Welcome to Reception

In Reception, Mrs Grice is the class teacher. Reception is supported by Miss Rizzo, Mrs Liana-Stellmach and Miss Bees.

Our PE days this term are Tuesday and Thursday. Please come to school wearing your PE kit on these days.

Drop Everything and Read - Every Tuesday morning 8.40 - 9 am.

Forest School is on a Monday afternoon.  Please come to school wearing old clothing and waterproof coats plus trousers on these days.  Children can wear their wellington boots that are already in school. Reception will be having Forest School on Week 4 - 12.05.25 of this term due to the Bank Holiday Mondays.

Library sessions will be every Monday afternoon - please return in bookbag every Monday so your child/children can get a new book weekly.

Our topic during Summer Term 1 is Animal Safari.  This project teaches children about the animals that live around the world, how to look after animals and the importance of caring for our local and global environments.

Supporting your child at home

• Thread cubes of bread, apple, hard cheese and raisins onto thin wire to make a bird food kebab. Join the top of the wire to create a loop. Attach string to the top and hang it in a tree or from a fence. Take photographs of the birds that visit.
• Visit the My Pet and Me website on CBeebies and play the game to find out how to look after pet animals. Draw a picture of your pet or your favourite pet animal and explain how to look after it.
• Use a computer to find out some fantastic facts about animals. Choose three animals, draw a picture of them and write a fact.
• Choose your favourite animal. Add a photograph or a draw a picture of it in the box below, and explain why it is your favourite.

This topic encompass all areas of the EYFS curriculum: 

• Communication and Language 
• Personal, Social and Emotional development
• Physical Development
• Literacy
• Mathematics 
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design 

Phonics

We follow Little Wandle to teach Phonics. This term, we will continue to review teaching Phase 3 abd tricky words with the Children.  Please continue to practise these at home.

Please click the link for more information: 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.

Maths

We follow White Rose for Maths and Maths Mastery; this term we are focusing on:

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