Reception w/b 6th January
Date: 10th Jan 2025 @ 11:56am
(Photos to be uploaded on Monday)
A very warm welcome back and wishing you all a Happy New Year. It has been just wonderful to begin a new term with the children this week and such a joy to observe how delighted they were to see their friends after the break. Whilst the snow and ice necessitated a school closure today (we are definitely missing the children!), we do feel very thankful for all of the fun we have had outdoors this week and the reminder of the beauty in nature during wintertime.
We ‘hit the ground running’ with our phonics sessions and were very pleased with how well the children had retained their sounds. You may find that your child is now in a new phonics group following our end of term phonics assessments; the children have worked simply beautifully in these groups, impressing their phonics teachers throughout the week. Over the next few weeks, we shall be consolidating our Set 1 sound knowledge and really focusing on reading and writing words. Please read the ‘How to help at home’ document to find out the sounds your child has focused on this week.
This week, we have also added our more formalised guided reading sessions immediately after phonics. The children have wowed us with their reading and are very excited to show their reading skill to you at home as they bring home the stories that they have read in school. As part of the guided reading timetable, our book change day is now a Thursday. Each week, I shall collect diaries and books on a Thursday to change after school, ready to go home on a Friday. Please therefore ensure that books and diaries are back in school every Thursday. Just like Year 1 and 2, we will not be writing comments in diaries during guided reading sessions, to ensure that we are spending the whole time listening to and supporting the children with their reading, rather than using some of the time to write comments. However, if we have a message to share with you about your child’s reading, I will either make a note, send a message or have a conversation at the door. We are, however, enjoying reading any comments that you may be writing in the diaries about reading at home – it is so lovely (and really helpful) to hear how the children are finding their texts. We are very grateful for your support with reading at home and the benefits of the children reading frequently at home will be evident in their continued wonderful progress.
In our maths sessions, we have been building on our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5. Composing and de-composing numbers has involved investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2 – a whole is made up of smaller parts. We have also started to recognise that numbers can be made by combining parts in different ways e.g. 4 is made of 1 and 3 but 4 is also made of 2 and 2. A key focus has also been the spatial arrangements that can be made with different combinations of the same number of objects – we have really enjoyed the Numberblocks ‘Stampolines’ episode to represent this! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dnngm/numberblocks-series-1-stampolines We have then enjoyed printing our own ‘Stampolines’ in the provision, arranging snap cubes in different ways, dipping the cubes in paint and then printing them. We have continued to practise our counting skills, including trickier challenges like counting beyond 20 and counting more abstract things, such as claps and jumps.
This week, there has also been a particular focus on children recognising numerals. Whilst the children are excellent at recognising numerals to 5, we are noticing some errors in recognising numerals to 10. For example, some children are able to count 8 objects but are finding it tricky to remember what the numeral 8 looks like. I have therefore included some suggestions for supporting the development of this skill in our ‘How to help at home’ document. This shall continue to be a focus in school also.
On Monday morning, we found a gift – it was small and wrapped in purple paper. The children predicted what could be inside, using clues such as the size, shape and weight of the gift to make a sensible guess. Upon opening the present, we discovered a toy bus. Who has seen a bus like this before? Have you been on one? Where? What did you see out of the window? What job do buses have? Why are they so important? Where do you see them? What numbers do you know from buses? Where do they go? Where would like to go on a bus? Where do you like to sit on a bus? We then introduced our new focus text: Naughty Bus by Jan and Jerry Oke. This book is always a favourite with our Reception classes! We were particularly interested in how the words had been written to reflect what was happening in the story e.g. the word ‘buildings’ was stretched so that the letters looked tall and thin like skyscrapers. Towards the end of the week, we were introduced to our story map and will soon begin to add corresponding Makaton signs to help us to learn to orally retell ‘Naughty Bus’. This will be so helpful in the weeks that follow as we complete different writing tasks related to the story. As we ease back into the new term, this week’s literacy activity was a word writing activity as we labelled images from the story. This week, there has also been a particular emphasis on recognising the red words: I, the, to, love. We understand that pre-Christmas fun and a two-week break means that children need time to consolidate this learning before we add a new weekly red word. Next week, there will be activities in the provision to help us to remember these 4 words. Practising the red words at home would be very beneficial also.
This week, we were very excited about our first ever Spanish lesson! This week, we learnt the difference between the more formal ‘buenos días’ and the less formal and very popular ‘hola’. We have been using our knowledge throughout the week to answer the register.
This week, we also enjoyed a ‘No Outsiders’ lesson. First, we thought about our favourite fruits. In pairs, the children discussed their favourites; lots of pairs had different favourites. We discussed the fact that, in this lesson, our focus would be the fact that we like different things and we are friends. We read the book ‘Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly’ by Sue Heap and Nick Sharratt. Nick and Sue like lots of different things but they still like each other; they are great friends. We concluded that we found things that we all liked as well as lots of ways we are different; we are still wonderful friends.
We have, of course, been having lots of fun in the winter weather. On Monday, we decided to use our PE slot to head onto the field as a whole class, taking the opportunity to be active in the snowy outdoors! The children have then been able to freely access the outdoor area during choosing time (as long as they had wrapped up warm and popped their wellies on!); we were very thankful for our astro turf which allowed us to continue using the outdoor area, with the playground surface became slippery as temperatures dropped throughout the week. We are also extremely grateful for our beautiful Forest School area and our wonderful Forest School teacher, Mr Simmons! I hear that the children had a fantastic time exploring the snow-covered forest, and the enhancements that Mr Simmons had set up.
In our worship time this week, our focus has been Epiphany. For Christians, the greatest treasure of all is a lifelong relationship with Jesus. Just like the Magi we must try hard and keep committing to that relationship. We enjoyed a treasure hunt as part of this worship, thinking about the Magi visiting Jesus, how long it took for them to find him, and the star that guided them on their journey. Today, we were due to have our RE day; we were very much looking forward to beginning to hear some stories that Jesus heard (from the Old Testament). We shall instead have these lessons next week.
This week, we have also been thinking about our wonderful Mr Spillsbury. We were due to be making a card for Mr Spillsbury today from Reception so will most certainly make this next week. I know that lots of the children were also keen to make their own cards and pictures. I am planning to visit Mr Spillsbury next week, so if you have any cards/pictures/messages that you would like me to pass on to him, please send me a Dojo or pass the pictures along, and I will make sure he gets them. The children and staff are really missing him.
Next week, our new timetable shall begin and so Forest School will now be on a Monday and PE on a Friday. Mrs Mitchell and Miss Hinett will therefore be in the classroom to greet the children on Monday morning.
Congratulations Reception on a superb start to the term. I can’t wait to discover the adventures we will enjoy through our Naughty Bus topic!
I hope that you all have a lovely weekend and that you stay safe and warm in these icy conditions, hopefully with a final opportunity to enjoy the snow. I will be really looking forward to seeing you all on Monday afternoon.
With best wishes,
Miss Witham
