Great Fairies of the World
This week, we’ve been reading Great Fairies of the World by Stephanie Moss. This rhyming story features fairy characters that have jobs that help others; architect fairy, doctor fairy and engineer fairy, to name just a few! We’ve been discussing how the author uses the most interesting descriptions/words that they can think of. We’ve been describing images and making words more adventurous. This has helped develop our oracy skills and helped us in our writing too.
In our writing, we’ve created our own fairy characters and written about the jobs that they do.
In provision, we’ve linked our fiction reading to non-fiction information about real-life heroes in the community.
We’ve also used the fairy theme in our classroom challenges.
Living and learning: Internet Safety
We joined in with learning about Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 11 February.
When asked what being ‘online’ means and what you can do online, children had lots of ideas. Many of them talked about different games and programmes that they play and watch on-line at home.
We spoke about some important uses for the internet, such as the way we use it for our learning- our eBooks. We also discussed how we should limit our time online to keep our body and brain healthy and why we shouldn’t use electronic devices close to bed time.
In Reception, we used the story The Adventures of Smartie the Penguin to talk about internet safety. Smartie receives a tablet for his birthday but encounters some problems when using it, including adverts, websites that are too old for him and people saying unkind things online, during a game. He makes the right decisions and always asks Mummy and Daddy for help. There is a memorable song throughout the story:
Ask your child what they can remember about keeping safe online.
Maths: Length and height
We’ve been developing our understanding of how to compare and measure length and height. We’ve been ordering by length and comparing the length of objects; saying which are shorter, longer, the shortest, the longest or the same (equal). We’ve been measuring objects using non-standard forms of measurement. We measured the length of our bodies using different objects.
Phonics
It was assessment week in phonics and we’ve been reviewing and revisiting our Spring 1 learning. Your child will have come home with a grapheme mat and a tricky word mat. If any sounds are highlighted on the grapheme mat, these are those that your child is not yet secure on. Please keep practising these at home.
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! In Little Wandle phase 3, we learnt lots of new words. The children will continue to learn new tricky words fairly rapidly so it’s important to keep practising them. We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try!
Help at home: Musical tricky words
- Write the tricky words on individual pieces of paper, lay them out on the floor.
- Play your child’s favourite song for them to dance to.
- When the music stops, your child should pick a word to quickly run to and stand on.
- Your child reads the word they have landed on.
- Remove that word and repeat until there are no words left!
Poetry Picnic
Each week we learn a new poem and we 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 was Furry, furry squirrel.
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. Can your child re-tell this week’s poem to you?
Parent-teacher meetings
Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to the parent-teacher meetings this week. It was great to see you all there, keen to find out how your child is doing in school and how you can continue to support at home.
A few people asked about how to say the graphemes correctly, using pure sounds – here are links to help you pronounce Phase 2 graphemes and Phase 3 graphemes.
If you’d like to email us any photos of your child’s home learning, share any achievements or tell us about any exciting events, please send them to our Reception email. Children love to share them with their friends and it’s also great for their confidence and communication skills too!
Reminders
SWIMMING DATES- Spring 2
Rainbow Class- 26 Feb, 12 Mar, 26 Mar
Sunshine Class- 5 Mar, 19 Mar, 02 Apr
These dates are also stuck to your child’s classroom door or window to view whenever needed.
Sponsored maths challenge – Please see the Sponsored Tens Frame Challenge letter that has been sent home this week.
World Book Day 2025: Stay and Read – Thursday 06 March. Further details to follow (see calendar).
Happy half term! Enjoy the break and we’ll see you again on Monday 24 February.
Supertato
On Monday morning, we welcomed in the new week with another stay and learn. We invited parents and carers into class to explore all things fine motor and early writing, or as we like to call it- Funky Fingers!
Thank you to those who could join us for another fun and hopefully informative session.
As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Please use the QR code below to tell us how we did and to make suggestions of what you might like to see next time!
If you missed the session or would like to look back on the presentation, please click the link below.
Literacy
On Tuesday, there was a vegetable-based mystery… Who had captured the vegetables and why were they trapped?
It could only be one thing… The EVIL PEA!
After reading the story Supertato by Sue Hendra, we read and answered some true or false statements to check our understanding of the story.
We’ve been making Wanted posters to warn everyone who to look out for! We’ve also been writing about a picture from the story.
Our new word of the week is: mischievous. A perfect word to describe the small, green villain in our story!
We’ve enjoyed lots of activities linked to our focus story.
Maths
In maths, we’ve been exploring and comparing weight. Using the correct vocabulary (light, heavy, lighter, heavier, lightest, heaviest, balanced, equal), as we investigated.
In provision we’ve been weighing different vegetables, using the balance scales.
PE; Yoga
Last week, we started our yoga unit in PE. We are learning that yoga is meditation through movement. It is taking a lot of balance and control to move in and out of our yoga positions.
At the end of each session, we finish with a visualisation that focuses on our breathing and creating peaceful images in our minds.
Ask your child if they can demonstrate some of the yoga poses we have practised.
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 Mrs Bluebird
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 5 has focused on reading longer words, by using the chunking method (segmenting and blending longer words one syllable at a time, i.e. “s-u-n, sun, s-e-t, set, sun, set, sunset”)
Ask your child to show you how they ‘chunk-it-up’
Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Splat
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper/sticky notes.
- Place around the room/floor.
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat. You might jump on the words, splat with a masher or create your own ideas!
More photos of our learning this week…
Dates for your diary
Parent-Teacher Meetings- Tuesday 11 February/Thursday 13 February (pre-booked appointments)
Class Trip- York Railway Museum- Monday 3 March (details sent home)
World Book Day- Thursday 6 March, 9am-10am Join us in class, to share in reading time with your child. They can also bring in their favourite book to share with the class later in the day (please name the book)
Reception parent/carer survey
At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’re always keen to hear your views. We hope that you let us know any questions, comments and concerns (as well as causes for celebration!) whenever these crop up, but we like to gather the views more generally so we can keep reviewing and improving what we do.
This short survey is just for you to think about your child’s experiences in our Reception class. (There’s another annual survey at the end of the year for all parents/carers.) It’ll only take a few minutes or so. You’ve plenty of time to do this – the deadline is Friday 28 February 2025.
We can’t guarantee to meet the needs and wants of every parent / carer, but we do assure you that we consider all the points raised and aim to act on specific points that are raised by many, or a useful idea raised by just a few.
Previously, based on your feedback, for example, we alternated the days Stay and Learns were held – to give all parents an opportunity to attend.
Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey. We’re looking forward to reading your views.
The Magic Paintbrush
This week, our focus book was The Magic Paintbrush.
We began by listening to the story for enjoyment. After becoming familiar with the story, we were then able to discuss the main events and characters.
The children then explored what they would do if they had a magic paintbrush.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been using the song ‘five little aliens’ to explore one less within 5. We’ve been using Hungarian 5 frames (or ‘die’ frames) to represent and subitise numbers.
Later in the week, we used the aliens and frames to explore ‘5 and a bit’ We started with 6, then 7 aliens and noticed what each are ‘made of’ by subitising what we could see across the frames, for example:
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. This week’s poem is A Little House.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 2 has focused on our final sounds of phase 3: air, er
We’ve learnt the tricky words; are, sure, pure
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight
Help at Home
You can support your child with tricky words through lots of fun games and activities. Here is one you can try this week.
Musical Tricky Words
- Write the tricky words on individual pieces of paper, lay them out on the floor
- Play your child’s favourite song for them to dance around to
- When the music stops, your child should pick a word to quickly run to and stand on
- Your child reads the word they have landed on
- Remove that word and repeat until there are no words left!
Living and Learning
As part of our learning this week, we have being listening to a very catchy song about PANTS.
The NSPCC have created some fab resources for us, and you, to use when teaching our children how to keep themselves safe. Ask your child about the PANTS rule and sing along to the song!
Lunar New Year
The children have enjoyed learning about Lunar New Year and engaging in activities around the classroom and outside.
Diary Dates
Mon 3 Feb 2025- Fine Motor Control, Stay and Learn Coffee Morning
This session is all about Fine Motor Control and Writing. It’s followed by a chance to meet up with other parents/carers and your child’s class teacher.
Tue 11 Feb/Thurs 13 Feb 2025- Parent-Teacher Meetings (pre-booked appointments)
Penguin Huddle
In our literacy lessons this week, we enjoyed reading Penguin Huddle by Ross Montgomery. In the story, the penguins huddled together during an icy storm but it was so cold that they got stuck together and couldn’t break free!
Our word of the week is: huddle. Ask your child to tell you what it means. Can they use it in a sentence?
Here is some of our super writing from this week.
We also watched a short clip from an episode of BBC Frozen planet to find out more about where penguins live. We located the UK and the Antarctic on a map and found their locations on a globe.
How is the Antarctic environment different to the United Kingdom? After watching the clip, we looked at some photographs of the Antarctic and compared them to the United Kingdom to find similarities and differences.
Focus Artist: Yayoi Kusama
This week, children loved exploring the art of Yayoi Kusama. We found out about her life and why her artwork incorporates so many polka dots! On Tuesday afternoon, we visited a special ‘pop-up’ Art Gallery in the Hub.
When looking at the artwork, we used sentence stems to talk about our opinions.
I like it because…
I don’t like it because…
I love this one because it’s like a domino. Cillian
This one is my favourite because the dots look like they are sparkling. Hugo
This one has lots of bright balls. I like it. Jazmin
After looking at the gallery, we took inspiration from some of the pictures to create our own Yayoi Kusama inspired artwork. We’ve also been exploring colour mixing to find out what happens when you mix two of the primary colours (red, blue and yellow) together.
Maths -composition
This week, children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5 using the familiar rhyme ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs‘. By singing the rhyme and moving the frogs during each verse, children investigated part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
There are five frogs on the log but when one frog jumps into the pool, we can see that there are four frogs on the log and one in the pool. 5 can be made of 4 and 1. When another frog jumps into the pool, there are 3 frogs on the log and 2 in the pool. 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
We also used our fingers to show this, first holding up 5 fingers and then putting one down each time.
Poetry Picnic
Our poetry sessions this week have been a little different as we learnt and recited a traditional nursery rhyme.
The children used gestures and expression to recite ‘Jack and Jill’.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 3 has focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi and the trigraph ear.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; my, by, all. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Help at home:
Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Splat
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper/sticky notes.
- Place around the room/floor.
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat. You might jump on the words, splat with a masher or create your own ideas.
Spring 1, Week 2
Spring 1 is our Fire and Ice theme. Over the past 2 weeks, nature has provided us with so many opportunities to explore freezing and melting! Take a look at our snow-filled tray, with snow collected from our garden:
“the snow has turned to ice- it’s rock hard!”- J.A
““the snow feels so freezing when I pour it on my hands!… now it’s melting”
Lost and Found
We’ve continued to focus on the book Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.
We’ve been linking the story to topic work. We looked at a world map to see how the boy and penguin would travel from where we live (The United Kingdom) to The South Pole in Antarctica. We recalled what we know about the world map from our previous learning.
We’ve also been comparing our weather to that in the continent of Antarctica. Our word of the week is: climate.
We’ve been writing ‘Missing’ posters, describing the penguin from our story.
Penguin observations
We’ve been zoologists this week- observing the livestream of the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo
We’ve been making notes on how the penguins move and interact with each other.
We noticed that the penguins were busier on the colder days of the week and discussed why this might be.
Ice painting
We made ice paintings by freezing paint mixed with water and creating art tools with them.
We noticed the difference in how well the tools painted, as the ice began to melt.
Charanga Music; Lullabies
“Mummy sings ‘You Are My Sunshine’ – Miley“My Mummy sings ‘Twinkle Twinkle” – Mila“When I was a baby my Mummy cuddled me and sang to me”- Harlow“My Mummy lets my baby go to sleep with a light that changes colour”- Olivia“It’s where you rock someone to sleep” (a lullaby)- Mila“We tell stories with Daddy at bedtime”- Grace“He needs a drink” (what does the baby need at bedtime)- Charlie
Phonics Phase 3 Stay and Learn
Thank you to the parents and carers who were able to join us for another Stay and Learn session this week.
We hope you enjoyed watching a lesson, getting to spend time in the classroom and hopefully getting some more ideas and information for the next steps in our phonics journey.
As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Scan the QR code to leave your views!
Maths; the staircase pattern
In Maths, we’ve been looking at counting and ordinality- specifically, the ‘one more’ relationship that creates ‘the staircase pattern’.
We were introduced to the concept by the Numberblocks, before moving on to create our own staircase patterns in small groups.
In provision, we’ve been using Frayer models to explore numbers- counting the corresponding amount of cubes/teddies, finding the Numicon and representing it on a tens frame.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 2 has focused on the digraphs oo, oo, ar, or
We’ve learnt the tricky words; was, you, they
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
In provision, we’ve been playing roll and read.
Help at home; Tricky words
Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Bingo
- Enter the list of tricky words you want to focus on into an online ‘picker’ (pickerwheel.com is an easy to use option) or write them down onto strips of paper, to be picked at random.
- Ask your child to choose 4-6 tricky words and write them down (they can copy these from a list), you should do the same and you could even ask a sibling to play along too!
- Pick the tricky words at random or by clicking the wheel- who will be the first to cross off all of their words and shout BINGO?!!
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 can build a snowman
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Reminders/ Dates for your diary
Lost and Found
It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.
The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.
In literacy, we have been reading the story Lost and Found.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost.
Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg.
Here is some of our super writing!
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
Maths – super subitising!
This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.
One there and two far away. That makes three!’ Jaxon
Two and the bottom and two at the top. Billy
Check out our other learning.
Home Link
How fast can you melt an ice cube?
What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?
You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.
Notices
Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 9am – 10am
Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).
Swimming dates
Rainbow – 22 Jan, 5 Feb
Sunshine – 15 Jan, 29 Jan, 12 Feb
Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.
Swimming dates spring 1
Merry Christmas from Reception!
What a busy week of festive fun!
The Christmas story
We’ve been learning about the story of the first Christmas- The Nativity. We learnt that this is why Christians celebrate Christmas and we enjoyed using story props to re-tell the story.
Christmas around the world
Children were really interested in learning about how different countries celebrate Christmas around the world. We looked at the difference between Santa in the UK and Santa in Australia.
We heard about the good witch, La Befana, who brings presents to children in Italy and we went hunting for (a picture of) the lucky almond! In Denmark, it’s a Christmas tradition to hide an almond in pudding. The finder has good luck for the year!
In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas leaves gifts in children’s shoes. We added drawings of presents and sweets to a picture of shoes. At playtime, our shoes were magic and turned into real treats!
Phonics
This week, we’ve been revisiting and consolidating everything that we have learnt across phase 2. The children have been brilliant in their reading groups and independent writing activities. It is fantastic to see them confidently using all of the skills that they have developed this term.
Help at home: Over the holidays, please keep reading and practising all of the graphemes and tricky words that we have learnt so far. It’ll help children to consolidate them before the next phase of our phonics learning begins in January.
EYFS Christmas Sing-along
Thank you to everyone that came to watch our Christmas Sing-along. We hope you enjoyed all of the singing, dancing and poetry. We were really proud of the children – it’s quite daunting to stand on a stage in front of so many people! Well done, Reception.
Someone special visited our classrooms…
On Wednesday, the children received a special video. Santa had been to visit and play in our classrooms and he’d left us all a present! We were so impressed that he came to see our school.
Christmas Dinner and party time!
Reception had a yummy Christmas dinner on Thursday and enjoyed exploring the Christmas inflatables which were kindly organised by Mrs Pennock. This is always a Christmas highlight at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School! On Friday, we had lots of fun dancing, playing games and being with our friends.
A message from the Reception Team
The Reception team would like to thank everyone for your kind Christmas greetings, cards and presents. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy spending time with family and friends this festive season. We’ll see you all again on Monday 06 January.
Christmas Disco
We all had a blast at the Christmas Disco last week.
Please consider joining FOSP (Friends of Scholes Primary) – they’re always looking for new recruits to help organise special events like this!
