Merry Christmas from Reception!
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
This week is World Nursery Rhyme Week. Here are some reasons why nursery rhymes are so valued in early years education.
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.
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
Children in Need
Today we are celebrating Children in Need. This morning, each teacher has spoken to their class about Children in Need including what it is, what the charity is for and how we can raise money.
Each child has come into school wearing their own clothes and we have raised lots of money as a school which will be donated to Children in Need.
Here are most of our reception and KS1 children after dancing to 2 songs during WUSU.
Festivals
Welcome to Autumn 2! This half term, our theme is light and dark.
We’ve covered lots of important events and topics this week…
Bonfire Night
We learnt about why some people celebrate Bonfire Night, with an introduction to The Gunpowder Plot. The children enjoyed sharing their experiences of Bonfire Night and how they celebrated at home or out and about.
In the construction area, we built replicas of The Houses of Parliament. We explored casting shadows of our models with torches and used colour paddles to make the shadows look like fire!
Diwali
We found out about the Hindu festival of lights – Diwali. Our focus book was Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar.
We also found out about the festival through sharing non-fiction texts and watching My first festivals.
Take a look at some of the activities we explored, when learning about Diwali.
Our word of the week is: festival.
Maths; identifying and composing 5
In Maths, we’ve been using our fingers to identify 5. We ‘grew our fingers’ using the peas in a pod song.
Five little peas in a pea pod pressed,
One grew, two grew, so did all the rest,
They grew and they grew and they did not stop,
Until one day the pod went pop!
Later in the week, we used 5 frames and 5-die frames to explore the different ways to compose 5.
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new digraphs ff, ll, ss and the single letter phoneme j.
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; as
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In as, the ‘s’ is tricky because it makes the /z/ sound.
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 the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Who has seen the wind?
Click the link to watch Reception recite this week’s poem! Who has seen the wind?
Help at home; World Nursery Rhyme Week
Next week, we’ll be celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week.
If your child would like to, we’d love to share a recording of them telling their favourite nursery rhyme in class. Please send your videos to the email address below.
Dates for your diary
Anti-bullying Day and Odd Socks Day- 12.11.24 To support anti-bullying week, please send your child to school wearing a pair of odd socks (Tuesday only).
Maths Stay and Learn – 13.11.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 Please join us in the classroom to watch a short maths session and enjoy some maths activities with your child.
Children in Need – 15.11.24 Non-uniform day for Children in Need.
Swimming
Rainbow class loved their first swimming lesson this week! There were lots of happy faces splashing in the pool on Wednesday. Next week, Sunshine class will be swimming.
On your child’s swimming day, please provide a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and a pair of goggles if needed. No floatation equipment is required, as we provide these in school. Your child should still come to school wearing their PE kit.
Living and Learning – Me and My Community Week – Grandad Wheels
On Wednesday, the children enjoyed a fantastic and hilarious visit from Grandad Wheels, author, Brian Abram.
Brian, ‘Grandad Wheels’, delivered assemblies where he shared his story, told jokes and made us all laugh, as well as discussing what life is like in a wheelchair. We enjoyed listening to ‘Chaos at Cheapfoods!’. At the end of the assemblies, Brian set the children the challenge of designing a new wheelchair.
After reading a story to the Reception children in the school library, Brain visited each class so the children could share their designs. He was really impressed.
Thank you to FOSP for funding this wonderful visit.
Thank you to everyone who ordered a book from Brain – in total, £254 was raised through book orders – Brian puts this money towards two charities that support spinal injury.
@grandadwheels
