A variety of races, with everyone taking part. There was some fantastic sports people, we all had great fun and got a special certificate at the end.

What a wonderful trip we had today. The children were so well behaved and excited to be at the farm. We bottle fed some lambs, stroked goats, kids, alpacas, horses, calves, donkeys, arabbit and a guinea pig. We had great fun playing on the bouncy pillows, and the adventure playground, as well as the bumpy slide. We ate lunch outside under a huge tipee tent and on the way home most of the children fell asleep after such an active day!

As the weather has been better this week, we were able to get the bikes and scooters out.We had great fun in the big playground.Some of the children needed a little big of help from their friends.

We have been learning about rainforests around the world. We used a globe and atlas to find them.We know there are rainforest (jungles) in parts of the world like India and that tigers live in this area.We are mainly learning about the rainforest in Brazil, South America. We have been finding out about the different layers in the rainforest, as well as about the animals that live there such as parrots, butterflies and other animals such as jaguars, caimen, sloths and tree frogs.Here are some examples of our work.

These are our areas of provision in our indoor classroom for the topic on Rainforests and also linked to our trip to the Farm.

A special treat happened today.Our farm trip had to be postponed but instead we got a visit from some week old chicks. We got to stroke them and some of us held them too!At lunchtime, we got to have a picnic in the school wildlife garden- it was great fun!

We have been learning how to draw with the help of some video guidance. What do you think of our monkeys?

This tells you about the excitng things we have planned for this last half term.

• summer 2 half termly info letter 2021.doc

Here are some challenges for you to practise with your child over the holiday. It will help them to begin the remainder of their time in Reception class and ensure that they don't forget over the week's break. I have included a phase 3 phonics assessment sheet- this can be cut up and used as flashcards.

• Phase 3 Phonics sounds assessment.docx
• half term may challenges 2021.pub

Look at our work which we have done linked to "Dragons, Knights and Castles."

Here are some examples of good writing, linked to our topic of Dragons, Knights and Castles in Summer 1.

We have been practising our drawing skills and have been learning to draw things linked to our topic Dragons, Knights and Castles. We had a try at drawing a Knight's helmet, a baby dragon and a unicorn! What do you think of our work ?

We embraced our new topic by dressing up as "KIngs, Queens, Knights, Princesses, Dragons and Wizards" and didn't we look fabulous ? The children were so excited to be dressing up and able to act out being Knights and Princesses. A big well done to the parents for providing their children with wonderful costumes.

Our topic will be history themed and we will be learning about "Dragons, Knights and Castles" Our outside classroom will be set up with our usual activities, as well as some new ones, including the "Fancy Dress Shop" role play area. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we will have opportunities to play with the sand and water toys, as well as riding the scooters and tricycles. Our inside classroom, has already been set up with our own "Banqueting Hall" inside our castle role play area. We have knights and princess costumes, as well as opportunities for learning about the different parts of a castle. We will be writing invitations and reading stories about dragons, and learning about "St George", the patron saint of England. Here is a selection of photos for you to see.

We have been busy working hard with our phonics and trying to learn all our sounds. We have been trying to write lots of words using our sounds to help us

Lots of fun activities, as well as learning opportunities have been undertaken. The children take great excitement from the new indoor construction area ( set up on the last day before Easter), ready for nest half term. Children enjoyed digging in the compost looking for root vegetables, as well as planting our own bean plants (which they took home) and sunflowers seeds (in the outdoor classroom).

Our topic was all about new life, including the life cycle of a butterfly, we drew pictures on a paper plate to show our understanding of the different stages. As part of British Science week, we investigated and experimented making stable structures ( ie houses and buildings) using just biscuits and chocolate. We learnt about heating and cooling of the chocolate and that it was like cement when we wanted to stick the biscuits together. We had great fun and they were delicious to eat too!

As part of our topic work, we created symmetrical butterfly paintings, made sunflowers from using collage materials and used printing techniques to create Easter chicks.

This is the text map that we use to help the children re-tell the story. Ask them to show you the Talk4writing actions- see how good they are! The children will be doing lots of activities inclduing writing and drawing activities based on the story by Eric Carle.

Half termly information sheet- informing you of our activities this half term and the tricky words sheet and phonic sounds sheets that we will be recapping.

• Spring 1 Tricky words and HF assessment .docx
• Spring 2 half termly info sheet 2021(CR).doc
• Phase 3 Phonics sounds assessment.docx

Although this is not our usual way of doing a Nativity. We thought that the children would love to dress up and sing songs to re-tell the story of the birth of Jesus and recognise the importance of Christmas for Christians. Here are some photos for you to enjoy.You can pause the slideshow and download a photo for your own personal use. Please do not post pictures on social media sites.

Re-telling the Christmas story through songs. The children have only had a couple of weeks to learn them so a huge well done to them all!

Every week, thoughout school the children earn "ice cream" tokens for their colour team. Every Friday, in assembly (remotely at the moment), achild is picked from the winning class team and rewarded with a "Rainbow certificate" for doing something good. In addition to that the child would place a cut out person onto a huge rainbow in our school hall. At the end of each half term, the team with the most people on the rainbow gets to enjoy a real ice cream! This half term it was the green team who won, and here they are enjoying their reward on Friday afternoon.

The children had to stay indoors because of bad weather but it didn't stop their enthusiasm or energy. Some great moves.

The children have really been working hard. Here are some photos of them doing some phonics and maths work using the large touchscreen in the classroom.

Just thought we would show you some of our wonderful work which we have been doing in school. There has been hand printing, painting, collage and cutting. The children are very proud of their work and so are we!

We have done some lovely art work this half term. We have created some lovely firework pictures and rockets. We printed poppies for Remembrance day. We have designed our own little pig from the story 'The Three Little Pigs.' Don't forget to look out on the windows for our stained glass creations.

We have been learning about why we celebrate bonfire night. We printed some lovely pictures of fireworks exploding in the sky. We made our own sparklers out of breadsticks and chocolate. They tasted yummy!

Please click on the link to access our story map

• The Gingerbread man

We have been learning the song I'm a dingle dangle scarecrow. We made scarecrow faces for our song.

This half term we have been learning about autumn and some of the changes that autumn brings. We visited the nature garden to look for signs of autumn and brought our collection back into the classroom to look at together. We also spent some time looking at pumpkins.To begin with we passed the pumpkin around to feel how heavy it was and what it looked like and felt like on the outside. We wondered what it might look like on the inside. Mrs. Robinson cut around the top of the pumpkin to make a lid. The children were amazed to see so many seeds inside one pumpkin. We discussed how we could plant the seeds and grow our very own pumpkins. We all used the spoon to try and scoop out some of the pumpkin and we stirred the seeds in the bowl. Please look at our photos.

Ned, the hedgehog, was looking for a home. He looked down a little hole but the rabbits said: This is our home look next door. He looked down a big hole. The fox said: This is our home look next door. The fox said: This is my home Look next door. He looked up in the tree. The owls said: This is our home look next door. The hedgehog looked up at the old barn. The bats said: This is our home but look down there Ned. Ned looked down and there was a big pile of leaves. Ned said: My home and he went to sleep all winter.

We have performed actions to the story Owl Babies.

Here is the story map for our story 'Owl Babies.' We have read the story in school and are re- telling the story with actions. I will put a video for you to watch on the website. Please ask your child questions about the story. You can watch the story on you tube with your child.

• Reception story map for Owl Babies

Many of our Reception children have had their first days in school and we are looking forward to welcoming others next week. They have enjoyed exploring the inside and outside classrooms. They are all getting to know each other and the adults that work with them. New friendships are being formed and new routines being learnt quickly. We look forward to an exciting year with lots of fun learning and play. Here are some photos to show you what we have been doing.

A great family game to reinforce number bonds to 10! It can be adapted for smaller numbers by simply using less cards Eg- numbers which make 8, just use cards 1-7

Preschool Reading

Children can learn a lot about reading even before they come to school and are formally taught. Young children learn about reading when

• they see people reading books, magazines, newspapers etc.
• they notice print in the environment
• they have their own books
• they are read to regularly and can talk about the story and predict what might happen
• they are encouraged to look at books and try to read for themselves
• they say rhymes and poems off by heart and sing songs

Starting School

We would like children coming into school to

• have had stories read to them
• have enjoyed sharing books with others
• have handled books on their own
• have an awareness of print around them
• have some idea of what reading and writing is
• have had the opportunity to draw and write with various materials
• have confidence and look forward to learning to read

Strategies used in teaching a child to read

Children use many strategies when reading. Phonics or ‘sounding’ a word out is the most important stage and we teach a scheme of work for synthetic phonics in our Reception class as recommended by the ‘Rose Report.’ Children also learn to use visual memory, that is looking at a word and remembering it. Children also learn when reading a good story. If the story makes sense and holds his/her interest the child can gather clues from the text and the pictures, making logical guesses about unknown vocabulary.

Helping your child progress with reading

Once children have started to read they will make better progress if you can help them by reading with them daily.

Helping Your Child with Maths

Activities to do at home

• counting in 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and  10’s
• number activities in everyday situations e.g. How many buttons are on your coat ?; Pass me 5 apples; What number is on that house?
• traditional games like Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and Dominoes are an invaluable and fun way to learn
• looking for relationships and patterns in numbers
• using ‘mathematical’ words e.g. long, longer, longest, tall, short, narrow, more than, less than etc
• recognising and naming shapes
• using the language of position e.g. under, over, above, between, next to, below, behind, in front of etc..

Helping Your Child with Writing

Children usually experiment with their own pretend writing first and this should be encouraged. Children are making marks at this stage but often to them they are writing. Ask your child to read back their writing to you and give them lots of praise, don’t tell them it is wrong or ‘just scribble.’ Young children learn writing when:

• they see people writing
• people share and discuss writing with them
• there are opportunities for children to join in writing with adults. Can they help write the shopping list?
• the child does some writing which is praised by the adult
• the child’s efforts (even pretend writing) are taken seriously

A young child encouraged in this way will soon be ready to form letters correctly and will develop a love of writing which will stay with them throughout their learning.

Activities to do at Home

• colouring books, dot to dots, tracing over patterns
• Activities which encourage a pincer grip (finger and thumb) like picking up small objects with plastic tweezers
• large arm movements especially anti clockwise such as waving flags and swirling ribbons
• painting
• make a name card for your child to copy
• as children progress write birthday cards together, shopping lists, invitations, thankyou letters, so that writing is shown to have a purpose.
• play simple word games
• Look at word with your child

In Reception, when children first learn their letter sounds they are taught to form their letters correctly. We will send out more information about this in the first half term.

Websites to help support your childs learning;

www.phonicsplay.co.uk

www.ictgames.com

http://www.numberjacks.co.uk/kids/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/alphablocks-games
www.oxfordowl.co.uk
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=37

Recommended Books to help with Maths;

• Dinosaur Dig! by Penny Dale – This inventive counting story manages to combine diggers, dinosaurs and counting.
• Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury – Illustrated beautifully by the illustrator of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, this story is ideal for young children.
• One Ted Falls Out of Bed by Julia Donaldson and Anna Currey – This magical story by the author of The Gruffalo has a counting theme and rhyming text. It’s all about the fun that toys have while children are fast asleep.
• One Mole Digging A Hole by Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt – Another counting, rhyming story by children’s favourite, Julia Donaldson. From moles digging holes to parrots pulling up carrots, the wacky and wonderful illustrations by Nick Sharratt are sure to make counting fun!

Books to enjoy at home include:

• Julia Donaldson books- The Scarecrow's Wedding, Room on a Broom, The Grufffalo, A Squash and a Squeeze and many more.
• Nick Butterworth books- " Percy the Park Keeper Stories"
• Mike Inkpen books- Kipper, The Blue Balloon, "Penguin small","Jasper's Beanstalk"
• Jill Murphy books - " All in one piece", " Five Minutes peace", and lots more about the elephant family.

A good website for buying books at discounted prices is www.thebookpeople.co.uk/schools

Here are some of the strategies we use in our Reception class to involve our parents in their children's learning. Any further suggestions are welcome. Please contact Mrs Robinson.

• PARENT INVOLVEMENT STRATEGY SHEET