And just like that we have finished our first half term in Reception; and what a successful half term it has been!
Over the last 7 weeks, Reception have continued to amaze us with their positive attitudes and enthusiasm towards school and learning. Alongside this genuine excitement for growing their brains, they have also shown care, kindness and compassion towards each other and their environment. The main focus for this half term has been to ensure that the children feel safe, settled and secure in their new class and the smiles and joy on their faces has been wonderful to see. We are so impressed with how they have remembered our routines and for the excellent role models that they have proven themselves to be.
Grown ups, thank you so much for you continued support and patience this half term. It is wonderful to see how settled and happy the children are and that wouldn’t be possible without working alongside each other. Thank you!
Reception, you have all worked so hard this half term and you have achieved so much. You certainly deserve a well earned rest with your friends and families and we look forward to seeing you after the half term break ready for our next learning adventure!
What have we been learning this week…
RE: This week we have been thinking about how we can show love, kindness and compassion to ourselves and to others. This is something that Reception do beautifully each day. To help us reflect on this a little further, we thought about specific acts of kindness that we will do in school and have made a kindness jar to celebrate all of those moments. We don’t think it will be long before the jar is full of kidness!
Phonics: This week we have learnt to read and write the sounds c and k and then thought of words for Fred’s book that begin with these sounds. We have continued to practise our blending and are becoming more confident using ‘Fred talk, read the word’.
Today, Reception have brought home a key chain which contains the sounds that we have learnt so far. This is a great way to keep developing those letter recognition skills and for the children to be able to share these learning experiences with you at home. We kindly ask that these keychains are kept in reading packets so that we can add more sounds to them as we continue on our reading journey!
Maths - This week we have continued to develop our subitising skills and exploring the numbers two and three. We used the STEM sentence ‘one and another one is two’ to help us understand how two is made. When looking at the number three, we have played the game ‘three or not thee’. In this game we had to use our magnet eyes to look at the arrangement of dots and use our thumbs to show if the amount was three (thumbs up) or not three (thumbs down). To build on this we used our reasoning skills to explain why. The children came up with some great ideas such as “it’s not three because that one and another one makes two, we would need another one to make it three”!
Our Lady Star of the Sea Remembers
Important reminders:
Our phonics friend Fred (the frog!) has set some half term challenges for Reception. In this booklet you will find QR codes sharing some blending games and also some letter formation practise for the sounds we have learnt in school. (The letter formation mnemonic can be found on the back of the sound card that was given at the beginning of the year). Hopefully you find these useful when helping your child at home and to see what we have been busy with this term. It would be great if you could have a go at some of these challenges over the holidays!
Reception have now begun their art lessons with Miss Neves which they are thoroughly enjoying! Over the year, they will be using a variety of media and will need to bring in a large t-shirt or shirt that can be worn over their uniforms in order to keep them as clean as possible. We would be grateful if these could be sent into school as soon as possible with their name clearly labelled.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Mrs Hartley
s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk
Have a wonderful half term break
God Bless,
The Reception team