Reception w/b 14th November
Date: 18th Nov 2022 @ 5:11pm
Reception, it has been a week to be proud of! All of the children have worked incredibly hard and should feel proud of the wonderful progress they are making.
We now know almost all of our single letter sounds and all phonics teachers are pleased with the retention of sounds that we are seeing and the progress with blending. Please look out for a Dojo message to find out the sounds your child has focused on this week. In addition to the importance of sound recognition and blending, we continue to spend lots of time focusing on handwriting as it is so important that children learn to form letters correctly from the start. Mrs North has worked 1:1 with each child to support them with correctly writing their name as well as beginning to practise some letter formation where common errors are made. We have all been very impressed with this beautiful handwriting.
In maths mastery this week, children have continued to engage with activities that underline the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are altogether. They have reinforced their understanding of cardinality – that the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether in a set of objects – and they have further practised their 1:1 correspondence skill, by counting numbers at the same time as moving or tagging objects. A key focus this week has been deepening our understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. We began to explore ways to represent numbers to 5 using both their fingers and the Hungarian number pattern (a die pattern). These key representations will help to underline the ‘fiveness’ of 5 and provide structures that will support later exploration of its composition and its relationships with other numbers. We thoroughly enjoyed the nursery rhyme ‘5 little peas’ to support our understanding of 5.
Our Numicon Firm Foundations focus for the week has been AB repeating patterns (e.g. red, yellow, red, yellow, red…). We thoroughly enjoyed painting repeating patterns using cotton buds (which was also great for fine motor skills!) as well as creating AB patterns on the pegboards. Our number of the week was number 2 so we enjoyed a ‘2 investigation’ activity; one element of this activity required us to paint the two wings of a butterfly. We painted one side and then folded the paper so that the paint transferred and the wings were symmetrical. Our formation rhyme for number two was: around and back on the railroad track. Two, two, two, two!
It has been our innovation week in English this week so we have all chosen our own superhero (instead of Juniper Jupiter) and sidekick (instead of Peanut). We wrote the names of our superheroes and sidekicks so beautifully, using sound mats to support our formation. We were very impressed with all the sounds the children could hear in the names. We have then been orally telling our stories. As we know our story map so well, we were able to use Miss Witham’s post-it note trick to change elements of the story map and tell a full story full of wonderful language. You may spy some photos of this below. What wonderful authors and storytellers we have in Reception! Excitingly, our work with Juniper Jupiter concluded with a very exciting visit from Juniper Jupiter herself, along with her sidekick Peanut! She had such fantastic answers to the list of questions we had compiled as a class, so much so that this generated more questions! Eventually, Juniper and Peanut had to return to saving people and looking after the town but we were very grateful and so excited about their visit.
This week has been Anti-Bullying Week and it was World Kindness Day on Monday. To support our understanding of anti-bullying and kindness, we have focused on the book ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’. After reading the book, we talked about how the characters were feeling in the story. We thought about how the animals were unkind to Gerald (e.g. they were laughing at him not with him, they were teasing him) and suggested things they could have done instead (e.g. encouraged him, helped him to learn how to dance, asked him what kind of music he would like). We discussed things that we are proud of that we can do and things we can’t do YET (just like Gerald at the beginning of the story with his dancing) which opened the discussion up to suggestions from other children for how they could help each other to learn these new skills. We finally asked: What do could you do to help someone who may be feeling the same way as Gerald? In provision time, we then enjoyed creating giraffe handprints.
In PE this week our objectives were to: negotiate space and obstacles safely; with consideration for ourselves and others; demonstrate strength, balance and co-ordination; develop balancing skills on equipment. We therefore participated in a carousel of three outdoor activities: climbing on the outdoor climbing frame, learning how to hula-hoop and completing a series of challenges whilst balancing beanbags on our heads. It was such fun!
We have of course enjoyed lots of continuous provision time this week. Some popular activities have included: building homes for animals in the construction, writing letters and words on the chalkboards and clipboards, painting with cotton buds, playing Orchard Tree games, threading with pasta, creating playdough shapes on the mats, water play and creating a nature restaurant! Several children also enjoyed visiting a ‘spa’ this afternoon! The activities and environment continue to support our developing understanding of ‘real-life heroes’. As Tuesday brought such heavy rain, we unfortunately had to cancel our Forest School session but Mr Simmons loved joining us in our provision!
Perhaps the highlight of the week for many children has been our Nativity preparations. We have just loved learning all of these songs and I shall share the lyrics with you so that children are able to practise at home. From Monday, we will be able to go into the hall and practise on the stage. We ask that you please continue to support your child with learning their lines at home. If you have any concerns about this, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Next Tuesday we have the excitement of our whole school trip to Chester Zoo. A separate email will be sent to you all confirming key details such as ensuring children have a warm waterproof coat, school uniform is to be worn, a rucksack for packed lunches and water bottles and to be in school close to 8.35am so we can leave promptly at 9am. Reception will be given hi- vis jackets in school and will walk in pairs, in groups of a maximum of 4 Reception children and 4 Year 6 children per adult throughout the day . The class will always stay together. Shared experiences like these always create such lovely memories and we hope to share many of the photos with you on our return.
I hope that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend.
With many thanks as ever,
Miss Witham
