Autumn 1: Week 8
Diwali
This week, we explored the story Binny’s Diwali. We talked about what a festival is and discussed the similarities between different religious festivals. The children had lots of fun learning how families prepare for and celebrate Diwali.
Help at home: Can your child remember something about Diwali? If they’re unsure, here’s some key words to help them: food, decorations, fireworks.
For our writing activity, the children designed their own invitations to a Diwali celebration. They included some fantastic drawings and used recognisable letters in their writing—well done, everyone!
What else have we been up to?
We’ve been getting creative by making our own magic potions! The children used their imaginations to come up with exciting ingredients and then wrote lists to describe what they added to their mixtures. Fantastic mark-making and early writing practice!
In the maths area, we practised 1:1 correspondence by counting pom poms to match numerals up to 10.
One-to-one correspondence focuses on the actual counting of objects, and assigning numbers to objects in the correct order, as they are counted. This also helps children to understand that the numbers they are saying hold value.
The playdough challenge has been very popular this week! The children have really enjoyed using their fine motor skills and creativity to make colourful Diya lamps.
Another popular chilli challenge involved drawing detailed Mehndi patterns, We observed some fantastic concentration and careful mark-making.
Yesterday, the children worked in pairs to design and create some beautiful Rangoli patterns.
Reminders
- Marvellous Maths Stay and Learn Session
Tuesday 18 November
Come and join us for a fun, hands-on maths learning experience! - WOW Moments
Have you noticed something special or a new interest at home?
Send photos or updates to: moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
We love sharing these in class! - Daily Reading
It’s important that your child reads daily at home. Please continue to read eBooks to support phonics skills and their library book to support love of reading.
Have a happy and healthy week. See you on Monday 3rd November!
Living and Learning: Me and my money themed week
Poetry Picnic
The fun, seasonal poem we’ve been learning this week is Five Little Pumpkins.
Hope you enjoy the (slightly raucous) performance!
Autumn 1: Week 7
Autumn
We’ve had a busy week doing lots of seasonal activities. After reading Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert, we looked closely at the beautiful leaf illustrations and used them as inspiration to talk about all the amazing changes we see in autumn.
We also began learning about hibernation and explored why some animals start to hibernate around October and November. We even made our own clay hedgehogs!
Help at home: Ask your child which animals hibernate and what they do to get ready for the colder months.
Maths
Our focus has been on using the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to compare groups of objects. Since we’re working with countable items, we use fewer rather than less.
Help at home: Gary and Barney are still arguing! Can your child help them out? Use this sentence to compare: “___ has more/fewer ___ than ___.”
(For example: Gary has more apples than Barney.)
Phonics
We’ve been busy recapping all the graphemes we’ve learned so far. There are no new graphemes or phonics sheets this week or next. Please continue to use the phonics home learning book.
Here’s a snapshot of some of this week’s seasonal chilli challenges…
Poetry Picnic
The poem we’ve been learning this week is called Leaves Are Falling. They’ve really enjoyed this one and performed it with breezy gusto! The children loved joining in with the actions and exploring all the swirling, twirling movements of the autumn leaves.
Autumn 1: week 6
Look at us – we’re artists!
We’ve been learning all about what an artist is. After reading Henri’s Scissors, we talked about the key events in Henri Matisse’s life. He loved to paint, but later in life he started making beautiful pictures using only scissors and paper!
We looked at Matisse’s bright and colourful artwork and shared what we liked (and didn’t like!) about it. Using our cutting skills, we made our own collages by cutting out different shapes and arranging them into creative designs. We had so much fun exploring colour, shape, and imagination—just like Matisse did!
Help at home: Practise your cutting skills.
Phonics Superstars!
The children are becoming real phonics superstars! Every morning, they eagerly help each other get their phonics packs out and ready to learn. We’re proud to share that we have now learned all of the Phase 2 phonemes for this half-term.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be focusing on practising our blending skills and recapping all of the phonemes to strengthen our reading confidence. Well done, everyone!
Help at home: Use your phonics home learning book on a daily basis. Practise saying the pure sounds and writing the graphemes.
Look how we’re growing!
This week, we measured how tall we are. Throughout the year in Reception, we’ll keep checking to see how much we’ve grown.
Home learning challenge
Reminders
- Water bottles: Please ensure your child brings a filled water bottle to school each day.
- Lost uniform: We’re seeing a lot of jumpers and cardigans go missing. Please label all clothing clearly with your child’s name to help us return lost items.
-
Parent-Teacher Zoom Meetings: These are coming up soon. Don’t forget to sign up if you haven’t already!
Reading: It’s so important!
We hope that you’re enjoying reading your child’s library book with them. We call this a ‘love of reading’ book – to do just that, encourage a love of reading for your child! Reading to and with your child can have a huge positive impact on your child’s education.
This research is a powerful message of the impact you can have when reading to/with your child:
At school, your child reads a physical book four times a week – with a focus on teaching phonics skills. This is then sent home as an eBook. The purpose of the eBook at home is to celebrate your child’s success (in phonics skills). Your child should be able to read most of this book confidently and really feel like a reader.
We’ve chosen to use eBooks at home for many benefits. Allocating eBooks frees up about two hours of teacher or TA time changing books – now spent teaching reading!
Here’s some information on how to access eBooks but if you’re having any problems please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Happy reading!
Stay and learn: Phase 2 phonics
Thank you for coming to today’s phonics stay and learn session. I hope you found the session useful and went home feeling a bit more knowledgeable about Little Wandle and how we teach phonics in school. Your feedback is highly valued. We would appreciate it if you could complete the parent feedback form.
The Little Wandle parent page has some useful videos on how to support your child’s reading at home. If you were unable to make the stay and learn session, click here to view the slides. Like always, if you have any questions, please ask me at the end of the day.
We look forward to seeing you again at the number stay and learn session on Tuesday 18th November.
Poetry Picnic
The poem we’ve been learning this week is called Fallen Apples. As well as performing it in class, the children did an amazing job of reciting it in front of the whole school in our assembly celebrating National Poetry Day on Thursday afternoon!
Here’s a video of the children performing it in class.
Autumn 1: week 5
Literacy
This week our focus was We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. We had lots of fun using the actions to retell the story. We even made our own binoculars and used them for our sensory bear hunt on Wednesday.
Help at home: The family came across some obstacles on their journey. Can your child remember them?
Maths
This week, we’ve explored how numbers can be composed of 1s.
Throughout the week, we’ve been collecting groups of 2, 3 and 4 objects to help us understand that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts.
On Tuesday, we helped the three bears find collections of 3 things for their picnic. We used the stem sentence: 1 and 1 and 1 makes 3 each time we found a collection of 3 things.
Help at home: Can you make collections of objects at home? Remember the objects don’t always have to be the same!
Independent learning
Here’s a snapshot of some of the learning we’ve been doing in the areas of provision.
Home learning challenge
Reminders!
- Don’t forget to come to our Phase 2 phonics Stay & Learn and coffee morning on Monday 9am.
- Library books need to be returned every Tuesday.
- eBooks are assigned every Thursday. To celebrate your child’s reading skills, make sure you listen to your child read their eBook daily.
- Reading records and phonics home learning books need to be returned every Thursday.