Author: Reception Team

Henri’s Scissors

Henri’s Scissors

We’ve been reading Henri’s Scissors, by Jeanette Winter.  (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip).

The story is a biographical children’s book, about the artist Henri Matisse. We found out about his life and looked at some of his artwork. 

Our word of the week was artist. We had lots of discussions about types of art, introducing new vocabulary such as sculptor/sculpture and collaging.

We’ve been artists ourselves by “painting with scissors”, just like Matisse!

Art talk

We’ve been using our language and communication skills to respond to different examples of artwork by Matisse.  We thought about which parts we liked and disliked and tried to answer some questions about the artwork.

  • Why do you think the artist painted this?  
  • Which is your favourite and why?

I like it because I can see green diamonds.   Delilah

I like the sprinkles.  Mila

It looks like a rainbow.  Jazmin

I can see a green dinosaur footprint.  Cillian

Phonics

This week, we learnt some more new phonemes: ck, e, u and r.   Here’s a video on how to pronounce these sounds using pure sounds.

We’ve also learnt the tricky word; I.   Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’.  ‘I’ is tricky because we need to say /igh/ and not /i/.

Poetry Picnic

Children continue to enjoy listening to poems during snack time. We listen to a new poem each week and recite it every 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.

We also talk about how poems sometimes have rhyming words and about how poems can have fast or slow rhythms.

Follow the link to watch Reception recite this week’s poem,Leaves are falling.

 

Maths; counting principles

In Maths, we’ve been using our subitising skills to identify patterns to 4.  We’ve practised spotting changes and identifying the changes we can see.  Are there more, fewer or the same?  We even tried to listen to how many sounds we could hear – without counting!

Children investigated different ways of making 4, using multilink cubes. This was inspired by our introduction to Numberblock 4.

Help at home – autumn leaves and conkers.

If you go on a walk this weekend, we’d really appreciate donations of dry leaves to help us with an art project next week.  We also need some conkers to use in our maths learning – see how many you can find! Thank you for your support.

 

The Great Big Book of Families

This week we’ve been reading  The Great Big Book of Families.  (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)  Through the book, we have explored and celebrated the variety of families. Children had lots of suggestions about what makes a family.

What is a family? 

People who live in the same house.

People don’t have to live in the same house.

They love each other.

Grandma and Grandad because they can live in your house.

In the writing area, we drew our families and we used loose parts to make the faces of people in our families.

Help at home: Family photos 

Thank you for sending your family photos. There’s still time to email one if you haven’t had the chance yet.  Over the next few weeks, we will also be thinking about our homes. To help support our discussions and art project, please send in one picture of your front door.  You can email photos to scholesreception@spherefederation.org

Maths

We’ve been using our subitising skills in maths this week.  When subitising, we can say how many there are in a small group by ‘just looking’ and knowing without needing to count.

We used counters to create our own arrangements of 2 and 3 and sorted pictures into groups showing 1, 2 and 3.

Phonics

This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) s,a,t and p.

During our phonics learning, we listened carefully to the initial sound in a word and sorted objects into those that started with ‘s’ and those that didn’t.

In Reception, we learn to say the pure sounds that letters make, so for ‘s’, we say ‘ssss’ rather than ‘suh’. To hear the pronunciation for each letter, you might like to watch this short video clip of the letters we’ll be learning this half term.

Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week.  Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.

Poetry Picnic

Each week, we will learn a new poem and will recite this poem every 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  Chop Chop.

Chop Chop
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.
Cut off the bottom and cut off the top.
What there is left, we put in the pot.
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop

 

And here are a few other snap shots of our learning this week.

eBooks

Next week, you will be issued your first eBook to share with your child. Your login details and reading record will be sent home soon. Please let us know if you do not have access to a device to read at home, as we have iPads for loan at the school office.

Please read with your child each week. As teachers, we have access to reading reports. We will be giving out certificates in class to celebrate your child’s reading at home.

Reception Baseline Assessment 

Within the first 6 weeks of Reception, your child will participate in the reception baseline assessment.

“The RBA is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin school, using materials that most children of your child’s age will be familiar with. It became statutory for all schools from September 2021.” 

Click here to find out more.

 

 

Happy holidays!

We say it every year, but we can’t quite believe it’s already the end of term! Thank you for all of your kind words, cards and gifts this week. We hope that you all have a great Summer holiday and we’ll look forward to seeing some of you in Nursery in September and some of you, next door in Reception!  We’d also like to say good bye to those children that are moving to other schools – we hope that you love your new school and make lots of new friends.

Staying safe

Staying safe

As part of our learning about ‘Staying safe’, some children joined an online assembly hosted by Yorkshire Water all about water safety. Children listened really carefully to the safety messages and were great at spotting potential dangers near lakes and canals.

We also learnt all about how to stay safe when visiting a beach.   We know to look for areas that are supervised by lifeguards and which colour flag means that it’s safe to swim.

Help at home:  For older children in red, blue and green group – Talk to your child about what they remember from the assembly. Can they remember what the different flags mean on the beach? What does a red flag show?  Which colour flag means it’s safe to swim? 

During group time, we looked at other ways to stay safe around our homes and when we’re at school. We sorted some pictures into ‘safe’ and ‘not safe’ and talked about our reasons.  Children quickly identified dangerous activities at a playground and knew lots of ways to stay safe when crossing a road. We also talked about being with an adult when helping to cook and remembering to stay away from hot cooker hobs and sharp knives.

Pirates

When playing in Nursery this week, children have loved drawing treasure maps! We used a map during group time to hide some treasure. Children had to carefully follow instructions using positional language. The favourite places were on top of the volcano and behind the mermaid.

The construction area has also been a hive of activity and creativity. Children have worked together to build tall towers and a big bus for their trip to a dinosaur museum!

Outside, we joined in with some dance routines where children had to put together a sequence of movements to their favourite song.

Children also loved using pipettes and playing with the frogs in the ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs’ water tray and working with their friends to create a very long ramp! After the stormy weather, there were a lot of little apples on the floor that children enjoyed collecting and rolling down the guttering.

Reminders

On Wednesday 17 July, it’s our Nursery party. Please see the letter that we sent last week for more details. Children can wear summery clothes, but remember that footwear needs to be safe for them to run and play outside in.

The end of term is rapidly approaching! Remember to take all of your child’s belongings (including bags and wellies) home with them at the end of their last session in Nursery.

 

Ahoy there!

Children enjoyed listening to ‘Pirates Love Underpants‘ and we’ve been busy digging for treasure in the sand tray and counting gold coins in the maths area.

During maths group times, we’re learning about positional language. Next week, we’re going to use treasure maps of the Nursery garden to find some treasure.  Children will need to use lots of positional language to describe where the treasure is hidden. For example, the treasure might be next to the sandpit, underneath the bridge, behind the planter or on top of the bird table.

Help at home: Try to use positional language in your day to day conversations and during play.  For example -Can you put your teddy underneath the box? The car is behind the garage. The monkey is on top of the tree. Put your shoes next to the cupboard.   As you look at illustrations in a story, ask questions such as ‘Where is the cat hiding?’ or ‘What can you see in front of the fence?’

The older children have also been busy visiting Reception and have enjoyed exploring and playing in their new classrooms. We’ll continue to visit over the final few weeks as part of our transition process.

Reminders-

  • Please send  your child with a waterproof coat everyday. The weather is very mixed at the moment and we enjoy playing out in all weather, even when it’s warm but wet!
  • A few water bottles have missing names. Please take a minute to re-label your child’s bottle if it has come off.

 

Obstacle courses

One of the Prime Areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage is Physical development. Throughout the year, children have been developing their movement and balancing skills in a variety of ways. This week, we enjoyed taking part in an obstacle course. They balanced along the beams and walked across the wobble boards, trying carefully not to fall off.

At the end of the course, children showed us that they could balance on one leg without wobbling!

 

Next week’s learning

Following on from our learning about the seaside, we’re going to listen to ‘Pirates love underpants!’ next week.  (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.) 

We’re sure you can imagine the role play that this will inspire… Look out for treasure maps in children’s folders soon!

Nursery rhyme of the week – Jack and Jill

Phonics – Children in Red, Blue and Green group will be playing games to practise some key phonics skills including:

  • identifying initial sounds in words (playing I-Spy type games)
  • segmenting and blending words orally (e.g. h-a-t and b-u-s)
  • spotting rhyming words

Sun, sun, sun!

As the weather is set to be warm this week, here are a few reminders from our previous communications.

Sun safe reminders

  • Bring a named sunhat every day.
  • Ensure your child has a water bottle (named).
  • Parents and carers must apply cream before nursery.
  • Please put your child’s name on their sun cream.
  • Put sun cream in your child’s group basket if you want it applying at lunchtime. Please don’t leave it in their bag. 
  • Collect your child’s sun cream at the end of the day.
  • Help us out by using ‘All day’ cream and applying at home.

Sharing a Shell

During story time this week, we read ‘Sharing a Shell‘ by Julia Donadlson. We talked about trips to the seaside and some of the things that we’d found on the beach.

Seaside photographs

Thank you to everyone that has sent in a seaside photograph so far. It’s not too late if you’d like to email us one photograph of your child at the seaside – we’ll look at them during snack time and talk about our favourite things to do on the beach.

Children have enjoyed exploring shells and sorting them into different shapes and sizes.  We painted some large scallop shells and also used wax crayons to rub over paper placed over the top of shells. Children noticed the patterns and stripes of the shell as they rubbed over the shell.

In maths, we’ve been learning about capacity. We’ve been talking about when something is ‘full’ or ’empty’.

Help at home: Use these words together at home when you’re playing, in the bath or cooking. Is it full or empty? How do you know?  

Next week’s learning

We’ll continue with our sea side theme and will listen to ‘Commotion in the Ocean‘ at story time to find out about different sea creatures.

Nursery rhyme of the week – Ring a ring a roses

Phonics – Children in Red, Blue and Green group are re-visiting all of the sounds they have learnt this year and will be playing games to practise some key phonics skills including:

  • identifying initial sounds in words (playing I-Spy type games)
  • segmenting and blending words orally (e.g. h-a-t and b-u-s)
  • spotting rhyming words

 

Hot and Cold countries

Following on from our discussions about journeys and holidays, this week, we looked at some photographs of hot and cold countries.  We talked about the weather and thought about which animals live in hot places and which live in colder areas.

We used the animal stencils in the mark making area; it was quite tricky to hold them and trace around the edge but we persevered!   We also enjoyed practising our cutting skills as we cut around different items of clothing to choose which we’d need to pack if we were going to visit a hot or cold place.

In the dough, we rolled long and short snakes and compared their lengths with our friends.  In the Creative area, we mixed different shades of blues and thought about which colours remind us of hot and cold things. Finally, in the sensory area, children loved playing with the penguins and polar bears in the ice.

Next week’s learning

We’ll read ‘Sharing a Shell‘ and talk about our trips to the seaside. If you’ve been to the beach recently, please email us a photograph to share at snack time over the next few weeks. Thank you.

Nursery rhyme of the week – Row, row, row  your boat

Phonics – We continue to learn about rhyming words. Can you think of any words that rhyme with cat?