Reception Blog Autumn 1, Week 5
This week:
This week in Reception, we have had a wonderful week exploring autumn, celebrating National Poetry Day and sharing the book ‘Coming to England’ by Floella Benjamin for Black History Month.
Both Willow and Lilac class went on an autumn walk to explore the school grounds and observe the beauty in nature that the season of autumn brings. The children collected some leaves and seeds and brought them back into the classroom for our autumn displays where we looked more closely and discussed the colours, shapes and reasons why the leaves were changing colour and falling from the trees. We have shared poems and stories about autumn this week and on National Poetry Day we wrote a class poem, drawing on our experiences of nature and the environment. The children have had the opportunity to create artwork in response to their learning and have explored colour mixing, leave rubbings, using tools for different effects and adding darker or lighter colours for shading.
In phonics we have been focusing on oral blending and segmenting, as well as practicing our previously learnt graphemes; s,a,t,p,i,n and reading them in simple words. We have continued with small group reading, where the children share the same book and we practice our reading skills.
We continue to support the children in building their finger strength and fine motor skills through our daily ‘busy finger’ activities, in our continuous provision. We are also encouraging the children to build their core strength, which will also help their letter formation, by providing gross motor activities.
In maths we have been comparing quantities, length and heights and continuing to support 1:1 correspondence when counting as part of daily routines and where opportunities arise.
Thank you for reading with your child daily and for writing in their reading records. Please make sure that you are writing every time you have heard your child read.
Thank you for joining us at our reading, writing and maths parent’s information evening on Tuesday. The packs that we discussed at the meeting have all gone home in book bags this week. Please talk to us if you have any questions regarding these. They are to support you to support your child at home.
Next week:
We will be looking at different types of homes, sharing photographs of some of the historic buildings in Hitchin and thinking about where we live.
We will continue to explore autumn and experiment with our creative responses.
In maths we will be looking at repeating patterns.
We will continue with our Monster Phonics scheme and introduce the letters ‘m’,’d’ and ‘g’.
We will be letting you know which Monster Phonics E-book your child needs to be reading, please look out for this in the reading record, as discussed at the information evening.
Our book of the week next week will be ‘Home’ by Carson Ellis and we will continue with the traditional tale of The Little Red Hen to support our progression in storytelling and linking to our up-coming Harvest festival.
You can help by:
Please encourage your child to be brave on the monkey bars and other equipment at local parks that will support their gross motor skills.
Continue to encourage independent skills such as putting on their own shoes, coats and gloves now that the weather is changing.
Make sure that everything coming into school is named.
Continue to share stories and books daily, discussing the front cover, title, author and illustrator. You can begin to point out or ask your child to point out the graphemes they have been learning in phonics.
Please ensure your child has a coat in school every day and is dressed appropriately for the weather.
Class blog:
As we continue throughout the year, we will use the Class Blog as a means of regular communication between school and home. We will tell you about:
- What’s happened during each week
- What’s coming up
- Ideas about supporting your child at home
- Any other information you may need to know
Reminders:
If you are sending in grapes for afternoon snack then please make sure these are cut in half.
Please remember that we are a NUT FREE school and this includes snacks given to children on the playground before and after school. We have some very serious allergies in school. Thank you for not bringing nuts into the school grounds.
Please sign the behaviour booklet and return to school, if you haven’t already done so
Monster Phonics dress up day Friday 21st October. Children can come dressed as their favourite Monster Phonics character or the colour of that character.
Thank you for your continued support
