Author: Mrs Brown

Watch Us While We Work

Watch Us While We Work

Thank you to all parents and carers who made it to the Watch Us While We Work session this morning. If you couldn’t make it this time – don’t worry! There will be other sessions later in the year. This is what we talked about today:

 

Reading

We use a lot of different skills when we read. Many of these reading skills can be developed through very simple (but very effective) activities. Looking at, sharing and talking about pictures or photographs is a great way to develop inference, retrieval and choice skills (at school we refer to these as RICs). It’s a very quick and easy way you can help your child with reading skills at home.

Retrieval

Inference

Choice

We shared an example of using a picture to practise developing these reading skills

  • Who are the characters?
  • Why are they there?
  • What ese can you see in the picture?
  • I can see that they’re up above some clouds. Does anyone else know they’re up here?
  • Do you think they’re friendly or fierce characters? How do you know?
  • Are they friends with each other? Why?
  • Is the dragon the girl’s pet? Or might the girl be the dragon’s pet? Why do you think that?
  • They’re looking towards something. What are they looking at? Are they searching for something? What might it be?
  • Why do you think the illustrator chose green scaly skin for the dragon?
  • Why might the illustrator have given the girl a cape?
  • What title would you give the picture/story?

Reading at home: Look at, share and discuss pictures in this way. It could be a picture from a page in a book, a poster, a leaflet or a family photograph. Any kind of picture discussed in this way will help your child with their retrieval, inference and choice skills.

 

Mathematics

We played some games with our adults which can be easily replicated at home.  These games support children’s subitising, counting and calculating skills.

Game 1 – Counter Battle

Game 2 (version 1) – Wipeout

Game 2 (version 2) – Wipeout

Game 3 – Back and Forth

Mathematics at home: Play these games at home. They can be played with any resources you have to hand like paper, pens, pasta pieces or small toys such as cars for counters. If you don’t have any dice you could use electronic versions such as this one https://nrich.maths.org/interactive-environments/dice-and-spinners-interactive

Gruffalo Granny

Today we had the joy of joining a livestream event through the British Library. We joined author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler as they invited us into their ‘Gruffalo world’. The event started with Julia Donaldson dressing up and reciting the original Gruffalo story. Her enthusiasm along with the characters’ costumes had us all hooked.

 

After the lovely performance, Julia introduced the next addition to the Gruffalo trilogy. She read aloud Gruffalo Granny and we were all bewitched. We hung from her every word and we all thoroughly enjoyed the story.

 

Axel Scheffler then talked us through his illustration of Gruffalo Granny. He told us how she has some of the same characteristics as the Gruffalo but how some are different because she is older. Her drooping ears, red prickles and grey fur are all due to old age. He draws with such ease – it was so impressive!

Snail and The Whale

Snail and The Whale

This week we have been sharing this much loved Julia Donaldson story. The children have been retelling the story and we have been discussing the rich vocabulary.

Help at home: You could share some other Julia Donaldson stories together or watch the Snail And The Whale animation on BBC iPlayer. Can your child explain the events in the story and why they happen? This helps with comprehension when reading. 

Sports Day

   

A big well done to all Reception children who took part in their very first Sports Roundabout Sports Day. They practised so many key sport skills from throwing and catching, jumping, team work, hand-eye coordination to running. Everyone participated so well – and in front of such a large audience too.

We practise all these skills daily in our outdoor area too…

Transition

The transition into KS1 has started 🙂 Wednesday morning was full of excitement and a few little nerves, as the children visited their year one classrooms and spent some time with their new teachers. When they returned to class, the children were excited to share what they had been doing. Those little nerves had flown away and in their place was a super positivity for the big move in September. Well done Reception superstars! We will visit KS1 a few more times before the end of the year.

Ziggy and Buddy

Ziggy and Buddy are taking their last journeys of the year. They have thoroughly enjoyed visiting the children’s homes and getting up to all sorts of fun. Thank you for engaging with this activity this year – the children value sharing their experiences so much!

The Travelling Book Fair returns to Scholes Elmet Primary School

We have some exciting news. Our annual Book Fair returns to Scholes on Monday the 11th May.

Book Fair Social Media image.jpg

It is a 3 for 2 event – buy 2 books and get the third (cheapest) for free. Books can be purchased either with cash or by following a QR code which we will have on display during the Book Fair. This event will run straight after school every day from Monday the 11th May until Thursday the 14th May. It will be held in the school reception office area. Please access school via the front doors.

All books sold during the Book Fair earn money for school to spend on new books for our library.

We hope to see you there! 🙂

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week, we have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We looked closely at the beautiful illustrations noticing the collage effect that Eric Carle has used to create them. We talked about some of the vocabulary in the story such as tiny, cocoon, nibble, stomach ache, pickle and salami. Together, we created a story map and have been using it to retell the story with actions. We will continue to retell the story next week and write some sentences too.

Help at home: Why don’t you practise retelling the story at home? You could create a stage from cushions and allow your child to perform it to you using the story map and the actions we have been using at school. 

Real Life Caterpillars

To support our love for the story and our Understanding The World curriculum, we have welcomed some new little creatures into class this week. We will be observing how they grow and we look forward to their amazing transformation.

Maths

Throughout the year, we have been expanding our pattern knowledge. This week, we have been practising continuing a repeating pattern in a circle. It’s trickier than you think and the children have done a fabulous job at completing this challenge.

Fun in the Sun

Now that the sun has finally made an appearance, we have been enjoying our outdoor area in different ways.

Taking safe risks

Looking for minibeasts

Looking for signs of Spring

Challenging ourselves and creating new games

Help at home: As the weather improves and the Summer time begins, please note that your child can bring sun cream and sun hats with them to school. To avoid allergy risks, sun cream should be labelled with your child’s name and handed to a teacher in the morning. The sun cream will be returned home each day. Please apply sun cream in the morning before school. Your child will then top up their own sun cream themselves at lunchtime if needed.

Swimming

Our swimming lessons continued for Rainbow Class this week. Here are the swimming dates for the rest of the half term:

  • Wednesday 22nd – Rainbow Class
  • Wednesday 29th – Sunshine Class
  • Wednesday 6th – Rainbow Class
  • Wednesday 13th – Sunshine Class
  • Wednesday 20th – Rainbow Class

Support from parents

To support our upcoming learning, please could we politely request some compost and annual flower plant (such as petunias, pansies, marigolds) donations so that we can plant some pots with the children and enhance our outdoor area. Thank you in advance for your support. 

Jack and The Beanstalk

It’s been another busy week in reception!

Jack and the Beanstalk

This week, we’ve been reading the traditional story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.

We discussed how this story has been re-told many times and some versions of the story are different. Just by looking at the front covers, we could spot similarities and differences. We’ve been orally rehearsing the story and we’ve begun to use a story map to help us.

This week, our word of the week was gigantic. We discussed other new and interesting vocabulary from our story too: poor, crumbling, clutched, furious.

Writing sentences based on the story:

“Jack is coming up.”

Building a beanstalk and reading the tricky words:

Tricky words can be just that-tricky! We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try.

Tricky Word Jigsaw

A game to help the spelling of tricky words

  • Write 5 tricky words on paper.
  • Chop the words into individual graphemes.
  • Ask your child to reconstruct the tricky words, by calling them out one at a time.

It doesn’t need to be as fancy as the picture above, a plain piece of paper and hand-writing the words will work just as well!

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  Spring Wind. 

We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.

Maths

One of our Rainbow Challenges this week was to create a pattern and represent it in our own way. The children have been very creative in thinking up their own patterns.

Outdoor play

The sun has finally decided to share it’s rays with us. We’ve enjoyed some time outdoors this week looking at and enjoying the Spring weather.

We’ve also been using amazing team work to create and adapt our own obstacle courses. We listened to each other’s ideas and negotiated where we could place the resources within the obstacle course.

 Help at home: Look for the signs of Spring when you are out and about. Think of new or interesting words to label and describe your surroundings eg warm, sunny, sun-drenched, breezy, colourful, tulip, daffodil, blooming, sprouting, blossom, floral etc

 

Dates for your diary:

This coming week we have two learning journey drop ins where you can come and look at your child’s learning journey book. The dates are Tuesday 24th and Thursday 26th. 

 

This Green Moon

The Train Ride

We’re starting the half term with a focus on transport. This week, we’ve been reading The Train Ride by June Crebbin.

This story is about things that are seen out of the window, on a train journey. We noticed that the rhythm of the book’s repeated/rhyming lines start fast and repetitive (much like the sound of a train chugging along a track) and then as the train approaches the station, the lines become longer and the pace slows down until the train reaches is destination. Destination is our ‘word of the week’.

Historical links

We looked at pictures of the early steam locomotive- Robert Stephenson’s Rocket. We compared it to the trains we use today.

Phonics

Spring 2 week 1 has been a review of phase 3 sounds: ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, oo, ow, oi, ear, in words and sentences. We review tricky words daily.

Tricky words can be just that-tricky! Here’s a game we play at school that you could try at home.

Roll and Read

You will need a die for this game. You may wish to print the boards or display them on a screen.

  • Roll the die
  • Count the spots, match to the correct row
  • Choose a word to read on the row
  • Cover the word when read correctly
  • Repeat

Who will be the first to complete a row?

Maths: Comparison

We’ve been comparing groups of objects and toys, saying which has more and which has fewer. We’ve been noticing and explaining why size, colour and other factors do not matter when comparing ‘how many’.

In the classroom, children have been making 6 using Numicon frames.

This Green Moon

This week was a very special week for our Reception class as we went on our very first class trip to This Green Moon! As soon as we opened the doors in the morning the children were buzzing with excitement.

When we arrived at Green Moon, we were warmly greeted by the two leaders, Paul and Matt. They led the activities and supported us throughout the day – they were fantastically engaging and fun.

We thoroughly enjoyed spending the day outdoors, exploring the natural world around us. The children took part in so many exciting activities: making a fire, creating sculptures using potatoes, designing bracelets with pieces of coloured wool we found in the forest, and even working together to create a giant piece of artwork. It was fantastic to see their creativity and curiosity shining through.

What a fantastic day full of learning, laughter and adventure. Well done, Reception – we’re so proud of you all!

Phase 3 Stay and Learn

Thank you to all parents and carers who attended the Stay and Learn this week. Hopefully you found the ‘Phase 3 Phonics’ presentation and lesson informative and that you enjoyed playing the phonics games with your child in class. If you’ve any questions about the information you heard/saw during the session, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Please take a short few moments to feedback on the Stay and Learn session by copying this link and pasting it into your browser: 

https://forms.gle/JWgXSyfTj53kx6Em9

Supertato

Supertato

Supertato by Hendra, Sue (9780857074478) | Browns Books

This last week’s book focus was the amazing Supertato by Sue Hendra. There was a real buzz about the classroom with the children enjoying all the linked activities. They designed traps to capture Evil Pea, wrote wanted posters for the villain, created patterns with vegetables, created observational drawings of different vegetables and used green pea counters to make words in the Phonics area.

Our new word of the week is: mischievous. A perfect word to describe the small, green villain in our story!

Help at home: you could read some other Supertato stories (there are many) or watch some episodes of Supertato on BBC iPlayer. Talk to your child after the story/episode to see if they’ve understood the story and the events Why did that happen? What do you think might happen next? Who was the main character? Why did they feel that way? Did you like it? All these types of questions help with reading comprehension. 

Poem of The Week

This week’s Poem is A Little House. We enjoyed the rhythm and rhyme in this poem and talked about the new words we came across like curling and drifting.

Gross motor skills

Did you know that gross motor skills helps with early writing skills?

Gross motor skills involving large muscle movements like crawling, climbing, and throwing are crucial to early writing. This is because they build strength in core, shoulder and arm muscles. These movements enable children to sit upright, stabilize their shoulders for controlled pencil grip, and improve coordination. It also helps to improve stamina when writing. We practise lots of gross motor skills every day in our outdoor area.

Help at home: take your child to the park, ride bikes and scoot together. Play tennis, football, rugby or dance around your kitchen. All these playful activities help in your child’s writing journey. 

Art

Following on from our visit to the ‘gallery’ last week, we begun to create some wintery art. The art work is inspired by Claude Monet’s magpie Painting. We created a wash with watered down blue paint and mopped some of the paint using different media to create different effects. Next week we’ll finish off our creations using tissue paper. Look out for photos of our finished art.

Dates for your diary:

Wednesday 4th Feb – Stay and Learn

Tuesday 10th Feb – Parents teacher meetings (booked appointments)

Thursday 12th – Parent teacher meetings (booked appointments)

Friday 13th – break up for half term