Congratulations!

Thank you very much for attending the reception class assembly this morning! We were very proud of the effort and confidence all the children showed. We had a few requests to have the video shown put onto a disk, so if you would like a copy, please come and see us and we'll write your name down for one.

This afternoon we have had a tea party, where the children all sat down and ate a small selection of nibbles! Hopefully they will still be hungry enough for their dinner! 

Finally, thank you for all of your effort regarding the costumes children wore today, they were brilliant! We had such a variety. 

Have a nice weekend.

Reception team

Wow!

Hi Reception,

We wanted to say WELL DONE! Your assembly was amazing, you have learned so much and grown up so much already!

From Your Proud Buddies in Year 4

Assembly lines

Apologies for the lack of warning regarding the lines your children brought home this evening. These lines are for our class assembly on Friday. We would encourage you to practise these lines at home for just 5 minutes. If you don't have the time, don't worry, we will be doing more practising in school! 

Thank you

A few bits and pieces...

Hello everyone,

Firstly, just to clarify, on Friday we have asked that the children come to school dressed up as their favourite book or film character. We will not be changing them into something different for our class assembly, they will continue to wear what they have come to school in. If anybody is struggling for ideas please feel free to come and have a chat! 

I am amazed with the continuous stream of home learning that keeps coming in! There is now so much up on our home learning wall that we are going to start a new display. We have photographed all of the work that is up on the home learning wall so it can be added to learning journeys so please feel free to come and take any work that your child has done and would like to take home! Thank you again for every piece of writing and every piece of art! Keep it coming! 

Because we are having such a busy week this week, we have decided to revise previously learnt sounds for the most part. However, we will be learning 'ow' - as in cow tomorrow. This will be the only new sound for this week. 

A quick reminder that our first class assembly is on Friday 29th November at 9.20am. It will be in the school hall so please feel free to head straight to the hall after drop-off!

Reception team

The week ahead

This week we will be finishing our preparation for our first class assembly! The children are very excited and have been working hard with their acting. We will be looking at writing invitations this week, in particular, we will be encouraging children to have a go at sounding words out before writing them down! 

In maths we will be looking at counting up to 20 and finding one more/less. If there are any opportunities to do this at home, please take them! Counting how many knives & folks we need at the table, how many shoes there are on the shoe rack etc. 

On Friday we have invited the children to come to school dressed as their favourite book/film character in order to celebrate the end of our stories topic. They will then wear these clothes during our class assembly. 

At the end of Friday we are planning to have a tea party with the children - We will be trying to keep this a secret from the children! 

Reception team

What we've been up to...

We've had a very busy week so far in reception! 4 groups of children have now made the sides of our sweet house, which is really taking shape. It's currently sitting on top of the drawers so feel free to have a look. 

In maths we are still paying close attention to 2D and 3D shapes - so if you are out, see if your children can spot any shapes in the environment.

For the rest of the week, we are going to be moving on to looking at  a new traditional tale - Goldilocks and the three bears! We plan to have a small tea party at the end of next week (More details to follow soon) as well as basing some writing around the story. In maths we are going to be moving on to counting up to 20 securely and beginning to look at estimating and adding to small groups of items together! 

We are also going to be having a problem solving morning where the children will work in their teddy job groups to solve a problem that require them to work together i.e. make a bridge so a toy car can get from one table to the other. 

Sounds being covered this week.

Hello everyone,

The sounds that we will be covering this week are

Long vowel sounds 'oo' - as in boot. Move head back and forth as if it is the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock. This is the same action for the short vowel 'oo' sound.

'ar' - as in part. Open mouth wide as if at the dentist and say ah.

'or' - as in fork. Put hands on head as if ears on a donkey and say eeyore, eeyore (This action also incorporates the 'ee' sound that the children will already know. 

Short vowel 'oo' - as in look. The action is the same as that of the long vowel 'oo' sound' 

The sounds are becoming increasingly tricky but we are all amazed with how the children are picking them up and using them! Thank you for your continued support in this area! 

Because of the complexity of the new sets of sounds, we are leaving the Friday phonics sessions as more of a recapping session where all the sounds covered in the week are looked at again. 

 

Challenge

The children were given a challenge this morning so anything to help the children achieve it would be wonderful! 

All the children are becoming increasingly confident with the sounds that we are covering which is fantastic. What we are now encouraging the children to do is write the sounds they think of or hear down. We want every child to have a go at writing a simple word that they have sounded out and written themselves! Please don't feel you have to write it down on A4 paper; post-it notes, envelopes, in shaving foam, electronically - just some ideas. 

The children will also have the chance to do this in the classroom as well. If you're comfortable with one word, try writing several different ones or perhaps even a short sentence! 

Make sure you bring it in to show us if you do do some writing!

Reception team

Sounds being covered this week

Hello everyone,

As we are moving in to 2 letter sounds I thought it might be useful if I put down a weekly list of the sounds we will be covering. 

This week we are covering...

'ng' - as in thing. The action we use is pretending to lift heavy weights 

'ai' - as in rain. The action we use is cupping your ear and pretending not to have heard something.

'ee' - as in green. Put hands on head as if ears on a donkey and say eeyore, eeyore. This is the same as action as for 'or' 

'igh' - as in high. Stand to attention and salute, saying ie ie.

'oa' - as in goat. Bring hand over mouth as if you have done something wrong and say oh!

If you are using the phoneme frames, each one of these sounds would go into one box. See if you can give children some words, using the new sounds,  to write using their phoneme frame. Please feel free to bring in the phoneme frame for us to copy. 

I would like to say a big well done to the children for all the writing that they are currently doing! Its fantastic to see!

Next week...

Well done everyone for all the hard work last week. We made poppies, rockets, firework pictures and instructions for how to make the rockets in one week! The instructions will be displayed for you to look at in the classroom. We were also thinking about 2D & 3D shapes and how many sides (2D shapes) and faces (3D shapes) they have. 

Next week we will be starting another topic: Traditional tales. The first tale we will be looking at is Hansel & Gretel. We will be attempting to make a house out of different materials and make and paint some sweets out of clay. As well as this, we will be discussing the importance of a balanced diet and why we should make sure we're eating fruit and vegetables. 

In maths we are going to be looking at money this week - so if you are out and about, encourage children to look at how much things cost and let them pay for some things; don't give them the credit card though! If children know how much the coins are worth, write it down on a Wow! Moment and get them to think about how much 2 coins would be worth etc. 

We have sent home individual reading books with 3 groups of children so please try and read these with your children - they are for children to read though. 

We have also set up a parents' folder on pupil links with some useful links contained within. We will attempt to add to it as the year goes on.

Reception team

Phoneme Frames

Hello everyone,

You may have noticed that your child came home today with a pen and something that looks like the picture above - a phoneme frame. We have sent these home as a result of the phonics workshop that took place last half-term. The idea is that the children use them and they will have all used them in school before so hopefully they should know how they work. The basic principle is that one sound goes into each box. For example - if you wanted to spell the word 'mad' you would put a 'm' in the first box, an 'a' in the second box and a 'd' in the final box.

We have now started covering sounds that have 2 letters in them i.e. 'sh' & 'ch' so these would go into just one box. Children can think of their own words to sound out and spell but any adult help with thinking of simple words for your children, would be greatly appreciated.  

If you're still not sure how to use them please don't  hesitate to come and ask us for help. 

On top of that, we have also started taking children to the school library for individual reading books; these are for the children to try and read. We would like to encourage you to come in with your children and change your books whenever you feel it is necessary. You can just take books you feel your child can tackle - we try to encourage the children to challenge themselves! We would like to request that you take no more than 2 books at any one time - you can come in and change your books as often as you would like. Again, if you would like any help or clarification on this please come and ask us!

Many children also had their sound pots changed today as well, so please keep using these. If your child is comfortable with knowing the sounds, try to get them to create words out of them, using the phoneme frame in tandem if you desire.

Many thanks, 

Reception team

POWSA AGM

POWSA will be holding their AGM on Thursday 7th November at 19.45 in the school staff room.
Anyone is more than welcome to attend.

A new half-term!

A big welcome back to everyone! We hope you had a well earned break! We have launched straight into our Bonfire night and Remembrance topic for this week only. Today we had a visit from a fire safety officer who told children all about the fire service and spoke to us all about keeping safe around fireworks & bonfires. We also had a chance to see how quickly reception could get changed into a full fire officer uniform! I think we managed 1 minute 50 seconds at one time. No excuses in PE any more! We will be sending some fire safety resources tomorrow. Apologies they did not come home today, we were running a bit late this afternoon. 

This week we are thinking about 2D & 3D shapes in maths, so I have a little challenge. See if you can spot shapes out and about or at home, and name them. You could even draw them and notice how many sides 2D shapes have. We have also started making fire safety posters that can be displayed, the children have really taken this idea on board and their ideas are brilliant! Later on in the week we'll be making rockets and poppies using different materials. 

Just a quick reminder about pupil links on the school website, we do update the websites every so often when different topics are being covered. 

Finally, a big thank you for writing in the home school learning diaries so regularly! It is good to see what children have been up to - much appreciated. We will always try and write in them once a week. 

Reception team