Reception Class News

What can you achieve?

Today, Jess Wright, who is a coach with PE Partner and leads one of our after-school clubs, came to speak to the children in an assembly.

At only 17, Jess has been playing football for over ten years and currently plays for Sheffield Wednesday. She also coaches at different levels from children to adults and referees too.

Jess has another role which is to try to get children, especially girls, into football and providing opportunities for children who want to get involved.

Jess shared information of how to get involved in local physical activities. This could be our school after-school clubs, other local physical activities listed in our guide for parents and carers or other opportunities especially around football and getting girls into football.

Leeds City JFC are a local club looking for new members especially in their girls teams.

Wigton Moor JFC are another local club with opportunities.

Catalan Soccer offer classes and camps.

Thank you to Jess for coming into school to inspire the children and to share her experiences around football and the opportunities and skills it provides.

Summer 2: week 1

The children have come back well rested and taller after the half term.

We have had lots of fun performing our poem Thunderstorm this week. The children have created their own actions for it and used musical instruments to bring it to life.

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English

The children have enjoyed reading lots of pirate stories this week and have been writing their own setences about pirates, finding treasure and building their own pirate ships. They have also been walking the plank!

Maths

In maths this week, we have been looking at what is and what is not a double. We have been choosing numbers 0-10 and placing them on a tens frame to check if they are a double or not a double.

Help at home: give your child a number between 0-10 and ask them to check if it is a double or not. They can do this by getting the correct amount of objects and putting them into two piles. If they can make the piles equal, they know that it is a double.

Living and Learning: I know the ingredients of a happy and healthy relationship.

The children were able to discuss what a happy and healthy relationship looks like.  They talked about how it should make them feel and what they could do to build one.

They should ask me if I’m ok.

They should cheer me up if I’m sad.

We should play together and take turns.

 

Summer1: Week6

On Monday, we had a very exciting day. We released our butterflies. The children have enjoyed observing the life cycle of the butterflies over the last few weeks and were happy to set them free.

Maths

This week we have been learning how to use the rekenreks. We have been subitising numbers on them aswell as making different amounts within ten.

English

During our English this week, we have been learning about our bodies. The children were able to say and write a fact about the human body.

Poetry Picnic

This week’s poem was called Monkey Babies. The children have enjoyed both reading and performing this poem throughout the week.

PE

During this half term the children have been developing their ball skills. They have been practising bouncing a ball in a hoop and catching a ball that someone else has bounced to them.

Help at home: by reading lots, both to and with your child over the half term.

Summer 1: Week5

What a fantastic week reception have had this week!

We have enjoyed lots of poetry this week. Aswell as learning our Poetry Picnic poem (The Fox), we have been learning other poems about animals we would find on a farm.

English

Here is a video of us perfoming one of our animal poems. The children created their own actions to bring the poem to life.

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The children have also enjoyed creating their own farms and zoos. They planned what animals would be in them and worked collaboratively to bring their ideas to life.

English

During the week, we have been discussing the different animals we would find on a farm and their young. The children have been labelling different animals and writing about what they might find on a farm.

Maths

During the week, the children have demostrated some brilliant independent learning. In the areas of provision, children have been placing the correct number of animals in pens, playing the number track game with a partner and building their own staircase to ten using the unifix cubes. This has supported their knowledge development for numbers within ten.

Help at home: by counting to 10 and making your own number track at home to play with.

Living and Learning: I know that being physically active is mentally and physically healthy.

The children came up with ideas as to how they can stay physically healthy:

I can run lots at lunchtime.

I go on my bike really fast to use up all my energy.

We have been continuing our discusions from last week about healthy eating. The children have been making fruit kebabs. They decided what fruit they would like to have on these and enjoyed making them as much as they enjoyed eating them.

Reminder: Friday 24th May is a training day.

Summer 1: Week 4

It has been another brilliant week in Reception where I have been really impressed by everyone’s attitude to learning. The children have enjoyed the warmer weather with lots of playing in the outside area, in particular the water tray!

Caterpillars

Over the bank holiday weekend our caterpillars made their chrysalises and we moved them into the butterfly tent. We placed some sugar water in there and we are eagerly awaiting the emergence of the butterflies!

Poetry Picnic

This week’s poem is A Little Shell and the children have enjoyed discussing times they have encountered snails in the garden or the park!

Writing

We have been looking at the book Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andraea and David Wojtowycz. We have been learning about tropical rainforests and the animals that live there. Have a look at this BBC video that we watched in class. On Thursday we wrote some superb sentences all about rainforest animals.

Maths

In Maths this week we have been looking at number 10 and all the different ways to make it. We watched the Numberblocks episode ‘Ten again’ which is a great way to remember these number bonds to ten. We played a game where a pair had 10 counters and they would take it turns to hide some while the other worked out how many were missing.

Help at home by discussing how ten is made and by playing the game we played in Maths this week.

Finally, I would like to thank all the children for coping so well with the transition from Mrs Wood to Miss Lowry, who starts full time next week. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Reception and I am sure they will enjoy their last few weeks of their first year at school with Miss Lowry.

Summer 1: Week 3

This has been a very different week for everyone in Reception and the children have dealt with it marvellously. On Monday and Tuesday, Miss Lowry was in class teaching and getting to know everybody. Then for the rest of the week, Mr McGriffiths was teaching. It has been a great week and I have been very impressed by not only the children’s learning but also their attitude.

Caterpillars

Our caterpillars continue to grow and are becoming very big now! We will be looking closely over the next week to see if they start to form their chrysalis.

Writing

This week we have been reading Walking through the jungle by Julie Lacome. We made story maps on Tuesday and then we wrote about what we might see if we went exploring through the jungle. There were some great ideas and I was very impressed by everybody’s writing!

Maths

This week in maths we have been learning about numbers bigger than 5. We have been learning to recognise these numbers by using the ‘5 and a bit’ structure. We started with 6 which is made from 5 and 1 and worked all the way up to 9. This will help us to subitise these numbers in the future.

Help at home by giving some objects for your child to count. Can they make a pattern of 5 first then see how many more? Encourage them to subitise in this way rather than count one by one.

PE 

We continued to play Hulk Smash and even started to compete in pairs which will help us when we play larger games higher up the school.

Poetry Picnic

This week the poem was the classic nursery rhyme, Sing a song of sixpence. We have been watching this video to help us remember it.

The final thing to say I have had a fantastic week in Reception and I have been really impressed by the children’s maturity, attitude and respectfulness. I can’t wait to get back on Tuesday for another week here!

Summer 1: Week 2

Caterpillars
This week, we’ve been observing our caterpillars daily to see how much the they’ve grown.
We’ve also been talking about the life cycle of a butterfly.
Help at home: Can your child remember the four stages? Draw a picture of the life cycle.

We are super writers!
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. On Monday, we made our own story maps.

After reading and retelling the story, we used our imagination to write our own versions of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We changed the main character and the food.

The Very Hungry Cat
The Very Hungry Spider
The Very Hungry Tiger
The Very Hungry Ladybird

PE
On Tuesday, they enjoyed their first session of PE with Mr McGriffiths. This half-term, they’ll play a game called Hulk Smash to develop their balls skills.

Maths
This week, we continued to develop our subitising skills. We used our understanding of doubles to support our subitising skills when looking at different arrangements. We created arrangements of 6 using different objects. We thought carefully about how we can arrangement the objects so it’s easier to subitise– e.g. 2 groups of 3. We then played a game called Odd One Out. We had to spot an arrangement that was not 6.

Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Under a Stone.

Thank you and goodbye Reception!
Reception, I’ve loved teaching you this year. From starting school to going on your first school trip, we’ve shared many amazing memories together. You’ve made tremendous progress and I’ve no doubt you’ll continue to shine and make your new teacher proud.

Finally, keep reading and enjoy the rest of your time in Reception! I look forward popping back into school to see you all with Baby Wood.

Summer term after-school clubs

Summer 1: Week 1

Welcome back! We hope you all had a happy and healthy break.

This half-term our topic is called Life on Earth.  Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be learning more about life cycles. We’ll closely observe caterpillars to help us understand the different stages of a life cycle.

Yesterday morning, a parcel arrived at school… It was 5 tiny caterpillars!
DT
On Wednesday morning, we used hand drills to make a bug hotel. We also used saws, hammers and screwdrivers. After that, the creative area has been really busy. They’ve really enjoyed making lots and lots of holes with the hand drills.

Phonics
This week, we’ve started Phase 4. In this phase children will use the phonemes learnt in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to read and spell words with four or more phonemes and words ending in suffixes:
–ing, –ed /t/, –ed /id/ /ed/, –est

Here are some examples:
CVCC words: tent, damp, toast
For example, in the word ‘damp’, d = consonant, a = vowel,  m = consonant,  p = consonant

CCVC words: swim, plum, spoon
For example, in the word ‘plum’, p = consonant, l = consonant, u = vowel, m = consonant

CCVCC words: stamp, crept, twist
For example, in the word ‘stamp’, s = consonant, t = consonant, a = vowel, m = consonant, p = consonant

CCCVC words: strap scrub strong
For example, in the word, ‘strap’, s = consonant, t = consonant, r = consonant, a = vowel, p = consonant

CCCVCC words: strand strict sprint
For example, in the word, ‘sprint’, s = consonant, p = consonant, r = consonant, i = vowel, n = consonant, t = consonant 

They’ll also learn to read and write 18 new tricky words.

Help at home: Practise reading and writing this week’s tricky words.
said    so    have    like

Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Pitter Patter.

Some more fantastic learning…

Spring 2: Week 6

I can’t believe we’re at the end of our second term in Reception! The children have made tremendous progress in all areas of the Early Years curriculum.

Summer 1
Next half-term, we will be learning about bugs and going on lots of bug hunts for bugs. We will learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and hopefully set some butterflies free! We will use hand drills to build a bug hotel for our outdoor area.

Linked to Geography, we will find out where our favourite animals come from. We will locate countries on a map, look at different environments, and compare them to the UK.

As artists, we will mix colours to create camouflage patterns. We will also create landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and create scenarios and storylines for our play.

Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called The Tiny Seed.  Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about what plants need to grow. Can your child remember what plants need?

Reminders and upcoming dates

• Don’t forget to keep reading your Collins eBooks over the holidays.
• Monday 06 May – Bank holiday
• Monday 24 May – Training day: school closed

As always, I hope you all have a happy and healthy half-term break. Don’t forget to email me any pictures of what you get up to in the holidays. moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 15 April.