Term 4 2017 – Notes for Reception Parents

This term is set to be another busy time with lots of activities through which your child can develop their understanding and skills.

Please continue to use the Interactive Learning Diary to share with us your child’s learning, experiences, interests and achievements from home – if there are any problems with you using this please let you class teacher know as soon as possible.

WOW Wall

It has been lovely to see what the children have been achieving at home and displaying their stars on our WOW wall. Please continue to bring these in to school and if you need any more stars, let us know.

Wishing Coin

We are trying to build the voice of the children into our planning and therefore will be sending home a wishing coin. Please talk to your child about their interests to favourite resources at school, write down their wish and our wishing well will appear in the cloakroom to post their wishing coin into. We can't grant everybody's wish, but we aim to please the majority.

Our main area of learning this term will be “Our World”

We will be building on the children’s current knowledge and their interests. We will talk about our senses, families, likes and dislikes, things we are good at and what we would like to be better at etc. We will be learning about our immediate environment – our school, and the town in which we live. This will include going for a walk around Thrapston to look at main features and amenities in a small town. We will be learning about how Thrapston compares and contrasts with the wider world.

We are always looking for was to further develop the children's confidence and abilities to share their ideas ad listen to others.Through Larry an Betsy, our class mascots, the children will be encouraged o bring in items relating to our theme. Please refrain from allow them to bring in other special toys from hoe, as the children get very upset if hey are misplaced

“Must do Jobs”

Must do jobs will continue throughout the term and will become progressively more challenging and frequent, requiring the children to access all areas and encouraging them to become more independent in their thinking.

Reading

We are very pleased with the progress the children have made with their reading. We will continue to read with your child at least once a week, please can you make sure they have their book bag with them every day to assist in this.

To support their learning it is very important children read at home as often as possible. To keep us up to date with your child’s progress and any difficulties please can we remind you to write in their diary every time you hear them read. A daily session of 10 minutes will make a big difference to their reading ability. Children who have 5 home reads a week get a stamp.

If you feel your child needs to change their book and it hasn’t been their day to change their book, feel free to pop into the class after school to do so. Although many books are worth a revisit and further discussion to support your child's reading.

In order to build upon children’s individual progress within phonics we have grouped them within their class to have more directed teaching at the appropriate level for them. They may tell you they have had a different adult from our team teaching them on different occasions – the activities are planned carefully and your child will continue to receive new sounds and words when appropriate.

Please continue to practice these at home, reading and identifying individual words and sounds but also using the sounds to build words and using the words to make sentences.

If you are unsure or are running out of ideas please come in and chat to us, we are always happy to help.

Ways to Help

  • We appreciate that parents are very busy, however, we have only managed to offer the children one opportunity to cook in school This is something that the children greatly enjoy. We would only ask you to work with a small group of children at a time and to cook something simple such as a biscuit or a cup cake. If you feel that you could help in this way and have a current DBS or would be willing to get one please let a member of our team know. It would be lovely to offer this to the children as part of our work on senses.
  • We are grateful to the parents that already offer their help and any other offers of help would be greatly appreciated.

Clothing

Gentle reminder to please ensure that all children's clothing is named, as our lost property box grows on a daily basis.

Thank you very much

Reception Team

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