Family Photographs
As we’re getting to know everyone, we like to talk about our families and home life. To encourage children to tell us more about their family life, please e-mail or bring a photograph of your child with their family to Nursery. These will be displayed in our home corner for children to look at and talk about with staff and their friends. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
KS1 Dictation for writing
All the children have made a great start to their writing journeys this year. We have been really pleased with their enthusiasm.
In Key Stage One, we use dictation as a tool to help children with their writing. During dictation, the teachers will either have sentences already in mind or they will discuss and decide on a sentence with the children. Dictation allows children to watch as an adult models using different writing skills effectively. Together we practise letter formation, spacing between words, spelling, where and when to use punctuation such as capital letters and full stops. Teachers also model how to listen to sounds in words and write the corresponding letters.
Here are some examples of our dictated sentences:
Help at home: You could think of some simple sentences to write with your child at home. These could be about anything at all from writing about what you did at the weekend or a sentence about a film or a program you have watched on the telly.
Ask them about the process and how they do it school. I’m sure they’d be happy to share with you how skilful they are at counting the words in the sentence and using their Phoneme Fingers to listen for sounds in words. You could also include some tricky words or some of your child’s spelling words.
Science: classification
In Science this half-term, we have been biologists and have been learning about the different types of organisms including: mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, amphibians and invertebrates.
This week, we worked together to create our own classification keys. They allowed us to sort, classify and identify different animals. We created the questions for our classification key based on the physical characteristics of different animals.
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Help at home: Test your child’s knowledge of the different types of animals and the scientific vocabulary.
Summer Competition Winners
Settling
All of the children are now in full-time and are continuing to settle in, get to know each other and learn our daily routines. We’ve had lots of fun exploring our learning this week. Take a look at what we’ve been up to:
PE; Foot-Tech
The children really enjoyed their first Foot-Tech and teacher-led PE sessions.
Each Wednesday and Friday, Reception will take part in a range of fun activities and games. In Early Years, our PE lessons have a key focus on developing the fundamentals of movement and ensuring that children are continuously engaged and active throughout.
Help at home; Family photos
Next week, we will be continue to think about our families. To help support our discussions, please send in one picture of your family together. We will keep the photograph on display, so please send photos you are happy for us to keep. You can also email photos to the email address below.
Thank you to parents and carers who have already provided these.
PE Days
Please send your child to school in their PE kit on Wednesday and Friday.
Swimming kits are not yet needed, we will send a message out when you need to start sending the kit and a list of dates that your child will be swimming.
Here is a link to our uniform policy.
Wellies and spare clothes
Don’t forget to bring your school wellies and a bag of spare uniform/PE kit, including underwear and socks to keep in school. Thank you to parents and carers who have already provided these.
Dates for your diary
This year we will be offering various opportunities for you to find out more about Early Years at school.
There will be after school meetings with your child’s teacher.
There’ll be stay and learn sessions where you can come into school and be part of a lesson and then find out how you can help at home.
Then, opportunities to pop into school to share your child’s learning journey book with them.
We hope that you can join us for as many of these sessions as possible.
–Welcome to Reception
An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder.
Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception.
19.09.24 – 6pm – 6.30pm
– Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning – 10.10.24 9am-10am
Number 1- 13.11.24 9am-10am
Phonics Phase 3- 14.01.25 9am-10am
Fine Motor and coffee morning- 03.02.25 9am-10am
World Book Day- 06.03.24 9am-10am
Number 2 – 18.03.25 9am-10am
– Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Learning Journey Drop in 1 – 03.12.24 and 05.12.24 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Learning Journey drop in 2 – 28.03.25 and 01.04.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Learning Journey drop in 3– 08.07.25 and 10.07.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
The Snail and the Whale
The Snail and The Whale
We’ve been reading The Snail and The Whale, another book by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson
We’ve been retelling the story in our own words and writing special blackboard messages, just like the snail trail messages in the story!
The book had some fantastic adventurous words to describe landscapes and actions. Our word of the week was humongous. We discussed the meaning of lots of other words too.
Can your child tell you what each of these words mean? They could use the images to remind them.
Maths
This week, we’ve re-visited the composition of 5 in various ways.
Transition
On Wednesday, the Reception children had a wonderful visit to their new Year 1 classroom. It was a delightful experience for the children as they met their new teacher and explored their future learning environment.
The children were excited and engaged, participating in fun activities to make them feel welcome and at ease. This visit was a positive step in helping the children transition smoothly into Year 1. They left with big smiles and lots of enthusiasm!
The dancing raisin experiment
Phonics
Summer 2 week 5 has focused on:
root word ending in: –er, –est
longer words
In provision, we’ve been reading words ending in –ed and sorting them by the sounds that –ed makes:
‘t’ final sound: jumped, helped, screeched etc.
‘id’ final sound: boasted, painted, printed etc.
Help at home; Sentence Substitution Throughout the school year, we’ve suggested lots of practical ways to explore phonics at home with easily made resources and games. There are also some great quality online phonics games. Sentence substitution is a great way to practise both reading and comprehension. The goal is to replace one word in the sentence, whilst ensuring that the sentence still makes sense. This is a free to access game on ‘Phonics Bloom’ Click here to play at home!
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 Sliced Bread
The children enjoyed exploring synonyms for the word nice and came up with many alternatives, such as delightful and delicious. This sparked a lot of interest in changing and adapting various parts of the poem. Check out some of their new poems!
Nell Bank
On Friday, we set of on our trip to Nell Bank. We began by listening to a story about Pete who liked to be TIDY but maybe a little bit too much.
We worked together safely to clear up a big mess! During this activity, we explored ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and discussed what would happen to litter if it was left.
Afterwards, the children had the opportunity to go on a mini-beast hunt to help Pete find lots of worms. Following this, it was time to help Pete make a new home in the woods. One of their favourite parts of the day (outside of lunch, of course) was the water play area.
Summer Reading Challenge – Reading for fun!
Are you looking for something FREE to help with your child’s summer holiday boredom? The Library Service may have the answer for you.
The Library Service’s annual summer reading challenge is due to start this weekend on Saturday 6th July. All children need to do to earn rewards, a certificate and a medal is to read at least 6 books during the summer holiday period.
The challenge runs from 6th July until the 14th September in all Leeds Libraries so there’s lots of time and opportunity to rise to the challenge. You do not have to join up this weekend though – You can join at any time and you can join online too.
The theme this year is Marvellous Makers and it’s all about being creative – music, junk modelling, art and crafts, photography, dancing. There’s something for everyone’s reading tastes – even audio books too.
For more information you can contact any Leeds Library but Madeleine at Scholes Library will be more than happy to welcome you there to answer any queries or questions.
Wrap it up!
Today, as part of our D & T learning, Class 1A set off for The Hub to make their own wraps. They were given the choice of cream cheese, ham, peppers, lettuce and cucumber of ingredients to put in their wrap. Everyone thought carefully about making healthy choices. The children used skills such as slicing, chopping, spreading, arranging and rolling and everyone tried hard to use the bridge grip when slicing. Well done Class 1A!
After all the hard work, they enjoyed the fruits of their labour. Yum!
Help at home: Perhaps you could give your child the opportunity to show off their skills by allowing them to make their own healthy wrap or sandwich at home. Or better still… perhaps they could make you one.
One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab
One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab
We’ve been reading One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Sayre and Jeff Sayre.
This book, which is set on a beach, has a maths link. It describes how many legs you can see when combining different animals, insects and humans!
In our writing, we’ve used images from the book and described what we can see.
The book has also inspired lots of talk around seaside locations we have visited before.
Help at home- To continue our discussions around seaside locations, it would be lovely to have some pictures up around the classroom of the children visiting a beach. Please email these over to Scholesreception@spherefederation.org.
Geography- Where do we live?
In our non-fiction reading, we’ve been looking at maps of the United Kingdom. Country is our word of the week. We’ve learnt that there are many countries across the world and that our country is called England.
The children enjoyed looking at a map of the United Kingdom, locating Leeds and having a go at reading seaside towns.
Help at home- Next week, we’ll be focusing on our city; Leeds. Please have a chat with your child about their favourite places to visit in the city, as we’ll be asking about this in class.
Maths; counting and arrangement of shapes
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be revisiting mathematical skills learnt across the year. This week, we’ve been revisiting number patterns, such as double facts.
In provision, we’ve been using Tangram pictures to match position, orientation and arrangement of shapes.
Art
We’ve been making observational drawings of real-life objects(shells).
Phonics
Summer 2 week 1 has focused on phase 4 words with long vowel sounds.
In provision, we’ve been having a go at ‘sentence substitution’; reading a sentence and replacing one word with a different word, making sure the sentence still makes sense.
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 Thunderstorm.
Living and Learning
I know the ingredients of a happy and healthy relationship.
During our living and learning session, the children created a friendship soup. They thought carefully about what ingredients would make a good friend.
If someone wants to play and no-one else will play, I will play with them.
Please can I have that?
You share toys.
Please may I play with you.
Please can I have a turn.
Go to someone if they feel sad.
Music
Listening to a piece of music, the children drew in time to the music and shared their feelings.
When it was loud, I wanted to run. Violet
I liked it because there were drums. Frankie
It makes me want to dance. Eli
It made me think of an elephant because it was loud. Sienna
It made me feel excited. It sounded like a lion. Lula
Reminders
Getting ready for year one
We are now in Summer 2 and starting to think about transition into year one. To get the children prepared, we’d like parents/carers to encourage children to come into school through their classroom door independently and wave them off at the waving window. We know there are a few children already doing this, which is great for developing that independence.
Having said this, please know that our door will continue to be open to you for chats and if your child wants to show you their learning.
Thank you for your support.
Swimming dates
Rainbow – 12 June, 26 June, 10 July
Sunshine – 19 June, 3 July, 17 July
Living and learning: I know the importance of 60 active minutes
This week we were very lucky to try our hand at Heely’s. If you’ve never heard of them, they are shoes with wheels! The workshop allowed the children to try an new sport and this linked brilliantly with our living and learning statement for this week about being active for 60 minutes a day.
The first big challenge was putting the shoes on and attempting to get the knee and elbow pads on! Once we were kitted out, we were taught how to position our bodies to get the Heely’s to move smoothly. This was harder than it looked. The adults even had a go although I’m not sure we should’ve done! By the end of the session, we were all feeling a lot more confident – there were still a few people wobbling about though!
