This week we will begin to learn the story of the Nativity in preparation for the children’s performance at the end of the term. The children will begin to learn some of the songs and begin to understand what a Nativity is. We will do all the preparation for the Nativity in school and DO NOT need parents to worry about costumes, we have everything needed in school. Information about tickets for the Nativity performance will all be shared with you in the Friday focus so please make sure you are reading this weekly to not miss out on any important information.
Last Friday your child came home with their first reading diary. This diary is a record of the reading that your child is doing at home. Please get into the habit of spending a few minutes each day with your child doing the activities outlined in the reading diary by your child’s reading teacher. This may be videos to watch, Ditty sheets to read or a simple word blending book. Please be assured that your child has the homework suitable for where they are on their reading journey. Do the activity in your child’s reading diary and go through the letter sound flashcards previously sent home. Sign the diary to say what your child has done and a little message. E.g. Tom watched the video on the sound x. He then went through the sounds and we made the words s-a-t, and p -i-n. He needed a little help to read the words. He tried really hard. Below are some additional blending videos for your child to work through for some extra practice.
https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/iVCP3tt9/0XZEY5if
https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/euXYCfU8/231cIDYT
This week in Maths, the children will continue to engage with activities that underline the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are altogether. They will reinforce their understanding of cardinality – that the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether in a set of objects – and they will further practise their 1:1 correspondence skill, by counting numbers at the same time as moving or tagging objects. A key focus this week is deepening their understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. The children will also begin to explore ways to represent numbers to 5 using both their fingers and the Hungarian number pattern. These key representations will help to underline the ‘fiveness’ of 5 and provide structures that will support later exploration of its composition and its relationships with other numbers.
As we head towards Winter and the increasingly colder weather can we please remind parents to send their child into school dressed appropriately for the dropping temperatures. Your child should come into school everyday wearing a jumper or cardigan to keep them warm while inside. They should also have a warm waterproof coat with a hood (raincoats are not now warm enough for sustained periods outside). We would also encourage that your child has a pair of named gloves and a named hat. We discourage scarfs as these just dangle along the floor and can become dangerous on the equipment. To help your child organise their equipment and their continued independence we recommend when taking their gloves off they put them in their coat pockets and when they remove their coat they put their hat in their sleeve. This helps keep belongings together and makes it easy for your child to get their coat and have everything they need.
Thank you for your continued support
The Reception Team