This week in Reception:
Hello from Lilac and Willow. We wanted to start with a very big THANK YOU for all of your continued support this half term. It was lovely to catch up with you all for Parents Evening. The children have been incredibly busy and have worked so hard over the last 2 months. We are so proud of how well the children have settled into life at Samuel Lucas and all of the fantastic learning they have demonstrated during their first half term in school. We have had lots of fun and hope your children have too!
This week
This week we have been learning all about Autumn and Harvest. We started the week with an Autumn walk around the school grounds. Then we spent the week finding out what Harvest is, why it is an important festival that people may celebrate and what people do as part of the celebrations. We concluded our learning by taking part in our own Harvest Festival on Thursday. We learnt that Harvest festival is a celebration of the food that is grown on the land. In Britain, Harvest festivals are often celebrated in churches and schools. Often food is collected to share with others who are less fortunate. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the food collection.
We learnt about how Harvest has changed over time and in the past, it was not as easy to find food in the winter. The farmers had to bring in crops from the fields before the cold weather arrived. Now, we can get food from many different countries around the world. This means that we can buy lots of different fruits and vegetables all year long. We also discovered that farmers use machines to harvest some of their crops. As the machines are big and able to collect the grains, fruits or vegetables very quickly. Although the children cleverly worked out that some fruits and vegetables might get squashed by a machine so they need to be carefully picked by hand.
We enjoyed listening to the story ‘The Enormous Turnip’ in which the farmer tried to harvest a turnip but due to its size, it would not budge. As the story continues, the farmer calls upon others to help him harvest the turnip. We enjoyed learning some new songs; ‘Oats and Beans and Barley Grow’ and ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow’ which we sang together as part of our Harvest Festival.
The children then all tried some yummy vegetable soup and warm bread. We sat and ate together, talking about Harvest traditions and wearing our Autumn crowns.
We ended the week on Friday with our Monster Phonics dress up day. The children looked fantastic in their costumes and we had a great day exploring the Monster Phonics activities set up in the environment. The children enjoyed making potions in the mud kitchen, using Tricky Witch’s cauldron, looking for clues like Yellow I, telling stories like Green Froggy, selling donuts in Miss Oh No’s bakery, training themselves to be Mountain Rescuers like Brown Owl, taking their friends for a ride in a taxi like Angry Red A, disappearing under the tunnels like the Silent Ghosts, practicing sounding out words like the black cats, sliding down the slide like U-Hoo and partying at the Monster Phonics Disco with resident DJ Clue Blue! It’ been a fun-filled day and a lovely end to the half term.
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,m,o,g,d,k,c,ck 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 exploring numbers to 3, positional language and continuing to support 1:1 correspondence when counting as part of daily routines and where opportunities arise.
Next half term
- We will be learning all about Fireworks and Festivals, learning about different festivals around the world.
- The children will be visiting the Library in small groups as part of our weekly local trips.
- In Phonics, we will continue learning new sounds in Phase 2 as well as applying what we have already learnt to continue blending for reading and writing.
- In maths we will be exploring numbers to 5 and 2D shapes and their properties
- We will begin preparations for our Reception Nativity
Supporting your child at home
- Before using junk materials for modelling, ask your child to design their model first and talk with them about their model, e.g.
- Can you tell me about your drawing?
- Why have you chosen to….?
- What material will you use for the….?
- Are you going to use…. or…. to join your materials?
- Look for things around your house that begin with s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, o, c, k or g and encourage your child to say the sound.
- Encourage your child to help you with shopping or making a simple recipe by counting and collecting objects using the 1:1 principle e.g. Can you get 2 apples? Can you put 2 spoons of cocoa into the bowl?
- 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.
Any other information
- TAPESTRY – We would love to see what you’ve been up to over half term. If you get chance to please upload a tapestry observation.
We hope you have a lovely half term break.
Mrs Fisher and Mrs Murrell
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
