Summer 1: Week 2
Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. To help us remember the order of story, we made our own story maps.
Next week, we’ll be getting creative with our writing. We’ll have a go at making our own versions.
Last Friday, we had special delivery…
We were so excited when the caterpillars arrived! We are looking forward to watching the life cycle of a butterfly.
Role-play
Yesterday, the role-play area turned into a bug cafe. From worm and spider spaghetti to slug slime soup, we had lots of fun making lots of disgusting meals!
Help at home: Using your imagination, can you think of a new menu choice to make in our bug cafe? Draw a picture and label it.
Bug hotels
This week, we put sticks, grass, leaves and pine cones into our bug hotels. 
A group of children put the bug hotels around school. Can you spot the bug hotels in our front playground?
We evaluated our bug hotels and wrote sentence about what we enjoyed.
Reminders
- Friday 05 May – Coronation celebrations
Your child can come to school wearing red, white and blue. - Reading records need to be returned every Thursday.
Summer 1: Week 1
Welcome back! We hope you all had a happy and healthy break. Thanks to everyone who sent an email about your child’s half-term holiday. We had lots of fun sharing these on Monday.
This half-term our topic is called Life on Earth. We’ve kicked off our topic by going on bug hunts. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be learning more about life cycles. We’ll closely observe caterpillars and tadpoles to help us understand the different stages of a life cycle. A big thanks to Huey (and Mum) for bringing in some tadpoles!
Help at home: Find out about your favourite insect. Draw a picture of it and write one or two facts about it. Bring it to school next week for us to share.
DT
This week, the creative area turned into a woodwork bench. The children worked in small groups to create bug hotels. They used hand drills, screwdrivers and hammers to create their bug hotels.
Our finished bug hotels…
Next week, we’ll be finding natural objects to put inside our bug hotels.
Help at home: Can you help collect natural objects to put inside our bug hotels?
PE
Yesterday, we really enjoyed our first session with the Foot-Tech coaches. This half-term, we’ll be learning three key skills: push, kick and throw.
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 and like.
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem was called Pitter Patter.
Help at home: When it rains this weekend, have fun saying this week’s poem together at home.
Have a lovely weekend.
Living and Learning: Personal hygiene
This week, our living and learning session was all about recognising the importance of personal hygiene including handwashing.
What is personal hygiene?
DD – It’s about keeping our clothes clean.
EC – My Mummy puts my clothes in the washing machine.
HM – We need to brush our teeth so they don’t get black.
LC – Every single morning and every single night, I brush here. (teeth)
LN – We brush our teeth so there’s no cavities.
HW – You need to wash your hands when you’ve been to the toilet.
To help us understand the importance of washing our hands, we had a go at a germ experiment.
We used soap, mixed herbs (germs) and water to see how important it is to wash our hands. The children were amazed when they watched the germs (mixed herbs) move away from the soap on their fingers.
Coronation celebration – Themed Menu 05 May 2023
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu for the Coronation Celebration on Friday 05 May 2023. See the menu here.
Please contact the office, in the next few days, if your child would like a school dinner on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
Big Walk and Wheel final results
After the two week Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge, we now have the final results.
In our category of small primary schools, we finished in 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
This is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
We hope these active journeys continue as by walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.
Bean update
Hello Reception!
I hope you’re all enjoying the glorious sunshine as much as your beans. Here’s a picture of how your beans are doing.
As you can see, some of them are at the “sprouting” stage. At this stage, the bean is developing a root system to soak up moisture and nutrients from the soil.
Some of them are developing their first leaves which enables them to absorb as much sunlight and energy as possible.
Don’t forget to send me any pictures of what you get up to in the holidays!
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Spring 2: Week 6
I can’t believe we’re at the end of our second term in Reception! This half-term, we found about transport from the past. We created simple maps and learnt how land, sea and rivers are represented on maps. We’ve noticed the first signs of Spring, planted flowers and beans and learnt about the different stages of a beans life cycle. Finally, we talked about how some families celebrate Easter and created our own Spring baskets.
Here’s a video of some of our amazing highlights from this half-term.
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called The Tiny Seed. This week, we talked about the rhyming words. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem?
Reminders and upcoming dates
- PE will be on a Monday and Thursday next half-term.
- Don’t forget to keep reading your Collins e-books over the holidays.
- Monday 01 May – Bank holiday
- Monday 08 May – Bank holiday
- Monday 15 May – Training day: school closed
Help at home: Practise spelling the phase 2 and 3 tricky words.
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 17 April.
York Railway Museum
Last Friday, Reception enjoyed a day out to York Railway Museum.
When we first arrived, the children were amazed at the size of the trains.
In the morning, we enjoyed looking at all of the different trains. We jumped on board the high-speed Japanese bullet train – the world’s fastest passenger rail network. When lunchtime arrived, they were so excited to sit with their friends and show off their packed lunches! After lunch, we continued to explored the museum. We found the replica version of Stephenson’s Rocket.
From getting on the coach to arriving back at school, their behaviour was impeccable. It was a pleasure taking them all on their first school trip.
Barney had a good time, too!
Smart Money Award 2023
Today, we welcomed Nicola and Linda from HSBC to our whole school assembly to present us with our Smart Money Award 2023.
This is awarded for financial education lessons which took place in school for all classes last summer as part of our Living and Learning curriculum.
Nicola combined this visit with some more financial education for the children.
Big Walk and Wheel – getting active on the way to school
It’s been a great start to Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel walking, scooting and cycling challenge this week.
After the first five days, we are currently in 14th place (out of 514 schools) in the small primary category with an average of 90.36% of our journeys to school being active. This is a great achievement and we want to thank families for supporting this challenge.
To keep up with the leader board for the rest of the challenge, it can be viewed here.
Thank you to those families who brought along bikes to the bike register event too. Nineteen bikes were registered at school.
By walking, cycling and scooting to school, you are helping us make a positive change to the school run. With less cars close to the school gates, this is a safer and healthier way to start the day.
The Big Walk and Wheel challenge continues until Friday 31st March so we look forward to seeing our progress over the upcoming week.