Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Just a quick message to say a big well done to all the reception children for making it to the end of their first term! 

Thank you for all the lovely presents and I hope you all enjoy the items that children have brought home this evening. 

Have a fantastic Christmas and I will see you all when we return in January!

Reception team

Festive Cheer

Firstly, a BIG well done to all the reception children for making it to the end of their first term! Phew! Only another two to go! It has to be said that they did exceptionally well in the Christmas performances - its not easy to remember the words to 8/9 songs - even I forgot  the words the other day. And especially considering how many children were feeling under the weather, I am very happy with their effort! A big thank you, as well, to all of the parents/grandparents etc. for bringing in the black T-shirts for the performance. 

Today was also the day of our party lunch and games afternoon. A MASSIVE thank you for bringing in all the lovely food for our lunch! It was well appreciated. We did have some containers left over so please come and see us in the morning if you know that you sent one in. 

After our lunch we played a variety of party games - pass the parcel, musical statues, musical bumps, sleeping lions etc - before going into the hall to join other classes for a disco, which I hope the children enjoyed. 

Tomorrow will be the last day of term. When the children arrive in the morning they can immediately choose what it is that they would like to do. We will have put a variety of activities out for them to do but it is up to them which one they choose. Parents, please feel free to stay for a bit longer if you have the time. At the end of the day we will be sending children home with a whole variety of items that they have made and contributed towards.

There is a Christmas Carol concert tomorrow afternoon at 2.45pm in the school hall if you are available. Bring your singing voice! 

You can all have a big rest after tomorrow!

Reception team 

Tomorrow Morning

Hello everyone,

Tomorrow is reception's first showing of their Christmas production. We have been been practising very hard with the songs we have to sing and we are ready to perform! 

Tomorrow morning there will be no teddy jobs out. Instead we will have the children's costumes out at their teddy job table. Please feel free to stay and help your children get ready - they will need to take off their trousers and put on their PE shorts and then change into their star black top - thank you by the way for bringing in the black T-shirts. 

The show is at 10.10am tomorrow morning and subsequent mornings and we look forward to seeing you there!

Reception team

Good luck!

GOOD LUCK IN YOUR PERFORMANCE, FROM YEAR 4!!!!!

Technology day

Tomorrow is technology day! The whole school will be taking part in different workshops throughout the day that are run by members of staff. There is a Christmas theme and children will be able to bring home their creations at the end of the day. Please come to school as normal as we will be telling the children which workshop they will be going to first. 

We have been doing some very impressive making in reception! We've made calendars, decorations and started to make Christmas cards. We will hopefully be sending children home with some books for reading over the Christmas break. 

Reception team

Christmas Mini-reading challenge..

Back in the summer, Dorset Library Service organised a summer reading challenge and due to the massive success that it had they have organised a further 'Christmas Reading Challenge'. The challenge will run between 12th December and 6th January.

Very simply, children have to read three books over the time period - you will need to sign up to Summer reading challenge website if you have not done so before - www.summerreadingchallenge.org - Children who have already created an account should continue to use this account. 

After this you just need to update your profile with any books that you read! You will receive a virtual badge as a prize and there is also an opportunity to enter the Christmas competition. 

We will be discussing this with children in school over the next few days. 

Reception team

Christmas party!

Hello everyone,

Thank you to all of you that have brought in a black T-shirt so far! We have until next Monday for all of them to be in. We would be grateful if you could name the bag. 

You may have noticed the list up outside the reception classroom, listing the items that we would like you to provide for our end of term Christmas party next Thursday (19th). Please feel free to put your name up for any of the remaining items. The Christmas party will take place on Thursday at the normal lunch time. In the afternoon we will play some games and join other classes in the hall for a disco. 

Reception team

The coming week...

Hello everyone,

This week is going to be a very busy week for all of us, with lots to do every day! Please don't be surprised if children say that they are tired! We're rehearsing our Christmas play on Monday morning so the children will be showing how well they can sing our Christmas songs. We will continue practising throughout the week. Hopefully you should have received a letter on Friday about bringing in a plain black T-shirt for use in the Christmas show. This doesn't have to be in for practising our show but please feel free to start bringing them in. We would appreciate it if you could put it in a bag with a name on - we can provide sticky labels if needed. 

In literacy we will be looking at the different people associated with Christmas: Father Christmas, elves, reindeer etc. We will be making character profiles for some of these people and thinking about hypothetical questions i.e. how old do you think Santa is? What is an elves favourite food? 

In maths we are going to be matching different objects up and begin to look at adding two groups of items together. Counting in 2's will come from this. 

In phonics we will be learning no new sounds but will instead be consolidating and reinforcing previously learnt sounds in different contexts. 

On Friday the whole school will be having a Technology Day - this is an off-timetable day where all the children choose different workshops in different classrooms. We will be outlining each workshop to the children before they choose. Friday is also the day where we will be showing the festive headgear that it outlined in a separate blog post. 

Reception team

Non-school uniform

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is a non-school uniform day. There is no theme.

Reception team 

Sounds being covered this week...

The Sounds we are doing this week will be the last set of sounds we cover before we break up for Christmas. For the next two weeks we will be consolidating and reinforcing all the sounds covered so far this term. The Sounds are:

'ur' - as in fur - Hold knee as if hurt and say ur,ur

'oi' - as in boil - Cup hands around mouth and shout to another boat saying oi! ship ahoy!

'er' - as in hammer - Roll hands over each other like a mixer and say ererer.

'air' - as in fair - Put your hands in the air.

 

We've seen some super sounding out from children over the last couple of days! They're clearly getting much more comfortable with the sounds being covered! 

Reception team

HO HO HO!

This week we begin our Christmas topic! Today the children were shown the key question that we'll be thinking about: Why do we celebrate Christmas? The children had some fantastic ideas about this question, and we'll be looking at lots of their suggestions. 

In maths we are looking at length and the language that is used when talking about length. If you're putting up your tree, have a look at the tinsel and the different lengths it can be. Feel free to bring it in on a Wow! Moment. 

We got a letter from Father Christmas today asking us to write him our Christmas lists ready for Christmas, so we're going to be looking at writing lists and full sentences too!

Another thing we have started at the end of the day is  to ask children what they have learnt today. We would appreciate any support with this, to get children to think about their learning. From this we will be telling children their next steps for learning.  

Finally, we're going to put up a list (outside reception door) for any parents that would like a copy of the video that was made and shown in the class assembly last Friday. Please feel free to pop your name on the list!

Reception team