Reception Class News

Spring 1, Week 2

Posted on Friday 17 January 2025 by Reception team

Spring 1 is our Fire and Ice theme. Over the past 2 weeks, nature has provided us  with so many opportunities to explore freezing and melting! Take a look at our snow-filled tray, with snow collected from our garden:

“the snow has turned to ice- it’s rock hard!”- J.A

“the snow feels so freezing when I pour it on my hands!… now it’s melting”

Lost and Found

We’ve continued to focus on the book Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.

We’ve been linking the story to topic work. We looked at a world map to see how the boy and penguin would travel from where we live (The United Kingdom) to The South Pole in Antarctica. We recalled what we know about the world map from our previous learning.

We’ve also been comparing our weather to that in the continent of Antarctica. Our word of the week is: climate. 

We’ve been writing ‘Missing’ posters, describing the penguin from our story.

Penguin observations

We’ve been zoologists this week- observing the livestream of the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo

We’ve been making notes on how the penguins move and interact with each other.

We noticed that the penguins were busier on the colder days of the week and discussed why this might be.

Ice painting

We made ice paintings by freezing paint mixed with water and creating art tools with them.

We noticed the difference in how well the tools painted, as the ice began to melt.

Charanga Music; Lullabies

In music,  we listened to the South African lullaby Thula Baba which means ‘hush baby’. We got comfortable on the floor, turned the lights out and pretended to go to sleep as we listened.
We then talked about what songs our grown-ups sang to us at bedtime and what bedtime routine would help a baby to go to sleep.
“Mummy sings ‘You Are My Sunshine’ – Miley
“My Mummy sings ‘Twinkle Twinkle” – Mila
“When I was a baby my Mummy cuddled me and sang to me”- Harlow
“My Mummy lets my baby go to sleep with a light that changes colour”- Olivia
“It’s where you rock someone to sleep” (a lullaby)- Mila
“We tell stories with Daddy at bedtime”- Grace
“He needs a drink” (what does the baby need at bedtime)- Charlie

Phonics Phase 3 Stay and Learn 

Thank you to the parents and carers who were able to join us for another Stay and Learn session this week.

We hope you enjoyed watching a lesson, getting to spend time in the classroom and hopefully getting some more ideas and information for the next steps in our phonics journey.

As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Scan the QR code to leave your views!

Maths; the staircase pattern

In Maths, we’ve been looking at counting and ordinality- specifically, the ‘one more’ relationship that creates ‘the staircase pattern’.

We were introduced to the concept by the Numberblocks, before moving on to create our own staircase patterns in small groups.

In provision, we’ve been using Frayer models to explore numbers- counting the corresponding amount of cubes/teddies, finding the Numicon and  representing it on a tens frame.

Phonics

Spring 1 week 2  has focused on the digraphs oo, oo, ar, or

We’ve learnt the tricky words; was, you, they

Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.

In provision, we’ve been playing roll and read.

Help at home; Tricky words

Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.

This week’s game is: Tricky Word Bingo

  1. Enter the list of tricky words you want to focus on into an online ‘picker’ (pickerwheel.com is an easy to use option) or write them down onto strips of paper, to be picked at random.
  2. Ask your child to choose 4-6 tricky words and write them down (they can copy these from a list), you should do the same and you could even ask a sibling to play along too!
  3. Pick the tricky words at random or by clicking the wheel- who will be the first to cross off all of their words and shout BINGO?!!

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called I can build a snowman

We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.

Reminders/ Dates for your diary

Lost and Found

Posted on Friday 10 January 2025 by Reception Team

It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.

The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.

In literacy, we have been reading the story  Lost and Found.

Lost and Found: Oliver Jeffers: Amazon.co.uk: Jeffers, Oliver, Jeffers, Oliver: 9780007150366: Books

In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost.

Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg.

Here is some of our super writing!

Phonics

We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.

Maths – super subitising!

This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.

One there and two far away. That makes three!’ Jaxon

Two and the bottom and two at the top. Billy

Check out our other learning.

Home Link

How fast can you melt an ice cube?

What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?

You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.

 

Notices

Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 9am – 10am

Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).

Swimming dates

Rainbow – 22 Jan, 5 Feb

Sunshine – 15 Jan, 29 Jan, 12 Feb

Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.

Swimming dates spring 1

Posted on Sunday 29 December 2024 by Reception team

Merry Christmas from Reception!

Posted on Friday 20 December 2024 by Reception Team

What a busy week of festive fun!

The Christmas story 

We’ve been learning about the story of the first Christmas- The Nativity. We learnt that this is why Christians celebrate Christmas and we enjoyed using story props to re-tell the story.

Christmas around the world 

Children were really interested in learning about how different countries celebrate Christmas around the world. We looked at the difference between Santa in the UK and Santa in Australia.

We heard about the good witch, La Befana, who brings presents to children in Italy and we went hunting for (a picture of) the lucky almond!  In Denmark, it’s a Christmas tradition to hide an almond in pudding. The finder has good luck for the year!

In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas leaves gifts in children’s shoes. We added drawings of presents and sweets to a picture of shoes.  At playtime, our shoes were magic and turned into real treats!

 

Phonics

This week, we’ve been revisiting and consolidating everything that we have learnt across phase 2.  The children have been brilliant in their reading groups and independent writing activities. It is fantastic to see them confidently using all of the skills that they have developed this term.

Help at home: Over the holidays, please keep reading and practising all of the graphemes and tricky words that we have learnt so far. It’ll help children to consolidate them before the next phase of our phonics learning begins in January.

EYFS Christmas Sing-along

Thank you to everyone that came to watch our Christmas Sing-along. We hope you enjoyed all of the singing, dancing and poetry. We were really proud of the children – it’s quite daunting to stand on a stage in front of so many people! Well done, Reception.

Someone special visited our classrooms…

On Wednesday, the children received a special video. Santa had been to visit and play in our classrooms and he’d left us all a present!  We were so impressed that he came to see our school.

Christmas Dinner and party time!

Reception had a yummy Christmas dinner on Thursday and enjoyed exploring the Christmas inflatables which were kindly organised by Mrs Pennock. This is always a Christmas highlight at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School!  On Friday, we had lots of fun dancing, playing games and being with our friends.

A message from the Reception Team

The Reception team would like to thank everyone for your kind Christmas greetings, cards and presents. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy spending time with family and friends this festive season. We’ll see you all again on Monday 06 January.

Christmas Disco

Posted on Wednesday 18 December 2024 by Mrs Latham

We all had a blast at the Christmas Disco last week.

Please consider joining FOSP (Friends of Scholes Primary) – they’re always looking for new recruits to help organise special events like this!

The Jolly Christmas Postman

Posted on Friday 13 December 2024 by Reception Team

Literacy

This week we enjoyed the story, The Jolly Christmas Postman.

The children loved seeing the different letters, gifts and cards inside each envelope.

Inspired by the book, we wrote our own postcards with special messages. We learned about the journey of a letter from the post box to our front door and can’t wait for our own letters to be delivered!

Maths

We have named and described 2D shapes. We enjoyed searching for these shapes around our classroom. In provision, we created shape pictures by rotating and manipulating shapes to match a picture.

Art

The children developed their observational skills by carefully looking at a Poinsettia before drawing it with wax crayons. As they examined the plant, they noticed details like the veins running through the leaves. Using these observations, they coloured with intention and choose colours purposefully.

Check out our other learning…

 

 

 

Owl Babies

Posted on Friday 06 December 2024 by Reception team

This week we’ve been reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.

We’ve been following a story map and rehearsing actions to retell the story from the beginning to the end.

Take a look at our story actions!

In our writing, we had a go at writing a dictated caption ‘Bill is sad’ and had a try at writing our own sentences to match our action photo.

Science; Nocturnal animals

We’ve continued exploring nocturnal animals this week.

Ask your child if they can explain what a nocturnal animal is and if they can name any!

Maths; counting, ordinality and cardinality 

In Maths, we’ve revisited careful counting. Making sure we say our numbers in the correct sequence (ordinality) and stopping ‘at the stopping number’ (cardinality)

In provision, we’ve been using dice with both standard and irregular dot patterns on. We’ve been subitising the number we roll and then matching it by counting out and placing the correct number of objects onto a tens frame.

Art; festive projects!

We’ve been busy making some festive masterpieces! We want to keep them a surprise but here are a few snapshots of us busily creating.

Learning journey drop-ins

Thank you to parents and carers who were able to join us for the first look at you child’s learning journey book. We’ll be inviting you back in to look at these again on specific dates in March and July but they are also available at all times in the classroom, should you wish to take a peek.

Don’t forget, each child also has their own special wall space to collect their independent learning examples throughout the current term. We call these our ‘I feel proud’ walls.

Phonics

Autumn 2 week   has focused on words with s /s/ added at the end (hats, sits), words ending s /z/ (his) and with s /z/ added at the end (bags)

We’ve learnt the tricky words; we, me, be

Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.

In provision, we’ve been spotting and circling our focus tricky words.

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers.

We are currently rehearsing for our Christmas performance, so will be concentrating the three poems below.  There will not be recordings of these as to not spoil the big reveal on our show days!

Help at home; The Journey of a letter

Next week, we’ll be reading The Jolly Christmas Postman and learning about the journey of a letter when it has been posted.

To help with our discussions, we’d love to share some photos of your child at their local post box.

Send your photos to: scholesreception@spherefederation.org

We are also asking you to send in one stamp for your child, to support our learning next week.

More learning this week…

Diary Dates

Friday 13 December 3.15-4.15   FOSP Christmas Disco (bring named party clothes in a bag to change into at the end of the school day)

Monday 16 December 1.30pm / Tuesday 17 December 9.45am Early Years Christmas Performance

Thursday 19 December Christmas Dinner

Friday 20 December Non-uniform day. Christmas Party Day.

How to Catch a Star

Posted on Friday 29 November 2024 by Reception Team

Literacy

This week our focus story was ‘How to Catch a Star‘ by Oliver Jeffers. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip).

In the writing area, the challenge was to think, draw and write about what we might see if we went into space.  At the end of the week, we thought of our own ways to catch a star. We had lots of amazing ideas.

Maths

This week, we have built on our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5.

We composed and de-composed numbers by investigating the part, part, whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2.

After watching an episode of Numberblocks, we enjoyed making our own Stampoline prints to show different ways of making 5.

Poetry Picnic

Each week we learn a new poem and we recite this poem every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to  children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Mice.

Art

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been inspired by Monet’s series of paintings, Houses of Parliament. We looked at the colours that we could see in the sky and thought about what time of day it might be.

The colours are reflected in the water. It’s the morning.

We created our own art work by using blocks to print shapes and make a building silhouette. Then, we explored using water colours to create the sky. We thought carefully about how different colours can change the feeling of a painting and represent the sky during different weathers or times of the day.

Help at home

  • Spot some signs of winter.  You may choose to take photos, draw pictures or talk about the change in season, from autumn to winter. Let us know if you spot any signs of winter – send us an email, bring in your pictures or tell us about what you found.

  • Please remember to complete your child’s reading log every week to let us know how they are getting on with their reading book at home. Thank you.

Dates 

Learning Journey drop-in sessions 

Every child in Reception has a Learning Journey book that celebrates their learning – this might be with photos, our observations and your updates from home. Come in and share with your child their Learning Journey so far. There are four sessions planned next week – we look forward to seeing you at one of them.

Tuesday 03 December and Thursday 05 December

Times – 8.45 am-9.15am   and   3.15pm-3.45pm

 

 

Night Monkey Day Monkey

Posted on Friday 22 November 2024 by Reception Team

This week in our light and dark topic, we’ve been learning about day and night.

Night Monkey, Day Monkey

We’ve been reading Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson.

The story follows two monkeys who find themselves awake at their opposite times of day. They are very confused by what they see and need help understanding everything! Our word of the week is: nocturnal. We know that nocturnal means “active at night”

We’ve been writing about nocturnal animals and features of day/night.

Science: shadows

We’ve been making further investigations into shadows, by spotting them outside and by using our dark tent. We know that to make a shadow, we need a source of light. When that source of light is blocked, it casts a shadow. We explored using mirrors to reflect lights differently and used colour paddles to change the colour being projected onto the tent wall.

Maths; part-whole

In Maths, we’ve been looking at the ‘parts’ that make the whole of something. For example, the parts of us that make our whole body. Our head, eyes, legs etc. are the parts, our body is the whole.

This leads on to understanding the composition of number; the parts that can be added together to make a whole number.

PE; Gymnastics

This half term, Friday PE sessions are gymnastics. We are exploring movement and balance, developing fundamental skills and learning how to demonstrate our skills to others.

Phonics

Autumn 2 week 3  has focused on the single letter phoneme z and digraphs zz, qu, ch

We’ve learnt the tricky words; go, no, to, into

Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.

In provision, we’ve been playing what’s in the box and reading the words to match pictures we find.

 

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Shoes.

We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.

Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem

Watch here!

Help at home; Stars

Next week, we’ll be looking to the skies again! We are learning about the night sky and stars.

We know this is a topic of interest for many children in Reception. If you have any books or resources to share that are linked to this topic, we would love to see them.

 

 

World Nursery Rhyme Week

Posted on Friday 15 November 2024 by Reception team

It’s been another busy week, here in Reception…

World Nursery Rhyme Week

This week is World Nursery Rhyme Week. Here are some reasons why nursery rhymes are so valued in early years education.

https://www.worldnurseryrhymeweek.com

Across the classroom, children have focused on a range of different nursery rhymes and we have been singing them (even more!) at carpet times.

Each Peach Pear Plum

Linked to World Nursery Rhyme Week, we’ve been reading this classic book by Jane and Allan Ahlberg. The children loved listening carefully for the rhyming words and spotting familiar characters on each page.

Our word of the week is: rhyme

History; Household objects from the past

The pictures in our focus story inspired discussions about household objects from the past and we learnt about some objects we had never seen before. We then compared these to objects we might have at home, in the present.

In addition to pictures, we looked carefully at some old household artefacts and had a go at sorting past and present objects.

Ask your child which objects from the past they can spot in the story picture below. Can they remember what they are called and what they are used for?

Odd Socks

I know how to STOP bullying is our school living and learning statement this week. On Tuesday, we wore odd socks to signify our differences and share the message that we are all different in some way. We discussed how important it is to celebrate our differences and respect everyone.

Stay and Learn; Maths 1

On Wednesday, we had a wonderful morning exploring maths with our adults.

Thank you to all of the parents and carers that were able to join us in the classroom to watch a short lesson, partake in some activities and listen to a teacher presentation.

As always, any feedback on the session is much appreciated to help us know what we are doing well and consider what we might adapt to make our sessions even better in the future. Please use the QR code below to provide your feedback.

Feedback- Reception Stay and Learn, Maths 1

If you’d like to access the teacher presentation, please click the link below:

Parent copy SE Maths Mastery presentation stay and learn 2024

Children in Need

Thank you for joining in with non-uniform day, to raise money for Children in Need.

Phonics

This week, we focused on the new GPCs (Grapheme-phoneme correspondence) v, w, x, y.

We’ve also learnt the tricky words; and, has, his, her

Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’.

Please continue to revisit this week’s sounds, by using the learn at home sheets. Thank you. 

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called A Basket of Apples.

click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!

Classroom snapshots

Here are some more snapshots of our learning this week…

Swimming