Reception - Thursday 24th October 2019

Happy Thursday!

Thank you to all of you who were able to come along to the consultation evenings this week. It was a real joy to meet with you all and share with you how wonderful your children are!

We are so proud of each and every one of them and how they have settled into school life and learning. Another huge thank you, again, for all your support over the last couple of weeks - we really do appreciate it.

We hope that you found the consultation evenings useful and informative about your child. If there was anything further that you wished to know or discuss, please pop in and see us or send an email.

See you all tomorrow,

Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura.

Reception - Woods and Power Maths!

Good evening!

It was so lovely to see those of you who managed to battle the torrential rain to come along to Autumn Fest on Friday - we certainly won't let a little rain spoil our fun!!!!!!!

Thank you to the volunteers who accompanied us on our woods trip - we couldn't have done it without you. The children had a truly amazing time looking for signs of the lost bear (Reception decided it must be a black bear due to the surrounding habitat and it's diet, also the fact that there was no water near by) - they set about building a bear cave, making a campfire, collecting food for a black bear, digging beds for bears and also creating a waterfall to provide drinking water for the bears. One Reception child is also certain they felt honey drip on their head from a tree!!!!!!!! There was also a great deal of climbing, finished by a giant game of hide and seek where the children hunted for a Mrs. Smith bear, a Julia bear and a Helen bear!!!!!!

We are super excited to be able to introduce to you all the Power Maths scheme that is a new whole school approach to maths lessons. We have noticed a huge difference over these first few weeks, particularly with the mathematical language the children are using. This scheme positively encourages children to reason about their maths and to choose how to approach a challenge. They may choose to use concrete materials, abstract materials or to represent their learning in pictures, diagrams or in words/writing as an explanation - the characters in the materials demonstrate how the child could approach the challenge. Reinforcing the language is also hugely important. The work books link directly to the lessons that have been taught throughout the week. Please feel free to work with your child on these so that they can share their learning with you and so that they can further strengthen and deepen their reasoning and understanding outside the classroom. Pages 8-13 need to be covered at home. The learning objective is at the top of each page and each new week refers to the corresponding Early Learning Goal at the bottom of the page. Please use the questions at the bottom of the page. You can use any objects at home to count with, buttons, pasta, stones, counters, beads, lego bricks. Please could you date and annotate how your child approached the learning, any conversations had and or challenges. Your child may draw answers or do them physically, by all means take a photo and stick it in.

This week we are on week 7, page 14 and 15, Change within 5

Please keep the booklet at home and when we have completed the corresponding lessons in class, we will ask for them to be returned.

See you all tomorrow -
Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura

Reception Tuesday 15th October 2019

Good evening Everyone!

We are very excited about our trip on Thursday! Thank you to all of you who are able to accompany us and meet us there.

It is likely to be muddy, so children will need to wear waterproofs and clothes that can get dirty as well as wellies. Please send in a set of spare clothes and trainers that they can put on when they are back at school - this doesn't have to be uniform. The children will also still have PE in the afternoon.

We had our Early Years Advisor from County in to visit us yesterday to spend time in Reception and Pre-School. She was thoroughly impressed by ALL children, how well they were settled as well as the excellent provision. I am sure we will share findings with you when her report arrives at school. The powermaths language being used to reason by the children was outstanding!

It was lovely to see some of you accessing the school library for the first time, please do come in and choose a book or two.

This week we will be sending home learning home linked to our powermaths. We will explain this on Friday.

Thank you for all your kind smiles and support, as always!

Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura.

Reception w/c 14th October 2019

Good evening Everyone,

We hope you have all dried out from a very wet weekend (and week!)

Thank you to all of you who were able to make it to the Harvest Celebration Assembly, we were bowled over by how confident they were when performing their song. The children were not only very brave but also demonstrated loud, clear singing! We are super proud of all of them!!!!!!!
The cheese straws they made were delicious and they thoroughly enjoyed cooking with Mrs. Cura, as well as amazing producing art work which demanded great focus and delicate fine motor skills!

Reception have really been enjoying Power Maths this week, so we decided to build on their learning with this week's home learning. It is important for you to continue you reinforcing the language of "least, few, fewer, fewsest, more, most, greatest" when comparing groups of objects. They can be as creative as they like with their home learning - use stickers, leaves, feathers, cut and stick, buttons, pasta, drawings.............
This week the children will be building on this learning by grouping and comparing non identical objects.

Not to panic you, but a bear has been reported missing...........as we are going to the woods on Thursday, we are planning to write some wanted posters to put up in the woods. We will be investigating the environment to find the perfect place for a bear to hibernate........."if you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise......."
Thank you to those of you who are able to accompany us, please could you drive and meet us there for 9:45.

Wacky Hair Day styles were out of this world............well done, super creative and for such a good cause.

Finally, please do feel free to come in before or after school to use the school library with your child and one of us can show you how to take out books!

See you all tomorrow (and Thursday for me!)

Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura

Reception w/c 7th October 2019

Good evening Everyone!

I hope you have been enjoying this lovely weekend?

I spent the afternoon in Reception on Friday and it was a real joy to see them all. We are reassuring them that I will be back in there soon as it is a difficult concept for them to understand. However, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura are doing such an amazing job and I know that there are lots of exciting learning activities planned for this week. I will keep coming down to the class during the week.

We hope you enjoyed your books and have had fun sharing them this weekend?

Please come along to our Harvest assembly on Friday 9:15 am in the school hall!

Wacky Hair Day is on Thursday - wear school uniform but, if you want to, do something weird and wonderful to your hair!!!!!!!!!

Many thanks for all your kind support and positivity - we really are a fantastic community!!!!

Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Cura

Reception wc 30th September

We had a fantastic adventure to Maiden Castle Farm, learning about wheat, harvest, cattle, pigs and combines. Thank you to those of you who offered to join us and to those who did. The children walked a long way and were impeccably well behaved, they all thoroughly enjoyed it!

As you have been made aware, I am currently "on loan" to Year 4. I am missing Reception terribly and make sure I come down to see them every day. Mrs. Smith and I liaise closely to ensure the provision is excellent and to address any concerns there may be. The children think that I am on holiday and know that I will return soon - Mrs. Smith reminded them of this today as some children were a little emotional about it. Do contact Mrs. Smith or myself should you wish to share or discuss anything.

This week in Power Maths we have been focusing on noticing similarities and differences in collections of objects. The children sorted them in to two groups based on size, colour and shape. They discovered that collections can be sorted in a number of ways and into more than groups.

They were amazing!!!!!!

Tomorrow we will be writing shopping lists for our special sandwich activity next week.

Home learning is all about sharing a book, the children are all very excited as they get to bring home a special book tomorrow that they can keep!

Thank you once again for your kind support.

Mrs Johnson and Mrs. Smith