This week in Reception
The children have been enjoying lots of physical activities including skipping, movement play and PE.

Phonics
We are continuing our Phase 4 phonics learning and learning to blend and segment words with four phonemes such as; stop, black, float, and storm.
We will continue to send sheets of words home for your child to blend. Please keep practising the phase 3 phonemes, especially ar, or, ow, oi, ur, ear, air, ure and er.
Maths
This week we will continue to learn about subtraction by taking away objects and using ten frames to help us see how many are left.
Literacy
This week’s story is ‘Mad about Minibeasts’. The children have been writing a class minibeast poem and using adjectives to describe their favourite minibeast. They have been making them with playdough.

Have a great half-term break. Hopefully the sun will shine!
Please send any ‘wow’ moments to
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
In Reception this week
We said goodbye to the chicks on Thursday. The children have loved watching them hatch and grow. The caterpillars are finally growing and nearly ready to start building their cocoons- I think the cold weather has slowed them down this year!

Literacy
This week we will read the story, ‘Superworm’ by Julia Donaldson. After retelling the story, the children will make their own super minibeast story. We are encouraging the children to write a simple sentence remembering full stops, capital letters and finger spaces.
Phonics
We will begin Phase 4 of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme. In this phase children will use the phonemes learnt in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to read and spell words with four phonemes.
Children will continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes and learn how to read and write:
CVCC words: tent, damp, toast, chimp
For example, in the word ‘toast’, t = consonant, oa = vowel, s = consonant, t = consonant
CCVC words: swim, plum, sport, cream, spoon
For example, in the word ‘cream’, c = consonant, r = consonant, ea = vowel, m = consonant
They will be learning more tricky words and continuing to read and write sentences together.
Tricky words
said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what
Please help your child to learn the phonemes from the previous phases.
We will continue to send words and books home which your child will be able to blend. Please make sure your child’s reading book is in their bookbag everyday as we read often.

Maths
This week the children will begin to realise that a group of objects can be changed by taking away. They will solve problems involving addition and subtraction and tell maths stories using the language, first, then and now.
Please keep sending those ‘wow moments’ and any questions to
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Chicks!
The children have enjoyed our visitors! They have watched them hatch, held them and helped to feed them.

Phonics
This week we will recap all the phonemes we have learnt in Phase 3 before moving on to Phase 4 next week. In the next phase the children will learn to blend and segment longer words.
Please continue to help them learn the phonemes and read the words we have sent home. If you have any questions or concerns please email.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Maths
In maths we will learn about addition and that a group of objects can be changed by adding more.
The children enjoyed learning about 100 and completing their Captain Tom challenge.


This week
We hope you enjoyed the Bank Holiday!
On Friday the Junior Leadership team chose Dogs Trust as our school charity.
Our first fundraising event will be on Tuesday 04 May when all children will be taking part in the Captain Tom 100 challenge. There will be a bucket at the gate for donations of at least £1.
Reception are going to paint 100 handprints!
Phonics
This week we are learning the phonemes air, ure and er.
Maths
We have been investigating bigger numbers and this week will look at 100! We will paint our 100 handprints and use 10 frames to further develop the children’s understanding of 10.
This term, we are taking part in the West Yorkshire Skip into Summer project with Skipping School. We are excited to be part of the 136 schools and almost 33,000 children taking part!

If your child would like to buy a rope, to keep learning their new skills at home, they will be on sale, outside the Year 1 classroom in the middle playground, 3:10-3:30pm on Thursdays and Fridays.
Skip into summer
This term, all classes will be taking part in the West Yorkshire Skip into Summer project with Skipping School. We are excited to be part of the 136 schools and almost 33,000 children taking part!

As part of this project, we have skipping ropes available to buy at a subsidised price of £3.
If your child would like to buy a rope, to keep learning their new skills at home, they will be on sale, outside the Year 1 classroom in the middle playground, 3:10-3:30pm on Thursdays and Fridays. Exact change would be helpful.

The Captain Tom 100 Challenge
Caterpillars munching!
Our ‘very hungry’ caterpillars arrived this morning and we are looking forward to observing them grow and change over the next few weeks.
We read and retold the story, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and have been making caterpillar and butterfly art.

Maths
We are learning all about numbers from 11-20 and using a variety of resources to represent them.
We are also learning the days of the week and thinking about what happens on each day.

Phonics
This week’s phonemes are ur, oi and ear and the ‘tricky’ words are they and are.
Please can you make sure your child’s reading book is in their bag everyday as we will be changing and sending books on different days and more frequently this term.
We are encouraging the children to write independently using their phonic knowledge. Remember, it doesn’t matter about spelling every word correctly at this stage. It’s more important for children to ‘have a go’ and use their phonic knowledge.
Thank you for sending photos of the sunflowers-I’m so glad some survived!
www.moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Welcome back!
We hope you’ve all had a great break and enjoyed the sunshine!
The children have returned to school happy and ready to learn!
They enjoyed playing in our new playground, especially when the diggers arrived!


This half term we will continue with our ‘Growing’ topic and will have some caterpillars and chicks to observe in the classroom.
Phonics
We are continuing to recap the Phase 3 phonemes; ar, or, ow, ur, oi, ear, air, ure and er.
The tricky words for this phase are; he, she, we, me, be, was, are, they, you, all, her and my.
Maths
We will be learning about numbers to 20 and beyond. The children will know that teen numbers are made up of one ten and some more. They will practise counting on and back from different numbers and represent numbers using a variety of materials.
You can help your child at home to say, read, write and order teen numbers.
PE
Our PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please can you label all items of clothing.
Writing
The children are really enjoying writing at the moment and it is nice to see so many choose to write independently. We are encouraging them to hold their pencil with the correct tripod grip. This will help them write more efficiently and comfortably.
Please refer to the school’s handwriting style which you can find on the website or ask us for a copy. It is far easier for children to adopt this handwriting style now as they begin to write than try to change it later. Encourage your child to write at home. They could write a shopping list, letters to friends and grandparents or write about what they have seen and done.
If you need advice or information on this please ask.
Please continue to let us know about those ‘wow’ moments.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Tennis opportunities

Happy Easter!
We have reached the end of this very strange term! The class have been amazing and we’ve been really impressed with how they have all returned to school.
This week we have been learning to skip and observing our sunflowers and beans grow. The sunshine has definitely helped.
The children will be taking their sunflower home. It would be great if you could send us photos of them as they grow. Ask your child to keep measuring them.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org

Junior Leadership Elections
We were really impressed with all the children who prepared and presented their speech.

Well done to Aaniyah and Ralph who were elected to represent their class-I know they will do a good job.
Have a fantastic Easter break -hopefully the sun will come back!