Reception w/b 10th July
Date: 14th Jul 2023 @ 4:43pm
We can hardly believe that the penultimate week of Reception has just drawn to a close. We are already reflecting on the wonderful journey our class has been on together this year and are recognising and celebrating their progress with joy and pride. As the children arrive at school, we have enjoyed continuing with our independent whiteboard writing, which you may notice from the many photos! This has been such a clear indicator of each and every child’s development as they come into school and get straight on with writing a sentence with confidence and focus. A joy and a pleasure to observe!
This week, we enjoyed our final phonics lesson with our phonics teachers. We must express such thanks to Mrs Warren, Mrs McAree, Mrs North, Mrs Oldham, Mrs Sherliker-Hewitt and Miss Toft for all of their hard work with our wonderful Reception children this year. Working in these small groups has been so valuable and the children have loved spending this small group time with these fabulous teachers. To celebrate all of this hard work from both children and teachers, our final phonics lesson had a twist. We each enjoyed a phonics breakfast party with our teachers. Mrs Warren tells me that her group were very motivated to write words containing split digraphs when they got to eat the words, such as a-e in cake and grape and i-e in pineapple! Well done to all of our Reception children for their hard work this year; we are all looking forward to learning new sounds in Year 1.
Year 1 has been an exciting topic of conversation this week, after our ‘move up morning’ on Monday. The children thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Mrs Pulle, Mrs Knott and Mrs Wiggs and completing an assortment of activities. They returned to Reception with lots to tell me about the Year 1 classroom as they had spotted familiar elements of the classroom which were similar to Reception, as well as some differences which made them feel very grown up. We have also loved writing messages to Mrs Pulle, Mrs Knott and Mrs Wiggs during provision time this week. The excitement of Year 1 beckons!
Another celebratory element of our week was Wednesday’s Dojo exchange morning. The children had a lovely time exchanging their Dojos for badges, playtimes, Forest School sessions, time at the park or a morning tea. Such well-deserved treats!
Over the last two weeks, our focus in maths has been teen numbers. This has been a sneak peek of some Year 1 content and the children have once again proven themselves to be marvellous mathematicians. We have spent time looking at a hundred square and number line as we ordered teen numbers, spotted missing numbers and counted forwards/backwards to/from 20. This has helped us to spot patterns in the numbers. We have looked at making teen numbers with Numicon, helping us to notice the ‘ten and…’ structure of teen numbers. For example, we would represent 14 with a 10 Numicon shape and a 4 Numicon shape – 14 is made of 10 and 4. Today, we also looked at representing teen numbers on tens frames, again noticing the ‘ten and…’ structure. Continued exposure to teen numbers over the summer holiday would be very beneficial for the children so that they begin Year 1 with confidence and lots of prior knowledge.
Over the last two weeks, we have also been doing some planting. Inspired by the story ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ as well as our focus text ‘The Extraordinary Gardener’, we have planted beans. Last week, we planted beans that had not been soaked in water overnight, popping them on top of paper towels. This week, we planted beans that had been soaked in water overnight and planted them in soil. It will be interesting to continue to compare how these beans grow. We intend to send these bean plants home over the summer for the children to keep, along with suggestions for related activities. We hope that this will help to maintain lovely links with school over the summer and provide an exciting discussion point on return to Year 1. Our related writing activity has been writing instructions for planting bean seeds. The children have been wonderful at ‘being bossy’ and using our time connectives.
We have also continued to explore the natural world in our beautiful Forest School. This week was very ‘bee themed’, a natural focus which evolved from our Forest School environment. First, we had spotted a queen bee on a tree and Mr Simmons explained the role of the queen bee and how crucial it is that she is protected. We spotted a burrowing bee on the ground and recalled the information that Mr Simmons has previously taught us, including how the bees chew the dirt to burrow! Finally, we found a rather sleepy and immobile bee who needed our help. Mrs North carefully helped the bee onto a flower, where he spent some time resting and drinking. By the end of Forest School, our bee friend was much more lively and ready to fly away. Well done Reception for looking after God’s creatures with such a gentle and kind approach.
This week has been our SRE week. Our focus has been caring friendships and being kind. Our puppet, Ezza the Zebra, has prompted discussions with her stories about her time in Year 1. We have discussed: the importance of friendship and that friendships can make us feel happy; ways that we can make new friends feel welcome; that arguing with friends and then making up can make friendships stronger; that resorting to violence is never right. The children have impressed us with their understanding and their use of vocabulary, particularly when naming emotions. On Monday, we will complete our final SRE lesson, focusing on the fact that all families are different. We will identify different members of the family and understand how members of a family can help each other.
Finally, we have spent time practising for Sports Day! It promises to be an exciting morning, full of team spirit, determination and joy. Here’s hoping that the weather is kind to us! We shall look forward to seeing many of you there.
I hope that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend. I am thoroughly looking forward to welcoming the children back to school on Monday, ready to ‘soak up’ every moment of our final week together in Reception.
With warm thanks,
Miss Witham
