Reception Newsletter January 2015

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to a New Year and term. We hope you had an enjoyable Christmas break and would like to thank you all for your Christmas cards, messages and gifts. We would also like to say thank you for supporting your children and ourselves in so many ways during their first term in school. The children are very settled now and we are looking forward to another happy and busy term.

Although our Christmas performance is behind us, we would like to thank you for coming to see the children and being such a receptive audience! They had a lot to learn and we think you would agree that each one of them put on a wonderful performance and made us very proud! We are very grateful to the wonderful team of mums who organised the refreshments and of course to those of you who provided costumes. The children obviously enjoyed singing and acting and we are sure we have a few potential Oscar winners for the future amongst them!!

We are expecting there will be quite a bit of wintry weather, especially rain, over the next few weeks and would like to take this opportunity to remind you again that we do spend a significant amount of time outdoors every day, both in the Foundation Stage garden and the school playground. Can you please make sure your child has suitable outdoor clothing and all coats, hats, gloves and scarves are named? Could you also ensure your child has a named pair of wellies which fit them, on our wellie rack inside the canopy. It would be helpful if you could continue to practise putting on outdoor clothing with your child in order to develop their independence when getting ready to go outside during the day.

Please let your child be responsible for their own belongings when coming into school. Your support has been much appreciated so far and we would like everyone now to take off their own coats and take book bags etc to their places in the classroom once they have said goodbye to you. This independence is very important, especially as they move towards transition into Year 1.

We will continue to open our doors at 8.45 for the children to come into school and staff will be at the entrance to the classroom should you have any important messages to pass on. We would appreciate it if all children could arrive as promptly as possible in order for us to register them ready to start our day on time.

Please continue to use our WOW tree in the entrance area. We have enjoyed reading about the achievements your children are making so far at home and would appreciate your involvement in building up a more comprehensive picture of your child.

PE in school will begin this week, so could you please ensure PE bags are in school. We encourage all children to dress and undress themselves, so again your support at home would be much appreciated to make this a positive experience and to develop independence. Again, all items should be named.

This term, Mrs Hoolan and Mrs Parke’s class will be taking part in the Yoga Bugs programme. YogaBugs is an excellent independent company consisting of a team of children’s yoga specialists who will come into Reception weekly and, through a series of interactive stories, help the children to develop their strength, posture, mobility and physical literacy. Mrs Scorah’s class will have the chance to take part during the summer term.

Your contributions of £10 are now due for this term. Thank you so much for your continued support with these as they really do make a great difference to what we can provide for your children in our classroom. Our classroom budgets are very low and your donations go a long way towards enriching the curriculum in FS2. THANK YOU

Could you please ensure that your child brings in a water bottle every day, filled with water only please? Our snack time is an important part of our curriculum to help our children learn about the importance of eating healthy food and drinking regularly, as well as being able to socialise with their peers.

Our Learning Challenge topic for this half term is called ‘WINTER’. We will begin our weeks with a theme, book or story and a question. From here, much of our work will develop and extend in response to the children’s interests and questions. The learning will as always cover all seven areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

Areas of Learning and Development

Communication and Language Development / Physical Development / Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Listening & Attention
Respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments or actions.
Understanding
Answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions.
Speaking
Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events.
Use present, past and future tenses effectively. / Moving & Handling
Experiment with different ways of moving in PE and outdoor activities.
Use a pencil effectively and use correct letter formation.
Handle large and small equipment effectively.
Health & Self Care
Show understanding that good practice with regard to exercise, eating, sleeping and hygiene can contribute to good health. Manage own basic hygiene and personal needs effectively. / Self Confidence & Self Awareness
Describe self in positive terms and talk about abilities.
Confident to speak in a familiar group.
Managing Feelings & Behaviour
Work as part of a group or class and understand and follow rules.
Managing Relationships
Explain their own knowledge and understanding and ask appropriate questions of others.
Play co-operatively, taking turns with others.

Specific Areas of Learning

Literacy / Mathematics / Understanding the World / Expressive Arts and Design
Reading
Know that information can be retrieved from books and computers.
Use phonic knowledge to decode words and read them accurately.
Writing
Attempt to write short sentences in meaningful contexts. Represent letters correctly and in sequence – spelling.
Write common irregular words. / Number
Recognise and use numbers to 10 and then 20.
Solving problems using the language of addition and subtraction.
Shape, Space & Measures
Name and talk about 2D & 3D shapes
Use language related to money.
Use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. / People & Communities
Talk about events in their own lives and lives of family members.
The World
Talk about their own environment and the features of different environments.
Make observations of animals.
Technology
Interact with age-appropriate computer software and technology. / Music
Explore the sounds of different instruments.
Art & Design
Use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques. Represent their own thoughts and ideas through music, D&T, art, dance, role play and stories.

Letters and Sounds: This half term, most children will be working on Phase 3 of the Letters and Sounds programme. Some children will be working with staff to reinforce Phase 2 in order that they are confident with initial letter sounds.

A copy of the phonemes for both phases is displayed in our entrance area if you wish to help your child at home.

RE: Our topic for this half term is ‘Special Stories’ which will come under the theme of ‘Believing’. The children will be hearing and learning from stories told in the Bible by, or about Jesus.

Briefly, the questions for this topic will follow this broad outline:

Week 1 - Who can we look after in winter?

Week 2 - What can we find out about Polar Regions?

Week 3 - What can we find out about snow and ice?

Week 4 - Where do some animals hide in winter?

Week 5 - How do we keep warm in winter?

As usual, if you have any books or artefacts at home to help us with our topic, please send them into school in the relevant week. We are particularly interested in looking at age appropriate non-fiction books to encourage the children to look for their own information.

HOW CAN I HELP AT HOME?

v  Please continue to hear your child read whenever possible, practising the key words in particular.

v  In school we will continue to practise blending letter sounds together to read and segmenting sounds to spell simple words in our phonics, reading and writing work. Please reinforce letter names as well as sounds when playing games such as ‘I spy’ at home.

v  Encourage your child to form letters correctly as it is vitally important to do this early on as it makes joining letters much easier when they are required to later on.

v  Recognise, order and write numbers correctly to 20 (and beyond if your child is ready).

v  Encourage your child’s independence getting dressed and undressed, and putting on outdoor wear independently where possible.

v  Continue to encourage appropriate hygiene routines and use of the toilet at home.

We are still looking for parents/grandparents who are able to spare a short amount of time each week to come into our classroom to sit with groups of children to tell stories. This, we feel is such a valuable and enjoyable experience for our children. If you feel you are able to help, please let us know.

We do realise how busy many of you are, but we would ask that you take the time to read our newsletters and also any letters that may be in your child’s folder in order that you do not miss out on any events in our Foundation Stage calendar.

We hope you find these newsletters useful. We know your children do not always want to tell you what they have been doing in school but rest assured they have been busy ‘learning’. As always, we are available for a chat any day after school if you wish to speak to us.

Once again, thank you for your valuable support.

Foundation Stage Team:

Foundation Stage Leader – Pip Scorah

Foundation Stage 2 teachers - Debbie Hoolan & Rachel Parke

Foundation Stage 2 Teaching Assistants - Denise Hill Becky Kearns Satnam Tanda Luke Bennett

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Parents Evenings – Tuesday 3rd & Thursday 5th February – Please keep an eye out for lists to allocate your desired time on one of these evenings.