Happy holidays!
Wow! That’s the end of our first autumn half term in Nursery and we’re really pleased with how well children have settled.
It’s been lovely getting to know everyone but we have also missed being able to welcome parents and carers through our doors. We know it must be difficult to say good bye at the gate and that you must wonder what your child gets up to when you see them walk up the ramp and through the door.
To help with this, we’ve put together a video for you to watch (click on the link below). We hope that it gives you a snap shot of what life is like in Nursery once you say goodbye. We’re really proud of all of the children; they’ve quickly become familiar with our rules and routines and, as you will hopefully see in the video, they are all happy and very engaged whilst they learn through play.
Look out for our next Class News post soon – we’ll post some highlights from this week. Over the next week, we’ll also send some photos of your child at Nursery this half term. Look out for this in your inbox soon.
Parent Consultation Meetings
Zoom invites have already been sent to everyone for your Parent Consultation Meeting. Please let us know (email or speak to us after the holidays) if you haven’t received this.
Certificate achievers
Well done to the certificate achievers from last week:
For great learning…
Isabelle – for writing clear instructions.
For sport and physical activity…
Alex – for excellent basketball skills.
For living and learning…
Eric – for being ready to learn at the start of lessons and for being an active, responsive learner.
I will announce the certificate achievers from this week after half term.
Have a happy and healthy half term everyone!
Phonics – sound mats
At our recent parent-teacher consultations, a few parents asked about the sound mats we use in school. Children have been talking about ‘orange’ and ‘green’ sounds at home – which is great!
Here are the sound mats and below is a link demonstrating how each phoneme (sound) is pronounced.
Listen to the orange sounds here.
Halloween
Wow! There has been lots of Halloween fun in reception this week!
We have enjoyed hammering golf tees into pumpkins; dressing up in different outfits; spider handprints; pumpkin printing and creating our own pumpkins using our cutting skills. 
Phonics apps and websites…
Thank you to all of our parents who joined us for our Parent Evenings this week. We’ve really enjoyed catching up with you all and sharing your child’s learning. We are so proud of them all!
We received some questions about useful websites and apps that help with phonics and letter formation. Here are some suggestions:
Apps and websites to support phonics and letter formation
Some online apps and games to support phonics and letter formation at home…
Free website– www.phonicsplay.co.uk –> click ‘free play’ –> choose phase 2 –> select a game (select options up to where your child is in their phonics learning.
(‘Dragon’s Den’, ‘Buried Treasure’ and ‘Pick a Picture’ are free without subscription)
2.99– ‘Hairy Letters’ app (available on Apple Store or Google Play)- supports sound recognition, letter formation and blending.
Free CBeebies game– ‘Get Squiggling’–> https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/get-squiggling-letters-mobile -supports letter formation.
Free website- www.phonicsbloom.com –> choose the phase suitable for your child and select a game – supports sound recognition, segmenting/ blending and tricky word recognition.
Free to register- https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk –> wide selection of free e-books, including Oxford Reading Tree (Biff, Chip and Kipper) stories- supports all aspects of phonics through reading.
A game to play to support blending
In addition to word boxes for segmenting and blending, ‘Toy Talk’ is a great listening game to play to support blending.
Use a toy or teddy to segment the sounds of a picture or object. For example, if you had a picture of a cat, the toy would say ‘c-a-t’ and your child blends the sounds the toy has made together, to say the word ‘cat’
Sounds so far
These are the phonemes we have covered so far, sounded out by our super helpers in Sunshine and Rainbow class…
click here
Enjoy!
Living and Learning – Mental Health
Our focus over the last few weeks has been making sure the children understand about mental health. The children looked at the definition of mental health and how this is different from our physical health. They thought about small feelings that they might experience on a daily basis, and how these have the potential to become bigger feelings. This is when it might affect someones mental health. We talked about how we could look after our own mental health, when things might be getting tricky. They came up with some great ideas, including bubble baths, reading and going for a walk. We also discussed how screen time and technology might not be the best way to relax and deal with feelings.
Remembrance Day
This year, due to Covid restrictions, Remembrance day is going to be a little bit different. Usually, on November 11th, there are church services and parades around the country. 5/6 S have had the privilege of holding a special service at the War Memorial in Scholes. The service was filmed and will be available to watch next month. Along with members of Scholes Church, the children laid crosses for each soldier that died during the World Wars. Some children read some poems- they did this very fluently and with feeling. The children behaved very respectfully and maturely – I’m very proud of them.
Self Isolating at Home?
Here is some home learning for when you can’t be with us at school with a welcome message from Miss Parling.
Maths
This week’s maths learning is linked to patterns and shapes.
This link will have all the sessions on for the week.
https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/week-3/
- Lesson 1 – Session 1 and challenge.
- Lesson 2 – Session 2 and challenge.
- Lesson 3 – Session 3 and challenge.
- Lesson 4 – Session 4 and challenge.
- Lesson 5 – Session 5 and challenge.
Your child’s learning will be most effective if you sit with them to pause the clip and check / praise / support your child as the clip moves on.
Phonics
This week we will be recapping the sounds we have learnt so far and some new ones too.
Watch and join in the Jolly Phonics songs. Listens to s,a,t,p,i,n,m,d,g.
(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.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VknD1I0Zc4
- Lesson 1: Screencast recapping satpin
- Lesson 2: Screencast new sound m
- Lesson 3: Screencast new sound d
- Lesson 4: Screencast new sound g
Literacy
This week we are reading the story – Room on the Broom.
- Lesson 1: Read or watch the story. Recap the main events. Discuss the order the characters appear.
Use the sheet or draw your own broomstick and characters. Put them in the same order as in the book.
- Lesson 2: Read or listen to the story again. Stop/Pause throughout the story to find rhyming words.
- Lesson 3: Match and find rhyming words.
- Lesson 4: Look at the picture strips. Spot the odd one out.
Challenge make your own.
Topic
Choose some of these activities to complete throughout the week. They may spark other interests and ideas that result in other learning opportunities. Let your child lead the learning!
| Draw or decorate a pumpkin.
Using your own imagination or this drawing tutorial.
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| Collect toys, teddies or any objects around the house and order by size.
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| Make your own mini broom.
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| Draw around your hand or a toy and cut it out.
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| Sing the alphabet.
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| Draw your favourite part of the story or use this colouring sheet.
Room on the Broom colouring sheet
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Is there Room on the Broom?
This week, we’re reading ‘Room on the Broom’ by Julia Donaldson and some of our provision and activities will have a magical theme. We’re sure that this will be a popular story with children – they’ve already been casting spells on us last week. In fact, Mrs Long and Miss Backhouse were turned into frogs!
If you have a copy of the story, you might enjoy reading it together at bedtime this week. Some of our older children may remember the Friday story times that we enjoyed during Lockdown. Miss Morris chose this story to read for the final story in July. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you could listen to Miss Morris reading it instead.
The BBC adaptation of the story is also still available to watch on the BBC iPlayer.
We’ll post some photos and a video at the end of the week to share our learning with you. It’ll definitely involve investigating what’s inside a pumpkin and looking for things to go in our cauldron.
Phonics Fun
We have been working hard to learn our sounds, correct letter formations and corresponding ‘alphabet’ names for s,a,t,p,i and n. As we are currently unable to sing indoors, we have been listening and moving to the following alphabet song.
(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.)
Using our new phonemes, we have been segmenting, blending and writing a mixture of CVC (consonant, vowel,consonant) words. Using the sounds we know, we have written: tap, pin, pat, pit, sat and sit on our phoneme framed whiteboards.
Our tricky word is ‘I’ so we have been finding it in books and rehearsing sentences with it in them. When talking to your child please encourage sentences that include this word.
