters and saw evidence that Evil Pea had caused trouble around the classroom and had trapped the other veggies! It was the children's job to write sentences to describe Evil Pea.  The children's writing helped Supertato to catch Evil Pea and send him back to the freezer!  

Well done Class 1 and 2, now the veggies are safe again!

In Class 1 and 2 we have been looking at dinosaurs for our topic.  We showed the children a video of a dinosaur and we explained that it had escaped from a time machine and was somewhere around the school! Based on the evidence that was left behind by the dinosaur, the children wrote descriptive sentences using their phonics knowledge to help the scientist find it!

Good work Class 1 and 2!

You are invited to a stay and play session in nursery on

Tuesday 19th March or Thursday 21st March between 

9 am and 10 am.

We hope you can attend.

Maths fun day

Many thanks to all parents/carers who stayed for our maths fun session.  Also thank you to all who completed our questionnaire, the feedback was very positive.

Maths fun day

Please come and join us on 13th February between 9am - 10am for lots of fun maths activities to do with your child.

A very Merry Christmas

and a 

Happy New Year to all our families.

See you all on 7th January.

A great big thank you and well done to all the children for their performance of

'We're going on a Christmas Hunt'.  

We're Going on a Christmas Hunt

FS are proud to present

'We're Going on a Christmas Hunt' 

on:

Monday 10.12.18 @ 10.30

Wednesday 12.12.18 @ 9.15 - sold out

Friday 14.12.18 @ 2.15

Many thanks to all the mums, dads and grandparents that came to our workshop, it was lovely to see so many people.  Your feedback is important to us, we really appreciate everyone who took the time to complete our questionnaire. 

Christmas Craft Workshop

We are hosting our Christmas craft/literacy workshop on 4th December 9am until 10am.  Please come and spend time with your child trying out all the different activities and also make something to sell at our Christmas Fayre. We are looking forward to seeing you all.

We now have the new reading books in school for home /school reading. 

We would love you to take them home to enjoy with your grown up but remember to look after them and bring them back to school to change and so you can share them with your friends.

Please bring in your reading record every week so that your teacher can make sure you are reading the right level and note this in your record.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who stayed for our stay and play this week.  We all had a great fun.  Your feedback is extremely important to us so thank you again for taking the time to complete this.  We are planning to host another Stay and Play on 19th and 21st of March, please come and join us.  

This week the children have all been making poppies to fasten onto the school gates in remembrance of all the people and animals that lost their lives in the World Wars.  We also asked children to dress in red and staff in black to recreate a human poppy in the yard.

Calling all nursery parents!

Please come to our Stay and Play session on either Tuesday 13th November @ 9am or Thursday 15th November @ 9am

There will be lots of fun to be had!

Thank you to all parents who attended the Early Reading Workshop, we hope we gave you an insight of how to help your child at home with early reading skills.

Useful Links to try at home.

http://www.ictgames.com/writingRepeater/

This is a handy tool to use with your child to show them how to form letters correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R087lYrRpgY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMyssfAUx0

A handy song to help your child learn their high frequency words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJdn6sbbsk

These songs are the songs we sing in class to help the children remember their phonic sounds and letters that represent them.

Phase 4 phonics

Children entering Phase Four will be able to represent each of 42 phonemes by a grapheme, and be able to blend phonemes to read CVC words and segment CVC words for spelling. They will have some experience in reading simple two-syllable words and captions. They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some tricky words.

The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words.

The teaching materials in this phase provide a selection of suitable words containing adjacent consonants. These words are for using in the activities – practising blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. This is not a list to be worked through slavishly but to be selected from as needed for an activity.

It must always be remembered that phonics is the step up to word recognition. Automatic reading of all words – decodable and tricky – is the ultimate goal.

What is Phase Three Phonics?

Children entering Phase Three will know around 19 letters and be able to blend phonemes to read words and segment words to spell from Phase Two.

The purpose of this phase is to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa). These are called digraphs. They will also learn others comprising of three letters. These are called trigraphs.

Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation in this phase and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions. They will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and also begin to learn to spell some of these words.

It must always be remembered that phonics is the step up to word recognition. Automatic reading of all words – decodable and tricky – is the ultimate goal.

Have a go at the game below at home and don't forget, you can still use 'Phonics Play' and click on Phase 3.

The Dinosaurs Eggs- Listen for the word you need to find and press on the egg above that word. Only choose sounds on numbers 1 - 17 for phase 3.

What is Phase 2 phonics?

The purpose of this phase is to teach 23 of the letter sounds, mainly the single sounds and move children on from oral blending and segmenting to blending and segmenting with letters.  By the end of the phase many children should be able to read some VC and CVC words and spell them. They will also learn some 'tricky words'. Tricky words are words that can’t be sounded out such as: the, to, no and go.

Have a go at these games at home:

Machine - Look at the picture and then match the correct word to it, simple!

Letters and sounds pop - Choose the set of phonemes you want to play with first of all. One of them will show up in the bottom right of the screen and you will hear its sound. All you have to do is click on the bubbles with the required letter, trying to make sure that they fall into the grey catching zone. Every 30 seconds you will get a new phoneme to catch. Only use the first 4 games for phase 2, the rest are for phase 3!

Phonics play- This is a link to the phase 2 menu page on phonics play. Buried Treasure - A game from phonics play. Children have to read the words and then decide whether they are real or made up. Real words go in the treasure chest and made up words go in the bin! The children will have played this many times before so should be experts at it!  This is just one game from this website, have a look at the others.

What is phase 1 phonics?

Phase One of Letters and Sounds concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills.  

Phase 1 is divided into seven aspects. Each aspect contains three strands: Tuning in to sounds (auditory discrimination), Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) and Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension).

It is intended that each of the first six aspects should be dipped into, rather than going through them in any order, with a balance of activities. Aspect 7 will usually come later, when children have had plenty of opportunity to develop their sound discrimination skills.

The 7 aspects are:a
Aspect 1 - General sound discrimination - environmental - The aim of this aspect is to raise children's awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills. Activities suggested in the guidance include going on a listening walk, drumming on different items outside and comparing the sounds, playing a sounds lotto game and making shakers.

Aspect 2 - General sound discrimination - instrumental sounds - This aspect aims to develop children's awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers. Activities include comparing and matching sound makers, playing instruments alongside a story and making loud and quiet sounds.

Aspect 3 - General sound discrimination - body percussion - The aim of this aspect is to develop children's awareness of sounds and rhythms. Activities include singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary.

Aspect 4 - Rhythm and rhyme - This aspect aims to develop children's appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech. Activities include rhyming stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the syllables in words and odd one out.

Aspect 5 - Alliteration - The focus is on initial sounds of words, with activities including I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound.

Aspect 6 - Voice sounds - The aim is to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting. Activities include Metal Mike, where children feed pictures of objects into a toy robot's mouth and the teacher sounds out the name of the object in a robot voice - /c/-/u/-/p/ cup, with the children joining in.

Aspect 7 - Oral blending and segmenting - In this aspect, the main aim is to develop oral blending and segmenting skills. To practise oral blending, the teacher could say some sounds, such as /c/-/u/-/p/ and see whether the children can pick out a cup from a group of objects. For segmenting practise, the teacher could hold up an object such as a sock and ask the children which sounds they can hear in the word sock.

The activities introduced in Phase 1 are introduced in nursery and are intended to continue throughout the following phases, as lots of practice is needed before children will become confident in their phonic knowledge and skills.

Hello to all our returning children and a warm welcome to our new children in FS. We have a exciting year of learning ahead!

Please take a look at the website for information, news and the children's learning, we look forward to seeing you in FS at our future open days, watch this space.

Nursery Sports Afternoon

On Friday afternoon, nursery held a mini sports afternoon within our outdoor area. We had lots of fun playing games and running races. All of the children tried really hard and had a go at all of the activities on offer. We were very proud of our friends taking part and gave them all a big clap and a cheer at the end of their races.

A big thank you to all the parents and carers who joined us for our sponsored walk this morning.  We had to postpone this event in March due to the weather but today the sun shone for us.

How does your garden grow?

Children in FS1 have been very busy in the garden. We have been learning all about what plants need to grow, how to care for them properly and why it is important to take away all of the weeds. We have even made our very own grass caterpillar. We looked at how the seeds are now and compared them to what they will eventually grow into. We can't wait to see it when it's ready! In the meantime, we have to make sure we water our grass caterpillar regularly and keep it safe from creatures that might like to eat it!

Fun in Foundation at Cannon Hall Farm.

Wow! What a fantastic day we had at Cannon Hall Farm.

All of the children had a brilliant time and even the sunshine made an appearance during the day!

Thank you to all of the parents who were able to join us on the day, you were a big help!

Please take a look at some of the photographs from our lovely day.

SPORTS RELIEF 2018

FS1 and FS2 had fun doing our usual run in the morning, only a little bit longer and the Nursery joined in with the fun!

Billy's Camera by Local Author Wendy Scott.

FS enjoyed a visit from Local author Wendy Scott and the characters from her story Billy's Camera.

As part of out world book day celebrations local author Wendy Scott came into school to read her story, Billy's Camera, to all the children.  It was so lovely to hear the story read by the person who had written it!  Wendy was able to share with us how she created the story and came up with the ideas for the illustrations, some of which ended up in her book.  It was such an exciting experience, we hope that she will be back soon to share her next story.

A really BIG thank you to all parents who attended our maths workshop this morning, the children really enjoyed all the activities and sharing these with you. 

Please spare a moment to take a look at the photographs from the event.

People Who Help Us

This term we have been learning all about people who help us. 

This week we have been focusing on The Police and what they do in the community to help us. 

Today we had a visitor PC Mitchell. PC Mitchell was able to take some time out from his busy day to come and talk to the children in Foundation. 

Today we had a visit from somebody very special in Foundation Stage, Father Christmas!

We were very grateful that he took the time to visit, as we know he is very busy at this time of year!

Calling all Parents and Carers!

We are selling raffle tickets to win a wonderful hamper containing all your festive favourites.

Prizes for 2nd and 3rd prize are also on offer.

Tickets available before and after school from anyone in the Foundation team.

All funds raised will go towards the unit.

Remember you've got to be in it to win it!

Our Christmas literacy workshop.

We had lots of fun at our Christmas workshop this year.

Thanks to all parents and carers who were able to join us for this enjoyable event.

Here are some pictures of our festive fun.

Merry Christmas from the Foundation Stage team.

I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man, that's me!

Children across foundation stage have enjoyed learning all about the story Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. We have read and retold the story to help us learn the structure of events and repeated phrases. We also enjoyed singing lots of Stick Man songs. We have loved it! Stick Man has helped us to develop our learning in lots of areas across the provision. We have been very busy. Have a look at some of our pictures below 

FS2 Trip - Music in the Round

On the 7th November, children from Class 1 and Class 2 enjoyed a visit to the Crucible theatre in Sheffield city centre. There they took part in the Music in the Round's school concert event 'Stan and Mabel and the Race for Space.' The children worked hard at school practising a range of songs and actions to form a musical orchestra to accompany this story. On the big day, their performance was amazing! We were very proud of their hard work and fantastic behaviour. Well done FS2! 

We are holding our Christmas workshop on

WEDNESDAY 6th

at 9 am

We would love you all to attend.

Welcome Back to FS1

A very warm welcome back to all our children in FS1 . We hope you had a lovely half term holiday  and are looking forward to lots more exciting learning opportunities to come. We are incredibly proud of the achievements our children made last half term and how well they settled into the routines at nursery.

Here are some photographs to share all of the busy things we have been doing. 

Gardening in FS1

This week in FS1 we have enjoyed looking after our foundation garden. First we weeded all the flower beds to make sure there was room for our new plants. We planted bulbs such as daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops. We talked about what plants need to help them grow. We understood that, like us, plants need food and water to grow and lots of sunshine. We can't wait to see our flowers in the spring time!

A big welcome to all the returning children and new children to our Foundation stage!  The children have been making new friends and learning about the routines in the setting.  We have had lots of fun exploring new resources.  In the Summer holidays we were very lucky to have a fabulous new climbing frame, sand pit and flooring installed.  The children have loved climbing and exploring the climbing frame and have had lots of fun.    

Thank you to all of you who sponsored our children for the 'sponsored mile.'  You helped to raise £430.  This is a picture of some of the resources for your children which we have bought with the money.  

A big thank you from everyone in the foundation stage!

Maths workshop

In Nursery some children have been involved in some Maths workshops.  We decided to have a trip to Asda and do some shopping for ingredients so the children could have a picnic.  On the way to Asda we had a number hunt and parents helped children record what numbers they could see.  We could spot lots of numbers in shop windows and on car registration plates.  When the children arrived at Asda they each had a list of things to buy.  The children loved finding the food on their list and then paying for it themselves at the till.  Back at Nursery we made sandwiches, fruit salads and decorated biscuits.  We used lots of language around size and shape and encouraged lots of counting whilst cutting sandwiches and slicing fruit.      

Cannon Hall farm

We all had a fabulous time at Cannon Hall Farm, we saw lots of different animals from meerkats, to reindeer along with many farm animals.  The lady told us that some of the piglets we saw had only been born that morning!   She also showed us the cow that provided us with milk and one that gave us cream, we saw llamas, alpacas as well as goats and a donkey. After the farm tour it was time for lunch (which we all wanted the minute the coach set off from school really) .  After lunch we had the chance to play in the adventure play area before getting back onto the coach to head back to school.  We were all exhausted, the children were pretty tired too!

Even more children completed the reading challenge this week, either book 1 or book 2, keep up the great reading FS2!

Well done.

Cannon Hall Farm

FS2 are all excited (teachers too) to be visiting Cannon Hall Farm tomorrow, we have been looking at pictures of some animals we might see whilst we're there.  I'm hoping to see some piglets like in the photograph below.  Please make sure you are all at school on time tomorrow so we can set off on our adventure!

FS2 Reading Challenge

A massive well done to all the children that have already completed the first reading challenge booklet.  We hope you like the reward that you chose.  We look forward to you completing the second and many more children gaining their rewards too!

READING CHALLENGE

Sleep Workshop

Many thanks to the parents that attended the sleep workshop, we hope you found it useful, please see the presentation uploaded below.

Happy and Proud 

Just a reminder to all parents that we now have a basket containing happy and proud cards.  We would really love you to fill them in and bring them back to us with all the great things your children have been doing.  Please help yourself to these cards at the beginning of the day. 

Thank you 

Easter baking fun!

The children had lots of fun making their chocolate Easter nests.  They enjoyed doing lots of mixing and pouring and sharing the bowls of yummy chocolate cornflakes with each other.  The children learnt about how we melt chocolate and why we needed to do it to make the nests.  They then decorated the nests with little chocolate eggs.  

'Mile a day' event

On Thursday 9th March 2017 Foundation 2 did our sponsored run around Hillsborough Park.

We all had fun and at the end of the day each child received a certificate for taking part.

Here are some photos 

Thank you all for your support, please could you ensure that you return your sponsor money by Friday 24th March.

Thank You 

The Foundation Team

Maths Workshop

A big thank you to everyone who attended the maths workshop, a good time was had by all.  The feedback we received from you was very positive and we will run another next school year.  A suggestion was made by a parents for a session around bedtime and sleep so watch this space....

We just want to remind all parents and carers that we walk/run every morning and that you are welcome to join us. Remember we are aiming to do a sponsored run before Easter!

A really BIG thank you to all parents that attended the Christmas Literacy workshop on November 30th.

A fun time was had by all, we have never seen so much glitter!!!

The feedback from the questionnaires were brilliant, thank you so much.  We are thinking that next time we could use the back room or the snack room to spread the activities out so that it doesn't feel so busy.

FOUNDATION STAGE 1

Rhyme workshop 2016

This year we are running the Raising Early Achievement in Literacy Project with some of our new starters in nursery. We invited the children along with their parents to a workshop based on rhyme.

We set up activities for the children to learn about rhyme in a fun way.Here are some photo's of the children engaging in the activities.

We had lots of fun at the session and we would like to say a BIG thank you to the parents who came along and joined in with the activities and our singing.

See you all soon at the next workshop!

A great big welcome to all our children,

we hope you all had a great summer.

We are sending home little paper bags for the children to bring objects and souvenirs from their holiday time. It could be something as simple as a sweet wrapper, a train ticket or a photograph. The idea being that we have plenty to talk about to feed into our writing after the holidays.

Teachers will be taking a bag as well.

Don't forget to bring them in on the first Monday back.

Have a nice rest!

A Massive well done to all the staff in Foundation staff for achieving the Sheffield Charter for Quality in the Early Years award for the 4th year running.

Thank you for all your hard work and commitment to our children.

Mrs Tewson 

We have been able to improve our  “water area”  with plants and metal objects  that we have bought with the money you generously  donated to us on the sponsored sing –a-long during the Christmas period.

Remember you can email any home learning and photographs of your child that you would like us to put in their learning journey to contribute to their learning in FS this year. The email address is:

                fs@hillsborough.sheffield.sch.uk

Hi, Please see the link below to the Jack and the Beanstalk story we are reading in class.

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories/jack-and-the-beanstalk 

Children in Class 1 and Class 2 have enjoyed our "Linked Provision" activities.

Happy and Proud

Dear Parents/carers,

.  Each week we will send home a happy and proud card, we are asking you to fill this in telling us something that you are happy and/or proud about that your child has done that week.  It might be something very simple like remembering to brush their teeth without being reminded, helping to tidy their bedroom etc.  We will put this into a new section in your child’s learning journey and will help us to make the judgements against the Characteristics of Learning and the Early Learning Goals at the end of the year.

Class 2 - Miss Watts

Our PE day is Tuesday, please can you make sure your child has their PE kit in school.  Thank you.

Class 1 - Mrs Sanchez

Please note our PE day is Monday, please make sure you have your PE kit in school.  Thank you.

Welcome to FS2, it's really great to see you all after the summer holidays.  We hope you have a wonderful time with us!

Foundation linked provision

In foundation we have introduced Linked Provision every morning. We chose an area to focus on and the children rotate around the areas during the week to practise their skills for about ten minutes each day.

We identified that the children need practise in fine motor skills to help them to control a pencil, so......we have been thinking up some exciting ways to motivate the children! 

such as,

• estimating how many elastic bands are around a cork, unwrappimg them and counting them.
• threading Cheerio's onto pipe cleaners, we can then feed the birds with these.
• colouring pasta using felt tips
• picking up pompoms with pegs how many can you get in the container in 1 minute?
• cave writing

As you can see these activities not only develop fine motor skills ready for writing but also have cross curricular links with other areas of the curriculum.