Living and learning : coin trail
We’re going to make a ‘coin trail’ on Friday using 1p and 2p coins. If you can send any into school to help with this, donations will be counted and sent to Cancer Research (our current school charity).
We’re hoping to spell out SCHOLES in coins!
Potion Commotion
Potion Commotion
We’ve been reading Potion Commotion by Peter Bently and Sernur Isik.
We’ve been writing our own potion recipes and making potions in the water tray. We even thought of some magic words we could use.
“Potion commotion, make this bubble!”- Rupert
“abracadabra!”- Harry
We’ve enjoyed themed activities, with a focus on developing important skills.
Maths; number stories
In Maths, we’ve been learning to use number to describe what we see.
We progressed this skill further by telling number stories.
“First there were 2 ghosts in front of the house, then 1 more flew in, now there are 3 ghosts altogether”
Ask your child to tell you the number story below.
In provision, we’ve been representing numbers on ten frames.
Halloween disco and special lunch
Everyone had lots of fun at the Halloween disco last week.
Yesterday, the lunchtime staff treated the children to spooky decorations and a special dessert.
Phonics
Autumn 1 week 8 has been a revision week.
In provision, we’ve been playing ‘tricky word BOO’ to revise the tricky words we know.
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 Pointy Hat
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!
Help at home; light and dark
If you go to any light shows, see any illuminations or go to a firework display over the half term break, we’d love to share your photos in class. We’ll use the pictures to support our topic on light and dark.
Dates for your diary
Maths Stay and Learn – 15.11.23 – 09.00 – 10.00 Please join us in the classroom to watch a short maths session and enjoy some maths activities with your child.
Swimming
Have a lovely half-term break. We look forward to welcoming you back to class on Monday 6 November!
Leaf Man
This week, we have explored all things autumn!
Science
We began by taking an autumn walk around the school field to spot changes in the natural environment.
We collected items to add to our autumn tray in the classroom. We looked closely at the objects and created some observational drawings.
Literacy
We read the book Leaf Man and thoroughly enjoyed looking at the different pictures made using leaves.
Art
Inspired by the book, we made our own leaf pictures. We used a variety of different objects, such as leaves, conkers and sticks.
Maths
Our focus in maths this week has been comparing quantities. We have developed our skills to look carefully and use the language ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to describe sets of objects.
We varied the objects ensuring they had different attributes such as, colour or size to draw attention to the number.
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 Five Little Pumpkins.
Watch us recite the poem here.
Dates for your diary
We have changed the timing of some our stay and learn session to incorporate an opportunity for you to meet with your child’s teacher and other parents at a coffee morning.
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Maths – 15.11.23 – 09.00 – 10.00
Phonics Phase 3 – 16.01.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
Fine Motor Control and Writing –06.02.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
World Book Day- 07.03.24 – 8.50- 9.20
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm (Tuesday and Thursday)
Week beginning 11.12.23
Week beginning 25.03.24
Week beginning 08.07.24
Henri’s Scissors
Henri’s Scissors
We’ve been reading Henri’s Scissors, by Jeanette Winter
The story is a biographical children’s book, about the artist Henri Matisse. 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’ve been saying what we like/dislike about it and answering questions like: “Why do you think the artist painted this?”, “which is your favourite and why?”
I like the picture because it looks like my mummy’s shirt- Sofia
I can see flowers and lemons. I would choose this one to put on my wall ’cause I really like it- Dawson
I like the rainbow colours- Leila
Maths; counting principles
In Maths, we’ve been using our subitising skills to identify patterns to 4.
We’ve practised spotting changes, to see whether there is more/fewer/the same and identifying the changes we can see.
We’ve also shown different representations of 4, using multilink cubes. This was inspired by our introduction to Numberblock 4!
In provision, we’ve been continuing and creating repeating patterns of 3.
Stay and learn- phonics phase 2
Thank you to the parents/carers who were able to join us on Thursday for our stay and learn activities and coffee morning. We hope you enjoyed a little insight into daily phonics sessions in Reception. If you were unable to attend or would like to revisit the slides shown in the presentation, you can find them here. We look forward to inviting you to more stay and learn sessions throughout the school year.
Phonics
Autumn 1 week 4 has focused on the new phonemes:
h,b,f,l
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; the
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In the, it’s all tricky! the /th/ is tricky because we don’t yet know that sound and the ‘e’ makes the /ə/sound (“uh”)
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 Leaves are falling
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!
Help at home; autumn leaves
If you go out on a walk this weekend, we’d really appreciate donations of dry leaves to help us with an art project next week. We will be making a leaf bowl.
Dates for your diary
Halloween disco- 20.10.23-3.15-4.15 Please send a named change of clothes in a bag for the end of the day. Collection from the classroom door.
We have changed the timing of some our stay and learn session to incorporate an opportunity for you to meet with your child’s teacher and other parents at a coffee morning.
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Maths – 15.11.23 – 09.00 – 10.00
Phonics Phase 3 – 16.01.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
Fine Motor Control and Writing –06.02.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
World Book Day- 07.03.24 – 8.50- 9.20
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm (Tuesday and Thursday)
Week beginning 11.12.23
Week beginning 25.03.24
Week beginning 08.07.24
Swimming
Due to work being done on the pool, next week’s swimming lessons for Rainbow Class are cancelled. Please still send children to school in their PE kit, as they will take part in a Foot-tech PE session. We will keep you updated of any future changes in each week’s class news post.
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Literacy
This week, our focus book was We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
The children were able to use their knowledge of the story to retell it using pictures and props.
Geography
On Tuesday, we went for a walk in our local area. This involved following a map and looking at different symbols to find landmarks.
Philosophy Friday
Did you know, each Friday morning we take part in Philosophy Friday? In Reception, we use this time to focus on asking questions that encourage the children to think beyond the ‘here and now’. We are starting with some ‘Would you rather…’ questions. This week’s question was would you rather live with chickens in a coop or a dog in a kennel?
Kennel because I love dogs.
With a chicken because I like to eat eggs.
A dog because they are fluffy and cute.
Maths
This week, we have explored how numbers can be composed of 1s.
We have will learnt that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
Phonics
Autumn 1 week 4 has focused on the new phonemes:
ck,e,u,r.
Ck is our first diagraph ( two letters that make one sound).
We’ve also learnt a new tricky word; I.
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 Falling Apples.
Watch Sunshine Class recite the poem here.
Other learning
Stay and Learn
Our first stay and learn session will be on Thursday 12 October.
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about phonics and watch your child learning in school. There will also be a coffee morning after the session.
The Everywhere Bear
The Everywhere Bear
We’ve been reading The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson.
The story follows a class bear that goes on quite the journey! We’ve been re-telling parts of the story and have used it to introduce our own travelling teddies- Lissy and Monty. Lissy and Monty will be coming home with a child each weekend, along with a book to record their adventures.
Rainbow Class- The Everywhere Bear 
On Thursday, we watched a specially streamed video of our focus author (Julia Donaldson), as she spoke about her new book The Oak Tree. We also watched the illustrator of the book demonstrate how she created her digital illustrations.
Maths; counting principles
In Maths, we’ve been using toys to demonstrate accurate counting. We’ve been reminding our toys to ‘stop at the stopping number’ to find the total amount (cardinality), only count each item once (one-to-one correspondence) and know that objects can be counted in any order (order irrelevance) We’ve been looking at ways to make counting easier. We’ve also been counting things that cannot be seen (such as sounds or actions) and things that cannot be moved, by using a ‘tagging wand’.
In our groups we’ve been counting knocks we can hear, making marks and counting them and counting different quantities of small objects.
Maps; Exploring maps of our local area
Our focus story has led us to discussions about journeys we have been on. We’ve been exploring some maps of our local area and next week, we’ll begin to make our own maps. We will also we taking a real walking journey around Scholes!
Philosophy Friday
Did you know, each Friday morning we take part in Philosophy Friday? In Reception, we use this time to focus on asking questions that encourage the children to think beyond the ‘here and now’. We are starting with some ‘Would you rather…’ questions. Last week’s question was: ‘would you rather have a jungle, or water outside your house?’
Phonics
Autumn 1 week 3 has focused on the new phonemes:
g,o,c,k
We’ve also learnt our first tricky word; is
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In is, the ‘s’ is tricky because it makes the /z/ sound.
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 Breezy Weather
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!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Help at home; Autumn Walks
Dates for your diary; time changes
We have changed the timing of some our stay and learn session to incorporate anopportunity for you to meet with your child’s teacher and other parents at a coffee morning.
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 – 12.10.23 – 9.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
Maths – 15.11.23 – 09.00 – 10.00
Phonics Phase 3 – 16.01.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
Fine Motor Control and Writing –06.02.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 (with coffee morning)
World Book Day- 07.03.24 – 8.50- 9.20
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm (Tuesday and Thursday)
Week beginning 11.12.23
Week beginning 25.03.24
Week beginning 08.07.24
Swimming
Due to work being done on the pool, next week’s swimming lessons for Rainbow Class are cancelled. Please still send children to school in their PE kit, as they will take part in a Foot-tech PE session. We will keep you updated of any future changes in each week’s class news post.
The Great Big Book of Families
We’ve been reading The Great Big Book of Families. Through the book, we have explored and celebrated the variety of families.
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 our writing, we created our own family pictures and labelled with initial sounds or words.
Maths
This week, we’ve been using our subitising skills.
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.
Phonics
This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) i,n,m,d.
During our phonics learning, we became detectives by searching for objects with the initial sounds s,a,t,p,i,n,m,d.
Each week we will be sending 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 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 Chop Chop.
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.
Help at Home
Sound Detectives – Find objects around your house or outside that have an initial sound we have learnt.
s a t p i n m d
Family photos
Over the next few weeks, we will be thinking about our homes. To help support our discussions and art project, please send in one picture of your front door. You can also email photos to the email address below.
Settling in
All of the children are now in full-time and are continuing to settle in, get to know each other and learn our daily routines. We’ve had lots of fun exploring our learning this week. Take a look at what we’ve been up to:
PE; Foot-Tech
The children really enjoyed their first Foot-Tech PE session.
Each Monday and Friday, Reception will take part in a range of fun activities and games. In Early Years, our PE lessons have a key focus on developing the fundamentals of movement and ensuring that children are continuously engaged and active throughout.
Phonics
We started our Little Wandle phonics lessons this week! The children were introduced to their first four sounds- s,a,t,p
They have learnt how to identify the sounds by their graphemes and how to form the graphemes in their writing. They have practised identifying initial sounds and blending sounds together to say the whole word.
We have introduced new vocabulary linked to our phonics learning:
Phoneme– The sound a letter (grapheme) makes
Grapheme– The letter that represents the sound
Segmenting- Breaking up a word into its phonemes and sounding aloud (ie. cat becomes c-a-t)
Blending- Blending the phonemes together to read the word. (ie. d-o-g becomes dog)
Each week we will be sending a ‘learn at home’ sheet, which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Help at home; Family photos
Next week, we will be thinking about our families. To help support our discussions, please send in one picture of your family together. We will keep the photograph on display, so please send photos you are happy for us to keep. You can also email photos to the email address below.
Reminders and diary dates
Welcome to Reception
21.09.23 – 6pm – 6.30pm An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder. Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception.
Welcome to Reception!
We’ve started to welcome children into Rainbow and Sunshine Class this week. All of the children are settling in brilliantly and have been superstars! We hope they’ve had lots of exciting news to share with you. We look forward to welcoming the rest of Reception, on Monday.
PE; Days and Swimming
Reception’s PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please send your child to school in their PE kits on these days, including on days when they will be swimming.
Swimming will begin in week 3. Children swim fortnightly. Please send your child with a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and goggles if needed. You do not need to send floatation supports.
Swimming Dates:
Rainbow Class- 20 September, 4 October, 18 October
Sunshine Class- 27 September, 11 October, 25 October
Bookbags, spare clothes and wellies
Please send your child with their bookbag each day. Please also send a pair of wellies and a bag of spare clothes/underwear that can be left at school. We will send this home if it needs washing or replacing.
Please double check that all of your child’s school items are labelled with their name.
Dates for your diary (sent home on your child’s first day)
This year we will be offering various opportunities for you to find out more about Early Years at school. There will be after school meetings with your child’s teacher. There’ll be stay and learn sessions where you can come into school and be part of a lesson and then find out how you can help at home.
Then, opportunities to pop into school to share your child’s learning journey book with them. We hope that you can join us for as many of these sessions as possible.
Welcome to Reception
An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder. Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception. 21.09.23 – 6pm – 6.30pm
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 – 12.10.23 – 2.20 – 3.00
Maths – 15.11.23 – 8.50 – 9.30
Phonics Phase 3 – 16.01.24 – 8.50-9.30
Fine Motor Control –06.02.24 – 2.20 – 3.00
World Book Day- 07.03.24 – 8.50- 9.20
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm (Tuesday and Thursday)
Week beginning 11.12.23
Week beginning 25.03.24
Week beginning 08.07.24
The Finale!
Wow what a fun-filled last week! We’re so impressed with this week’s fantastic learning. We’ve seen children working hard in their maths: counting and comparing the people they could see in some snapshots of the school year. We’ve seen impressive writing, as children wrote about how they’ve grown and changed. We’ve seen so many happy friendships, with children working together to problem solve. We’ve enjoyed designing and building ice-creams in the sensory area, playing ‘teacher’ in the phonics areas and using our fine motor skills to make paper chains. Take a look at some of our learning this week…
Reflecting on the year
At this time of year it is lovely to look back and reflect on everything we’ve done and achieved. During Living and Learning time this week, the children reflected on some of their favourite things during their time in Reception:
I like assembly and I like going outside- Skyla
I liked being the ‘star of the day’- Olivia
I like doing six challenge cubes- Thomas
I like swimming- the races- Alfie
I really liked PE, because we play games- Esmé
I like getting ten stars and getting Monty- Jack
I like ‘wake up shake up’- Ella
Snack time!- Eddy
The beach party!- Henryk
Playing with my friends- Ted
I liked doing writing- Keira
I liked doing yoga- Mollie G
The Beach Party
On Thursday, the weather was kind to us and we had a beautiful beach party. It was so much fun!
The Selfie Station
The children have enjoyed being in charge of taking the photos this week- take a look out our selfie-station snaps!
Professor Myers
Professor Myers visited us on our last day and showed us the cola and Mentos experiment! We loved seeing the cola bubble up into a “volcano!”
A final message
The Reception team would like to thank you all for your partnership and support this year. We’ve had a truly wonderful year and are so proud of all of the children. We wish you all the best as your child moves up to year one and continues their learning journey at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School. Have a happy and healthy Summer and we’ll see you in September!