Reception Class News

Santa dash Friday 11 December

This week’s learning

Phonics

This week we will begin phase 3  ‘Letters and Sounds’.

The purpose of this phase is to:

• teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters (digraphs), for example, ‘oa’ as in boat. 
• practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
• learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly
• read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
• read and write words in phrases and sentences.

Here are some examples of words your children will be reading: tail, week, right, soap, food, park, burn, cord, town, soil

(Remember: these words all contain three phonemes).

During phase 3 the children will learn more ‘Tricky Words’.

he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, said

Children will begin to write sentences independently.

Definitions

Blending– Children need to be able to hear the separate sounds in a word and then blend them together to say the whole word .

Segmenting– Children need to be able to hear a whole word and say every sound that they hear.

Phoneme–Phonemes are sounds that can be heard in words.
e.g. c-a-t

Grapheme–This is how a phoneme is written down.

Digraph –This means that the phoneme comprises of two letters
e.g. ll, ff, ck, ss

Maths

We are continuing to investigate the number 5 and find one more and one less than a number. We will be learning about the properties of shapes with four sides.

Literacy

This week we will be introducing capital letters and full stops and beginning to read and write simple sentences

.

Learning about 5

We have been investigating the number 5 this week.

The children were given 5 connecting cubes and encouraged to explore the different shapes they could make.

They built stairs with the cubes to look at the pattern of one more and used Numicon to find the different ways of making 5.

This week in Reception

As we head towards this very different Christmas, we are thinking of ideas to make this time as festive as possible.

Literacy

We are reading the traditional story, ‘The Gingerbread Man’. The children will be retelling the story and taking part in lots of gingerbread themed activities-our roleplay area has become a gingerbread bakery!

Phonics

This week we are recapping Phase 2 and focussing on ‘tricky words’.

The tricky words learnt so far are the, to, I, no, go, into.

We will be encouraging the children to use these words in their independent writing.

Watch this useful parents and carers guide to tricky words here.

(This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)

Maths

We will investigate the number 5 through number rhymes and stories including 5 currant buns and 5 little ducks.

The children will be introduced to the link between counting forwards and the one more pattern and counting back and the one less pattern.

School menu change and Christmas meal

Maths is everywhere!

The children have been using maths in all the areas of provision to learn about shape, measures and money in our new role-play bakery.

Virtual after-school sport club

This week

Literacy

This week we are reading the story ‘Rosie’s Walk’ by Pat Hutchins. The children will learn to retell the story using a story map. As their phonics knowledge increases we will be encouraging them to write labels and captions for their drawings.

Phonics

We have completed Phase 2 of ‘Letters and Sounds’ and will spend this week consolidating and reviewing this learning. The phonemes we have learnt so far are:

set 1: s a t p

set 2: i n m d

set 3: g o c k ck

set 4: e u r h

set 5: f ff b bb l ss

If you have any questions please email me moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org

Don’t forget there are some really good games on Phonicsplay

username: sphere

password: spher3

Here is a guide for helping you to say the sounds correctly.

Maths

We are continuing to learn all about the number 4 and will learn that 4 is a square number.

Using the book ‘Rosie’s Walk’ the children will make an obstacle course and describe where they are using positional language.

We’ve just signed up to Numbots.  This is a great app and website for practising counting and addition and subtraction facts. Your child can use it at home too – they will be given their login details this week.

Shapes

The children have taken part in lots of activities to learn about different shapes and their properties. They have learnt the names of basic 2D shapes and looked at the differences between them.

Being able to physically see the difference between a shape with three sides and one with five helps with number sense.

Why not go on a shape hunt at home? Where can they see circles, triangles, squares and rectangles?

Don’t forget to send photos to moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org

Our learning this week

Literacy

This week we are taking part in World Nursery Rhyme Week.

The initiative, which was launched in 2013, promotes the importance of nursery rhymes in early childhood development and education with a particular focus on how nursery rhymes boost early language and literacy skills.

We will be learning a familiar nursery rhyme each day and listening to rhyming books and poems.

Singing nursery rhymes is a wonderful activity you can enjoy doing together at home. You can access all of the free resources at: www.worldnurseryrhymeweek.com

Phonics

This week’s phonemes are b, f, ff, l, ll. We will also be learning to read the tricky words I, no, go.

PhonicsPlay is a great website that we often use in our phonics lessons.

The games are a fun way to practise reading sounds, real words, alien words and sentences.

The games are organised into the Letters and Sounds phases.  Reception are learning Phase 2 sounds.

Login details are Sphere (user name) and Spher3 (password).

Maths

This week we are learning about shape. Why not go on a shape hunt around your home?