Whole school home learning

This week all children will be bringing home a whole school home learning project. We are really proud to be a Rights Respecting School and will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the UNCRC in the week beginning 20th October (more information to follow soon).

Article 8 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child:

‘We have a right to an identity’

We are going to be designing a school flag to be displayed at The Thomas Hardye School as part of our DASP Rights Week Project (starting on the 20^th October). We would like the children to design something we can add on our flag linked to our theme. One design from each class will be chosen by the Children’s Voice. It could be a picture they draw or suitable quote/words. Why are the children proud to be them? What makes them special? All entries to be given to class teachers by the 10^th of October.

Sounds this week

Hello everyone,

We are really pushing on with our phonics and hopefully you are beginning to see this at  home. All the children will receive their new group reading book this week. Can we please ask that everyone brings in their book bag and pops it into their tray. We will be sending home sound pots in the next week or so, so please look out for these also. More explanation will follow. Whilst we are still covering sounds this week we are also having a bit of a focus on tricky words. Today the children came up with some actions to help them remember the first group of tricky words and I've put these below as well. 

Sounds this week:

'f' as in fog - Let hands gently come together as if a ball was deflating and say f f f f f f.

'l' as in log - Pretend to lick a lollipop and say l l l l l l.

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

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

Tricky words being covered at the moment:

I - point to your eye.

the - hands together (palm up) as if you're closing a book and saying THE end.

go - fingers walking across your hand

to - hold 2 fingers up

no - shake finger

I hope these are useful. This will signal the end of the first group of sounds. We will be starting the next group of sounds the week after next - next week will be a consolidating week.

Reception  team

This week...

Hello everyone,

Firstly, a quick reminder that tomorrow will be the individual school photos. There should hopefully be a form for you to order yours within the next few weeks.

This week we are carrying on looking at the Very Hungry Caterpillar book and we will be making fruit smoothies this week using some of the fruits that the caterpillar munches his way through in the story.

In literacy this week we're going to be retelling the story and attempting to sequence the story correctly. This will hopefully allow children to begin to get familiar with the days of the week as well. In maths this week we are going to be looking at sorting objects by different criteria as well as continuing to look at what number is one more and one less than any given number (up to 10). If you get any chances to practise this at home please take them! To get you in a mathsy state of mind see if you can have a go at this problem:

My coat has three different buttons.

 

Sometimes, I do them up starting with the top button.  Sometimes, I start somewhere else.

 

How many ways can you find to do up my coat?

 

How will you remember them?

 

Do you think there are any more?  How do you know?

Feel free to bring your answers in on a Wow! Moment.

Reception team

Coats and jumpers

Hello everyone,

As the we push on into the year and the weather gets colder we like to still allow the children outside as much as possible. Whilst we do have some spare coats and jumpers we would be very grateful if you could send children in with a coat and/or jumper. Thank you.

Reception team

POWSA AGM Thursday 23rd October 7.45pm

We know AGMs are not terribly exciting but POWSA does fantastic work raising funds for the school and developing our sense of community. We need new ideas and new faces and new enthusiasm to join our friendly committee of committed parents. We welcome especially parents of new Reception children. Our AGM is on Thursday 23rd October in the staffroom at 7.45pm. Please come along, meet new friends, help the school!

Group reading books and sounds

Hello everyone,

Today the first 2 groups of children had a group reading session with an adult where they were given their own book. The books have been placed in a plastic wallet with a yellow band at the top. We would kindly ask that only group reading books live in this wallet. Some of the books given out this week contain pictures in order to get children talking about books and creating their own story to an extent. Other children will have a book that contains sounds - hopefully children will be able to tell you what they are! There are also some books that contain full words - I would like to reiterate that I believe your child should be able to read this story to you instead of the other way around - your voice finally gets a rest! If you have any queries regarding your child's book please come and speak to one of us. Not all groups will have a book yet but they will by Thursday. 

We are pressing on with our phonics lessons and today we covered our first digraph (a sound with 2 letters in it - ck). The other sounds we are covering this week are.

'e' - as in egg - Pretend to tap an egg on the side of a bowl and crack it into

the bowl, saying eh, eh, eh.

'u' - as in umbrella - Pretend to be putting up an umbrella and say u, u, u

'r' - as in rug - Pretend to be a lion roaring, hold out your hands and say rrrrrr.

The reason we are covering slightly fewer sounds this week is because we had a surprise  visit from the local Echo to take the receptions class picture. This should be appearing in the next few weeks and we will let you know when this is the case. 

Reception team.

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

Hello everyone! 

Thank you very much for the multitude of ways you have all come up with for name writing! Please continue to bring them in as we'll be looking at names until the end of the week.

Today we started our new topic: The Hungry Caterpillar. We looked at the story and the children were all very knowledgeable about caterpillars and butterflies. This week in literacy we are going to be focusing on how to hold your pencil effectively and writing children's name cursively. Cursive writing is a style of joined writing and can take a little longer to get to grips with. We therefore start early to ensure lots of practise. Below is an example of each letter written cursively. 

We will be covering each letter in school with the children and how to form them. 

In maths this week we are thinking about counting objects accurately and what number is 'one more than' a given number. We'll also be painting some butterfly pictures and looking at symmetry in relation to this.