Summer 2: Week 2
Literacy
This week we read lots of seaside poems collected by Jill Bennett. We used the illustrations in the book to help us think about things we might only see at the seaside. We compared two different environments (city and seaside) by looking are various pictures.
Maypole
The Maypole practising has started! For many years, the Reception class have opened the Summer Fair by performing a Maypole dance. We’re super excited to show off our amazing skipping skills on Friday 04 July.
Maths
We’ve been deepening our understanding of mathematical relationships within numbers to 10. We’ve enjoyed using different resources to help demonstrate these key skills:
- assembling a whole object from different parts
- making a whole number from 2 parts
- splitting some numbers into 2 groups that each have an equal amount
- recognising that 2 equal groups can make a double, e.g. double 3 is 6 altogether
- understanding that double patterns are even; they have ‘flat tops’ because they are made of 2 equal groups
- understanding that odd numbers cannot be split into 2 equal groups; they’re not doubles, they have an ‘odd block’/’odd one out’
Zog Day
Yesterday, we watched Julia Donaldson read Zog and Zog and the Flying Doctors. We also got to watch how to draw a loveable dragon by Axel Scheffler. We got our orange pens ready and had a go at drawing our own Zogs!
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem is called Thunderstorm. We had lots of fun using prosody when reciting this poem.
Reminders
- Reception to Year 1 Zoom meeting on Monday at 6pm
- Class photo day on Thursday
Zoom: Reception to Year 1 information meeting
As the weather becomes brighter and we near the end of the academic year you may be thinking about your child’s next steps as they journey into Year 1. Moving to Year 1 is perhaps a less significant change for children, and that’s because we’re a happy and healthy place to learn where we all know each other.
A zoom meeting for parent’s starts our transition process, here you will meet the Key Stage 1 staff and find out about the Year 1 curriculum.
The zoom meeting is on Monday 16 June at 6pm please follow the link that will be emailed to you.
The next step is for your child to spend some time in the Year 1 classrooms. They’ll meet the teachers and join in with the learning, they’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in Year 1. The whole-school transition, later in July, completes the process, by spending a morning with their new class teacher.
This is a really exciting time of year, moving on and taking those next steps whilst continuing to strengthen the effective learning behaviours they have established in Reception.
Summer 2: Week 1
Ahoy, Me Hearties!
This week, we’ve been reading The Night Pirates by Peter Harris. This great book has inspired our learning in the areas of provision. We’ve been building pirate ships in the construction area, making up stories with the pirates, creating pirate hats and collecting treasure at the finger gym table.
Maths
This week, we introduced the Rekenreks to the children. We continued to practise our subitising skills by using our ‘fast eyes’ to subitise the beads on a Rekenrek. A Rekenrek allows the children to further develop their subitising skills as they explore the structure of small numbers.
We know to make sure all the beads are at the right-hand side of the rack. This is called the ‘ready position’. We then pause (think), place (one finger) and push (the beads) using the ‘one finger push’ method.
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called Monkey Babies. We discussed the rhythm of the poem and decided it had a ‘medium’ rhythm. We also could hear lots of rhyming words. See if you can hear the rhyming words when you watch it.
Group 1
Group 2
Super writing!
Every morning, we have a go at writing a caption or a sentence about an interesting picture. We’ve seen some amazing letter formation this week. Here’s some examples…
Help at home: Write a caption or sentence about this picture. You could bring your sentence into school or take a picture of it and send it to moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Tennis
Yesterday, the children amazed us with their fantastic listening skills during the tennis session. They were very enthusiastic when playing the heads, shoulders, knees and ball game at the start.
This half-term is super busy! Please make sure you make note of the key events happening in Summer 2.
Summer 1: Week 5
This week, we’ve been learning about the human body. Before introducing our focus called See inside Your Body, I asked the class if anybody knew any facts about the human body.
Ta – The heartbeat helps us get red blood around our tummies.
Po – Our neck is really important
Ell – Lungs help us breath.
Gur – We have a brain.
Tee – We have to have bones.
We looked at the human skeleton, drew pictures of skeletons and labelled some of the 206 bones we have in our body! We also had lots of fun learning the skeleton dance. We also looked at some x-ray pictures and talked about why we might have one.
Role-play
In the home corner, we’ve had a very busy doctors’ surgery! Many of our children turned into doctors and nurses. They’ve been checking heart beats, putting bandages on and giving medicine to help their patients feel better.
Butterflies
On Monday, we released our butterflies! We enjoyed waving goodbye when watching them fly away.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called The Fox. When learning this poem, we shared lots of our own experiences about foxes.
Je – I’ve seen three foxes before. When we were in our old house we saw a baby fox.
Tho – I’ve seen a fox through my car window creeping along the edge of the road near a bush.
Poppy – I saw a fox in my garden and it jumped over my fence.
Phonics
This week, we’ve been learning to read and write words ending in:
- – ing
For example, squelching, twisting - – ed =/t/
For example, bumped, cracked - -ed = /id/
For example, grunted, trusted - -est
For example, plumpest, freshest
We also learnt the last two phase 4 tricky words.
Help at home: Practise reading and writing the phase 4 tricky words.
I can’t believe we’ve only got only one half-term left in Reception. Where has this year gone?
I hope you all have a fantastic week off. Don’t forget to send me lots of pictures. See you on Monday 2nd June for your final half-term in Reception.
Roundhay Tennis open days
Summer 1: Week 4
Literacy
This week, we’ve been learning about tropical rainforests and the animals that live there. In literacy, we’ve been looking at the book Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andraea and David Wojtowycz. When reading this book, we talked about what a poem is and enjoyed listening out for rhyming words. On Wednesday and Thursday we had a go at writing a dictated sentence about a rainforest animal.
Caterpillars
On Thursday morning, we had a lovely surprise. Two butterflies had nibbled their way out of their chrysalises! We are waiting patiently for the other three.
Maths
This week, we continued to develop our understanding of the composition of numbers to 10 using different representations. To help deepen our understanding about the ‘whole’ being made up of smaller parts, we used practical experiences. We used the counting rhyme, ’10 fat sausages’ to investigate different ways to represent 10. We also used our fingers, 10-frames and Hungarian number patterns to begin to explore ‘5 and a bit’ numbers to 10.
Help at home: Using a frying pan and ten objects to represent the ’10 fat sausages’, sing the song with somebody at home. Each time a sausage goes bang, encourage your child to talk about what they can see. How many sausages are in the pan? How many sausages have gone bang? How many altogether?
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem is A Little Shell. Click here to watch us perform the poem.
Take a look at some other wonderful learning…
Reminder!
Your child must be reading their e-books on a regular basis. Your children can read previous e-books to help with their fluency skills. When your child has read their e-books, please you write a quick message in their reading records. This allows us to see how they’re getting on at home.
I hope you have a happy and healthy weekend in the sunshine!
Summer 1: Week 3
Literacy
We’ve been reading Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome.
This repeating story was great for retelling. We talked about what a verb is and looked for them in the story: walking, running, leaping, swinging, creeping and wading.
Help at home: Can you retell the story to an adult or sibling at home?
We had a go at writing our own sentences.
Phonics
This week, we focused on reading and writing longer words and compound words. We learnt 4 new tricky words: were, here, little, says.
Help at home: Go on a tricky word hunt around your house. Ask an adult to write some tricky words on scrap pieces of paper and stick them up around your house. How many tricky words can you find and read?
Maths
This week, we consolidated our understanding of the composition of 5 and practised recalling the parts of 5 when 1 part is not visible. We used our fingers on 1 hand to help with the composition of 5. We looked at how many fingers are ‘up’ and and how many are ‘folded down’. We used a rhyme about 5 kittens jumping ‘down’ from the bed to help us with this.
Help at home: Play a game the kittens game with an adult. You need 5 objects (kittens) and a piece of material or paper (bed) Take turns to hide some kittens under the bed. Use the below stem sentence to explain what you can see.
5 is made up of…
… and … makes 5
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. Click here to watch us.
Living & Learning
Yesterday, we talked about the importance of a healthy diet. We worked with a partner to design a healthy plate. We thought of lots of different healthy foods.
Diary dates
- Monday 23 May – School closed: training day
- Monday 26 May – Friday 30 June – Half-term holiday
- Thursday 19 June – Class photos
- Summer learning journey drop in dates
Tuesday 08 July – 8.45m – 9.15am & 3.15pm-3.45pm
Thursday 10 July – 8.45m – 9.15am & 3.15pm-3.45pm
A sign up letter will be sent out nearer the time.
Summer 1: Week 2
On Monday morning, a parcel arrived at school…
WE HAVE 5 CATERPILLARS!
On Wednesday, we watched a video about the life cycle of a butterfly and talked about the different stages.
Help at home: Can your child remember the four stages? Draw a picture of the life cycle.
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We had lots of fun drawing 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.
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.
Help at home: Make arrangements of 6 using everyday objects. Get your adult to close their eyes and see if they spot if it’s changed.
DT
In the creative area, we’ve been exploring how to use hand drills to make holes in pieces of wood. On Wednesday, we used our skills to build a bug hotel for our outdoor area.
Learning outside
We’ve had a lovely week making the most of the sunny weather. The children have loved building, painting and getting wet in the water tray.
As we enter into the warmer months, please make sure your child comes to school with a hat and a water bottle. Sun cream must be applied before school.
Summer 1: Week 1
Welcome back!
We hope you had a happy and healthy break. Thank you to the parents who sent in some photos. We really enjoyed sharing these on Tuesday.
This half-term our topic is called Life on Earth. We’ve kicked off our topic by reading The Bug Collector by Alex G. Griffiths in literacy and going on bug hunts. 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.
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
Maths
This week, we continued to engage in activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether.
A key area we have continued to develop is counting strategies for counting larger numbers of objects, including those that cannot be moved. We had lots of fun helping Gary the giraffe count the packets of raisins for our snack. We n develop their counting skills – will help to embed these key areas of understanding.
Living and Learning
On Tuesday, we talked about personal hygiene, including handwashing. We discussed how we keep ourselves clean.
Gur – We clean our face, body and brush our teeth.
Po – We have a bath and a shower.
El – If there’s still dirty stuff in your teeth, you can floss.
Sh – Wash our hands.
Th – I brush my teeth in the morning and just before bed.
We then had a go at a little experiment to see why it is important we wash our hands well with soap.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Pitter Patter. Click here to watch us.
Some more fantastic learning…
Spring 2: Week 6
Hello! I’ve had a wonderful second week back in Reception. I’m really looking forward to supporting them in their last term in Reception.
This week, we’ve been super busy doing the new chilli challenges in the areas of provision. Lots of children have amazed me with their fantastic independent learning – well done Reception!
On Monday, the children had lots of fun looking drawing self-portraits. Check out our new gallery! Can you spot your self-portrait?
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called The Tiny Seed. Every week, we learn a new video. To help us remember the poem, we organise the daily sessions like this:
Session 1: Enjoyment Listen to the poem for enjoyment.
Session 2 : Vocabulary Pick out focus vocabulary and discuss definition.
Session 3: learning words and actions Practise saying the poem.
Session 4 : prosody/ rhythm/rhyme · Discuss how some poem have a rhythm.
Session 5 : Perform Perform the poem as a whole class or in groups.
Help at home: Practise reading the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
Upcoming dates
- Monday 21 April – Easter Monday
- Monday 05 May – Bank Holiday
- Friday 23 May – School closed: training day
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 Tuesday 22 April.