Thursday 31 October 2019

Weekly News 31st October

This week in Reception we have enjoyed learning our first four sounds /s/a/t/p/ in phonics and the children have been given their new sounds books to practise at home. Please also help your child to look out for this week’s sounds when reading.  In Maths we have continued with our number of the day and we have learnt all about the numbers 7, 8 and 9. The children have enjoyed using the maths and sounds tables to continue to explore all about the number and letter of the day during enhanced provision.  

We have introduced the children to our new topic, ‘Why do Squirrels hide their nuts’ and explained that we will be learning all about their class animals. We look forward to hearing about the facts the children have found out about their class animals when we start our show and tell sessions next week.  

On Thursday we had an exciting visit from the Author Nick Butterworth who wrote the Percy and the Park Keeper series. He read us his first ever book called 'One Snowy Night' which was set in the park in Percy's hut. This fitted nicely with our new topic and he even signed a copy 'The Hedgehog' story from Hedgehogs reading garden.

We are pleased that our apprentice teacher Michelle Page will be taking the Hedgehogs class on Monday afternoons and is looking forward to meeting some of you at our first stay and play session on Monday 4th November at 2pm. The second stay and play session is next Thursday 8th October at 2pm. 

Now the children are settled in, we will be doing the shaker at 9am ready to start the school day so please ensure your child is in school on time. 







Thursday 17 October 2019

weekly news 17th October

We were very excited on Monday when we met our class bears for the first time ! Bertie Bear is Hedgehog's class toy and Cyril Squirrel is Squirrel's class toy. In our Letters and Sounds session we found out that our class bears like to play a game in which we all have to use 'Robot talk' ! We have to stretch out the sounds in each word and move our arms like robots. This game helps us to segment words and will be a very useful skill to enable us to spell and write words when we learn the phonic sounds. We helped our bears to get dressed by saying each item of clothing in 'Robot' talk eg  's  o  c k s'    and    'h  a  t'. 
Each child will have a turn to take their class bear home to stay for a week and we would love it if you could write about their adventures in the diary which will come home with the bears. If you could upload any photographs of your child's week with the bear on Tapestry that would be fantastic because then your child can show the photographs on our big screens so all their class can see what fun they had.
On Monday afternoon we were very happy to see some of our Pre school leaders who came for our tea party. We showed them around the base and then we enjoyed listening to the story they had brought whilst we shared the chocolate krispie cakes we had made.



In Maths we have been continuing to learn all about numbers and we have been focussing on 4, 5 and 6. The children are getting brilliant at remembering the little rhymes which help them to form the numerals correctly. Hopefully you can reinforce this learning at home by using the sheet of rhymes which we sent home last week.
This week we have been learning a new creative skill by using Modroc to cover a flowerpot. Modroc is like plaster of Paris and the children have dipped the strips of Modroc into water, squeezed them out and then wrapped them around their pot. It's quite a messy activity ! After half term the children will be decorating their pot ready to plant a bulb in during our 'Come and play' sessions on Monday 4th and Thursday 7th November from 2pm. Your child will be bringing home an invitation to invite you to one of these sessions.
In November we will be starting 'Show and tell' all about our class animal. Your child will bring home a picture to decorate and a speech bubble in which we would like you to help them to write a fact about their class animal. Each house group will have a different date to show their Hedgehog or Squirrel home learning.
Thank you very much to all the parents who have been uploading all the super learning that their child has been doing at home. These observations are great to see !

We hope that you all have a lovely half term break.

Thursday 10 October 2019

Weekly news Thursday 10th October



We have had a lovely week in reception and the children have really enjoyed exploring the woodland area outside. They have loved cooking in the mud kitchen and have been making some super comments about the textures of the meals they have created. They have also enjoyed the loose parts in our outdoor construction area.  

 In letters and sounds we have been learning about Alliteration. We played two games, one called ‘Bertha the bus where the bus travels around a zoo mat and see which animals begin with the same sound. The other was ‘Musical Corners’ where there are 4 baskets with a different letter in each one. The children practiced putting objects into the basket beginning with the same sound. In Maths this week we have been learning about the story of numbers 1, 2 and 3. Each day we focussed on a different number and learnt how the number is formed, how to count that number of items and how we write the number. We also used the numicon, a number line and dice to see how the number can be represented.  

We had a great time on our Autumn number walk around the village on Thursday. We spotted lots of numbers on cars, road signs, house numbers and shop signs. We also enjoyed looking for signs of autumn on our spotter sheets as we walked back across the commonThank you to all of the parents who came to help and we hope you enjoyed it too! 

We have now finished reading Grendel and have retold the story using a story map. On Friday we will have a discussion about chocolate and what it tastes like. We will discuss how we could melt it and then we will be making some chocolate rice krispie cakes. The children are making one to take home and one for our Pre- School leaders tea party which we are hosting on Monday. The children are very excited that their pre-school leaders will be coming in to see them. If your child is part time but would like to come to see their pre-school leaders, they can come back at 2 o’clock on Monday afternoon to join us. 

We would like to thank you for coming to our Reception information meeting on Wednesday. We hope you found this useful and it has helped you to understand how to help support your child with their learning at home. If you were unable to make it, your child should have brought home a pack with the slides from our PowerPoint as well as some information about Maths and letter formation. Do come and chat tus if there is anything else you would like to know. 

Wednesday 2 October 2019

weekly news 3rd October

This week we have started our 'Letters and Sounds' and 'Maths' sessions in our groups.
In 'Letters and Sounds' this week we have been learning about words which rhyme and we made some very 'silly soup' ! The ingredients which we added to our soup all had to rhyme-for example cat and bat. Can you ask your child if they can remember any of the other ingredients that we put in our silly soup ? Perhaps you could talk to your child about words which rhyme.
In 'Maths' this week we have started to learn all about 'Numicon'. The children have been learning to recognise each different shape and which number it represents and we have been putting the Numicon shapes in order to 10.
We have also started doing 'Dough Disco' on 4 mornings a week. Each child has a little pot of playdough and we are learning to do different 'moves' with our hands to squeeze, roll, pinch and flatten the dough in time to music. This is lots of fun and helps to develop the muscles in our hands and fingers which will help the children to use scissors, paint brushes, pencils, and all tools. The children are very excited to get stronger muscles !
Over the next week we will be showing the children how to use our Woodland area. They will be learning how to put their puddlesuit or trousers on and also their wellies. Up on our Woodland area we have a large mudpie kitchen, a bird watching area, a large construction area and a swing. Please feel free to take your child's puddlesuit home from time to time to wash it !
Thank you very much to all the parents who have returned the reply slip about the information meeting next Wednesday 9th starting at 2pm in the Lower School Hall. We will be explaining all about how we teach children to read and how you can support them with all their learning at home too.
If you have offered to help on our Autumn Number Hunt next Thursday morning please meet us by the parent's gate near the Doctor's surgery at 9:30am and we will bring the children to meet you. The walk will be around the village, across the Common and we aim to be back at school at 10:30am. Please wear suitable footwear and make sure that your child has a coat with a hood in case of rain.