Welcome to Reception

In Reception, Mrs Grice is the class teachers. Reception is supported by Miss Rizzo, Mrs Wang and Ms McKee.

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

Forest School is on a Monday afternoon fortnightly.  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.

Our topics during Term 1 are Me and My Community plus Exploring Autumn.  

Me and My Community, project supports children with settling into the new rules and routines of school and encourages them to make new friends and feel confident in their class. It teaches children about being helpful, kind and thoughtful at home and at school. This project also teaches children how they are unique and special, the importance of friendship and how people in their family, school and local community are important and can help them.

Exploring Autumn, project teaches children about the natural changes that happen during the season of autumn, including how the weather changes, why trees lose their leaves and how wild animals prepare for winter.

Supporting your child at home

• Talk about your family and your home.
• When you are out in your local community point out all the different people who help us on a daily basis.
• How do you help each other at home.
• Go on an autumn walk and crunch through leaves, catch falling leaves and collect acorns, conkers, blackberries and other autumn treasures.
• Make a collection of different autumn treasures. Draw your autumn collection or take a photograph.
• Choose your favourite leaves and use wax crayons to take leaf rubbings. You could also make a leaf print painting.

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 teaching Phase 4. Children will learn how to read and spell words containing long vowel sounds such as toast or joint. They will be learning about different endings to words such as -ing or -ed.

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. 

Books will come home every Thursday and should be returned the following Tuesday.

Library books will be changed every Tuesday.

Photos of our classroom

Useful Documents for Reception

Recommended Reads for Reception

One Minute Maths