Welcome back to all of our children and families, we hope you had an enjoyable half term break and managed to have a rest. We are looking forward to a very busy half term where the children will continue to develop their independence and will now begin to show all the amazing things they have learned so far in this school year. Can you believe that the children are half way through their Reception year? Thank you for your continued support and we ask that you continue to reinforce the learning taking place in school, at home. Hopefully the weather will now begin to pick up a bit and we may even start to see some sunshine. We please ask that you send your child into school every day with a waterproof coat with a hood. As you know the British weather has a tendency to change by the hour so children need a waterproof coat incase of rain or cold weather throughout the day.
The children will move into their new phonic groups this week. They are doing remarkably well with the majority of children now on reading books or Ditty sheets. Please continue to hear your child read every night at home and sign your child’s reading diary to share how they are getting on. Don’t forget to log on to Oxford Owl to do the online work also. Practice, practice, practice is the best way to help your child on their reading journey- you are vitally important in helping your child to learn to read. Below are some extra practice videos that you can watch with your child and encourage them to join in with.
http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/resources/vc-pathways/353845/H7gBW9uGvuR8JXQN
This week, the children will continue to engage with activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. The children will also revisit the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. They will continue to be provided with opportunities to hear, join in with and develop their knowledge of the counting sequence and to become secure enough with their counting skills to be able to count out a set of objects from a larger set, remembering the ‘stopping number’ and knowing that this means they have selected the correct number. To begin to understand the word pattern embedded within most of our number names, the children will also be given opportunities to practise counting beyond 20. Attention is drawn to the repeating pattern of the counting numbers by the use of a puppet or soft toy. This is intended to support the children in joining in with verbal counts beyond 20 using the repeating pattern of the ‘1s’. Note that the expectation is not that the children should become secure with knowing ALL of the number names beyond 20, but rather that they hear the repeating pattern in the numbers and develop confidence in using the familiar sequence within 10 to count to bigger numbers.
This week we will be learning all about people who help us. We will be talking about the different roles in our communities and how these people help us in our everyday lives. The children will get the opportunity to dress up and act out different roles as well as learning key facts about the different jobs people do. You could use this as an opportunity to talk about your job or your role as a parent and how you help your child every day. This is a great time to talk about your child’s role at home and in school and how they can be helpful.
We hope you and your child have a lovely first week back,
The Reception Team