Week Ending 8/09/23
Date: 6th Sep 2023 @ 8:38pm
We made it! Happy Friday and welcome to the first weekly blog of your child’s Reception year! The children have worked so hard this week and deserve a big rest over the weekend. They are starting to settle into our routine brilliantly and we are really proud of their enthusiasm and positive attitudes. The children have had lots of new routines to learn and have really impressed us with their increasing independence in school. To continue to develop this, please encourage them to put their own coat on, cut up their own food and manage their own personal hygiene.
I will be writing a Reception blog every Friday over the school year and it will give you an overview of the week as well as some ideas for continuing learning at home.
Burger Menu – Optional Homework
In your child’s book bag you will find a Burger Menu which contains lots of different activities you may wish to do outside of school. This is completely optional but there are house points on offer if your child would like to gain some for their team.
A date for your diary! We will be holding our 'Meet the Teacher' class talks on Tuesday 12th September at 4pm. Due to restricted seating we will be moving our talk to Squirrels classroom. We will enter through the outside door which can be found closest to the main door at the front of school.
This is an opportunity to meet the staff and find out about all things EYFS. I promise to not keep you long! I know a written blog can be quite overwhelming so this feels a lot more personal and a great chance to meet you properly. If you are unable to make the talk, I will be uploading the presentation to our class page.
Snack
In Reception we have a free rolling snack throughout the day where children can pick and choose to have when they like. However, you are more than welcome to pop a healthy snack into their book bags if they would prefer.
Phonics
This week we have begun our phonics journey by revising Phase 1 of Letters and Sounds. This phase focuses on alliteration, rhyming, listening skills and oral blending and segmenting.
Little Wandle
At Tarporley, we use Little Wandle (Letters and Sounds Revised) as our systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling. I will go into more detail regarding phonics and how you can support your child’s reading at home in our class talk next Tuesday.
Cracking Oral Blending!
Oral blending is hearing sounds and being able to blend them to make the word. For example, I might say /b/-/a/-/t/, your child will listen, repeat the sounds, then blend them together and say the word ‘bat’. It is critical that pure sounds be used and that the schwa /uh/ is not added to the stop sound, as heard in ‘buh-a-tuh’ for ‘bat’. This is vital prerequisite skill for early reading and spelling. The opposite to this is segmenting by splitting up the word into its sounds. For example, I could say ‘tell me the sounds in bed’, your child would then say b-e-d = bed. Once we are confident at orally blending independently, we can begin to set books. The trick with oral blending is to practise, practise, practise! The more modelling from an adult, the easier it is for your child to pick it up. You can incorporate into your daily routine, on your walk to school or even round the dinner table. E.g. Please can you pass me the ‘c-u-p’.
If you would like to continue their learning at home, then focus practising blending words. There is an example in the video below to show you what this means and some ideas for games to play at home. Although we no longer use Essential Letters and Sounds, the idea of oral blending is exactly the same. This skill is really important for reading which we will be starting next week in phonics when we begin to learn our first four sounds S, A, T, P.
On Tuesday we created our first piece of artwork and drew family portraits. Miss Selwyn and Mrs Line have really enjoyed getting to know your children a little more and found out lots of fun facts!
On Wednesday, we spent some time exploring the different areas of the classroom, Orangery and outdoor area. It has been so much fun learning through play and we can't wait to return on Monday.
On Thursday, we created our own birthday cards for our next birthday! Each child has designed their own card and when they celebrate their birthday we give them their card signed from the class. Please remember that parents/carers are welcome to celebrate their child’s birthday by coming in for a special ‘Birthday Lunch’. If you would like to come and join us for their special day please book your meal through the office.
On Friday, we had our first Pathways to Write lesson (which is essentially our Literacy session) where we came into class to find a rucksack had been left. We had to work out who it belonged to based on the clues from inside the bag! Our last clue was a map which led us to our new story called ‘We’re Going to Find a Monster’. We also participated in our first Wake Up Shake Up session!
On a Friday, we invite a mystery reader into our class to come and read us a story at the end of the day.... we don't know who it is until they arrive! The children love it when our parents and family come and read us stories. Please speak to me or email the school office and we will aim to put a date in the diary if you would like to be mystery reader.
Unfortunately, we are still experiencing an issue regarding School Spider (our main form of communication). We will continue to use our Reception 2023 email group until it is sorted. We will let you know when this happens. Thank you for your patience.
Have a fantastic weekend. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday!
Miss Selwyn
