• Autumn 1
• Autumn 2
• Spring 2
• Reading Letter
• Reception Information Session September 2017
• Parent Leaflet
• Summer 1

• Doubling
• Fine Motor
• Letter Formation
• Maths
• Reading
• Traditional tales

This half term in Reception we have had to work together as a team on so many occasions but the biggest challenge has been our Maypole dancing! We learnt that everyone is important in the dance and that if one person is being silly or making the wrong choices, then it can affect the dance for the whole class. We agreed to always try our best and encourage our friends to do the same or help them when we notice that they are not.
The children in the May Queen’s Procession had to work really well together, walking around the playground at just the right speed so that the cloak didn’t pull our Queen over, or drag on the floor!
Throughout rehearsals we built on our skills and performed a fantastic routine on the day – everybody was so impressed!

We also learnt the importance of working together through playing Top Trumps – we even designed and made our own class set based on Traditional Tales characters!

We have been working together in Maths too! Here are Isla and Maddie looking very proud of themselves after using super teamwork skills to order the number cards to 20.

Reception and Nursery came together to celebrate the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. We learned all about what would be happening on their wedding day and made preparations for our own celebrations too. Nursery were in charge of wedding cake design and production, whilst Reception arranged the catering – crown shaped sandwiches and crown shaped biscuits! We dressed smartly for the occasion and wrote our own ‘Royal Wedding’ themed song to perform for each other at the party. We also gave each other a preview of our Maypole dances and enjoyed sharing this tradition. We danced, played games and had a fantastic time before going home and getting ready to watch ‘the real thing’ and celebrate with our families!

Reception Stay & Learn Session 21.03.18

Reading
 

The aim of this session is to share some activities that will build on your child’s skills in reading comprehension. We hope you will take the time to enjoy books from our school and class library with your child, asking relevant questions which will deepen their understanding.

Reading is one of the most beneficial activities you can complete with your child at home. Whether building on their phonics skills by sounding out and blending sounds, reading key words by sight, or extending their vocabulary by conversation with an adult/older sibling – sharing great books can build on a child’s skills in many ways.

Before becoming a successful writer, you need to be exposed to a wide range of language, vocabulary and imaginative ideas and organise these through ‘talk’ before putting them on paper. The more opportunities we provide for children to do this (through sharing books and building conversation) the better chance they have at becoming accomplished writers. We have found that children who read regularly at home with an adult achieve significantly more in Literacy than those who don’t.

Here are some key questions you could ask your child when reading with them to consolidate, extend and further their knowledge and understanding. These are questions that they need to be able to answer and skills they must have to meet the end of year expectations for Reception.

• Can you make a sensible prediction by looking at the front cover of the book and listening to the title?
• Can you listen carefully to the story and answer simple questions about the text? You could use the pictures for clues.
• Can you listen carefully and use the pictures to explain how the character could be feeling?
• Can you identify that this book is a story book (fiction book)/information book (non-fiction) and attempt to explain why?
• Can you make a sensible prediction by listening carefully to the story and talking about what could happen next?
• Can you continue a rhyming string? (dog, frog, log etc)
• Which sounds does this word begin with? (Playing ‘I Spy’ is great for initial sounds recognition)
• Do you know the letter name for that sound? (e.g ‘a’ is the sound, ‘ay/A’ is the letter name)

Things to consider:

• Can they use vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly influenced by their experiences of books?
• Do they enjoy an increasing range of books?
• Do they know that information can be retrieved from books and computers?
• Can they read and understand simple sentences?
• Can they use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately?
• Can they read some common irregular words? (Red words, Reception Key words)
• Do they demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read? (rather than just sounding out and blending the words)

It would be highly beneficial to share your own love of reading with your child. Children aspire to be like their adult role models so if they see you reading for both purpose and pleasure it can greatly increase their enthusiasm to do so too. As an adult, it can be difficult to find time to enjoy a book for yourself however, in the ever increasing technology fuelled world in which we live it is a priority now, more than ever, that children see the enjoyment that a good book can bring.

Opening children up to reading in the world around us is also extremely important – for example, signs in shops, menus, and public notices. Once children realise that reading skills allow them to access so much more around them, they seem to have a ‘light bulb moment’ and understand for themselves why it is so important that we learn to read.

Most importantly – have fun and enjoy spending valuable time together sharing books!

• ‘We loved this practical Stay and Learn – our favourite activity was rolling the dice! Great to have the space in the hall too.’
• ‘Fabulous session! Really fun and informative – absolutely brilliant!’
• ‘Super variety of activities. All very hands on. My child loved taking part with me. We really enjoyed the ‘Pirate Shop’ and the ‘Two Halves’. She is growing in confidence with number and shape, space and measure.’
• ‘We liked Stay and Learn being in the hall as it gives more space and it’s easier to concentrate. Great interactive ideas.’
• ‘Thank you for a fun time! We really enjoyed all the activities with my son, his classmates and his younger brother.’
• ‘These sessions are much more worthwhile than the previous “Stay and Play”. It is great to see what the children are learning first hand.’

• Stay and Learn Maths

Thank you for the fantastic turnout at our Stay and Learn session. It was wonderful to see parents/carers and children spending time together, enjoying learning. We hope this continues at home and that you can join us again for our next session on Monday 5th February at 8.50-9.30am when the focus will be letter formation.

• Reception Stay & Learn Session 17.01.18 Fine Motor Skills

Reception are well underway with their latest child initiated topic of ‘pizzas’! It all began when they decided to turn the paper circles in the mark making area into delicious pizzas by adding colourful toppings and a crust. Evie W then told us that her Mummy had made dough at home and she had chosen the toppings to make her very own pizza. The next thing we knew, we were drawing a giant pizza on the floor, writing lists of ingredients so Mrs Booth could go shopping, and actually making our own pizzas to eat! We used our 5 senses to think of lots of describing words for the pizzas we had made and did our own fantastic writing about them too! We loved them so much that we decided to make a Pizza Café role play area so that we could continue the fun. The children have shown super turn-taking skills, being the waiter, customer and chef in our restaurant and listened extra carefully to make sure the orders are correct! We even managed to squeeze in some pizza based maths activities, sharing our pizzas fairly between friends and looking at the shapes we could see when we made a paper plate pizza. Phew – what a busy week!