Spring 1 Week 5
Hello everyone, it has been a great week in Reception. Thank you to everyone who attended the Reading at School and Home meetings this week, we very much appreciate your continued support.
This week
There are many ways children can be storytellers in Reception. Through listening to stories told by adults and other children, by creating their own stories and illustrating them and acting out stories in their role play, the children in Reception are regular storytellers. This week was a special week as it was National Storytelling Week and to help the children celebrate this, we invited other teachers from across the school to come and read one of their favourite books. Thank you to all of you whole bought in your favourite book and recorded stories for us on Tapestry. It was fantastic to share so many wonderful and varied fiction and non-fiction books.
We also enjoyed learning all about the Chinese New Year. We started by learning about the origins and the story behind how the Chinese New Year began. The story tells of how the Jade Emperor wanted to have a way of measuring time. To do this, he decided that there should be a great race across a river between the animals. The first 12 animals to cross the river would be rewarded by having a year in the calendar named after them. As the children listened to the story, they also discovered a little about the personal qualities and characteristics of each animal to help explain where they finished in the race.
As we continued throughout the week, we thought about the key traditions and festivals celebrated by people during the Chinese New Year.
In Maths, the children were learning about making pairs and identifying odd and even numbers as well as learning how to combine 2 groups of objects as a means of addition.
We have been revisiting previously learnt digraphs in Phonics this week. A digraph is where 2 letter shapes come together to make one sound. We also learnt two new sounds – short oo (u) and ow. The children enjoyed the Monster Phonics version of Little Red Riding Hood which had lots of words containing our 2 new sounds. The children continued to practise applying their phonic knowledge to segment for writing and blend for reading. Great job Reception!
In Jigsaw (RSHE), we continued our learning about ‘Dreams and Goals’ and thought about what we learn now at school and made the link with what jobs we might like to do when we are older. One example of this was that the children remembered that a Police Officer needs to take notes down when talking to people using a pen and paper. At school, we are learning to use our letters and sounds to write.
Next week
- Next week is Feeling Good Week. The children will be enjoying opportunities to take part in activities including Street Dance and Yoga.
- We will continue to centre our main teaching around the theme of People and Places. We will find out about places around the world.
- We will be learning about the festivals of Valentine’s Day and Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day).
- In Phonics, we will be learning the ee (Green Froggy) and ur sounds as well as consolidating our previously learnt sounds in our reading and writing.
- In Talk for Writing, the children will continue to create their own adapted versions of the story We’re going on a bear hunt. They will also have the opportunity to perform these as Helicopter Stories with the rest of the class.
- In Maths, the children will be using vocabulary to compare height and length and begin to understand days of the week as a sequence for telling the time.
- In Jigsaw (RSHE), we will continue our learning around ‘Dreams and Goals’ and evaluate the progress towards previously set goals. The children will also talk about what it means to feel proud.
Supporting your child at home
- Read three times this week and record in your child’s reading record.
- Model how you read and re-read your own writing to check it makes sense. This will encourage your child to re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense.
- Articulate their ideas and thoughts in well-formed sentences, e.g. Build upon their incidental talk: “Your tower is definitely the tallest I’ve seen all week. Do you think you’ll make it any higher?” and instead of correcting speech, model accurate irregular grammar such as past tense, plurals, complex sentences: “That’s right: you drank your milk quickly; you were quicker than me.”
Any other information
- FEELING GOOD WEEK – Please wear your PE kit to school each day next week.
- SLPA DRESS HAPPY DAY – The SLPA are hosting a fun dress up day on Friday 11th Anything and everything that makes your child happy fits the theme. There is a suggested donation of £1 made available on Parentmail however any contributions are welcome.
- RECEPTION, YEAR 2 & YEAR 6 PARENTS EVENING – Wednesday 9th March 5-8pm and Thursday 10th March 4-7pm. Information about booking will be sent soon, so please put the date in your diary.
We hope you have a fun-filled weekend.
Mrs Fisher and Mr French
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
