Reception w/b 13th March
Date: 17th Mar 2023 @ 4:24pm
Oh Reception, what beautiful love and appreciation you all showed for your mummies in Church today. It has been so special to spend time this week talking about our loved ones, in particular our mums, and what they mean to us. Every child had gorgeous things to say and we hope that you enjoyed hearing some of these words in Church today. It was beautiful to hear all of the children singing joyfully and proudly to show love for God our mother, St Oswald’s our Mother Church and those who love and mother us. Thank you ever so much to those who came to join us in Church and the children were simply delighted to see you all; upon our return to school, they spoke so animatedly and excitedly about seeing their grown-ups. We cannot thank you enough for your support and understanding with regards to our journeys to and from Church with the hopes to avoid any upset on return to school; it really helped the children to return to school filled with joy after a wonderful service which they were proud to share with you. It was lovely to enjoy the sunshine together and look for signs of spring on our walk; we also listened to several conversations between partners about their lovely mummies and what they mean to them. The children were most excited to bring home their cards, flowerpots and gifts (thanks to Mrs North, Miss Toft, Mrs Taylor and our fabulous PTA). We hope that you all enjoy a lovely Mothering Sunday together with your families and I hope that Sunday brings beautiful sunshine once again.
It has been a slightly shorter week of phonics and reading sessions but the children have continued to work hard and engage enthusiastically with these sessions. On Monday, due to staff illnesses, we even enjoyed a whole class phonics session! We were most excited to use our whiteboards to record our words and sentences, after a Set 2 sound recap. You can find your child’s sound of the week in the Dojo message. I will begin to assess children’s reading progress over the next couple of weeks; I am very much looking forward to talking to you all about their hard work and progress during our parent consultations next week.
In our NCETM Mastering Number maths sessions, we have been sorting objects according to different criteria (e.g. colour, shape, size, function). This was also a good opportunity to recap our 2D shape names – please do continue to talk to your child about the shapes that you notice around you wherever possible. Sorting and classifying are important early years’ skills that encourage children to identify similarities and differences. These skills also support problem solving and the development of data analysis. Alongside this, we have continued to practise recalling the composition of numbers as doubles.
Our Numicon Firm Foundations work has continued to focus on finding the difference; Reception are becoming absolute experts at this! Next week, we will begin our work on subtraction by taking away and recording these calculations in number sentences. I am excited to show the children my playdough smash subtraction game!
In English, we have started to record our losing stories. These look simply wonderful, and the children are ever so proud of their efforts. They are most excited to finish their stories next week and share these with you and members of staff in school.
In our music session this week, we were just delighted when Mrs Tice revealed the beautiful scarves that we would be working with. Now, whenever we see Mrs Tice around school, we all burst into song! We shall endeavour to record some of these songs to share with you.
Within worship, we have continued to look at the value of Hope. We listened to the Tale of Three Trees and discussed our hopes for the future. These included: being a Mummy; becoming an astronaut; being just like my aunty; having my own house.
This week, it was World Sleep Day. Therefore, we have spent some time thinking about the importance of sleep. We talked about things that help us to go to sleep (cuddles, reading a story, having a bath, having some milk, snuggling with a teddy, listening to a lullaby) and things that don’t help us to sleep (screen time before bed, loud noises, feeling worried, fizzy drinks or sweets). In provision time, we have then been creating our own dreamcatchers to help us to sleep. This will continue into next week for those who haven’t quite had chance just yet.
The children were most impressive during our RE session this week as they recounted the events of Holy Week in detail and with a clear understanding of the significance of each event. This week, we looked more closely at the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We thought about the quote: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ John 3:16. We used the Lion Storyteller Bible and read ‘A Dreadful Day’ (Good Friday) and ‘A Happy Day’ (Easter Sunday). We talked about the cross and Jesus’ love for everyone; Christians believe Jesus died to save us from all our wrongdoing and rebuild our relationships with God. He came back to life; this is part of God’s big plan. Finally, we listened to some sad Good Friday music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTVQoUs8aWI) and then some happy Easter Sunday music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44v_oAwQLfo) and talked about how this music made us feel. To conclude our lesson, we created a prayer garden using paper flowers to remind us of Jesus’ time praying in Gethsemane.
I truly hope it is a wonderful Mothering Sunday weekend full of love for you all. There is lots to look forward to in Reception next week; I am already excited!
With so many thanks for your continued support,
Miss Witham
