Reception Class News

Christmas Party

It’s that time of year again when we get our party dresses out and our posh trousers on and dance the afternoon away at the Christmas party!

KS1 and Reception will be having their Christmas party on Thursday 18 December in the afternoon.  Your child can bring their party dresses and/or posh trousers (and anything else they want to wear) in a named bag so that they can get changed at lunchtime.  Please make sure that all children come to school in their uniform as normal.  You may think that they will not be able to get ready themselves – believe me, they can.  However, there will be help at hand for zips, tights and any other difficult item!

Please do not send any food – there will be a party snack provided.

Thank you.

Phonics

We’re coming to the end of Phase 2 of our phonics programme, ‘Letters and Sounds’. Next week, your child will begin Phase 3 with the last of the single letter phonemes. The purpose of this phase is to:

• teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, 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 (so please help your child to learn these: talk about letters using their correct name as well as the sounds they make)
• read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
• read and write words in phrases and sentences.

CVC words containing graphemes made of two or more letters

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

During Phase 3, your child will learn more ‘Tricky Words’. These are the words we’ll learn in Phase 3: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, said.

Keeping our teeth healthy

Year 1 and Reception have been visiting Year 2 to learn about how to keep their teeth healthy. The children had great knowledge on what they needed to do to have healthy teeth and we tested just how well they were brushing their teeth by using a plaque disclosure tablet. We found the parts of our teeth that we needed to brush most and then brushed for two minutes until they were squeaky clean. We did look a little odd with our purple mouths though!

Several times on purpose

Alongside our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds themed week it has been national anti-bullying week.

Our school definition has been discussed by the School Council and has been amended, 10.11.14, to incorporate the stop message.

‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’

Following a whole school assembly, Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team have delivered Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and in class children have discussed these aspects of bullying:

• Our revised definition of bullying (above)
• Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
• What to do if children experience bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)

Bullying resources can be found at…

• http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
• http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
• http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying

Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied ‘…I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’

All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.

Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds

Our themed week, Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds,  has been filled with visits and visitors providing a variety of experiences for the whole school.

We would like to thank the following for their support with our themed week:

• Heart Research UK
• d:side (drug education)
• Betty Sutherland tai chi
• White Rose martial arts
• Chapel Allerton squash and tennis club
• Leeds United
• Molly Cawthorn (Leeds United ladies)
• Leeds Rhinos
• Tesco Seacroft Farm to Fork trail
• Jhardine Farrell who delivered ‘respecting everybody’ circle times
• Leeds anti-social behaviour team
• Year 6 for taking over PE lessons for the rest of the school
• Mr Catherall for introducing the teachers to our new whole school sport, tchoukball
• parents/carers who talked about their health related job to different classes
• Public health resource centre for the loan of resources and providing health related leaflets

Finally, thank you to all staff and pupils who have fully engaged with all the learning throughout the week.  Take a look at the Class News sections of the website to find out what each class have been doing.  We have enjoyed a fun-filled week.

For further information about healthy bodies and healthy minds have a look at the Kids health website and Leeds Let’s Change for advice on more local health issues.

And an extra note from me, Mr Roundtree: I’d like to also thank Mrs Taylor for continuing to organise wonderful, packed themed weeks around being healthy or staying safe.  She puts an incredible amount of effort into ensuring our pupils enjoy some wonderful learning opportunities from staff and visitors. 

Ronnie the Rhino and the Challenge Cup!

Yesterday, we had a fun-packed assembly from two Leeds Rhino Coaches who recapped some very important messages about how to have a healthy lifestyle. They introduced us to their friend Ronnie the Rhino – who had successfully changed his unhealthy lifestyle by eating a more balanced diet and doing lots more exercise. We were also very lucky as Ronnie had brought in The Challenge Cup which the Leeds Rhinos won recently.

Learning to write

The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.

In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. At the moment the children are busy writing messages to their favourite superheroes! We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.

You can help at home by:

• Providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
• Encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
• Spelling is harder than reading words – praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
• Remember that at this stage children’s phonetic attempts are valued. They will learn the correct spellings of words later.  We want the children to become confident writers by ‘having a go’ and using their phonetic knowledge independently.
• To be able to write, children need to be well co-ordinated through their whole body, not just their hands and fingers. Games that help co-ordination include throwing balls at a target, under-arm and over-arm, and bouncing balls – also skipping on the spot, throwing a Frisbee, picking up pebbles from the beach and throwing them into the sea.

Have fun!

It’s half-term…

…so there’s no specific homework this week, apart from ensuring your child spends at least 20 minutes each day reading and 5-10 minutes learning their number bonds / times tables.

Enjoy your October break. If you stay in Leeds, check out all the activities the museums and art galleries have on offer.

The characteristics of effective learning

In Reception we observe and assess children’s learning in seven areas. These are: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development; physical development; literacy; maths; knowledge of the world and expressive arts and design. Alongside these we observe children’s characteristics of effective learning.

These characteristics and the areas of learning and development are all interconnected.

‘The ways in which the child engages with other people and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas and support the child to remain an effective and motivated learner.”

The characteristics of effective learning are:

Playing and exploring – engagement

• Finding out and exploring
• Playing with what they know
• Being willing to ‘have a go’

Active learning – motivation

• Being involved and concentrating
• Keeping trying
• Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically – thinking

• Having their own ideas
• Making links
• Choosing ways to do things

Phonics in Reception

At Moortown we follow the Letters and Sounds programme for teaching phonics.

We’ll be inviting you to a ‘phonics morning’ where you’ll be able to watch a short phonics lesson and observe the types of activities which will help you to support your child at home. These will be held on 15, 16 and 17 October at 9.20am. A letter will be sent home with your child.

This week, we’ll be busy learning to identify alliteration and rhyme which will pave the way for the systematic learning of phonics.

The children are taking part in lots of activities where they listen attentively to sounds around them, such as sounds in the environment and to sounds in spoken language. Singing a wide range of nursery rhymes and songs and reading books to and with the children helps to increase the number of words they know – their vocabulary – and helps them talk confidently about books.

We’re also learning to ‘sound talk’. The separate sounds (phonemes) are spoken aloud, in order, all through the word, and are then merged together into the whole word: d-o-g = dog. This merging together is called blending and is a vital skill for reading.

Children will also learn to do this the other way around: cat = c-a-t. The whole word is spoken aloud and then broken up into its sounds (phonemes) in order, all through the word. This is called segmenting and is a vital skill for spelling.

This is all oral (spoken). Your child won’t be expected to match the letter to the sound at this stage. The emphasis is on helping children to hear the separate sounds in words and to create spoken sounds.

Ways you can support your child at home:

Play ‘What do we have in here?’ Put some toys or objects in a bag and pull one out at a time. Emphasise the first sound of the name of the toy or object by repeating it, for example, ‘c c c c – car’, ‘b b b b – box’, ‘ch ch ch ch – chip’.

When sounding out, try to avoid the ‘uh’ sound – say ‘sssss’ rather than ‘suh’, ‘mmmmm’ rather than ‘muh’.  This is to keep the sound as ‘pure’ as it can be so there’s no confusion with extra, unwanted sounds when blending and segmenting words.