Reception notices and reminders Thursday 1st October 2020

 

Good Morning to you all,

A few notices and reminders: TOMORROW is "dress like a farmer day" so children may like to come in dressed up.

NEXT FRIDAY would traditionally have been our Harvest Celebration assemblies. This will still be available to you but in a virtual way. Watch this space for further information on how you will be able to access it. Any donations for the food bank would be greatly received outside the front of the school next Friday.

Due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to reschedule our Farm visit to NEXT THURSDAY morning.

Please can we ask that children do NOT bring toys in from home. They can be a distraction during learning time and also it is distressing for children if they lose them. Thank you for your support in this matter.

Another reminder to, please, label ALL items - this makes it so much easier to reunite them with their owners!

Finally, I will be re-handing out Marvelous Me parent codes to those of you who have not yet signed up.

Thank you for all the amazing home learning that has been coming in in a variety of different mediums. 

Thanks to you all!

See you later,

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd

Reception Home Learning Friday 25th September 2020

                                                               Reception Home Learning

Friday 25th September 2020

Choose an activity and record it how you wish - writing, drawing, filming or send in photographs!

• Go for a walk in the woods and collect objects that are a sign of Autumn

• Collect conkers or leaves and make a picture out of them or can you count them?

• Make a lovely Autumn vegetable soup - can you count the vegetables? What words can you think of - peel, chop, slice, dice, mash, blend, spice, delicious, scrumptious…..

• Draw or paint a picture of something to do with a farm

• Teach your family how to sing the song “Old Macdonald had a Farm” 

Have fun! By all means do something completely different but inspired by Autumn and Harvest - we intend to display all the homelearning at the Harvest Celebration display.

Praise Assembly

A HUUUUUUUGE congratulations to Cecily and Harry who received a golden token reward for the Keen Bean Reading Machine! These 2 children should be very proud of themselves. Personal qualities that they have displayed have blown us away this week!!!!!!!!

Oliver, Alex, Evie and Imogen were also celebrated and praised for excellent listening and being kind, caring and friendly towards others. Well done!

Have a great weekend and we cannot wait for another exciting week!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd

Reception Wednesday 23rd September 2020

 

What a very warm welcome I received on Monday - thank you everyone! It was so lovely to be back and to see all the children again.

I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the family pictures and talking with the children about them.

Shoes, shoes, shoes..............using "Alfie's Feet" by Shirley Hughes, we have been inspired to measure feet, estimate how many given items will fit inside a shoe then checking, drawing, painting and making shoes. The role play shoe shop has been a huge success (thank you so much for all the shoe loans) and has stimulated many discussions about what different uses shoes have and where you might wear them.

As the weather changes, please could you ensure children come to school with a coat and a pair of wellies to keep here!

The next 2 weeks are Farming Fortnight. We will be visiting Maiden Castle Farm on Monday 5th October, children will need to come to school wearing old, warm play clothes, coat and wellies (hats and gloves would be great if it is chilly). We will be spending the morning at the farm and will return for lunch. There will be an opportunity for the children to dress up as a farmer (the date will follow shortly).

We are so proud of the whole class and, in particular, how they have been coming into school. What you can't see is that they each come in and independently put all their belongings away in their locker and tray, then they go to their designated "dragon group" to carry out an activity. They are all thoroughly engaged and calm; it is quite incredible!

The sounds we have been learning this week are: m, a, s, d, t - we can recognise the sound, read it, make it and are having a go at writing it.

There was a fire drill practice today and Reception were exceptional in their response, listening and keeping calm - well done!

See you all tomorrow!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd.

Reception Requests!

 

                                                             Happy Wednesday Everyone!

I hate to mention the "c" word................(Christmas) but if you are looking for gift ideas, I would highly recommend investing in some book collections. This term we are exploring books by Shirley Hughes and John Burningham. These are great, timeless classic books that will stimulate lots of discussion and fun learning opportunities. They are very relatable for children; the illustrations are detailed and wonderful, a perfect platform for discussion and vocabulary development.

The particular ones we will be focussing on are: Autumn Term 1: Shirley Hughes: Dogger, Alfie's Feet and The Birthday Surprise. Autumn Term 2 = John Burningham: Mr. Gumpy's Outing, The Magic Bed and Come Away from the Water Shirley. However we will be ensuring the children have access to further books by these authors. Feel free to share these at home as I am sure the children will love trying to retell the story to you and talk about them as we will in class.

Obviously we have Harvest and Farming Fortnight as well as Christmas so, if titles by these authors fit these times we will use them, we will definitely be sharing The Enormous Turnip and The Little Red Hen.

Request: Next week we will be reading Alfie's Feet and wondered if any of you have some unused or unwanted shoes (childrens or adults and the more varied, weird and wonderful the better) that we could borrow for our role play - we would like to set up a shoe shop. Shoe boxes would also be greatly received too! We will be discussing various types of shoes, slippers, boots..........exploring descriptive language, going on "stomps", exploring foot prints, measuring length, money, learning about left and right.............

Also, due to a few breakages, if any of you have some old crockery or plates you would like to donate us for our mud kitchen, that would be amazing too!

Don't forget that THIS Friday is Non - School Uniform day - theme = Key Workers. Look out for the poster coming soon!

Enjoy the weather and I am counting down the days until I am back!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd

Reception - Happiness is the key!

 

                                               Good afternoon to you all! What a glorious day!

I don't know if you had a chance to tune in to the school assembly today, but Mr. Spracklen hosted it from our Reception classroom. The children sounded if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. I also spoke to Mrs. Smith today and she told me that all the children came in to school happy and that she was very proud of them. Susequently we set up a zoom chat so that I could say hello to them all and reiterate how proud I was of them all; it was so lovely to see all their happy faces! 

A reminder, if you haven't already, please could all the relevant forms come back into school asap so that we can set up our Marvelous Me home school communication. When all the permission slips are returned, we will begin to introduce Marvelous Me, however these first few weeks are very much about settling in and ensuring that each and every child feels happy, safe and secure. We would rather spend this precious time interacting with your child and getting to know them, which I am sure you will agree is our priority at this moment in time. The children are busy this week learning the routines of a full day at school and also the expectations of positive behaviour for learning and how we treat others kindly, as well as how important it is to listen.

As our first topic is All About Me interwoven with starting school and settling in, we will be reading a few Shirley Hughes books, the first one being "Dogger". This is a fabulous story to springboard discussions about feelings and feelings of others as well as our homes and families. There are many wonderful learning activities that can also be done alongside this which the children will have access to this week - making and playing shops (making price tags, using real coins), designing and making fancy dress outfits, matching coins to prices and accurately counting as well as nuber recognition, painting portraits of themselves and their dragons/dragon family, designing and constructing fair games and rides, writing and making lost posters.............and lots lots more!!!!!!!

Dogger

                                                 If you have any further questions, please email me.

                                                       Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd.

Reception w/c 7th Sept 2020

 

Hi Everyone!

I have been keeping in close contact with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd and they have been thrilled to tell me how settled the children are! They are beginning to get used to some routines and absolutely love playing in our outside area. Children are showing good listening skills aswell as sharing well with others.

Next week is their first FULL week back and we kindly ask that you please continue to drop off and collect from the same gates you have already been using. Keeping the group A and B gates helps us to maintain a socially distant flow; this is also helped by the staggered drop off and pick up timings scheduled by the alphabetical order of surnames. Thank you for your support and patience at these times and if you are anxious because you have a sibling to collect from another class, please don't worry, you can come back round to Reception after you have collected your other child.

I cannot wait to see their first school photos, I am sure they will be wonderful.

I look forward to seeing you all soon and am very much counting down the days!!!!!!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd

Reception.........super start!

 

Woweeeeeeee! Already we have had a fun first few days! Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the Parent Information session and also the BBQ! The children ALL seemed really happy and settled already!

Over the next few weeks we will be gently introducing school routines and expectations to the children but will predominantly be focussed on settling in and exploring our Reception environment.

As new parents to the school, especially if your child did not come to our Pre-school, it can be daunting faced with 30 new families and you really want your child to develop friendships. We will keep you updated on friendships that form so that you may like to arrange play dates and I know, in years gone by, someone has taken it upon themselves to set up a whats app group. We can also send out a list of contact numbers if that helps, in order for you to introduce yourselves to each other. We love to encourage an open, inclusive, friendly and welcoming community. Also, you may like to consider joining POWSA. You can find out about POWSA on our website or we can introduce to existing POWSA members. Look out for our Parent Forum sessions, held by Mr. Spracklen, which encourage families to come along and share their thoughts and feelings about school matters.

Reminder of the coming week's sessions: Mon 7th Group A am Group B pm

                                                                   Tues 8th Group B am Group A pm

                                                                   Wed 9th Group B am Group A pm

                                                                   Thurs 10th Group B am Group A pm

                                                                   Fri 11th Group A am Group B pm

If we could also make sure that Group B always use the entrance gate by the main school office and Group A always use the entrance gate at the side of our outside area (as per Thursday just gone) - Thank you! This will continue until further notice, in order to help with social distancing. 

Thank you for all the dragon photos and family photos that have been sent in or emailed. We will ensure that we sure all the dragon pictures over the coming week. Keep them coming!

Reception, I wonder what you might need to teach your baby dragon this week? Hmmmmmm, maybe they need to learn how to brush their teeth, after all, baby teeth are very improtant. Why do we need to clean our teeth every day? Can you show them? Do email any photos and we will put them on our All About Me wall.

Thank you also for the donations received so far relating to our resources request in the last blog!

Have a fabulous week-end and we look forward to seeing you all next week!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd

Welcome to Reception 2020 - 2021

 

A VERY warm welcome to Reception at The Prince of Wales School! We are sooooooo excited for the adventure we are about to embark on together and thank you for choosing our school as the first step on your child's educational journey through school. It is an absolute privilege to be a part of building precious memories for an individual.

We hope that those dragons are all settling in well? Please allow your child to bring them in to school daily as a comforter and also as a basis for our dragon themed classroom. We would also ask that, over the next few days, you could find 2 family photos that your child could bring in. One is intended for use in our "This is Me!" topic and one is to keep in their tray or on their locker as another comforter. They will also provide a fantastic opportunity to stimulate conversation.

One of our Reception Team will be at the A and B gate each drop off and pick up time in order to meet and greet you, to welcome your child and as a chance for face to face communication. If you need to arrange a meeting with myself or are not available at drop off and pick up, then please email me at s.johnson@princeofwales.dorset.sch.uk 

A reminder that THIS Friday, 4th September, is our parent information session 2 - 3:15pm in the school hall - one parent per family in order to comply with social distancing. You will then be able to collect your child from the A and B gates and lead onto the playground at the back of the school for our Welcome BBQ where all family members are invited.

Here's to a year full of happiness, fun, curiosity, thinking, designing, creating, exploring, testing, questioning, solving, learning, playing and EXPERIENCING!

Requests: there are a few items we are always on the look out for and if you happen to have any going spare, we would love them!!!!!!!!!!!

..............buttons, beads, sequins, stamps, postcards, wool, necklaces, brooches, watches, glasses, hats, scarves, gloves, shoes (for dressing up), shells, pine cones, interesting stones or beach finds, junk modelling, ribbons, nuts and bolts, old remote controls, crockery, tea pots, pestle and mortar, vases, storage jars, trinkets, vintage dial telephone, carriage clock......................

Thank you in advance and we look forward to seeing you all on Thursday.................We feel like a child on Christmas Eve!!!!!!!!!

Mrs. J, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hibberd