Autumn Term 2021

W/C 13/12/2021

We have had a very festive week!

I would like to start by saying how proud I am of all the children as they confidently performed their very first Nativity. The final performance was the best one yet and I loved watching how much joy they brought to all of your faces. They melted my heart when they asked to do it all again!

On Friday, we also had a visit from Santa himself! We sang Christmas songs with him and received a chocolate selection box. We had a great time with Santa and cannot wait for him to visit on Christmas Eve!

I have completed Phonics assessments with all children and we have made great progress! I will update you over the next couple of weeks with how much progress your child has made and what you can do at home to support. I will not be sending home reading books next week but please keep reading/sharing your own story books at home.

I will also send home P.E bags on Wednesday.

We finish at normal time on Wednesday 22nd December 2021.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

W/C 6/12/2021

We have continued to read 'Halibut Jackson.' We really enjoyed finding out the ending to the story. We loved designing a new suit for Halibut to wear to Palace. The children chose to use gold, silver and glittery gems for the suit in order for Halibut Jackson to blend into his surroundings. We then used our Phonics to write labels.

In Maths, we have looked a composing and de-composing number 4. We used bingo dabbers to represent 4 in different ways and used spatial language to describe the dot patterns.

We really enjoyed our Christmas lunch and enjoyed reading some of the jokes inside our crackers. We had our first and last dress rehearsal on Friday. We performed to Nursery and Year 1. We did very well and we are extremely proud of their efforts. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed rehearsing it. Every time we practise, the children ask to do it again!

This week we have been learning about Christianity, linked to the Nativity story. We discovered the important people that visited the stable. We also learnt why Jesus is special to Christians. The children have developed a fantastic understanding of the Nativity due to being immersed into the story.

We are looking forward to all the Christmas festivities next week!

W/C 29/11/2021

 The countdown to Christmas has started... 20 days until the big day!

 We have started reading our new story this week, 'Halibut Jackson.' We have only read the beginning so we are looking forward to reading the rest next week. Halibut Jackson is a shy and timid man who wears a different suit for every occasion as he likes to blend into his surroundings! We have set up a clothes shop in the classroom and the children have been busy writing labels and price tags.

In Maths we have started to learn about composition of number. We discovered two new words, 'part' and 'whole'. To introduce this concept we have looked at part and whole in a variety of different contexts. Here are a few ways:

1. Jigsaws- Can you find all the parts to complete the whole puzzle?
2. Body parts- My nose is a part of me and the whole of me is..... (name)
3. Toys- Can you find the missing part to complete the whole toy?

One of our favourite activities this week has been making fruit kebabs. We explored whole pieces of fruit and chopped them into parts. We then selected which parts we wanted on our fruit kebabs. The children used the vocabulary brilliantly.

We have been learning about what Hedgehogs and Squirrels do in autumn to prepare for winter. We had a go at making our own clay hedgehogs.

We also had a wonderful experience on Friday. We had a visit from a Bee keeper. He brought in real bees and all of his equipment to harvest the honey. We all had a go at each stage of the process. We enjoyed scraping the wax off the wooden frames to reveal the honey in the cells. I hope you all enjoyed tasting the fresh honey! The Bee Keeper will be back in spring for those who missed out this week.

We have also had a big push on only drinking water at school. As part of the new EYFS Statutory Framework we have a duty to promote healthy choices including healthy choices for our teeth. Our first step to promote this is to encourage children to drink water instead of squash. We are really proud of all the children as we have noticed that the children have been willing to change their squash for water and they have been pleasantly surprised that they actually like it!

Please help us to promote healthy teeth by:
1. Only putting water in bottles
2. No fruit shoots at lunch

The children have access to fresh drinking water and milk every day.

W/C 22/11/2021

This week we have finished reading the story 'Look up!' We finished off by sequencing the story and retelling the story in our own words. The children amazed me with how well they could retell the story and it was lovely to hear them use the wide range of vocabulary that we have discovered throughout the story. Next week, we will be moving onto our new story, 'Halibut Jackson.'

In Maths, we continued to consolidate our learning on comparing quantities. By the end of the week, we were much more confident with 'more'/ 'fewer'/ 'equal'. We have explored this language in a variety of ways over the past two weeks.

Thank you for collecting autumn treasures with your child. We have looked at some of the collections and identified some of the leaves. We also discussed what sort of clothing we might wear in autumn to keep us warm.

Our Nativity is in full swing and our roles have been finalised. We do not need any costumes buying as we are fortunate enough to have all the costumes that we need. Please return your slip ASAP to inform us of how many people will be attending on the day of production.

W/C 15/11/2021

We have crammed so much in this week and achieved so much.

 In Literacy we continued reading our story and read to the end of 'Look Up!' The children loved finding out the ending. The children have demonstrated super writing skills as they wrote down their own ideas of what Rocket might need to pack in her bag when watching the Meteor shower. To completely immerse ourselves into Space we used our Now> Press> Play headphones. Now>Press>Play is an immersive audio resource that engages children through sound, story and movement. The children absolutely loved it!

To introduce our learning about autumn we shared the story 'Leaf Man'. The children were then inspired to create their own art work using leaves found in the garden. I hope you all received your paper bag to go on your own autumn walk.

On Friday we took part in Children in Need and watched the children prank the teachers. We also made Butternut Squash soup and toast to dip in. We were very surprised when the children asked to eat more!

W/C 08/11/2021

 A fantastic start to the new term.

We have had a very busy week talking about Bonfire night, Diwali and Remembrance Day. We made our own firework pictures and painted our own poppies. The children then asked if they could make poppies using playdough. We discovered why people wear poppies and the importance of the flower symbol. On Friday, we made biscuits with the help from a St. Georges Sixth Form student. Chloe will be coming in every Friday to bake and cook with us.

We started our new story, 'Look Up!' We have only read half the story so far as we took our time to discover new words/vocabulary and to talk about each character. We will continue this story next week. The children have enjoyed our new Space area in the book corner to support our Literacy work.

We have also started rehearsing our Christmas Nativity. Our Christmas Nativity will be on MONDAY 13TH DECEMBER at 1.45pm. Letters with more details will be going out shortly.

W/C 11th October

We have had fun-filled week in Reception.

In Literacy, we continued our book work and discovered some new vocabulary as we read the whole story. We learnt the meaning to 'gnash' and 'rumpus.' We got into character of the Wild Things and practised gnashing our teeth, rolling our terrible eyes and showing our terrible claws. We used musical instruments to create our very own wild rumpus- we were very loud! We also designed our own monster and used our Phonics to label the picture.

In Maths, we were introduced to Numberblock 4 and explored turning Numberblock 4 from a square shape to a variety of different shapes.

We keep digging up potatoes in our garden and the children have been interested in chopping them up. To extend their learning we made our own vegetable soup. We chopped mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, leeks, parsnips and broad beans to make our own soup. We cooked it and then ate it all up!

On Friday, we also had a visit from our local PCSOs. They helped us understand the importance of road safety, their role in the community and to phone 999 in an emergency. We were very lucky to sit in the Police car and listen to the sirens!

As a school, we took part in some Black History Month activities. In Reception, we listened to the Three Little Birds song written by Bob Marley. We practised singing the words and signing too. We used the Cbeebies video to help us. Here is the link https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/puzzles/magic-hands-the-three-little-birds-quiz 

Reminder:
- Please return Parents Evening slips ASAP
- Thursday 21st Reading Workshop at 9.15am

W/C 4th October

We have had an exciting week. We were greeted with mysterious footprints and a parcel addressed to us. Before we opened the parcel we discussed the footprints. We had some wonderful ideas. Some children thought the footprints could belong to the Slime Monster or Olaf from Frozen. We then went on a search around the school for more clues. We then discussed our findings and drew pictures to show and share our ideas. We then opened the parcel and it was a story, 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Over the next two weeks we will be exploring new vocabulary from the story such as gnash and rumpus.

In Maths, we continued our number work within numbers 1-4. We made different collections of numbers 1-4 and looked at the matching numerals. We used Stem sentences such as,"1 and another 1 is 2" to support our reasoning skills. We also looked closely at a variety of buttons and sorted them into groups. We enjoyed reading 'The Button Box' to support our sorting skills.

We have continued to talk about our families and loved seeing all of our pets. We are really looking forward to welcoming two of our parents who run a Sleaford Piggy Paradise for guinea pigs and rabbits. We are very lucky to have the opportunity to meet some of their small animals and learn how they look after them.

Home learning: Please continue to support your child to recognise Set 1 sounds.

Reminders: If you are attending the Reading Workshop then please let me know or return the reply slip ASAP.

W/C 27th September

We have had a very busy week again this week!

All children are progressing well in Phonics and our letter formation is improving daily. We are looking forward to starting our first Literacy text next week. Our Literacy book will be 'Where the Wild Things Are.'

In Maths, we have been practising our matching skills and we really enjoyed reading the story book 'A Pair of Socks' to support our learning. We also learnt the important rules of careful counting and helped Miss Hakes to count correctly!

The children have been interested in PJ Masks. To move their learning forward we designed our own PJ Masks using a variety of art materials.

On Wednesday, we enjoyed learning about the Holi festival (Hindu festival). In the morning, we learnt some key information about the festival and took part in some Bollywood Dancing. In the afternoon, we joined the rest of the school in our own Holi festival and launched powder paint at each other! We had so much fun and it is a day we will not forget! If you would like to see some photos then please click on the following link.

https://www.churchlaneprimary.org.uk/galleries.asp 

Home Learning: Continue to practise recognising Set 1 sounds and writing name.

W/C 20th September

It has been really nice to see more of us back this week and lots of learning has taken place.

We have continued our daily Phonics and we are quickly learning our Set 1 sounds. This week we learnt i, n, p, g, o. We have also been working hard to practise writing these letters. We have also started to read simple CVC words e.g. sad, mat, sat.

We also started Maths this week. We discovered Numberblocks 1,2 and 3. We will be focusing on these numbers in depth over the next few weeks.

Roald Dahl day was a huge success and we loved seeing all the wonderful costumes- thank you for your support. We discovered who Roald Dahl was and familiarised ourselves with some of his famous books.

Reminder: Individual School Photos on Monday 27th September

Home learning: Please practise writing some of the letters learnt so far. I have attached the RWI Handwriting phrases to support your child when forming the letters.

W/C 13th September

 We have had a rocky week with lots of children being away with the dreaded sickness bug (including myself) but this has not stopped us from working hard!

Once again, the children have amazed us with how well they have settled into more new routines including P.E and Phonics lessons. The children thoroughly enjoyed P.E where they practised a variety of ball skills. We were also very pleased with their independence skills when getting changed for P.E and I don't think we lost any jumpers which is always a bonus!

Developing our Personal, Social and Emotional skills are still our main priority and 'The Colour Monster' book has encouraged us to open up and talk about our feelings. We created our own monsters and these now look beautiful on 'Our Learning Journey' wall. We also met Jigsaw Jenny in our PSHE lesson where we learnt about our school community.

In Phonics, we practised reading and writing the following letters and sounds: m,a,d,s,t

We are waiting for the delivery of 'My Set 1 Speed Sounds' books and when they arrive I will send them home for you to practise with your child.

Reminder: Roald Dahl Dress up day on Wednesday 22nd September 2021

 W/C 6th September

We have had a super first week in Reception class!

The children have amazed me with how well they have settled and how quick they have began to build relationships with staff and children. This week we have really focused on settling the children, establishing new routines and setting the classroom expectations. The children have loved exploring inside and outside and the sunshine has made us all feel happy and relaxed!

Next week, we will be starting our daily Phonics sessions and taking part in P.E. Please ensure that your child has a P.E bag in school and it is clearly labelled as we sometimes get our clothes in a muddle when we first start getting changed for P.E.

Home Learning: If you would like to help at home, then please encourage your child to practise writing their name.