Reception Spring Term Newsletter
Spring Term – Second Half Term
Reception Class Newsletter 2023 Spring Term 2
Dear parents / carers,
We hope you all had an enjoyable and restful half term and the Naughty Bus wasn’t too much of a pickle. Thank you for your enormous support with this project – the children have LOVED it! We warmly welcome Harrison and Chantelle and their families to the school.
We have another exciting half-term ahead of us in early years. We will continue to use Tapestry – our online learning journal – to make individual, group and whole class observations. Many of you are looking at the photos, videos and notes so that you can see how much learning is going on! Please do let us know if you are having any technical issues. Thank you for those parents who are responding with comments and activities you are doing at home, helping us to get the whole picture of your child. It is also great feedback for us.
This half-term, our topic is Space. We will enjoy learning about space travel and the International Space Station, how astronauts carry out daily chores within less gravity, planet facts, music appreciation, space dance and some modelling fun. We will be focussing on a great number of quality texts as starting points for our learning.
Recycling – we plan to make space vehicles out of junk modelling this half-term. Do please set aside any useful boxes, tubes, foil containers etc.
| Personal, social and emotional development. | -use new vocabulary in different contexts
– engage in Non-Fiction Books – talk about selected NF books to develop new knowledge and vocabulary. – retell a story, as exact repetition / own words |
| Communication and language | – think about the perspectives of others
– manage their own needs (personal hygiene) – know about overall health and wellbeing – exercise, screen time, sleep, tooth brushing, healthy eating and being a safe pedestrian. |
| Physical Development | – combine different movements with ease and fluency.
– develop overall agility, strength, balance and coordination – develop the foundations of a handwriting style that is fast, accurate and efficient. |
| Literacy | – anticipate key events in the story
– read common exception words. – reread to build up confidence, fluency, understanding and enjoyment -form lower case and capital letters correctly – spell words by identifying the sounds and then writing the letters for those sounds. -Phase 3 continued. |
| Mathematics | -compare weight, length and capacity.
-compare numbers / quantities less/more -subitise -subtraction -recall number bonds for 0-5 and to ten. -verbally count to 20 and beyond recognising patterns |
| Understanding the World | -compare and contrast characters in stories, including figures from the past
-describe what they see, hear and feel while outside -understand the effect of the changing seasons on the natural world around them |
| Expressive Arts and Design | -listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses.
-create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills. -develop storylines in their pretend play. |
Phonics – we are continuing to follow the Letters and Sounds / Phonics Play programme Phases 3 and 4. We have learned the final single letter phonemes and are moving onto digraphs and trigraphs as well as revising previous learning. Please do use the sound and tricky word book at home and look on the back for the actions that help the children to remember: qu, sh, ch, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo/oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er. We will continue to learn to read and write new tricky words. It would be worth having these up at home – my, we, me, he, be, she, are, was, they, you, her, all.
We will focus on using our phonics for spelling – saying words out loud to hear the sounds and then write them down. Mrs Course will model this to the children with phonetic and correct spelling e.g. peech/peach, pighlot/pilot
Reading – DO please hear your child read / discuss the book with them as often as possible and record in their reading record book so that they can continue to make progress. Children will continue to do Guided Reading in small groups so please make sure their reading folder with both books are in school every day. Please be assured we hear the children read at every opportunity – during phonics lessons and throughout the day.
Library – we will visit the library on Fridays so that the children can return their book and borrow a new one. Please keep their book mark in the book. They only need to bring the book in on Fridays so they don’t have to carry it in their school bag all week.
Forest school – we will continue to visit the wood on alternate Friday mornings. Please make sure children are dressed suitably in plenty of warm layers and wear a hat, scarf and waterproof gloves if possible.
Dates: Friday 3rd March (next Friday), Friday 17th March, Friday 31st March.
Snack money – thank you for your contributions towards morning snack. The Government funded fruit is provided in the afternoons. Snack money continues to be £6 for the half term. Please send cash in a named envelope in the Home Folder.
PE – we will be continuing to have Mr Snelling on Monday afternoons for PE and another session during the week.
Named items – please make sure ALL items are clearly labelled – water bottles, clothes, bags and P.E. bags especially could be named on the outside to differentiate them from others! Our P.E. days may change weather depending but the kits will be in school anyway. If the weather is appropriate we will go outside for PE.
Proud Clouds – thank you for all the lovely proud clouds you have sent in informing us of their out of school achievements. The children love sharing them with the rest of the class. We have been displaying them on the wall in the Quiet Room. Do please continue to send them in. The children could make them and cut them out and even write them for you!
Please continue to support your child at home using their sound book and numbers and by reading with them.
Useful Dates:
Forest School – Friday 3rd March (next Friday), Friday 17th March, Friday 31st March.
Book Week – w/c Monday 27th March – dress up on Thursday.
Parents Consultation – Wednesday 8th, Thursday 9th March
Tray Day – Monday 27th March
End of term – Friday 31st March
We look forward to catching up with you all soon.
Mrs Course and Mrs Berrett.
Spring Term – First Half Term
Dear parents / carers,
Happy New Year to you. We trust you all had a lovely Christmas. Again, let me say an enormous ‘thank you’ for all the kind presents and cards that we received at the end of term. You were so very generous, thank you very much. Thank you also for coming to see your talented and wonderful children in our nativity – what a special morning.
We were looking forward to welcoming Harrison and his family to the class but the house move may has been delayed. We hope to meet him soon!
We have another exciting term ahead of us in early years. We will continue to use Tapestry – our online learning journal – to make individual, group and whole class observations. Many of you are looking at the photos, videos and notes so that you can see how much learning is going on! Please do let us know if you are having any technical issues. Thank you for those parents who are responding with comments. It is great feedback for us.
We are starting this term with a topic all about Transport. We will use this as an opportunity to talk about the past and present and to think about the wider world. We will be reading and exploring a number of fabulous texts – The Train Ride and the Naughty Bus are examples. I would like to share the Naughty Bus book and toy bus with you – sending home these to create own mischievous adventures and a diary too! The Naughty Bus is by Jan and Jerry Oke and is a brilliant book of things the bus gets up to!!! We also learn about Amelia Earhart.
Vehicles – if any parents or grandparents at home have any photos of vehicles from their childhood e.g. cars, bikes or scooters, it would be wonderful to share these with the class to aid in their understanding of how things have changed since the past! Or you could always post them onto Tapestry!
After half-term, our topic will be Space. We will be sharing and learning facts about the solar system with a view to writing a non-fiction class book. We will also read a number of fiction texts set in space. We plan to make models of space craft / vehicles so please do not recycle any useful boxes, tubes and foil as we would love to use them at school! Would you mind collecting these bits at home as storing them at school will be tricky!
| Personal, social and emotional development. | – learn new vocabulary
– describe events in some detail – articulate their ideas and thoughts in well-formed sentences – engage in story times and in NF books – listen carefully to rhymes and sounds – retell story with some repetition of known phrases and some of their own words. |
| Communication and language | – Manage their own needs (personal hygiene)
– think about the perspectives of others. – show resilience and perseverance in the face of a challenge. |
| Physical Development | – Progress towards a more fluent style of moving, with developing control and grace.
– develop overall body strength, coordination, balance and agility. – develop their core muscle strength to achieve a good posture on the floor and at the table. – develop their small motor skills to use a range of tools confidently and safely- pencils, paintbrushes, scissors, cutlery. – develop the foundations of a handwriting style. |
| Literacy | – demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them retelling stories in own words.
– blend sounds into words. -read some common exception words (tricky words) – read simple phrases and sentences – form lower case AND CAPITAL letters properly. – spell words by identifying the sounds and then writing the sound with letters. – write short sentences with phonics to spell and a capital letter and a full-stop. |
| Mathematics | -link the number symbol (numeral) with its cardinal number value
-count beyond ten -compare number -explore composition of numbers 6-10. -understand the one more/one less nature of consecutive numbers -select, rotate and manipulate shapes to develop spatial reasoning -compare length, weight, capacity |
| Understanding the World | – comment on images of familiar situations in the past
-compare and contrast characters from stories including figures from the past (Amelia Earhart) -explore the natural world around them -recognise some environments which are different from the one in which they live. |
| Expressive Arts and Design | – explore and engage in music making and dance, performing solo and in groups
-create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills – develop story lines in their pretend play |
Phonics – we are continuing to follow the Unlocking Letters and Sounds programme Phases 3 and 4. We will learn the final single letter phonemes (j, v,w,x,y,z) and move onto digraphs – where two letters make up one sound e.g. sh/th/ch/ee/oo etc. We will send these home in their sound books so please make sure they bring this to school in the home folder every day. Please refer to the sheet given out at parents evening which includes all of the phonemes, digraphs and trigraphs. We will be learning to read and write new tricky words. It would be worth having these up at home my, we, me, he, be, she, are, was, they, you, her, all. Please also add put to this list as it appears often in reading books.
Reading – all children now have a reading book. DO please hear your child read / discuss the book with them as often as possible and record in their reading record book so that they can continue to make progress – it is noticeable which children read regularly at home. The sound book is vital to help children retain learned sounds so please do use it regularly to help your child. We hear the children read often through our phonics lessons. Children will also be continuing their Guided Reading in small groups so please make sure their home folder with both books are in school every day.
Library – we will visit the library on Fridays so that the children can return their book and borrow a new one. Please keep their book mark in the book. They only need to bring the book in on Fridays so they don’t have to carry it in their school bag all week.
Forest school – we will continue to visit the wood on alternate Friday mornings. Please make sure children are dressed suitably in plenty of warm layers and wear a hat, scarf and waterproof gloves if possible.
The dates for forest school are as follows:
Friday 13th January, 27th January, 10th February, 3rd March, 17th March, 31st March.
We rely on having one parent volunteer per session (with all the necessary checks). Please let us know if you are able to help on any of these days.
Snack money – thank you for your contributions towards morning snack. The Government funded fruit is provided in the afternoons. Snack money continues to be £1 per week so £5 for this half-term and £6 for next term. Please send cash in a named envelope in the Home Folder.
Named items – please make sure ALL items are clearly labelled – water bottles, clothes, bags and P.E. bags especially could be named on the outside to differentiate them from others! Our P.E. days continue to be Tuesdays and Fridays. Sometimes we change the day due to hall time tabling.
Proud Clouds – thank you for all the lovely proud clouds you have sent in informing us of their out of school achievements. The children love sharing them with the rest of the class. Do please continue to send them in. The children could make them and cut them out and even write them for you!
PE days – the children have their PE kit in school so we sometimes do change the PE day / session time depending on hall usage. We will do PE on alternate Fridays when we are not at the forest but we are really fortunate to be having Mr Snelling our specialist teacher taking the class in Monday afternoons until half-term.
Ways to help at home – read to your child regularly and hear them read – they don’t need to read the whole book but you could ask questions and get them to point to sounds or words. Count with your child and ask them to recognise numbers and shapes while you are out and about. If they want to write, give them a purpose – write a shopping list using their sounds. You could display the tricky words listed earlier to help with recognition. Use their sound book to practice all the old and new sounds they have learned. Encourage your child/ren to be as independent as possible in their activities – coming into school, getting dressed, using cutlery, putting on their own hat etc.
We look forward to catching up with you all soon.
Mrs Course and Mrs Berrett.
Useful Dates:
Forest School – Friday 13th January, 27th January, 10th February, 3rd March, 17th March, 31st March.
17-01 Reception heights and weight check.
20-01 Tray Day (replacement from snow day in December)
30-01 Road Safety Talk to parents and children
w/c 27-02 BOOK WEEK
08-03/09-03 Parent’s Evening
27-03 Tray Day
