Category: Reception Blog

We hope that you have all had a lovely bank holiday weekend and the children are back and ready to learn this week. In phonics, the children will be continuing their grouped learning activities. All of the groups will be reading, writing and practising their ‘special friends’. A reminder that the children will need to bring back their reading records on Wednesday and will be given new phonics material to read at home, on Friday. The phonics material sent home, is what the children have been doing that week, which will give you an idea of the level they are at with their reading and writing.

In maths this week, we are learning about numbers up to 20. The children will be ordering numbers to 20 and also representing them in different ways. At the end of the week, the children will be playing bingo with numbers to 20. They will be shown a picture card representing a number to 20, and they will need to stamp the numeral that matches. The first one to complete their bingo card wins!

In the wider curriculum this week, we will be continuing our learning on superheroes. This week, we will be focusing on real life superheroes, and people from the past that are still celebrated today. On Thursday, we will be learning about Florence Nightingale and why we could think of her as a real life superhero. A reminder, that Friday is our ‘Superhero Day’ and the children can come into school dressed as a fictional or real-life superhero! We are looking forward to seeing them all in their costumes and having a super day!

Have a fabulous week,

The Reception team

We would like to welcome all of the children back after their Easter break! It has been lovely to see their happy faces and excitement in returning back to school. We hope you have all had a lovely Easter, resting and spending time with family and friends.

In phonics this week, the children will be placed in their new groups. We are getting straight back into our Read Write Inc learning, which will consist of recapping sounds, reading, spelling and writing. Reading records and phonics homework will be sent out again on Friday and to be returned on Wednesday, the following week. Online homework will also be assigned again on Friday, to be completed by Wednesday. If your child has been sent home the same books as before we broke up for Easter, this means they have not moved phonics group, and will need more work to secure their learning.

In maths this week, we are looking at numbers above 10. Children will be looking at how we can represent numbers to 15 using different resources. Such as, ten frames, numicon and number fans. We will also be trying to identify different patterns in the numbers 11-20. At the end of the week, the children will be recapping their subtraction learning, by playing the subtraction game with a friend. Each pair will have counters and every time they roll the dice they need to take away that amount of counters. The first one with no counters left, wins!

In the wider curriculum this week, we are learning all about superheroes! We will be reading some stories about different superheroes and discussing what qualities a superhero has. At the end of each day, the children will be taking part in ‘superhero school’, where they will need to complete challenges each day, to become a superhero by the end of the week! On Friday, we will be creating our own class superhero and giving them the qualities a superhero must have, that we have discussed throughout the week.

Have a super week!

The reception team

We would like to say a big well done to all of the children for their hard work in phonics, this last term. They have worked amazingly hard, which shows in their phonics assessments, that took place last week. Most of the children have now been assessed and have been placed in their new phonics groups, ready for when we return after the Easter break. Therefore, our phonics learning will be as a whole class this week and this will consist of recapping sounds, playing phonics games and writing sentences about what we know about Easter.

As it is the last week till Easter, we are swapping our maths learning for lots of fun Easter activities. This week, the children will be creating their own Easter cards and writing them to someone special. We will also be creating Easter hats, which the children will be decorating themselves, using different materials. At the end of the week, the children will be going on an Easter hunt in our outside learning area, and making chocolate nests that they can take home and show you.

In the wider curriculum this week, we will be learning about Easter and why people celebrate Easter across the world. We will be discussing the story of Jesus resurrecting, and how this is an important part of Christian celebrations. We will also be discussing different traditions, focused around Easter, such as, family feasts, egg hunts and the Easter bunny.

A reminder that the children will not be sent home with any phonics homework or library books over Easter. If you could please make sure that all phonics books, reading records and library books are given in before Friday, and they will be sent out again when the children return after the Easter break.

The reception team would like to thank parents for their hard work and support throughout this term. Have a fabulous Easter break, you all deserve it!

The reception team

This week we are continuing on with our Spring topic with a focus on New Life. We are learning about the life cycle of a Frog, hen and a Butterfly and talking about all of the new life we see in Spring. Last week we went on a Spring walk and we are talking about the signs of new life that we say such as buds on trees, blossom, insects and plants growing. We will also experience stories based on a butterfly and a chick. When out and about, keep looking for those signs of spring.

We are coming to the end of this half terms phonics and will be assessed again at the end of the week ready for new groupings after half term. Continue to read both your book bag book and your online homework every day. Regularly go through you phonic sounds and any red words sent home in your reading diary. Please also remember to get a grown up to share your library book with you and return it on a Friday.

This week we have continued to consolidate our Spring term Maths. We are focusing on counting on and back/ making 10 and recapping our 3D shape names and properties. The children have struggled with 3D shape names so look out at home for the different shapes – cube, cuboid, sphere, cylinder and pyramid and talk about their properties to help support this.

Thank you to all those families who have attended our after school library session we hope the children are enjoying choosing a book to share with you. We currently have a collection of jumpers/, cardigans and water bottles without names on. They are outside RMT’s classroom, so please take a look if you have lost any property. Please ensure all clothing and property is named so we can return items to the rightful owner. This week is due to get cold later in the week so can we remind parents that children should come to school each day with a warm waterproof coat as the weather has a tendency to change as the day progresses.

Have a great week

The Reception Team

This week we have followed on from our growing topic to look at Spring. We are looking for different signs of Spring and talking about the differences between Spring, winter and autumn. We are going on a walk to look for signs of Spring. When you are out and about see if you can see any signs of Spring. The children are also watching their beans and cress grow to notice any changes.

This week in Maths we are consolidating some of the work covered this term. This week we are concentrating on the language of more and less and identifying which group has more or less. We are trying to describe what we see in groups to help us identify amounts without having to count e.g. a group with 3 and 2 makes 5. We are also recapping on Making 10. We are trying hard to learn our number bonds to 10 and being able to say what is needed to make 10, again without having to count.

We are all working hard in our phonics groups. We are regularly revising our set 1 sounds with particular attention on our special friends sh, ch, th, qu, ng, nk, ck. Remember to keep practising these at home. We are reading our texts in school and ask that you go on to your online activities and book bag book/ sheets every night. The children should be trying to read the text with fluency as it is a text they have read in the school in the week. Please get in the habit of hearing your child read every night. The more your child reads the greater their fluency and sight word recognition will become.

Thank you for the very generous contribution of cakes for our cake sale last week. The children all got to enjoy some cakes and have even been able to have one this week. Your kindness is greatly appreciated. We are having a number of jumpers going missing at the minute. Please regularly check your child’s clothes to check that their name is still visible so that we can return lost items to their rightful owners. We are sorry that we had to cancel this weeks library session due to parents evening. RMT’s session will commence Monday 28th March straight after school.

Happy Science week everybody! It is a very exciting week for the children, as they will be taking part in their very first Science week, here at Coundon. To celebrate Science week, we will be learning about ‘growth’ and the different ways we can look at growth. The children will be visiting the new Science laboratory and they will have the opportunity to grow their very own bean. We will be placing the beans on the window in the classroom and watching them grow, as the weeks go by.

We will also be linking our learning on growth, with our shared reading. This week we are reading ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. We will be discussing the different parts of the story and reading alternatives and discussing the similarities and differences. Some of the children’s challenges will be linked to the story, such as growing their own cress giant head.

In phonics this week, the children will be continuing their learning in their specified phonics groups. The children will be reading, writing and spelling during their lesson times and using the different learning strategies to support them, such as, Fred-fingers, pinch the sounds and letter formation phrases. Some of the children are still struggling with their letter formation. Any writing they are doing at home, can you please reinforce the correct way to write the letters and using the Read Write Inc. phrases to help them.

In maths this week, we will be introducing the children to subtraction. We will be focusing on the subtraction facts to 5 and using our number bond facts to help us. The children will be pretending to be hungry monsters and eating some of the ‘monster food’ and investigating how many they have left. We will also be creating our own ‘Now, Next, Then’ subtraction stories. The children will be drawing their own stories and then sharing them with the rest of the class.

We have had a great response to the library visits on Mondays. A reminder that RHB sessions started this Monday and will be held every other week. RMT sessions will start Monday 21st and will be held every other week. It is a great opportunity for the children to share a love for reading with you and to be able to take a book home that they enjoy.

Have a fabulous week!

The Reception team