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Reception - Newsletter - Summer 1
Reception - Newsletter - Spring 1
Autumn 1
We have had an exciting start to the new school year in Reception. We have been learning our school rules which help keep us all happy and safe. These can be seen in our classroom and the children are learning the rhyme and actions to help them remember.
The children have enjoyed exploring their new learning environment, getting to know each other and forming new friendships. We have started our topic ‘My story, our world’ and have been talking about ourselves and our families. We made self-portraits and drew pictures of our families.
Wow look at us practising our own names and learning our numbers to 3!
Culture and diversity day
We were lucky enough to have our Parents and Special people to us come in and talk about their cultures with us. We came dressed in our cultural clothing and tasted food from around the world.
Music
The children have loved joining in with our music sessions the term. We have been learning how to listen carefully, follow instructions and stop and start in time with each other. Look at how much fun we have been having...
Autumn 2
This term was a very busy one. We settled back into our routines very well, and had fun exploring our environment.
Understanding the World - Space
We have been learning all about Space this term. We have been looking at our solar system and talking about what we see and might find in space. So far, we have looked at the difference between our ‘day sky’ and our ‘night sky,’ and discussed the differences between the seasons.
PSED
Our Autumn term focus is being kind and respectful.
We spent time in Autumn 1 discussing what kindness means and how we can fill each others buckets. We explored what to do when someone is being a ‘bucket dipper’ and how we can help others to be kind by explaining what they are doing and how it is making us feel. During Autumn 2, we have been talking about similarities and differences. We have explored this through a range of different topics here are some of the themes we have spoke about so far.
- Changes from a baby to now
- Our physical features
- Things we like and dislike
- Our skills
- Our celebrations
- Our families
Communication and Language
We have been spending lots of time building our relationships with each other this term. Learning how to listen to one another and follow on from what another person has said. We have been learning how to answer questions in sentences and have been trying really hard to extend our sentences using and or because when talking.
Physical Development
This term we have been working on both our gross motor and fine motor skills. We have been finding out how to use all the playground equipment safely. We have been gaining lots of confidence when jumping and climbing and will be starting PE sessions very soon. As well as enjoying our gross motor activities we have also been developing our fine motor skills. We have enjoyed accessing the playdough, threading and scissor skills activities throughout this term. These activities will really help us to hold our pen with a tripod grip and use our tools confidently in the creative area.
Literacy
Smeds and Smoos by Julia Donaldson
The children have really enjoyed exploring the book ‘The Smeds and Smoos’ by Julia Donaldson. The children had ago at making their own books and using these to retell the story. We discussed our friendships and whether it was okay or not for the families in the books to say they could not play together.
Phonics
We have now learnt all our phase 2 sounds and are able to use these sounds to read and write. We have learnt lots of strategies to help us when applying these sounds to our reading and writing. In reading we have been using our duck hands to blend our words and our eagle eyes to spot our tricky words. The children have also been working hard in writing to use their stretchy snakes to stretch to their words and use their frog fingers to sound them out.
Maths
We have been very impressed with the children’s progress so far so please do keep practicing at home. This term, we have focused on learning the fundamental skills of sorting, matching, and understanding heights and lengths. Look at us practise our skills!
EAD
This term we have been busy learning lots of skills that will help us to make lots of different creations. We have learnt how to brace two junk modelling objects together, make rubbings using a wax crayon and sculpt using salt dough.
Spring 1
Under The Sea
During our topic ‘Under the Sea’, we will look at different aspects of our oceans including sea life- their features, what they eat, their habitats and how they protect themselves. We will also be looking at healthy and unhealthy environments and how we can better look after these. We will look at this through the story of ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ which highlights the issues around rubbish in our oceans. The children will then be encouraged to design and make their own rubbish collectors that can be used in the sea. We will look in detail at the book ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson, we will use this book to compare and contrast different places around the world, to look at and find out how far they are away from where we live and to describe different environments using geographical language such as mountains, cliffs, volcanoes etc...
Workshop Celebrations
Throughout this term, we have been inviting our parents into our classroom to show them how we have been learning so our parents can help us at home too. So far, we have showcased math, reading comprehension and developing speech. Next week, we will show them a live phonics lesson and then finally finish the term with some reading games that we can play at home. We are very excited to show off all the things we have learnt so far!
Communication and language
During the spring term, we will be focusing on how we can use our language to explain our own thoughts and ideas and make suggestions or compromises to find a solution to a problem. For example, when creating something in the creative area the children will be encouraged to use taught vocabulary explaining the skills and techniques, they are using to create their models and how this could be adapted to make their models even better. Towards the end of the Spring Term, children will show off how much their confidence has grown when performing a story to the whole school and our parents. The children have started to fine-tune their listening skills and have begun to listen out carefully for changes in the dynamics of a piece of music and have been practicing to move their bodies to three different pitches. We have thoroughly enjoyed our music lessons!
PSED
The children have enjoyed reading the book ‘Izzy Gizmo’ this term and talking about resilience and perseverance when things go wrong. We are going to need these skills when we try and create our very own inventions to try and capture all of the plastic in the ocean. We have continued to talk about being a bucket filler and have started to learn how to make compromises when working together. You will often hear the reception children say "Teamwork makes the dream work!"
Physical Development
We spent the Autumn term building up the strength in our hands to hold a pencil with a tripod grip. We are now able to hold our pencils using a tripod grip and have been working hard to make sure all of our letters are formed correctly. Look at use practicing our handwriting, we use our letter ditties to help us to remember where we need to start and finish. We will continue to work on using a variety of tools to mark make and create things in our classroom so that we can manipulate small objects and tools with control and confidence.
The children have also enjoyed developing their gross motor skills and have enjoyed our movement sessions in the hall. This term we are working on moving in different ways to a piece of music and exploring how we can make our bodies move and balance in different ways. Our challenge this half term is to see if we can hold a balancing pose for a few seconds and to hop on one foot. When moving around in the hall the children will develop more control over their body and will be able to change speed or direction in order to keep them in the space safely.
Literacy
Writing
During this topic, children will begin to write simple captions such as ‘It is a man.” They will start to recognise some phase 3 tricky words such as was, she, and my and will start to learn some phase 3 diagraphs such ch, sh, and th. They will be able to use their sounds to write words, labels and lists confidently in the environment and we will begin to see phonics being used more regularly in children’s independent writing during free flow.
During adult-led activities this term the children will be given opportunities to write invitations, cards, thought bubbles and shopping lists giving them opportunities to revisit many of the different writing purposes that have been covered so far. Towards the end of this topic the children will read the story ‘The Snail and the Whale’ and during this book they will be introduced to the term adjectives, and they will have ago at coming up with some adjectives to describe the settings in the book.
Reading
During our topic under the sea, children will look at both fiction and non-fiction texts. Whilst listening to non-fiction texts as a class, children will be more confident with recalling some facts and/ or pieces of information retained from the book. As the children explore the book 'The Snail and the Whale' the children will look in detail at the places that the whale visited, order them and place these on a world map created in class. This will encourage a deeper level of conversation about the places and weathers experienced in the book allowing children to make some comparisons between each of the settings. Children will also be given opportunities to create their own picture books for each of the stories so that they can continue to build upon their ability to retell and sequence stories. Children will continue to expand upon their knowledge of rhyme to create rhyming strings with both real and alien words.
Phonics
In phonics this term children will start to learn some phase 3 digraph sounds and the first set of phase 3 (2A) tricky words. During this term we would expect children to be beginning to read a simple caption with confidence and be able to spot the digraphs taught in words when reading.
Maths
Alive in Five: Children will be introduced to the concept zero. They will continue to explore the composition of numbers looking more closely at the numbers 4 and 5. Children to build on prior knowledge that quantities can be the same, more or fewer than another quantity. Children to compare amounts up to 5 using objects. Children will end this unit by comparing both mass and capacity using mathematical language and common misconceptions will be challenged.
Understanding the world
Using the story ‘The Snail and the Whale': We will locate places on a map together as a class, begin to compare and contrast environments, and discuss and name the human and physical features we can see in the settings.
When looking at the sea creatures that live beneath our oceans we will continue to extend our understanding of the topic by talking about the similarities and differences between sea and land animals and thinking more specifically about why some animals they have those distinct body parts. What are they for? Why do they have them?
Finally, we will end the topic by discussing the pollution in our seas through the book ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’. We will then follow this up with the book ‘Izzy Gizmo’, where we will encourage the children to invent a machine that will help to clean up our seas.
Expressive Arts and Design
This term children will be shown how to create and use their own stencils. They will be able to name the three primary colours and will experiment with mixing these to create new colours. We will learn how to weave and make holes in the centre of a piece of card or paper to create new more complex models. Children will start to show confidence when retelling familiar stories and will act them out in role play scenarios. Below is a little snapshot of the things we have learnt to do so far.