Reception w/b 16th September
Date: 20th Sep 2024 @ 4:21pm
It has once again been a joy and a delight to spend the week in Reception, observing the magic of new learning opportunities, some beautiful explorative play and many wonderful friendships blossoming. We are so proud of all of the children!
In phonics, the children were most excited to be introduced to our first single letter sounds, with the help of Fred the frog. From Monday to Thursday, we introduced the following four sounds: m, a, s, d and then reviewed on Friday. In addition to recognising/reading these sounds, we have also practised writing them, in some small groups. Each sound has a handwriting phrase:
m – ‘down Maisy, mountain, mountain’
a – ‘around the apple, down the leaf’
s – ‘slither down the snake’
d – ‘around the dinosaur’s bottom, up his tall neck, down to his feet’
We were very careful to start in the correct place and keep our pencil stuck to the paper until we had formed the whole letter. We have been very impressed with our Reception phonics superstars! Links to videos for each sound, along with oral blending videos, can be found in this week’s ‘How to support at home’ document, as well as a link to find handwriting sheets for each sound if you would like to practise forming m, a, s, d at home. We are looking forward to sharing more information about early reading and writing in our parent meeting on Monday (23rd September) at the new time of 2:30pm in the school hall.
Now that the children are settling well into school life, we shall introduce the ‘book change’ routine next week. It will be a little while before the children will bring home decodable books, so we shall begin with choosing from our ‘Reading for Pleasure’ books; books to share with a grown up at home. We will change these books on a Monday and Thursday, as these are our ‘book change days’ throughout KS1 so it will be useful to establish this routine now, ready for receiving our decodable books later in the year. I shall explain more about the book changing routine in Monday’s meeting.
This week, we also started our NCETM Mastering Number sessions. Our focus has been quantifying sets of objects by subitising (or, as we call it, speedy spotting), rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by ‘just seeing’ and knowing straightaway without needing to count. More information about subitising can be found in this week’s ‘How to support at home’ document. This week, we have:
- Looked at a set of objects and shown the same number on our fingers
- Named quantities with number words, (e.g. “I can see 3.”)
- Matched sets to numerals
- Made our own arrangements that can be subitised
We have particularly focused on ‘speedy spotting’ groups of 1, 2 and 3 and have matched these sets with the corresponding numerals and Numicon shapes.
On Monday morning, it was time for PE, and we were very impressed with how well the children had remembered the PE routines. We were able to speedily begin our warm up, travelling like twinkling stars, floating stars, shooting stars. We also practised standing in a strong star shape, demonstrating strong body tension like a gymnast. We then recapped ‘rocket shape’ and ‘squat’ and introduced ‘straddle shape’ and ‘pike shape’. We enjoyed quickly switching between ‘rocket’ and squat’, as well as ‘straddle’ and ‘pike’. After our PE lesson, we also enjoyed time on the ‘big climbing frame’, further developing our gross motor skills and building confidence.
In Forest School, we enjoyed exploring autumnal changes and some favourite activities included clay, bug hotels, collecting autumnal natural treasures and making dens. Mr Simmons and Mrs McAree noticed that the children were already more speedy, confident and independent when getting ready for Forest School.
In our outdoor area, we have been making the most of the beautiful sunshine as we worked together to plant our Reception garden. We planted bulbs at the bottom of the planter boxes; we will wait patiently for them to grow and will be rewarded with beautiful new flowers in the springtime. In the meantime, we have planted winter pansies at the top of our planter boxes to enjoy through the colder weather. We have also planted an herb garden and are already enjoying exploring the scents of each plant. Later in the year, we will be able to use these herbs in our nature kitchen recipes! We have so many keen gardeners in Reception and the children have been ever so helpful, from covering bulbs with soil, to ‘tucking the pansies into bed’ and then giving the garden a good watering. We can’t wait to watch this garden grow with us throughout the year and change with the seasons.
In our PSED circle time, our focus has been ‘all about me’. Circle time is also helping us to continue to learn the names of our new friends. We have enjoyed sharing our favourite things as we explored things that make us the same and things that make us different, noticing how wonderful it is that we are all unique. We have also talked about our special people. We know that not everybody has the same special people; we have different types of families and we have different people who are special to us, both inside and outside our family. We have also been drawing pictures of our special people and are all feeling proud to have these displayed on our ‘Wow Wall’.
Our Makaton signs of the week have been: ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, signs we use regularly as we have such beautiful manners in Reception! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZVMj3B7XE
Of course, we have spent most of our time in the provision, with some favourite activities including: snipping snakes, dotting a d, goldilocks playdough, drawing our special people, playing dominoes with the Numberblocks, loose parts patterns, Orchard Tree games, time spent on the bikes, planting our new garden, cooking in the nature kitchen and much more!
Goodness me, what a lot of learning has taken place in Reception this week! It has been such fun and next week will certainly bring many exciting activities…particularly as we start to learn about harvest. ‘The Little Red Hen’ is always a firm favourite, especially as it will involve some baking in the next couple of weeks!
I must congratulate the children on completing another full week and being such superstars. Whilst I have been out of the classroom for a couple of afternoons as I complete baseline assessments, Mrs Mitchell and Mr McAulay have each spent an afternoon in Reception, alongside truly wonderful Mrs McAree! They have all commented on how kind, helpful and joyful our Reception children are and how much they enjoyed spending the afternoon in Reception. We could not agree more! As we approach the middle of our first half term, we are aware that the children still have lots to absorb within the busy school week and have no doubt that they continue to be very tired once they get home. Please rest assured that we are continuing our gradual build-up of the timetable and are here to gently and warmly support the children. They are doing ever so well and we are so very proud of each and every one of them. Enjoy a lovely rest and we shall very much look forward to beginning a new week on Monday.
With best wishes,
Miss Witham
