The Bug Collector
This week, we’ve read The Bug Collector by Alex Griffiths. (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 follows George as he visits a wildlife museum and discovers the fascinating world of bugs. Inspired by his visit, he collects the minibeasts from his garden and keeps them in jars, but soon realises that they are not very happy away from their natural habitat.
After reading the story, the children became minibeast explorers in our own garden. They loved searching for different creatures and learning more about them, while also understanding the importance of caring for living things. The children made sure to return all of the minibeasts safely back to their natural habitats afterwards.
Help at home: Why not go on a bug hunt in your garden or when visiting the park? Look carefully under logs, leaves and plants to spot different minibeasts in their natural habitats. Encourage your child to talk about what they can see – What does the bug look like? Where is it living? How does it move? What colours and patterns can they notice?
Please remember to handle any creatures gently and return them safely to where they were found.
Maths – Composing 5
In Maths, we’ve been composing 5 and exploring the different parts that make the whole number using the song ‘5 Little Kittens’. (It’s a bit like 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed!)
We used full sentences to explain what we could see in the picture and showed this using our fingers as we sang the different verses of the song. For example: “There are three kittens on the bed and there are two kittens under the bed. There are five kittens altogether.”
In provision, we had to work out how many bees were missing from the hive. Each hive had to have 5 bees.
Help at home: Try playing a simple game at home using 5 objects. To make it a little easier, use matching objects such as pieces of pasta or the same coloured pegs. Hide some of the objects behind your back and ask your child to work out how many are hidden by looking at how many they can still see.
Phonics
This week, we’ve focused on Phase 4 words with short vowels and longer words. The children have practised reading words such as stamp, crisp, string and script, while continuing to build confidence with blending and reading fluently.
We’ve learnt the tricky words: were, here, little, says.
Help at home: Continue to practise reading all of the phonemes that we have learnt so far, and encourage your child to read and write some of the words and sentences from the ‘Learn at Home’ sheet to help consolidate their learning.
Poetry Basket
One week in every half term, we focus on a traditional nursery rhyme. This week we’ve been reciting Sing a song of sixpence.
We learned the meanings of some new vocabulary from the rhyme, including sixpence (an old English coin), rye (a grain used to make flour), parlour (a sitting room in a house) and dainty (delicate, small or pretty).
And finally, here are a few photos of our learning in Reception this week!
Reminders
- We’d still love to receive donations of compost, pot plants or herbs that we can plant in our Early Years garden. Thank you in advance if you’re able to contribute.
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.
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 children have been excitedly watching the caterpillars grow bigger and bigger, learning all about the life cycle of a butterfly along the way. They’ve also been using their story maps to confidently retell The Very Hungry Caterpillar – it’s been lovely to see their enthusiasm!
PE
Continuing with our Very Hungry Caterpillar theme, we’ve been playing a fun multi-skills game. Children worked in pairs to throw beanbags to hit the cones, helping their caterpillar ‘grow’ longer. This activity supports Physical Development in the EYFS by developing coordination, control and aiming skills, while also encouraging turn-taking, teamwork and perseverance. We’re looking forward to developing this game over the next few weeks.
Phonics
This week, we continued to learn phase 4 words such as frog, shift, chimp and drum. We’ve also learnt more phase 4 tricky words; some, come, love and do.
Help at home- Continue to look at the ‘Learn at Home’ phonics sheets each week. This will help to reinforce your child’s phonics skills and build confidence in their reading and writing. Thank you for your continued support at home.
Poetry Basket
This week’s poem is called Under a stone. We’ve been focussing on the words earth (land eg soil, dirt) and firm (a solid surface).
Maths
This week, we’ve continued to develop our subitising skills (see the quantity without counting) in complex arrangements. We explored creating arrangements of 6 using different objects and children explained how they could see 6.
“I can see 3 and 3. I know that double 3 is 6.”
“I can see 4 in this pattern and 2 more. That’s 6.”
“There are 2 next to each other and 3 there. I know that 2 and 3 is 5, not 6.”
Gardening – donations welcome!
Over the next few weeks, we will be developing our EYFS garden as part of our learning, giving the children opportunities to plant and care for flowers while learning about the natural world.
We would really appreciate any donations of compost or plants (such as bedding plants, herbs and easy-to-care-for flowers) to support this.
Thank you for your continued support.
Stay and Learn – Early Writing
Thank you to everyone who attended our ‘Stay & Learn’ session on Wednesday. We hope you found it informative and that you’ve come away with some helpful tips and ideas to support your child’s fine motor development and emerging writing skills.
If you were unable to attend, click here to view the slides.
We’d Love Your Feedback
We’d love to hear your thoughts! Please scan the QR code to complete our feedback form and let us know what you found useful, as well as how we can improve future sessions.
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.
Life on Earth
Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs
We have been reading the funny story ‘Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs’ this week in Literacy. It does make us laugh.
Doubling
We looked at the doubles within 10 during our maths lessons last week and the children have been exploring it in their challenges.
Spring Walk
We have been on a walk around school looking out for signs of spring. We spotted daffodils, buds, blossom on the trees and bees.
“Look I spotted flowers on the trees, they weren’t there before.” Millie.
“There’s a bee flying round in there, come look!” Korbin
“It’s bud growing on the trees.” Henry
Help at Home
Go on a spring walk and see what signs of spring you can spot. Record what you find!
Easter Fun!
We had lots of fun with our egg rolling competition and Easter activities.
Have a happy and healthy Easter break and we will see you on Monday 20th April.
Jack and the Beanstalk
This week, we continued re-telling the traditional story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
Children have loved orally rehearsing the story and have become more confident at using the story map to help re-tell all the key events.
Help at home: Ask your child to use the story map and to re-tell the story for you at home. We’re sure you’ll be impressed with their story telling skills!
Our word of the week was miniscule, which means something extremely small. We linked it to ‘mini’ and talked about minuscule objects like seeds and grains of sand.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been doubling with the help of our Numberblock friends – Double Trouble!
Children developed their visualising skills by looking carefully at dot patterns and describing what they could ‘see’ in their minds. They used their subitising skills to recognise amounts without counting and explored the idea of equal groups.
Through practical resources, pictures and familiar patterns like dice and fingers, the children learned about doubling numbers up to 10.
In this week’s maths Rainbow Challenge, children demonstrated their knowledge of the composition of number 7. They investigated the numbers within 7 e.g. seeing that 7 can be made of 5 and 2.
Phonics
This week, we’ve reviewed the phase 3 sounds and we’ve practised reading:
- longer words (lightning, mammoth and earring)
- words with s in the middle /z/ (visit, poison)
- words ending –s (cheeps, cooks and boots)
- words with –es at end /z/ (foxes, fizzes)
Poetry Basket
Each week we learn a new poem and recite it every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line, helping us to become better readers. This week’s poem is called Hungry Birdies.
Gardening
Reception made the most of the lovely spring weather by helping to weed and prepare some of our garden area. They worked together to clear spaces, making them ready for planting after the Easter holidays. Children were really keen to get involved and showed great care and enthusiasm. Watch this space for how you can help us next term…
Egg reminder!
It’s our annual Egg Rolling competition on Thursday 02 April (see email for further details). We would be grateful if your child could bring to school a decorated, hardboiled egg on that day, if they would like to take part in the competition. Thank you!
Learning Journey Drop-in
Thank you to all the parents and carers who were able to join us this week to look at your child’s learning journey book. We’ll be inviting you back to view these again on specific dates in the summer term, but they are also available at any time in the classroom if you would like to take a peek.
A few parents and carers asked about the written observations and the numbers that were written next to them. Our Early Years Curriculum Guide describes our curriculum and explains the age-related expectations for children in Reception. Please ask if you have any questions.
