Author: Mrs Wood

We hope you all enjoyed the long weekend.

This week we will be continuing our mini-topic on minibeasts and the children will be going on a bug-hunt outside.

Phonics

The children will be learning to read longer words including compound words such as; laptop, marching, popcorn. 

We are really noticing a difference in the children’s reading and there is a great deal of enthusiasm for our reading practise sessions.

Please continue to read the ebooks your child has been assigned.

Maths

This week, the children will continue to develop their subitising skills (seeing the quantity without counting) in increasingly complex arrangements. Subitising is an essential feature when developing number sense. It can support the children’s understanding of cardinality (the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether), and it will also help them to identify groups and units in a repeating pattern.

Don’t forget to use Numbots at home!

Junior Leadership Team

This week we are holding elections for the Junior Leadership Team. Two representatives from each class are chosen democratically by their peers, but Reception are not yet represented this year.

It’s time for children to consider if they would like to stand for election for the Junior Leadership Team(JLT)

Elections will take place on Thursday 5 May. Candidates will have the opportunity to give their election speech to their class on Tuesday 3 May and Wednesday 4 May.

If your child would like to be a junior leader, please help them to prepare a short speech.

What makes a good junior leader has been considered by our current Junior Leadership Team.

‘use all the 8 Rs for learning’
‘be respectful’
‘help others’
‘be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)’
‘tell the truth’
‘be confident with your ideas’
‘accept the views of others even if you don’t agree’
‘be friendly and approachable’
‘make good choices in class and around school’

Hints for your speech include:

What skills and abilities would a good school councillor have?
What are you particularly good at that would help you to be a great school councillor?
What do you think would make the school better?
What could you do that people would really like?
Think of things that are realistic, maybe that you could do yourself, rather than having to ask other people to do

Good luck to all children who decide to stand in the elections.

 

Welcome back. We hope you had a great Easter break.

This term in Reception our theme is, ‘Life on Earth’.

Our learning will include;

Mini-beasts
Children love a bug hunt! This term, we’ll be hunting for bugs and finding out all about them. As a scientist, your child will observe how various creatures develop from butterflies to frogs. Using books and ICT, they will also use their investigation skills to find out more about bugs that are all around us. Your child will also be use their imagination to create their own mini-beasts. Children will work together to design their own mini-beast hotels.
Your child will study the artist Alexander Calder and create their own representation of his butterfly work.

Amazing animals
Where does a tiger come from? In this theme, your child will find out! We’ll find out where our favourite animals originate, finding the country on the map. We’ll look at its environment and your child consider how it is different from where we live. As an artist, your child will mix colours to create an animals’ camouflage patterns. They’ll create their own landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and they’ll create their own scenarios and storylines for their play.

Me and my body
We want our school to be a happy and healthy place at all times. Keeping healthy is the key message in this theme. Your child will learn how important exercise is and how our body feels during and after we exercise. They’ll learn about eating healthily and why this is important; they’ll become aware of the importance of five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Your child will try new fruit and vegetables and prepare simple healthy foods. They’ll find out how important it is to brush their teeth and what happens if we don’t. As an artist, your child will learn to draw a face and then a figure with increasing detail.

Phonics

We will continue following Little Wandle revised Letters and Sounds. The children will be learning to read longer words, compound words and words with adjacent consonants.

PE

For the rest of the term, PE will return to Wednesday and Friday.

 

 

The children have been busy planting seeds and bulbs in our outside area. We have planted beans, sunflowers and a selection of different herbs.

Phonics

This week the children will be reading longer words such as carrot, ladder, bigger and rabbit. They will be practising blending words in their head using the digraphs and trigraphs; ai ee igh oa oo oo ar or ur ow oi ear air er .

Maths

This week, the children will use practical contexts to sort objects according to different criteria. They will be encouraged to notice different attributes in groups of objects – such as colour, size or function – and to describe what they notice.  They will apply their sorting skills to numbers and investigate ways to sort Numberblocks. By using their knowledge of doubles, they will begin to practically explore even and odd numbers.

Have a great Easter break!

Last week we visited Moortown Park to look for signs of Spring. After a walk around the park we enjoyed some time on the playground. Back in the classroom, the children drew maps of our journey.

Literacy

Our focus book this week is ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children will retell the story and learn about traditional tales.

We will be planting beans and sunflowers and tidying up our outside area.

Maths

This week the children will be learning to recognise and talk about doubles within 10.

We will be using the stem sentence, ‘4 is made of 2 and 2. Double 2 is 4.’

Phonics

We are continuing to learn to read words with digraphs (two letters making one sound). This week our words will include the digraphs ai, ee and the trigraph igh.

We had a busy week last week and really enjoyed  seeing all of the children’s costumes on World Book Day.

Phonics

We have learnt all the phonemes we need this year and during the next few weeks, we will be practising reading longer words and gaining fluency.

Reading

The children are doing really well with their reading and becoming more fluent and confident. Remember, they will have read their reading practise book four times before it is assigned as an e-book. We are aiming for fluency and your child should not need to blend the words.

I hope you will be impressed with how fluent they are becoming.

Any problems with accessing the e-books, please let me know.

Maths

This week we will continue to look at comparison and using the language of ‘more than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’ to describe the relationships between numbers.

‘Less than’ is used instead of ‘fewer than’ when the focus is on each number’s position in the counting sequence.

Considering equal quantities and equal distribution will prepare the children for the meaning of the equals (=) symbol.

 

We hope you had a great half-term. Let’s hope for a more settled half-term and better weather!

During the next few weeks our theme will be ‘Let’s Go!’. This theme will include the following mini-topics.

Great outdoors

As the weather becomes warmer, children will begin to notice the first signs of spring. Your child will observe the changes in the environment and will observe the bulbs that we planted grow earlier.

This theme is Geography-led. Your child will look at a contrasting locality within the UK. They’ll compare life in a city to life in the countryside by looking at books, photographs and drawing on the children’s own experiences.

 On the move

Following on from the Great Outdoors theme, we’ll extend our geographical comparisons to a different part of the world. Your child will look at life in that country and compare it to their own life here in the UK.

The outdoor area will be used to promote your child’s scientific understanding. Your child will plant seeds and care for beans, peas, carrots and potatoes. They will watch them grow and will learn what conditions are needed for plants to grow.

New life

As a scientist, your child will continue to develop their understanding of growth through our incubation project this term. They’ll watch eggs incubate, chicks hatch and develop. They’ll care for the chicks by making sure that they have food and water. From this experience, they will gain early scientific knowledge relating to life cycles.

Easter

Easter is another festival that your child will learn about. We’ll talk about how some families celebrate Easter. Your child will take part in various traditions such as egg decoration, egg rolling and hot cross buns. We’ll share the Easter story. We’ll link Easter to our previous theme of New Life by discussing animals they may see out and about – sheep and their lambs, for example.

Phonics

We will be practising all the phonemes learnt so far and using these to read  and write captions and simple sentences.

Literacy

We will read and retell the following texts.

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Maths

The children will continue to develop a deep understanding of numbers to 10, (including the composition of each number).

They will practise their ability to subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5 and verbally count beyond 20, recognising the pattern of the counting system.

Through day to day practical activities they will compare quantities up to 10 in different contexts, recognising when one quantity is greater than, less than or the same as the other quantity.

As always, please ask if you have any questions and let us know about your child’s ‘wow moments’ at home.

A great week of learning all about staying safe.

It’s great to be back! I had a lovely week with the children last week -I had really missed them!

This week is a themed week, ‘Staying Safe’. The children will be learning all about how we can stay safe in our home, near water, on the roads and around dogs. We have lots of visitors coming in to school and I am sure it will be a very exciting week.

Phonics

We are continuing to learn digraphs (two letters that make one sound). This week our new digraphs are oo, ar and or.

Reading

The children read their phonics book at least three times in the week with an adult. This book will be sent as an e-book at the end of the week. If you are having problems accessing your child’s book, please let me know. Most of the children are telling me they enjoy reading these at home.

Maths

This week we are learning to compare sets of objects and use the language more, fewer and equal. We are continuing to investigate numbers to 6.

We have a trainee teacher, Miss Brownbridge, with us this term. She will be teaching some activities and sessions.

A request

We really need some junk modelling materials for our technology area. These could include boxes, cereal packets, egg boxes and plastic containers.

We will continue with our mini-topic, ‘Frozen Planet’.

Phonics

This week the new phonemes are sh, th, ng and nk.

Reading

There are a few changes to how we will practise reading and sending phonic reading books home.

To practise reading in Reception, the same practice book that’s been read in school will then be available to read at home as an e-book. Because we’ve read it at least three times in school, your child should be able to read the text independently. If they’re reading it with very little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading.

• Listen to them read the e-book.
• If they can’t read a word, read it to them.
• After they have finished, talk about the book together.
• Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success!

Your child should have received their e-book login details. You will be able to access the e-book this week. We will inform you which day by writing in your child’s reading record.

If you have trouble accessing e-books at home, please let us know.

To develop a love of reading, your child will continue to bring home a separate book. To encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it’s important that they learn to read for pleasure. This sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together.

• Don’t expect your child to read this alone – read it to them or with them.
• In a fiction book, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters.
• In a non-fiction book, explore the facts.
• Discuss the book’s cover and the title, and discuss the pictures or diagrams.
• With this sharing book, the main thing is that you have fun!

Any questions, please ask!

Stay and Learn Sessions

Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the sessions on 20/01/22 and 07/02/22.

PE

This half-term, PE will be on Wednesday and Thursday. Please send your child in their PE kit on these days.