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