Reception w/b 21st October
Date: 24th Oct 2024 @ 5:51pm
Congratulations Reception on completing your first half term of school. You have settled into school life absolutely beautifully and are working ever so hard. Mrs McAree and I have adored spending these eight weeks with you and are already looking forward to the excitement that next half term will bring.
It was such a pleasure to speak with you all during parent consultations to celebrate your wonderful children. We are so proud of each and every superstar in our Reception class. As shared in these consultations, I have completed Read Write Inc. phonics assessments. It was such a joy to see the progress that the children have made in such a short time of learning phonics. Inside your child’s diary, you will now find a grid of sounds that have been highlighted to show the sounds that are not yet fully secure. Please practise any sounds that are highlighted and keep recapping the known sounds. We would advise securing a row at a time. For example, if ‘t’ is a gap, we would practise this as a priority over ‘u’ as a gap. Please also record any reading that has been completed over half term; it will be so lovely to chat with the children about this when we return to school to recognise and celebrate their hard work.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday involved learning the sounds: r, j, v. We used the following handwriting phrases:
r – down the robot’s back and curl over the arm
j – down his body, curl, dot for his head
v – down a wing, up a wing
Now that phonics assessments have been completed, children will work in small groups to access phonics teaching after half term. This will allow children to work on their target sounds, at their stage of blending and at a pace that works best for them. This tailored approach, with lots of repetition, will best support the children to progress with their phonics. The children will work with phonics teachers from across the key stage. After half term, we will introduce the staff to the children before completing any phonics work! We will also inform you of your child’s phonics teacher via the Friday Dojo message in the first week back. We are very excited to begin; this approach worked wonderfully last year.
Within our NCETM Mastering Number sessions, we have been comparing sets of objects using the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. ‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things. Language has been a key focus, using the stem sentence _________ has more/fewer than ________ . E.g. Counting Croc has fewer buttons than Fred.
This week concluded our ‘Bears’ focus and thus was the last week of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ literacy lessons. This week, we had an ‘innovation’ focus, changing the story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. To understand this concept, we first enjoyed listening to the story, ‘We’re Going on a Lion Hunt’. In this story, we were able to identify how the character had changed (from a bear to a lion) as well as the settings (e.g. a swamp). We then enjoyed becoming authors to think of our own animals and settings (e.g. a shark in the ocean, a polar bear in the snow, a camel in the desert). We used post-it notes to innovate our class story map. I then added story maps and post-it notes to the provision, prompting many children to have a go at becoming innovative authors! Of course, no ‘bears’ focus is complete without enjoying Paddington Bear’s favourite treat…marmalade sandwiches! The children enjoyed spreading the marmalade and cutting their sandwiches independently. We then enjoyed a tea party together this afternoon to celebrate the end of half term and the conclusion of our focus on bears.
One of our most exciting lessons this week was our ‘Understanding the World’ session. Firstly, huge thanks for the wonderful baby and toddler photos that you all took the time to send. I cannot even express how truly delighted the children were to see these. Firstly, we looked at non-fiction books about human life cycles, exploring the changes that occur from being a baby to being an elderly person, helping us to then order photos from being a baby to being an elderly person. Then it was time to look at the photographs from home. When the photographs were revealed, the children first guessed who it could be! We talked about what we could see and compared the differences between the children as babies, toddlers and Reception age children. We identified similarities and differences.
In PE this week, we were most excited to be using the apparatus. As hall space was therefore limited, we warmed-up with a ‘wake and shake’. We then thought back to the jumps, shapes and rolls that we know. One of the challenges was to perform these jumps as we jumped off of the apparatus. We especially emphasised the importance of bent knees before jumping and when we land. It was wonderful to see all children having a go. Rotating through a carousel of activities was both enjoyable but also helped to build confidence; some people initially preferred to jump off of the higher apparatus on their bottom rather than from standing but, after a couple of rotations, were feeling brave and had a go at jumping from standing. It was so lovely to see the children feeling so proud of themselves. The children also demonstrated the rolls, shapes and balancing skills throughout the stations. Reception were ever so sensible and trustworthy during this lesson so we can most definitely have the apparatus out again!
Today, we have focused on pumpkins of love, light and hope. We have been amazed by all the effort and creativity that have produced such wonderful carved pumpkins reflecting these words. As the school gathered, it was an incredible spectacle to observe the pumpkin lit messages. This week, our creation station was enhanced with some pumpkins and we have loved the artwork that this has inspired, as the children have used watercolours carefully to consider shades and tones. We have been using our ‘pumpkin playdough’ to shape pumpkins, engaged with a ‘missing number’ pumpkin challenge; and explored the inside of the pumpkins. We made predictions about the colour and scent of the flesh of the blue and orange pumpkins. Interestingly, the blue pumpkin had a stronger scent. We have then had such sensory fun, scooping out the insides of the pumpkins! We have then been using our fine motor skills to pick up the seeds with tweezers, and counting them. We were amazed by the number of seeds contained in each pumpkin. We have saved the seeds to wash, dry and then hopefully plant later in the year.
Goodness me, what a busy week we have had! I am sure that the children are all now sleepy and ready for a rest after eight weeks of hard work and excitement! We hope whatever you do this half term will be enjoyable and be a lovely break from the routines of school. We look forward to welcoming everyone back after the holidays, rested and keen to embark on a new adventure together.
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
