Week Ending 26/05/23
Date: 24th May 2023 @ 10:11pm
Happy Half Term! What a beautiful, sunny end to this half term. We have enjoyed celebrating the coronation together and our dinosaur topic reading the story ‘Gigantasaurus’. It is amazing to think that we only have one more half term in Reception, how this year has flown! The final summer half term is always very busy with lots of exciting things and the transition to Year 1. We will keep you informed of transition activities on the blog so do keep reading! Don’t forget that the first day back is Tuesday 6th June.
Dates for the diary next half term:
Tuesday 13th June- Trip to Park Hall Farm (Hedgehogs need one more adult if you are available!)
Recycling
During the first week back, we will be sharing the story ‘The Odd Fish’ and thinking about World Oceans Day on 8th June. We would like to create some recycled art similar to the fish in the story (plastic bottles) so please can you send in any recycling during the first week back? Particularly plastic bottle tops, newspapers and plastic bottles. Thank you!
Talking Point
This week we have enjoyed taking part in Sports Day and earning points for our house teams. Our talking point this week is ‘how important is winning?’ It is important to encourage resilience in our children so they understand the value of taking part and not just winning. The children showed excellent sportsmanship throughout the event so hopefully they will have lots of great ideas for this conversation!
Little Wandle (Phonics)
This term we move onto Phase 4 in our phonics journey! The children do not learn any new phonemes or graphemes. Instead, they are taught to further manipulate the phonemes and graphemes they have already learnt. They will begin to explore more polysyllabic words (words containing more than one syllable) and read and spell words containing adjacent consonants. E.g. string, milk, brush, scoop etc. Phase 4 requires the children to blend an increasing number of sounds together.
This week we have had a revision and assessment week. Please check your child’s reading record for their results and chat to their class teacher if you have any questions.
Over the half term, we are sending home reading books as normal…but are challenging you to do an extreme read! Where is the most exciting place you can take a picture of your child reading, at the park, up a tree, hanging upside down?! Upload your pictures to Tapestry and we will share them on the first day back.
In Maths, we learnt how to understand and make our own calculation stories. The children read lots of different examples with the adults helping them for example, “Miss Nicholas has 8 chocolates and she ate four, how many were left?” This can be tricky as they need to think of all the different words that mean ‘add’ or ‘subtract’ to find the correct operation. We then encouraged the children to make their own stories up with their own names. You can continue this learning at home by creating your own calculation stories through play,
On Monday, we enjoyed finishing our ‘Gigantasaurus’ story! We created a story map to help us retell the story in order. This is an important skill when the children have finished reading so we recommend practising after every read at home.
On Tuesday, we had a busy day! Reading practice, phonics, and maths in the afternoon. We opened the doors between the rooms and spent time mixing between the classes.
On Wednesday, it was Sports Day! Well done to all the reception children on their fantastic attitudes and effort. Thank you to everyone who was able to come and watch.
On Thursday, we finished off our ‘Gigantasaurus’ topic by writing descriptions of the scary dinosaur! The children thought of lots of great adjectives and worked hard to put their ideas down on paper.
On Friday, we enjoyed finding our who our stars of the half term were in assembly. We shared the story of ‘Blue Chameleon’ with Mrs Palmer and Mrs Line. We learnt how to greet each other in lots of different languages!
Congratulations to our Stars of the Half Term, India and Kian!
Please be aware that celebration assembly is now 9:30am!
Mrs Wrigley will be back to running her club, Up Beats again next half term for Reception only. I have attached a pdf with details if you would like your child to attend and how to get in touch to book your child's place. It will run for seven weeks.
Our mystery readers this week were Harry G’s Mun and Harry C’s Dad. Thank you for coming to share your story with us!
Please speak to your child’s class teacher to put a date in the diary if you would like to be mystery reader. We don’t have many weeks left until the end of year!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Nicholas and Miss Selwyn
