Reception - Happy Christmas

Hi all,

A quick message to say Happy Christmas from both Mrs. Howell and Myself. We truly do appreciate everything you do to help us with in school and without your continued support, our jobs would be substantially more difficult! 

Thank you also for the fantastic gifts we have received. I will try not to take personally the number of hygiene products I received!!?! I joke. They were lovely! 

The photo above is of the award winners in yesterdays awards assembly! Congratulations to those children and we begin looking for next half-terms winners in January! 

Have a wonderful break and we very much look forward to welcoming you back in 2018. Which will be the best year yet, the year that no one will ever forget - we read 'The Scarecrow's Wedding'. 

Reception team

Reception - It's Nearly Christmas Time!!

Hello all,

A MASSIVE congratulations to everyone in the reception class for completing their third and final Christmas Nativity show this morning. Once again, a super effort. 

A few notices for today and tomorrow:

Children will be coming home with several things this evening - 

1) Their PE kit

2) Their Tree decoration that we have made in school for you to hang on your tree at home - in PE bag.

3) Their black t-shirt and torch from the Nativity performances. Thank you again for these  - very appreciated - in PE bag

4) New group reading books in book bags. These are for you to keep over the Christmas holiday period. 

Tomorrow is Christmas Jumper day! And the last day of term. Children are welcome to come in to school in a Christmas Jumper and a voluntary donation that will go towards the 'Save the Children' campaign. 

Also tomorrow we will be having our Christmas party lunch and afternoon. ALL HOT DINNERS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED. There is a sign up sheet outside the door to pop your name next to something to bring in to school. Please could we ask that this comes in tomorrow morning. Thank you for all your help in this issue. We'll be playing some games and dancing tomorrow afternoon for our class party too!

At 3.00pm tomorrow afternoon you are invited to come into school to participate in the Christmas Carols service in the hall! 

Then tomorrow afternoon children will be coming home with a couple of extra Christmas crafts for you to keep - as well as all their normal belongings. If you have any questions about any of the above please come and speak to us.

Reception team

Reception - Requests...

Hello everyone,

Firstly, what a super first Nativity performance this morning! Reception children should feel very proud of themselves and if you were there today, I'm sure you'll agree! We look forward to showing you if you're coming tomorrow or Thursday! 

We have a couple of requests:

1. Could we please have your award trophies back in school please, if you received one in the first half-term. These are given out every half-term to the children that we think have showed a real effort or made great progress. We placed a return slip in the winners book bags from last half-term. Could we please have these by Thursday.

2. Secondly, could we please ask that if you know your child is going home with somebody else other than a parent/grandparent that you please let us know in the morning. This is to avoid confusion and helps us to know who to send children to at the end of the day. We have now placed a small whiteboard by the door to help with this. Thank you for your help with this matter.

Reception team

Reception - Tomorrow Morning

Hi all,

A quick message to say that tomorrow morning will be the first of our Christmas Nativity plays in school. As part of the preparation we will be putting out children's shorts and t-shirts in their Early Bird groups. We would like the children to get changed in to these first before focusing upon their Early Bird activity. Please feel free to leave school shoes and socks on. Thank you! And thank you everyone for bringing in your t-shirts and torches! This is really appreciated. 

Reception team

Reception - Bits and Pieces!

Hello everyone,

Lots has been happening over this week and there are many other things set to happen next week! Yesterday was the first 'Technology Day' for the reception children! This is an annual event where children get to go round the school to different classes and make something! Hopefully you will have received all of these creations yesterday in the bag that came home with children!? It was a thoroughly enjoyed day!

A quick message to remind you about the Christmas plays next week. Hopefully you have all got your tickets sorted! The shows for Reception will be on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. All starting at 10.10am Please head to the office when you arrive. Thank you for all your black t-shirts! We will still be accepting these on Monday morning. 

Also this week, in phonics, we have learnt 2 new tricky words: be & my! 

Lastly, a reminder that next Friday 15th December is Christmas Jumper Day in school. All donations welcome.

Reception team

Reception - Olaf's and Mince Pies

Hi all,

Well... We've managed to cram quite a bit in to today! This morning we continued our practicing for the Christmas plays next week. I am hearing that there are lots of children out there that are singing you the songs on repeat! Thank you! 

This afternoon we began making our Christmas tree decorations! A Snowman. But, as the children quickly noticed, he looked like Olaf. So this is what he is called now! 

We then finished up our afternoon with the lovely surprise of going up to the Roundhouse area for hot chocolate, mince pies & Christmas songs!

AND we managed to squeeze in learning how to spell the tricky words 'go' and 'to'! 

Thank you to all of those that have bought in their black t-shirts and torches. There is still until Monday morning though so don't panic! Let us know if you are having some difficulties.

Reception team

Reception - Christmas Party Lunch

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone that has bought in a black t-shirt and torch so far! Here is a website link to plain black t-shirts: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fruit-Loom-Plain-Childrens-Black/dp/B004RVJJBE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512417305&sr=8-1&keywords=kids%2Bblack%2Bt-shirt&th=1&psc=1

If we could please have these all in by next Monday (11th December).

As part of a POW Christmas tradition, we have always tended to have a party lunch in our classrooms towards the end of the Autumn term! This year we will be holding this on Friday 15th December - the last day of term. You may have already noticed the sign up sheet outside the classroom door! If you could pop your name down to bring something in on the day that would be gratefully received. Thank you in advance.

Reception team

Reception - Phonics this week...

Hello everyone,

Another week has passed and we have been learning yet more sounds! The sounds will begin to get more complex as we move into the vowel sounds. This is mainly because lots of them look and/or sound similar. I've also put some more words down below that could have a go at writing at home! Again, these are words we would be expecting children to segment and write themselves in school. 

'ng' - as in strong - life your arms up, pretending you are holding a heavy weight above your head saying ng, ng, ng.

'ai' - as in aim - cup a hand around your ear like you can't hear someone and say ai, ai, ai.

'ee' - as in week - put hands above your head like donkey ears saying eeyore, eeyore, eeyore. This action links with a later sound 'or'.

'igh' - as in night - stand to attention and salute saying igh, igh, igh.

Words to write: 

king

wait

pain

meet

night

Reception team

Reception - New Tricky Words!

Hello everyone,

Firstly, just to clarify about the black T-shirts: we can start collecting these from now! We have our final rehearsal on Monday 11th December so if they could all be in by then, it would be much appreciated. Thank you again.

Now, on to tricky words! We have introduced the next group of these to the children! They are listed below for you. Any practice at home with these is great. Writing them up on post-it notes around the house, using fridge magnets or just writing them down!

 We teach them as sight words so children learn the 'shape' of the word as well as the letters within it. 

'we'

'he'

'she'

Reception team

Reception - Christmas Costume and Prop!

Hello everyone,

Today we began our Christmas topic that will take us up until the end of this term! It's all very exciting and you may notice a few more festive changes to the classroom in the coming week. As we only have 3 weeks left to go we have begun learning the songs for the Christmas play too - tickets are now available from the office. Reception children have traditionally done a solo performance too and this year is no different.

This year, to support our performance, could we please ask for a plain black t-shirt that you wouldn't mind being sprayed - you will still get these tops back after the performances. Could we also ask you to bring in a torch... I will say no more. The torch can be a torch that can be held in one hand - this will also be returned to you at the end of the term! If you have any questions please come and speak to us! Thank you for your support.

Reception team

Reception - Fantastic Assembly!

Hello everyone,

A quick message to say a massive well done to everyone in the reception class for their superb efforts in the class assembly this morning! They should all be incredibly proud of themselves because standing up in front of a whole hall of people and saying something individually as well as collectively, it not an easy thing to do! And they did it with ease! Thank you to all your support at home with learning lines - we hope you got to see something that you enjoyed! We enjoyed a reward of watching the Gruffalo's Child this afternoon as the end of the Gruffalo topic we have been doing lately. Have a restful weekend and come back ready to start........... CHRISTMAS! 

Reception team

Reception - Phonics!

Hi all,

A final reminder that tomorrow morning is our first class assembly! We have had our final practice today and it was fantastic to see how many children had clearly been practicing their lines at home! Thank you for all your efforts in this. Start time is 9.20am in the hall.

On to phonics. This week signifies the beginning of the digraphs! These are sounds that are mad up of two letters. Naturally, these can become a little more confusing to begin with so any extra practice you can do at home is definitely worthwhile! I've popped a list of words for children to have a go at sounding out and writing at the bottom. Children will know all of the sounds and letters in all the words! 

'sh' - as in shop - Put your finger up to you lips and say sh, sh, sh

'ch' - as in chin - roll arms round by sides, like a train and say ch, ch, ch

'th' - as in thin - Pretend to be a naughty clown and stick your tongue out a little. This sound can be split in to two - soft & hard 'th' Soft 'th' is thin hard 'th' is that. We will be exploring the hard 'th' tomorrow. It is the same action. 

thin

shop

chick

fish

thick

Reception team

Reception - Displays!

Hello everyone,

We would like to tell you about some of the displays that you are able to see in the Reception classroom at the moment! 

Firstly we have our writing display that can be found just outside our internal classroom door - pictured above. This showcases the wide range of styles writing can take for children. This will continue to change as we progress with our writing so please keep checking in with it to see what we've been up to.

Next, we have our super home learning board that all of you are contributing to fantastically! The home learning that has been coming in has been has been nothing short of incredible! There is clearly a lot of effort going in to this and we cannot thank you enough for doing this and bringing it in to show us! Again, please keep looking at this!

Then we have our Class Dojo Challenge Board... This will get updated throughout the year with new challenges for the children to get their teeth stuck in to! We then also mark down every challenge that is completed and this goes towards us getting a class reward. Currently the target is 50 challenges to be completed - and we are on 26 at the moment! That is only after one week!

Please keep looking around our classroom for the displays as they are updated regularly to not only showcase children's learning but also to support and extend their learning.

Reception team

Reception - Assembly Lines and Outdoor Learning

Hello everyone,

A quick message to let you know that we have popped your child's learn for the class assembly this Friday in their book bags this evening. I hope you found them ok!? Please practise this as much or as little as you feel your child needs to. We had a practise in the hall today and all the children were very confident to stand up and have a go! They do not need to learn these lines off by heart as we will be there to support them all the way through on the day - however, children can feel more confident if they are more prepared. 

Secondly, we have started to learn about how we can help the world around us as we get ever closer to Winter! Today we began making some bird feeders that have been hung up around the roundhouse area. We spread peanut butter all over a kitchen roll tube and then rolled this in some bird seeds! It was hard for some of us not to lick the peanut butter off! 

Reception team

Reception - Class Assembly Friday 24th!

Hi all,

The first reminder of many that the Reception class assembly will be next Friday, 24th November. This will begin at 9.20am so you will be welcome to head to the office straight after drop off and then through to the hall! All are welcome! We look forward to showing you what we have been up to!

Reception team

Reception - Children in Need Tomorrow!

Hi all,

A quick blog to remind you all that it is Children in Need tomorrow! The Children's Voice have decided that we will dress up with a spotty theme for the day! So tomorrow please wear anything spotty that you have and of course please bring in any contributions for children in need that you can! Thank you.

Reception team

Reception - Phonics

Hello everyone,

We began learning the next group of sounds this week and they are all listed below. We have also now sent home a sound mat for phase 2 sounds. These sounds have been taught in school but children will need to continue seeing them to ensure they are concrete in their memory. On this sheet are also the tricky words that we have covered so far! Please use this sound mat as much as you need to - it is a resource we use endlessly in school. 

Next, thank you for some super home learning being bought in already! We have had some terrible creatures, rhyming words and some great maths problem solving! Please keep it coming! 

'y' - as in yum - Pretend you are eating a yoghurt with a spoon, lifting spoon to mouth saying y, y, y

'z/zz' - as in zip - flap arms and hands by the side of your body pretending you are a Bumble Bee saying zz, zz, zz.

Reception team

Reception - Learning Powers!

Hi all,

We have been carrying on with developing our 'Learning Powers' over the last couple of weeks. I thought a blog about this would be helpful to explain what's been going on! We are up and running with Class Dojo and this is used throughout every day to promote positive attitudes towards learning in school. 

We have introduced the Incredible power of 'Yet'. This is where we add a 'yet' to any sentence where we're saying we can't do something: 'I can't do my coat up.... yet!' This changes children's mindsets to believing that they will be able to do something in the future, if they are willing to work at it. 

We've added more qualities to our Learning Power of Resilience. We now have:

Absorption - getting 'In the Zone' with what you are doing and concentrating.

Perseverance - Trying again with something. Not only when you fail but also to make something better than it already is.

Managing your distractions - trying to block out the distractions around you.

We use this vocabulary with children at school so please go ahead and use it at home too! It is a fantastic way to get children to have power over their own learning. This is a gradual process and will take time to fully establish itself upon children's thinking.

Reception team

Reception - Home Learning Project

Hello everyone,

It has reached that time again where we are going to place another Home Learning Project out there for you to get your teeth stuck in to. Our topic so far this half term has been the Gruffalo and we have therefore linked our home learning with that! However, instead of one choice of home learning there are several choices below. You are welcome to try and do one, two or all of them! As usual, this is not a compulsory exercise. But as previously mentioned, home learning is a great way way to build up children's attitude towards learning - and we hope you find them fun too! Please bring in any learning that you do and we will make sure that we show it! Thank you!

• Make up your own imginary creature - You could draw a picture or make a model of it.
• The Mouse tells the animals about the Gruffalo's favourite food. Draw a picture of your favourite food and label it to say what you have got.
• There are lots of rhyming words in the Gruffalo. How many rhyming words can you think of that rhyme with 'Snake'?
• Use the internet or information book to find out an interesting fact about one of the animals in the story. It could be a Mouse, Snake, Owl or Fox.
• The mouse found 5 nuts of Monday and 4 Nuts on Tuesday. How many nuts did he find altogether? Use your fingers or draw a picture to help you.
• The Gruffalo story was set in a forest. Draw a picture of a forest you have been to and some of the animals you saw.

Reception team

Reception - Phonics & Group Reading Books

Hello everyone,

This weeks sounds that we have been learning are below!

Please may I also take this opportunity to ask that group reading books are kept in book bags. We have had several instances of books not being bought back to school. This then impacts another group as there are not enough books. Thank you for your support in this. The children have all started to show much more concentration and focus when it comes to adult focused tasks and like I have said before; 5 minutes a day is the way.

'j' - as in 'jam' - Pretend to wobble a plate of jelly and say j, j, j. 

'v' - as in 'van' - Pretend to be holding the steering wheel of a van and say v, v, v.

'w' - as in 'wind' - Blow on to open hand, as if you are the wind, and say wh, wh, wh

'x' - as in 'fox' - Pretend to be taking a photo with a camera saying ks, ks, ks

Reception team

Reception - Name Writing Competition

Hello all,

Although the winners of the name writing competition were announced on the Friday before half term, I would still like to praise everybody that took part in the name writing home learning project last half term! The work we had in was fantastic and was great to share with the rest of the class! It also sets a great principle that learning can take place anywhere - not just at school. 

If you would like to keep your name that you bought in to school they will be available for you to collect at the beginning or end of the school day for the rest of the week. We will pop them on a table. 

Once again, thank you for all your efforts - congratulations Tristan and Olivia! 

The next home learning project will be out this week - linked, of course, to the Gruffalo topic! 

Reception team

Reception - Thorncombe Woods Trip

Hi all,

Yesterday reception embarked on their first trip out of school! We got on to a coach and headed for Thorncombe Woods! This was to help begin our new topic of the Gruffalo for the next few weeks. We delved in to the deep, dark woods not just to fine the Gruffalo but also to have a go at some other activities too: We went on a hunt for all the characters from the story, explored some dens and went searching for natural objects to match up to numbers! 

All the children should be very proud of themselves! They all conducted themselves superbly and showed such great enthusiasm for getting stuck in to the activities. There was a lot of walking too so there may be a few tired legs out there! 

Reception team

Reception - Class Dojo

Hello everyone,

Yesterday you may have noticed that we sent children home with a little monster character! This is because we have started Class Dojo! This is a new reward system that we will use in the class for the rest of the year! This reward system will be used to praise children for the way that they are learning! This will also tie in with the 4 Learning Powers that we use right across the school: Resilience, Reflective, Resourcefulness & Reciprocity. Each of these Learning Powers has strands within it and we explore these with the children in a gradual way. To begin with we are exploring Resilience and the first part of that is being absorbed in your work. We describe this to children as being 'In the zone' or 'concentrating on one thing'. It is amazing to see how the children will pick up on this language quite quickly! Every time an adult spots children being 'Absorbed' they will get a Dojo point. The individual points don't go towards anything, they are given out for showing the Learning Powers and how much you are challenging yourself - the idea being that you should work hard to achieve your best, not always for a reward.

Much more will follow on this and hopefully your children will begin to explain bits of this as time goes on! If anyone has any questions, please come and ask! 

Reception team

Reception - New Half-Term Tomorrow!

Hello all,

I hope you have all had a good chance to recharge your batteries and enjoy yourselves over the last week. We look forward to seeing you all back in school tomorrow to start our next topic and to continue with the brilliant learning that has already begun to take place. Some things to look forward to this half term:

1. Gruffalo Topic
2. Trip to Thorncombe Woods
3. Another joint morning with Pre-school
4. Bonfire night
5. Class Dojo!?
6. Class assembly
7. Christmas and all things Christmassy! 
8. Technology day

If some of those things don't make sense, don't worry! All will be explained through this half term! 

Reception team

Reception - Phonics

Hi all,

The weekly sounds blast! Below are the sounds we have learnt this week! 

'r' - as in rat - Pretend you are a dog tearing up a piece of paper saying rrr, rrr, rrr

'h' - as in hat - Hold hand in front of mouth panting as if you are out of breath and say h, h, h

'b' - as in ball - Pretend to hit a ball with a bat and say b, b, b

We have continued practicing the tricky words the, I, no, go, to, into

Reception team

Reception - Soup Making!

Hello all,

Today we began making soup as a cooking activity for the week - this will also link in to our topic of Autumn too! We looked at the different ingredients we can put in to vegetable soup before children got to cut them all up! Today we used pumpkin, potatoes, carrots and onion. We then all sat and had a try once it was ready! Well done to lots of children for giving something new a try! More soup to be made later in the week.

Reception team

Reception - Phonic Sounds and Tricky Words

Good morning everyone! 

This week we have learnt two new sounds. But as well as this we have started learning the first set of tricky words - these are words that cannot be sounded out so we have to learn them by sight. We do this by repeatedly exposing children to the words so that they can pick up on the letters in the words and the 'shape' of the word. Below are all the sounds and words:

'e' - as in egg - pretend you are cracking an egg into a frying pan saying e, e, e

'u' - as in umbrella - Pretend you are putting up an umbrella saying u, u, u

Tricky words and actions:

'the' - close hands like your finishing a story 'THE end'

'to' - hold both index fingers up apart from each other - then bring them together.

'no' - shake finger

'go' - walk fingers along your palm

'I' - point to your eye

'into' - hands together pretending to dive into a pool.

Last quick reminder that the phonics session are tomorrow! It would be great to have as many of you there as possible! They are at 9am and 3pm.

Reception team

Reception - Group Reading Books!

Hello everyone,

As you may be aware, we began sending home group reading books this week and I thought a blog explaining them may be useful!

Each week from now on your child will come home with a different group reading book - we take in their current book and swap it for a new one - occasionally you may see a book twice through the year. This will mean that we think a bit more practice with a particular sound would be beneficial. 

The books come in 3 types - you may receive any through the year: 

1. Sound book - These books tackle the phonic sounds that we have been given. They usually include potential questions and or games to support you at home. 

2. Pictures book - these will contain no written words for the children to read but will be great at getting children talking about stories - a very important skill! Some come with questions/ideas, others are well told traditional tales. 

3. Story./information books - these will contain the sounds that we have covered in school.

The emphasis for all of these types of book is for your child to take the lead and have a go themselves! Please may we insist that children bring their books to school each day in their book bag - we do change group reading days and we make use of individual reading time throughout the week.

 You may also notice the reading record (below) that has come home this week too! This acts as a link between home and school for the purposes of reading. We will write in to this every week when we read with your child - you are also free to write in as many things as you like, that you read at home. There is a great section in the middle of these records that covers phonics and you and your child may find useful for home learning.

If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to come and speak to us! We are massively appreciative of all the support you put in at home! The more children experience learning something, the better they will become at it.

Lastly, if you haven't already seen receptions 'Introducing...' display in the main corridor, feel free to go and see it! We are also putting all the home learning projects out there too! Thank you

Reception team

Reception - 'What's the Point?'

In order to inspire our young learners and to enable them to understand how their literacy skills are so important, we are launching a "What's the point" project! 

It's simple - please could you send a photograph of yourself or a family member using literacy skills in the work place (writing as well as reading). Your child's class teacher will aim to show a different one before literacy lessons to spark discussion and to contextualise writing as well as inspiring them to foster a love for writing. We would also like to display these picture as well as use them on blogs and on the school Facebook page, so please make the teacher aware if you do not wish this to happen with your photograph.

Thank you in advance for your support in this fun project - the children will really enjoy seeing your pictures!!!!!

Mrs. Johnson - Literacy coordinator

Reception - Parents evening Sign Up

Good evening everyone,

Just a very quick blog to say that if you haven't already noticed then there is a sign up sheet just outside the reception classroom door for you to sign up for a parents evening slot! These have been spread over 3 evenings this year so hopefully there will be something for everyone! If you cannot make any of the times advertised, please come and see me and we can arrange something! Thank you.

Reception team