Author: Reception team

This week, we’ve explored all things autumn!

Understanding the world; seasonal changes

We took an autumn walk  to spot changes in the natural environment. We remembered lots of these from our nature study sessions.

Leaf Man

We’ve been reading the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

“A Leaf Man’s got to go, where the wind blows”

The book takes us on Leaf Man’s journey, as he travels on the autumn wind across different autumnal landscapes.

Our ‘word of the week’ is seasons. We know that we have four seasons in the year; spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Inspired by the book, we made our own ‘Leaf Man’ pictures.

Understanding the world; Farmer time with Farmer Luke

Did you know that Reception classes have the opportunity to video call with a real-life farmer, working on his farm?! We speak to farmer Luke once each half term to see how farm life changes over the year and what jobs he is busy doing. Farmer Luke has an arable farm, so it’s a very busy harvesting time of year. He took some time out this week, to show Reception around the farm. Next door to his farm are some animals too. Reception were so excited to see the cows and were very impressed to see his amazing tractors!

Maths

Our focus in maths this week has been comparing quantities. We have developed our skills to look carefully and use the language of  ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to describe sets of objects.

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Five Little Pumpkins.

click here to watch us recite this week’s poem!

Phonics 

This week, the children have learnt the phonemes (the sound a letter makes) h, b, f and l. They have also been practicing writing the graphemes (the written letter).

We learnt the tricky word: the

Please continue to use the ‘Learn at home’ sheets with your child, to review our new sounds each week.

Help at home; blending

Oral segmenting/blending games are great, both if your child is still learning to blend and for those children who are confident ‘blenders’, to revisit their skills. Here’s just one idea to try at home: Dress the Baby (idea taken from earlyimpactlearning.com)

Any toy can be used for this game. Put a baby doll or another toy  down  with some clothes round it- for example a hat, boots, a nappy, a coat and gloves.

Say one of the pieces of clothing in sound-talk. For example a boot would be a ‘b-oo-t.’ If your child can blend it, then they can put a piece that piece of clothing on the baby/toy. To make it easier, you can say all the pieces of clothing like robots before you start.

Let us know if you try this game at home!

Dates for your diary and reminders

Parent-teacher consultation (PTC) appointments- 22.10.24/24.10.24 (individual times) A zoom link will be sent for your appointment. Please use your child’s name as your screenname. Thank you.

Swimming lessons will begin after the half term break. On your child’s swimming day, please provide a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and a pair of goggles if needed. No floatation equipment is required, as we provide these in school. Your child should still come to school wearing their PE kit.

During autumn 1, your child has met our swimming instructor Miss Joicey and has had an opportunity to visit the pool.

Stay and Learn; Number (session 1)- 13.11.24  9am-10am This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school. This session will be focused on maths.

A big thank you to parents and carers who joined us on Thursday for our Phonics Phase 2 Stay and Learn session. We hope you enjoyed watching a lesson in action, taking part in some activities with your child and that the teacher presentation was informative. If you would like to access the slides from our presentation, please click here

Here’s some more information about phonics and reading in Reception…

What do reading groups look like in class?

Children read with an adult at the same time each morning. They look at the same book throughout the week, in groups of 6 or less. We usually read 4 times a week (Mon-Thurs). The current week’s eBook is usually issued by Thursday evening.

Day 1/2- Decoding– children are introduced to new vocabulary, key decodable words (words that can be segmented and blended) and read through the book together. The aim is to work towards automaticity (reading the words on sight/memory recognition), which in turn makes reading more fluent.

Day 3- Prosody– prosody is the patterns of stress, intonation and rhythm in speech (i.e. sounding like a story-teller!) this is modelled to the children and they are taught to spot features in the text that will affect the way we read the words (for example; how is the character feeling? is there an exclamation/question mark or other grammatical features? and briefly pausing when we see a full stop)

Day 4- Comprehension– the children will be asked a range of questions to check their understanding of what they have read. These can usually be found on the last page of the eBook, if you’d like to use them at home as talking points.

Reading reports and Keeping in Touch 

Teachers will check reading reports each week via Collins Hub and will make ‘keeping in touch’ phone calls to those who have not read within the week, to see if we can offer any further support. You can also ask your class teacher at any time, if you are having issues accessing reading at home. Please remember that if you do not have a compatible device, you can hire an iPad through our school office.

Reading records

Please remember to send your child’s reading records to school each Friday. Please add a short comment about how your child has been getting on with their reading at home. Remember, this can also be about other reading as well as eBooks.

Feedback

Finally, another thank you to those of you who attended the Stay and Learn. We would love your feedback!

Please scan the QR code to fill out our feedback form.

We’ve been reading The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson.

Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.

The story follows a class bear that goes on quite the journey! We’ve been re-telling parts of the story and have used it to introduce our own travelling teddies- Ziggy and Penelope .

We’ve been using a map of our school to find the different places our teddies have visited.

Ziggy and Penelope will be coming home with a child each weekend, along with a book to record their adventures!

Maths; counting principles

In Maths, we’ve been using toys to demonstrate accurate counting. We’ve been reminding our toys to ‘stop at the stopping number’ to find the total amount (cardinality), only count each item once (one-to-one correspondence) and know that objects can be counted in any order (order irrelevance) We’ve been looking at ways to make counting easier. We’ve also been counting things that cannot be seen (such as sounds or actions) and things that cannot be moved, by using a ‘tagging wand’.

Music: Charanga

In our Wednesday afternoon music lessons, we follow a scheme called Charanga

The children are introduced to a wide variety of music, including traditional nursery rhymes. Over the past few weeks they have enjoyed Celebration by Kool and The Gang and Sing by The Carpenters!

During lessons they move in time to the music, identify what they can hear (voices/instruments), discuss tempo and pitch and make comments about how the music makes them feel.

We love our music lessons!

Understanding the World: Nature Study

Did you know that each Friday in Reception, a group of children get to take part in nature study activities? Last week, our first group explored autumn using their senses and made fat ball bird feeders to help the birds in the upcoming months.

This week, our second group also explored autumn, hung out the bird feeders and planted some flower bulbs ready for spring!

Each group will experience 3 different nature sessions this term, with a different focus each week. We love exploring the world around us!

Phonics

This week, the children have learnt the phonemes (the sound a letter makes) i, n, m and d. They have also been practicing writing the graphemes (the written letter).

We have started reading words, by putting sounds onto our phoneme fingers.

Can your child show you how we use our phoneme fingers in class? You could write out the following words for them to try: sat, map, tin.

Please continue to use the ‘Learn at home’ sheets with your child, to review our new sounds each week.

eBooks

Reading records have been sent home today, so please check in your child’s book bag. On the back of the record book, you’ll find login details to access your child’s eBook on the Collins Hub website. Your child has already shared the wordless story in their reading sessions this week. We hope that you enjoy reading and talking about the book together and look forward to beginning their reading journey with you.

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Breezy Weather

Click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem

More pictures from this week…

Reminders and dates

What did you do today? ‘We just played’…is the answer many parents of Reception children get. But here’s just a few of the things your child would miss if they’re absent for five consecutive days.
Phonics: Children learn four new graphemes and three tricky words each week.
Reading: Children practise reading books that closely match their phonics, plus loads of stories are read aloud and celebrated. We visit the school library once a week to choose a book to take home.
Poetry picnic: There’s a poetry session every day –another valuable activity which helps children learn to read.
Writing: We write every day using the graphemes that we’ve learned.
Handwriting: Children learn how to form letters correctly, otherwise joining letters will be difficult in Key Stage 1.
Maths: We’ve four maths sessions a week, setting the foundations for children to be successful in using and applying numbers in the future.
Alongside all of this, children learn Science, Music and other subjects. Even more importantly, children learn to concentrate in a large group, to share resources, take turns when speaking, answer in full sentences, regulate our feelings and prepare ourselves for future learning.
There’s a lot happening when ‘we just play’!

Welcome to Reception!

We’ve welcomed our first two groups of children into class this week. We are so proud of how everyone is settling in, getting to know their new classrooms and their new friends.

Here is a little sneek peek of the classrooms, for the children starting on Monday- we can’t wait for you to join us!

The teachers have been busy playing in different areas of the classroom- Who can you see? Where are they playing?

PE Days

PE will start next week. Please send your child to school in their PE kit on Wednesday and Friday.

Swimming kits are not yet needed, we will send a message out when you need to start sending the kit and a list of dates that your child will be swimming.

Wellies and spare clothes

Don’t forget to bring your school wellies and a bag of spare clothes/underwear to keep in school. Thank you to parents and carers who have already provided these.

Family photo

We will soon be talking and learning about different families. To support our learning, please send in a photo of your child with their family. You can send in a copy of your photo or email it to:

scholesreception@spherefederation.org

Dates for your diary

This year we will be offering various opportunities for you to find out more about Early Years at school.

There will be after school meetings with your child’s teacher.

There’ll be stay and learn sessions where you can come into school and be part of a lesson and then find out how you can help at home.

Then, opportunities to pop into school to share your child’s learning journey book with them.

We hope that you can join us for as many of these sessions as possible.

 –Welcome to Reception

An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder.

Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception.

19.09.24 – 6pm – 6.30pm

– Stay and learn sessions

This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.

Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning – 10.10.24  9am-10am

Number 1- 13.11.24  9am-10am

Phonics Phase 3-  14.01.25 9am-10am

Fine Motor and coffee morning-  03.02.25 9am-10am

World Book Day- 06.03.24 9am-10am

Number 2 – 18.03.25 9am-10am

– Learning Journey Drop In’s

An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.

Learning Journey Drop in 1 – 03.12.24 and 05.12.24 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am   and   3.15pm-3.45pm

Learning Journey drop in 2 – 28.03.25 and 01.04.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am   and   3.15pm-3.45pm

Learning Journey drop in 3– 08.07.25 and 10.07.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am   and   3.15pm-3.45pm

Please note that a paper copy of these dates will also be sent home next week.

Wow what a fun-filled last week we’ve enjoyed together!

The Beach Party

On Thursday, the weather was kind to us and we had a beautiful beach party. It was so much fun!

The Selfie Station 

The children have enjoyed being in charge of taking the photos this week- take a look out our selfie-station snaps!

A final message 

The Reception team would like to thank you all for your partnership and support this year. We’ve had a truly wonderful year and are so proud of all of the children. We wish you all the best as your child moves up to year one and continues their learning journey at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School. Have a happy and healthy Summer and we’ll see you in September!

Clean Up

This week, our story took us on a journey, all the way to Jamaica!

Clean Up

We discussed key words from the story: sanctuary and island.

The story even inspired a group of children to build their own animal sanctuary- Well done Harry, Liezah, Jake, Norah and Gracie!

The book had some great messages about looking after our environment.  Linked to this, our word of the week was pollution.

In our writing, we’ve written about what happens when you leave rubbish on a beach and how it hurts the animals in our seas and oceans.

Maths

This week’s focus has been on deepening our understanding of how to compare quantities. We have explored this skill in a range of ways: comparing groups of objects, comparing by looking and then by counting, creating groups with equal amounts and using our sense of magnitude, e.g., knowing 8 is a lot more than 2 but 4 is only a little bit more than 2.

We’ve also explored sharing using objects and seeing which quantities can be shared fairly between 2, 3 or 4.

In provision, we’ve been playing ‘Roll and Build’- using our subitising skills to calculate total amounts on two dice, building the amount and matching it to the correct numeral.

Artist focus; Alexander Calder 

We’ve been looking at Alexander Calder‘s mobiles in art this week. We started the week with a gallery experience, looking at images of the mobiles around the school hall and drawing them.

We then drew around shapes, or created our own shapes, and cut them out of paper.

Next week, we will be collaborating to make our own mobile art using our paper shapes!

Phonics

Summer 2 week 3 has focused on words ending in the suffix -ed but sounding like ‘t’,’ id’ or ‘d’ such as helped, floated and stormed.

Please continue to use the Little Wandle sheets, sent home with your child each week.

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers.

This week’s poem is Five Little Peas.

Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!

Five Little Peas

Reminders, Messages and Dates

Baby photos – Please send in or email (scholesreception@spherefederation.org) a baby picture of your child to support their learning. We will be discussing how they have grown and changed.

Transition Morning- Wednesday 3 July Drop off and collect your child from their usual Reception classroom on this day. We will send a slip home with your child on this day, confirming which class they will be in from September.

Learning journey drop-ins- Week commencing 8 July

An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them. We would like to welcome you into the classroom on one of the following sessions:

Tuesday 9 July 8.45– 9.15 or 3.15-3.45

Thursday 11 July  8.45-9.15  

This week, we’ve explored differences and similarities between cities and the seaside.

Literacy 

We’ve been reading Seaside Poems– collected by Jill Bennett. We used the poems to explore features of coastal environments- the seaside.

Later in the week, we were introduced to our word of the week: city.

We sorted pictures of cities and the seaside.

We revisited the name of the city we live in and some features that Leeds has, that makes it a city.

In our writing, we also compared the environments of the city and seaside. We wrote about what we would see in each.

Maths

We have focused on deepening our understanding of numbers to 10, including the composition of each number.

Phonics

This week, we’ve continued to  focus on phase 4 words with long vowel sounds.

In provision, we’ve been reading words on boats and matching them to the correct picture.

Art; Watercolour landscapes

We’ve been painting coastal landscapes, using famous existing paintings as our inspiration!

Poetry Picnic

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called I Have a Little Frog.

click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem

Check out our other learning…

Transition to year 1- Zoom meeting

As the weather becomes brighter and we near the end of the academic year you may be thinking about your child’s next steps as they journey into Year 1. Moving to Year 1 is perhaps a less significant change for children, and that’s because we’re a happy and healthy place to learn where we all know each other.

A zoom meeting for parent’s starts our transition process, here you will meet the Key Stage 1 staff and find out about the Year 1 curriculum.

The zoom meeting is on Monday 17 June at 6pm please follow the link that will be emailed to you.

The next step is for your child to spend some time in the Year 1 classrooms. They’ll meet the teachers and join in with the learning, they’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in Year 1. The whole-school transition, later in July, completes the process, by spending a morning with their new class teacher.

This is a really exciting time of year, moving on and taking those next steps whilst continuing to strengthen the effective learning behaviours they have established in Reception.

Reminders and Dates

-A little reminder to please encourage children to come into class on their own each morning, in preparation for transition to year one. There is a more detailed explanation of why we encourage this on a previous post. Thank you for your support.

Swimming

Rainbow- 26 June, 10 July

Sunshine- 19 June, 3 July, 17 July