Author: Mrs Wood

Thanks to everyone for sending a photo of your child as a baby. This topic is always fascinating for young children, especially when they realise their teachers were babies too! Most children find the concept of time diificult because of its abstract nature. In the early years, the focus is mainly on the aspect of sequencing events and using the vocabulary of time.

This week, we’ll be learning how to read o’clock times as well but it’s important that children have the concept of time.

For many children time only exists in the present and they find it more difficult to remember past events than to imagine a future event such as a birthday.

Talk to your child about past events and use the language of time, such as:

• yesterday,
• today,
• tomorrow,
• last week,
• last month,
• quicker,
• slower,
• before,
• after,
• earlier and
• later.

Set your child challenges and time them. For example, ask them to tidy their toys away and time them. Talk about how long it took. Were they quicker or slower than yesterday?

As you begin to tell a story emphasise the opening phrases ‘once upon a time’ or ‘a long time ago’. When you have finished reading the story discuss the sequence of events. Use the language first, next, and then, and finally.

As always: have fun and keep it playful!

We’ve reached the end of another busy term in Reception. The time has flown!

Here are just some of the ways the children continue to impress us:

• Manpreet, Sachpreet and Noorpreet have been busy practising their letter formation and form all letters beautifully.
• Ismail, Albert, Theo, Josh and Ethan are making great progress with their independent writing.
• Isaiah has become the ‘King of Challenges’, by being so busy with his learning and engaging in every activity on offer.
• Dylan is well on his way to becoming an author! He writes stories every day.
• Ripley, Alex, Martha and Mia are becoming great mathematicians and love to challenge themselves in this area.
• Isaac and Thomas are fantastic readers and if you want to know about ‘split digraphs’, ‘Shy i and Tuffy y’ they are the people to ask.
• Lewis continues to impress us with his creativity and has given us lots of ideas.
• Gabby, Ishaan and Nicky have impressed us by the way they keep trying even when they find things hard.
• Humairah and Ben are consistently helpful and polite.
• Lori and Karam have tried really hard this term with their phonics and writing.
• Kai and Farai are the ‘kings’ of model building and storytelling with their models.
• Filip has become a confident talker and shown great knowledge and interest in our topic on minibeasts.
• Grace, Pia and Phoebe have made great progress in all their learning and become confident members of the class.

   

Have a great break and see you next term!

 

 

 

 

There are two types of addition situations that children will encounter in Reception.

The first is combining – where two sets are put together to make a new set. Here, the statement ‘I wonder how many there are altogether?’ is appropriate.

The second is counting up, where an original amount is increased resulting in a new total. In counting up it is useful if children can recognise a small number of items without counting.

Children need lots of practical addition opportunities before they are introduced to the formal addition sign. You can help at home by playing board games which involve counting on and providing lots of practical opportunities for addition.

Thank you to all who volunteered to read to the children.

  

Don’t forget our World Book Day assembly tomorrow at 2.40 pm!

This is the Early Learning Goal for writing. Children are expected to achieve this goal by the end of Reception.

Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

Here are some ideas to help you support and encourage your child to write:

• write a reply to a letter or invitation together
• write a birthday card or send a card on-line, working out the message together
• write a shopping list together
• make a message out of magnetic letters on the fridge
• read food signs, road signs advertising and labels. Talk about the purposes of writing
• add messages to a board or calendar and talk about why you have written them. Explain that the messages remind us what to do

 

 

Our dinosaur eggs have hatched! Now… how do we look after baby dinosaurs?

 

…Not yet, but we’re keeping a close eye on them.

  

Dinosaur eggs have been found in the playground!