Our new children  have settled well into school life and are already enjoying their learning in both reception classes. They are making new friends and exploring many new activities, working together and developing new relationships.

Our number lessons have consisted of counting objects with one to one correspondence and ordering numbers to ten. Spotting missing numbers and giving explanations as to how they found the answer. We have been looking at and naming 2D shapes.

We have been learning phonic sounds. The sounds that have been introduced so far are, s, a, t, p, i, n, c, k, e, n, m, g, o. Some children are beginning to blend sounds to read words e.g. t-a-g/tag, p-e-n/pen. It would be good for the children to practise doing this at home.

All children have name cards showing their name in the Monkfrith script and are being encouraged to use this to name all their independent work. They are all trying really hard with the letter formation.

Thank you to the parents who attended the EYFS coffee morning. We will be running another in the spring term.

 

November

PHONICS: All the letter sounds for Phase 2 Letters and Sounds have been introduced, sa,t,p,i,n,m,g,o,c,k,ck,d, f,h,l,r,u,b,e. The children continue to build CVC words for reading and writing. We have also introduced ‘ss’ ‘ll’ ‘ff’ stating these sounds are usually found at the end of words.

WRITING: Children are being encouraged to begin to write short sentences using a capital letter at the start and a full stop at the end. e.g A red pan. A big bus. We expect the children to use Monkfrith script at all times.

MATHEMATICS: Most children have a good understanding of numbers to 10 and are recognising the numerals. We have introduced the names of 3D shapes and have begun to talk about their properties. Last week we started working with money and coins. We had a market stall outside selling real fresh vegetables. It was so exciting to buy the veg with real coins. We heard many children comment on how ‘heavy’ some items were and that some felt other items were ‘lighter’ bringing in the mathematical vocabulary in to their role-play.

TOPIC: Our current topic is ‘Healthy Eating/Healthy Bodies‘. Children have handled real fruit and vegetables and by using Non Fiction books, now have a growing awareness of how important it is to  eat healthily. We have a ‘Hospital/Doctors’ role-play area. This week we have opened a baby care centre where the children, bathe, dry, feed, dress ‘babies’ and take them outside for a walk in the fresh air. They express the importance of keeping themselves clean while playing in the centre and demonstrate an understanding of why exercise is important to maintain a healthy body.

 

Thank you to all the parents who were able to come to our Maths ‘Play and Stay session. It was so lovely to have your support and be able to share with you how the children learn in reception.

January

First of all, a big thank you from Miss Ross and Miss Lenihan for the lovely gifts at Christmas.

Phonics

We are now working on Phase 3 of Letters and Sounds. So far we have covered the following sounds: qu, j, v, w, x, y, z and now we are moving onto digraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound). This week we have been working on sh, ch and th.

Maths

We are continuing to reinforce numbers to 20, recognising, writing the numerals and understanding the value of each number.

We have introduced addition in a practical manner and taught the related mathematical vocabulary: plus, add, total, equals and will introduce the signs + and = shortly (we find many children use the signs without understanding what they mean, therefore we do practical activities first with lots of talking and formal recordings with signs later).

We have been weighing, using scales to balance heaviest and lightest. We have also practiced weighing 1 item that the tiger ate when he came to tea and use non standard measures to see what each item weighs.

Topic

Our topic this half term is ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’. The story has been read to the children. Writing opportunities: the children have written about their favourite part of the story, party invitations, shopping lists, speech bubbles, menus for cafes. If your child writes a sentence at home, please reinforce the use of capital letters and full stops and the importance of using finger spaces. Always encourage your child to read back their work.

*We would be grateful for any boxes and recycling items you can spare.

The first half of the spring term ended with children enjoying making and eating their own sandwiches, discussing healthy/unhealthy foods and the hygiene needed when handling food etc.

We trust the children have enjoyed their half term break and will be ready to continue making progress in their learning.

This half term our initial Topic will be working on traditional tales. We will be starting with The Three Little pigs. We aim to incorporate many role play opportunities to help develop imagination which we hope will feed into the children’s writing.

In numeracy we will begin to work on subtraction and continue extending areas we covered last half term. Revisiting topics in shape space and measures.

We have covered many of the digraphs in phase 3 in phonics and will continue with the phase this term. Many children are finding applying these sounds to  reading and writing a challenge. They  benefit from lots of practise in seeing the digraphs in text and segmenting words for spelling. They need encouragement to think carefully of the sounds they say  before they write them down. Continued Parental support in this area would be appreciated and would help develop each child’s confidence in writing.

• Just a reminder, if your child comes home in borrowed clothes from school, please could these be washed and returned as soon as possible. Thank you.
• Also a gentle reminder that ALL guided reading books ( the ones with a little sticker on the front) must be returned on a Wednesday.