Reception have always impressed us with their determination and love of learning, but this week they have gone even further. They have shown us just how curious they are becoming about the world around them and how there is no limit to what they can achieve when they put their minds to it! The vocabulary, writing and mathematical thinking has been brilliant this week and the pride in their smiles and shown us just how much they have grown. They are achieving all of this whilst continuing to show compassion and consideration for each other. They really are a loving and caring team and it’s a privilege watching them grow!
What have we been learning this week:
RE: This half term we are reflecting on Jesus’s ascension to Heaven to be with His Father and how He knew his apostles and disciples would miss him so He sent the Holy Spirit to be with them. These are some of the wondering questions that we are exploring: I wonder why Jesus went back to His Father? I wonder where we might see Him in our world? I wonder how Jesus friends were feeling when they waited for the Holy Sprit? I wonder how the Holy Spirit can help us?
Literacy: This week we have challenged ourselves to find writing opportunities around our classroom. It’s wonderful to see the children applying their writing skills to tasks independently and to see them enjoy writing for meaning. There have been lists, notes, instructions, directions and vocabulary from our water topic proud written and shared around our classroom. I wonder what writing opportunities you can find at home, can you help with a list, write a card or write a message for a friend?
Remember these five things that Mrs Hartley looks for when we are writing sentences:
1. Capital letter
2. Finger spaces
3. Have we thought about where the letter starts and which way round it goes
4. Are our letters on the line
5. Have we used a full stop at the end
Can you be a Lizzie Ladybird and check your sentence?
Maths: This week in Maths we have been exploring even and odd numbers. We looked closely at the number blocks 1 - 10 and noticed that they can have even tops (flat), or odd tops this helped us to work out if the number was even or odd. In true Reception style we asked a wondering question: What if we can’t see the number block, how do we know if it’s even or odd? To help us answer this question we made the amount and split it into two parts. We noticed that even numbers can be split into two parts and the parts are equal; however, if you try and split an odd number into two parts the parts are never the same, that’s why they are odd numbers.
Reception, can you show your grown ups at home? Here’s a challenge:
Is the number 7 even or odd? Can you tell them and show them why?
Understanding the World: This half term our topic is ‘Water’. We have begun with our first wondering question, where does rain come from?
First we looked at the image of a water cycle, before we were even told what it was called we knew it looked familiar. Some friends said “it looks like our life cycle of a butterfly because it keeps going around and around"! We had lots of fun with our rain making experiment and we were able to see how water rises when it is warm. We have continued our investigations throughout the week and through the use of actions and songs we have learnt some new vocabulary:
Evaporation
Condensation
Precipitation
Accumulation
Reception, can you teach your grown ups the actions and tell them what the words mean?
Let’s Celebrate…
This week’s learning and virtue role models are:
Enthusiastic Bobby Bee: Mia!
Mia, we have loved seeing how much you are enjoying our water topic and how much enthusiasm you have shown towards learning new facts and vocabulary. It’s great to see that you have talked about this at home and then sharing this in school has helped your friends too. Learning can be so much fun; your enthusiasm helps you to remember even more and it also makes you a great role model for others. Keep being enthusiastic! What an exciting adventure you have ahead of you.
Well done Mia!
Focused Cooper Crab: Nellie!
Nellie, it’s been lovely to see how much you are enjoying your reading journey. We can see just how focused you have been and how much your confidence has grown, especially when you have a huge smile when you see what you can achieve. Being a focused learner is such an important quality, we know you’re going to have an exciting learning journey through school!
Well done Nellie!
Whole School Virtues - Learned and Wise: Kira!
Kira, you have grown in confidence over the last few weeks and it’s wonderful to see how this has given you the confidence to share your knowledge and skills with others. This week we have seen you doing this with your learning partner during phonics, you’ve been patient, encouraging and supportive towards them. They even said “Kira you are a really good partner!”
Well done Kira!
Lunch Time Awards:
We also have lunch time certificates which are awarded by the lunch time team to those children who they see being wonderful role models and using marvelous manors:
This weeks role model: Theo!
This weeks marvelous manors: Amara!
Thank you both for being such wonderful role models and for remembering those acts of kindness everyday!
Challenge Books!
The children were very excited to show me the challenges they have completed in their challenge books and we were very impressed! It’s wonderful that they have taken this on with such enthusiasm and determination; it is really showing in their writing.
Today you will find new challenges in your books. We are focusing on the letters ‘g’ and ‘d’. Remember to think about where the letter starts and which way it goes. If you say the rhyme in your head e.g. for ‘g’ we say “around the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl” that will help you remember which way to go around and that this letter hangs under the line!
Please could these challenge books be kept in bags. Challenges are to be completed by Thursday, so we can prepare the next set of challenges!
We kindly ask that challenges be completed in pencil and this is easier for the children to fix with a purple pencil in school if they need to. Thank you.
Good luck Reception!
Optional Challenges!
It is wonderful that the children are so excited about their learning and to see how keen they are to continue this outside of school. We welcome any opportunity to share these learning experiences with you at home, which is why we have created ‘optional challenges’ across each year group which can be explored over this Summer 1 half term.
These challenges link to the wider area of our curriculum which in EYFS are:
Understanding the World (Science, Geography and History), Expressive Arts and Design (Art. DT and Music) and our Gross and Fine motor skills (PE).
Below you will find the optional challenges linking to the topics and areas of learning that we will be exploring this half term. These fun challenges are designed to cover a range of skills without being stressful or time consuming for you at home. You are welcome to complete them in any order you wish and it would be lovely to see pictures or examples of things that the children have enjoyed at home.
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Important notices and reminders:
Reception Assembly - Thursday 23rd May
We are delighted to invite you into school to watch Reception’s assembly on Thursday 23rd May. We have already been busy practising and the children are so excited to be on the stage again. They are really proud of how much they have achieved (and rightly so!) and they can’t wait to share this learning with you.
They have lines in their reading packets, it would be great of you could practise these at home! Thank you!We kindly ask that no sunglasses are brought into school.
As the weather is getting warmer we are enjoying more time outside but we would just like to share a polite reminder that, for health and safety reasons, sunglasses cannot be worn at breaks or playtimes. These are best kept at home safe. Children are welcome to bring in a sun hat. Thank you for your understanding.If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Mrs Hartley
s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend
God Bless,
The Reception team