Welcome to Reception

In Reception, Miss Libby is the class teacher, and we are supported by Mrs Lowe, Mrs L, Mrs Yang and Mrs Lewis.

I hope you are as excited for Spring 1 as I am! We have an action packed curriculum this term. We will be exploring space, the past and present, zooming through our phonics and developing our deep understanding of number.

Important dates and times

Our PE days this term are Monday and Thursday. Please send your child to school wearing PE kit on these days, bringing school shoes in a separate bag to change into indoors if it is wet/muddy. Our PE in Term 3 will be Ball skills: Hands and Dance.

Our Forest School date this term is To be confirmed and Growing Wild is Friday 13th February. To fully participate in these sessions, please ensure that wellies and a waterproof coat are brought into school ahead of this date, if they are not already here. Please ensure children are wearing long sleeve tops and long trousers so they can climb trees and join us in the meadow if appropriate for that session.

Library sessions will be every Tuesday morning – please return books in the children’s bookbag every Tuesday so they can take a new one home weekly. New sounds and reading books will be sent out every week, books will be changed on Mondays.

Drop everything and read is every Thursday morning 8:40am-9:00am. Please do join us if you are available to do so.

Phonics with parents - Every Tuesday morning, please join us from drop off until 9:20am for our daily phonics session. This will enable you to see how we teach new sounds, handwriting and apply these to spelling. 

 Spring 1 dates

• Every Friday 9:10am - Celebration assembly (you will be messaged via Dojo the day before for an invite if your child is receiving something in this assembly).
• Monday 12th January - EYFS night walk - please see class dojo for more info.
• Wednesday 21st January - Parent partnership meeting.
• Wednesday 4th February - Local walk trip - AM.
• Thursday 5th February - SEND Coffee morning.
• Tuesday 10th February - Bedtime stories YrR and Yr1.
• Monday 9th February - Friday 13th February - Children's mental health week 

Topic

Our topics for term 3 are ‘Starry Night' and 'Long Ago'.

Starry Night:

This project explores the differences in the world at night compared to during the day. It teaches children about the importance of a good night’s sleep, and helps them to discover what is happening in the world while they are sleeping, including finding out about nocturnal animals. We will also explore space and the first moon landing throughout this project.

Long Ago:

This project teaches children about how they have grown and changed since they were babies and how life in the past was different from today.

Phonics

We follow Little Wandle phonics and reading scheme. We practice our phonics sounds, skills and tricky words every day. We will be learning and reviewing phase two this term.

For more information, please visit https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/.

Literacy

Drawing Club is an approach designed by Greg Bottrill that immerses children into a world full of imagination.  

It is through drawing club that we open up the magic world of tales and story to children whilst at the same time enriching their language skills, developing their fine motor and share a really special time with them. Drawing Club is a fantastic place to start a child’s experience of school ‘Literacy’

Drawing Club is based upon the 3M principle. These are making conversation, mark making and mathematics. We use a book, traditional tale or an animation as a portal for the week. Children learn new, exciting vocabulary that we revisit each day of the week. We draw characters on a Monday, settings on a Tuesday and we ‘wonder’ on a Wednesday and Thursday.

We add maths to our drawings by talking about shapes, doubling, halving, addition, subtraction etc… We might be drawing a troll with a spherical shaped head, 2 strong, wiry hairs on his chin and double this amount coming out of each ear. He has one more than 4 buttons on his filthy, ripped shirt. Children observe as the teacher models drawing club each morning and then get the opportunity to complete their own drawings. They are invited to wear a lanyard showing they are part of drawing club and can borrow ideas from the teacher or create their own amazing ideas to share.

One of the most exciting parts of Drawing Club is adding secret symbols and passwords to our drawings. We always draw a secret symbol that can make anything happen! Sometimes we press them and aliens or unicorns become 3 times bigger, pencils turn into chocolate or hair turns multi-coloured! We then add a password to make the secret symbol work. This can be a mark, letter, digraph (2 letters that make one sound), a word or a sentence. As children make progress and become more confident with their phonics, their passwords develop and move towards phrases and sentences.

This term in drawing club we will be discovering the magical stories and adventures of Button Moon, Whatever Next!, Aliens Love Underpants, Batfink and Martha Maps it Out. We will also be writing our very own Owl fact files.

Maths

We follow White Rose for Maths and Mastering Number.

Supporting your child at home

Each week, your child will bring home a Sound Book, which outlines what we are learning during our daily phonics sessions in school and hopefully provides a helpful reference point for you to practise and reinforce our learning at home. It explains how we teach pronunciation and letter formation and suggests words that you could practise blending.

Your child will also bring home a decodable reading book, which we have already explored in small groups in school; please read frequently with your child - we are aiming for fluency! They will also bring home a high quality sharing book from our library. Explore the pictures and talk about them together. Help your child make connections to the picture and what they know about the world and their life. Enjoy the book together! Sharing a book together will help your child grow their vocabulary. 

Photos of our classroom

Useful Documents for Reception

Recommended Reads for Reception

One Minute Maths