Autumn Term 2022

12.12.22

We have had an extremely busy week!

This week we have discovered how hedgehogs prepare for autumn and explored the word 'hibernation.' We then made our own hedgehogs using clay. In Maths, we have sorted 2D shapes and used mathematical language to describe them.

On Tuesday, we had a yummy Christmas lunch and enjoyed pulling the crackers. We really enjoyed performing our Nativity and we hope you enjoyed it too! On Friday, we had a special visit from Santa. Thank you Santa for our delicious selection boxes!

Reminders:
Monday 19th December- we will be toasting marshmallows on a campfire. Please ensure your child has a warm coat, hat and gloves.
Wednesday 21st December is our last day and also our trip to watch this years pantomime. You are invited to pick up your child at 1.30pm to take them to find their Christmas present! Children will need to wear normal school uniform please.

05.12.22

This week, the children were treated to a visit from Faye, Evelyn's mum, who came to talk to them about crochet.

We talked about wool and found out that it can come from goats as well as sheep. The children looked at the different types and colours of wool and some of the items of clothing that Faye has made. They really admired the cat hat, pirate jumper and even tried on the mittens.

Having explored the wool, the children took turns to add some stitches to help create a small piece of crochet of our very own. They learned that stitches are like knots and can turn the wool into any shape we like. We made a small rectangle using our stitches.

We used a crochet hook to make our stitches. Faye had lots of different kinds of crochet hooks that we could explore.

The children were very inspired by Faye's visit and are keen to try and create some crochet of their own.
Faye very kindly crocheted some bracelets for the children to choose one to take home with them today.

It was lovely to have one of our parents come and share their interest with us. The children love having visitors and experiencing something new.
If any other parents or grandparents have any hobbies or skills that they would like to share with us - please let us know, as we would love you to get involved.

It has been very cold this week. The children decided to make their own campfire to help keep us warm. We are hoping to find some time before we finish to make a real fire and toast some marshmallows to follow on this interest. Please ensure your child comes to school with a warm coat and dressed appropriately for the cold days as we spend 50% of our day outside.

In maths, we have been comparing quantities and recognising when we have an equal amount. We have showed our understanding by showing an equal number of fingers to a die pattern or numeral. We have also been recognising numerals 1-5 and matching to different arrangements of dots.

We have been working hard to improve our letter formation by practising our 'curly caterpillar' letters'- c, f, o, a, e, q.

Reminder: Our Nativity performance is on Thursday 15th at 1.45pm. Once the performance has finished, the children will go back to the classroom to get changed and then will be able to go home.

Please make sure that you listen to your child read at least THREE times per week. I have noticed that some children are not reading at home consistently which can really slow down progress. We need to ensure that we are working together to give your child the best start to their reading journey and make the expected progress by the end of the year.

Thank you for your support.

28.11.22

We have had a very busy week. All of a sudden we are starting to feel very festive! The children have been building sleighs outside and pretending to be Santa's Elves. It has been lovely to hear the children use their imagination and bring Christmas magic into our classroom.

In Literacy, we have started our new book and now know that it might be about Space. We have turned our role play area into a Space Station. The children have loved dressing up as Astronauts and pretending to be in Space. We will continue reading our book next week.

In Maths, we have been exploring numbers 1-4. We have been exploring the different parts that make up the whole number. We have been using our spatial language to describe patterns and shapes. We enjoyed watching the 'Stampolines' episode to support our learning. Here is the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dnngm/numberblocks-series-1-stampolines

We have been working very hard to rehearse our Nativity and we are so excited to show you on the 15th December!

21.11.22

This week we have started to practise our Nativity. Every child has been allocated an active part in our Nativity. You do not have to worry about costumes as we have enough for every child! We hope you can all come and join us on Thursday 15th December at 1.45pm.

We have now finished our book 'Halibut Jackson' and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him. We really liked how at at the beginning of the story he was really shy and by the end he felt confident enough to open up his own clothes shop. On Monday, we will be reading our new story 'Look up.'

In Maths, we have introduced the vocabulary 'part' and 'whole.' We have explored this in a variety of ways to understand 'part' and 'whole.' One of our favourite activities to support this learning has been choosing parts to add to our face. We created some fantastic faces and talked about the parts we had chosen to make the whole face.

We have continued to learn about autumn and read 'Leaf Man' to learn about how leaves come in all different shapes an sizes and why they fall off the trees. We then used paper leaves to create our own Leaf Man. We are looking forward to putting them up on our classroom wall for everyone to see!

Thank you for engaging in all the posts on Tapestry- we are looking forward to see who wins the prize when we draw the raffle at the end of term.

Reminders:
- Please ensure bottles are ONLY filled with water
-Reading books and records need to be in book bags every day
- Children need to read at least three times a week

Thank you for your support!

W/C 14.11.22

Robin Windsor has been the highlight of our week! We loved having a dance lesson with him and all children thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

In Literacy, we have continued reading 'Halibut Jackson.' This week we have designed a new outfit for Halibut Jackson to wear and used our Phonics to label the outfit. We also had to go outside and find Halibut Jackson. We had to look really carefully because he was wearing many outfits to help him blend in and to go unnoticed.

We have really enjoyed our clothes shop role play area. Next week, we are going to visit 'Bellissimo' and 'Balloons and more at Lorraines' in the Marketplace. We will experience buying any item of clothing and some party supplies. We will even get an opportunity to use the till!

In Maths, we have revisited 'more than' and 'fewer than.' We then looked at different groups of objects to say when we had an equal number.

We have also started to learn our new poem and next week we will begin to practise our Nativity!

W/C 07.11.22

We have settled well after having two weeks off!

In Literacy, we have started reading a new book 'Halibut Jackson.' Halibut Jackson is a shy man who likes to blend in with the background. Halibut has a different outfit for every occasion. This week we have used our Phonics skills to write labels for different items of clothing.

In Maths, we have explored making collections of 5. We represented 5 in different ways. We were introduced to a 'die frame' and learnt a new song- 'Five Little Peas.' Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdTBLMY0bzo

We have also discovered Diwali and discussed why we wear poppies at this time of the year. We explored using musical instruments to make our favourite firework sounds.

Thank you to everyone who attended Parents Evening. It was lovely to get to know you all and celebrate your child's achievements so far. If you still need to book an appointment then please let me know.

Remember to like this memo to earn raffle tickets!

W/C 10.10.22

In Literacy, we have started to read our new story- 'I am Henry Finch.' We discovered that the main character in the story is a bird. The first page of our story exposed us to some new vocabulary. We explored the meaning of 'racket', 'finch' and 'flock.' We watched a video of a flock of birds creating patterns in the sky, listened to birds singing and made a racket by pretending we were a flock of birds. We then used our fingerprint to make our own finch and wrote our finch-name.

In Maths, we have been learning to recognise 'more than' and 'fewer than.' We compared two sets of objects and said whether monkey or teddy had more or fewer.

In Phonics, we have been practising to read and write the following sounds: j, v, y, w, z

Here are the links to watch with your child at home:

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/lXV7gZv4/FjwhKOOt

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/7G2jCZCI/H5lomU8W

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/Oz9kQkv3/wenGZEIL

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/4gvc1w07/TjhAL2rj

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/TVbHJ6Fy/6I1VWvSu

We loved P.E this week. To warm up we played one of my favourite childhood games- Duck Duck Goose! It was lovely to see and hear the children cheer each other on and show their competitive side. We then went onto explore making beanbags move in different ways.

W/C 03.10.22

Another great week in Reception!

We have now finished our story, 'Where the Wild Things Are.' We ended the week by sequencing the story and retelling the story in our own words. It was lovely to hear the children use some of the recently taught vocabulary such as, 'gnash' and 'rumpus.' Next week, we will start a new story!

In Maths, we have been exploring Numberblock 4 and exploring how we can change his shape. We then made our own patterns of 4 using a range of materials.

In Phonics, we have been practising to read and write e, l, h, r, j. Here are links to watch the videos at home:

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/nWY92K4N/AYXeZZLa

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/6pAlR0TA/66meiFG0

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/MnnwySbn/0Q6X7GuX

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/9WRJmn6e/u1Wpy0j3

Thank you for all the baby photos. We are still working our way through them all and have really enjoyed talking about how we have changed.

W/C 26.09.22

We have had a fabulous week with learning popping all over the place.

This week our focus has been learning about the Emergency Services and other special people that help us in our community. We really enjoyed visits from the Police and the Fire Service. We absolutely loved holding the hose and squirting the water! We are now really good at recalling the number to contact the Emergency Services. We thoroughly enjoyed pretending to be people from the Emergency Services and we have loved listening to the children using super language when taking on a role.

In Literacy, we have read to the end of our story. We will be sequencing the story next week and attempting to write some key words from the story.

In Phonics, we have been practising to read and write the sounds c, k, u, b. Here are the links to watch the videos with your child:

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/ndrkRikA/hvV9IQQL

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/e4qls1Gt/0Is2dglJ

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/dEZ9hiRr/2qcHiQoA

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/pNiW8Fd5/gqfAq4w3

Thank you to all parents who have helped their child to read and write the sounds in the little green book. Please make sure this is in their bookbag every day.

In Maths, we have been exploring numbers 1-4 and identifying that a 'whole' is made up of smaller parts e.g. 4 is made up of 4 1's.

One of our interests this week has been looking after the babies. We are such a kind and caring class and have done a really good job in helping to look after the babies. We enjoyed making baby milk to feed the babies.

Reminder: Please hand me reply slips to any letters as I do not always have time to check every bookbag.

Miss Hakes :)

W/C 19.09.22

In Phonics, we have practised reading and writing i, n, p, g, o. We have also started to read CVC words using magnetic letter tiles e.g. mat, sad, dad.

In Literacy, we have started reading our new book- 'Where the Wild Things Are.' We have only read the beginning and we are looking forward to reading more next week. However, we have already discovered what a Wild Thing is and have pretended to be one. We loved getting into role and pretending to have terrible eyes, terrible claws and terrible roars. We also created a musical rumpus (a noisy disturbance/commotion)- we were that loud we disturbed Year 1!

In Maths, we have been practising our careful counting skills. The children demonstrated very good skills and were very helpful when trying to teach our puppet friend how to count accurately. The children were quick to spot any mistakes that he made!

On Thursday, we took part in a First Aid workshop. The children absolutely loved talking part and learning some essentials First Aid skills. This experience will support out learning next week as we start to learn more about Emergency Services. We will be having a visit from the Police and Fire Service too!

W/C 12.09.22

Another super week in Reception!

The children amaze me every day with how well they have settled into school life. We have been talking about our feelings and linking our feelings with colours. We read 'The Colour Monster' and 'The Colour Monster goes to School' to support our discussions. It was lovely to hear that most of the children felt happy and loved. If a child expressed that they felt sad we worked together as a class to look after them!

This week we have started Phonics and practised reading and writing the following sounds: m,a,d,s,t. Please follow the following links to continue to embed the sounds at home. Each video lasts between 5-7 minutes.

Phonics Links:

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/tgciJryM/hZjdWRVN

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/xsC1MfcG/EDJg711g

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/training/view/ulSPZ65e/EWTWTo7n

Over the next couple of weeks I will also be sending out a 'My Set 1 Speed Sounds Book' for you to read every night with your child. Reading books will be given out after October half term once assessments have been carried out and the children have been grouped into progress groups.

As well as starting Phonics we also started Maths. We have started with practising our subitising skills (saying how many without counting). We were also introduced to Numberblocks 1,2 and 3.

IMPORTANT: If your child attends Dance Academy on a Wednesday, they now need to come to school wearing their dance clothes e.g. dance t-shirt, black leggings and trainers instead of school uniform.

Any questions, please ask.

Miss Hakes :)

W/C 05.09.22

We have had the most amazing first week in Reception. We are really impressed with how well the children have settled and quickly adapted to big school!

This week our priority has been building relationships with each other and getting used to routines, rules and school values. We have really enjoyed finding our way around the school and loved our visit to the school library.

We have enjoyed eating our breakfast which each other and washing up our own plate. We loved our first P.E lesson and again they all impressed us with how well they could independently get changed. Please ensure all clothing is labelled to help us make sure your child goes home with the correct kit.

On Friday we joined the rest of the school in assembly. We don't usually join in with the first celebration assembly of the year but because we have settled so well, we thought the children were ready. The children sat beautifully and it was lovely to hear other staff members commenting on how well they have settled into school life- what a fantastic start!

Next week we will be starting Phonics. We will be learning m,a,d,s,t and playing Fred Frog games to support our oral blending. As the term progresses, we will begin to send home reading books and Phonics sounds for you to share with your child.

Any questions, please feel free to talk to me at the beginning/end of the day.

Miss Hakes