Reception G
Welcome to our Reception class page!
Hello and welcome to Reception.
The early years curriculum is based on learning through exploration and play. We access many different activities in Reception to help us with our learning.
A typical day in Reception:
Our school day begins with Early Doors at 8.45am: children are welcome to arrive anytime between 8.45am and 9am. After registration and prayers, we are ready to learn our Letters and Sounds. Each day we learn a new letter or sound with adult-directed activities. After our whole class learning, we have some time to choose our own activities or we work with an adult in small groups or 1-1. Our outdoor area is set up so that children can access activities both inside and out. After break time we all sit down together for snack and milk. We have a healthy snack each day except on Friday's when we have a treat.
After snack we take part in Maths activities, which can involve counting, singing, shape games, ICT, water play, sand play and measuring. We like to learn through fun, practical games and activities. Lunchtime begins at 11.35am. Most of us have hot dinners and some children bring in a packed lunch.
At 12.35pm we go back into class for the afternoon session. Each day we focus on different areas of the early tears curriculum. Our activities can be linked to our Come and See topic, Show and Tell, Music, Knowledge & Understanding of the World or Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Circle Time Games). We have a piece of fruit each afternoon as part of the free fruit scheme Healthy Schools Government initiative.
Each day we take part in Collective Worship and we enjoy learning about Jesus through our Come and See topic. We say prayers each morning, before and after lunch and before hometime.
Before hometime, we like to finish our day with a story or a song and then we are ready to go home at 3.20pm.
General Information
P.E.
We will have P.E. (fundamental skills) on Thursday mornings. Please send your child to school in their full P.E. kit. The children must also wear a school jumper or cardigan.
Snack
Snack money is £1 per week or £6 per half term.
Parental Involvement
The early years curriculum is based on learning through exploration and play. There are a number of ways you can help your child to learn and make progress:
* Good attendance
* Home reading
* Point out numbers and letters in the environment.
* Count at every opportunity.
* Encourage your child to talk about the world around them.
Reading
Reading can be a special time for you and your child. Research has shown that reading for as little as 5 or 10 minutes each day can help support your child's educational development.
Curriculum Overview 2020-2021
Our Sports Day for Reception was lots of fun! The children enjoyed learning all about The Olympics before making their own olympic torches to use in their own mini olympics. The children practised developing their skills in catching, throwing, running and jumping before participating in their sports day races. Lots of fun was had by all the children on a warm and sunny day which ended with them receiving a certificate and an ice lolly. Pictures are on the PE page under Curriculum subjects.
02.11.20 This week we talked about 2D shapes in Maths. We focused on recognising and naming shapes and began to use mathematical language to describe shapes. Throughout the week, the children had fun exploring a variety of different activities in class.
5.10.20 This week we focused on learning the tricky word: 'the'. Tricky words are words which cannot be blended together. Children must learn them to read by sight. We helped the children to recall this week's tricky word through a song, finding hidden 'the' cards in the classroom and we coloured in the tricky word before making it into a hat!
Top tips for enjoying reading with your child.
Ideas for counting.
Phonics and Reading Books
We have been playing lots of phonics games in class and listening out for sounds around our environment. We have been hearing and saying the initial sounds in words and finding objects beginning with these sounds. We are also enjoying lots of different stories each day. Over the coming weeks we will be beginning our phonics programme. The children will be taking part in a structured phonics lesson each morning and we will let you know how you can continue this learning and support your child at home. We will start sending reading books home after the October half term.
How to support your child with reading at home
- Look at the front cover together. Talk about the pictures and what they think the book is about.
- Practise saying each letter sound (phoneme) and then blend the sounds together to read the word e.g. c-a-t cat.
- Some words are tricky words and can not be sounded out. These need to be learned. Practise saying these words together – the, to, no, go, I.
- If your child can not yet recognise the letter sounds independently support them in saying the sound.
- Talk about the story and the characters as you progress through the book.
- Please write a short comment in the reading record after reading with your child at home.
Let's do some mark making! Mark making is a physical and sensory experience of making marks on paper, the ground, in sand or any surface. You can use many resources or tools to make marks. Mark making is often considered as early writing. It gives the children the confidence to explore marks, as lines, dots, swirls, circles and assign meaning to them. Mark making also gives children the opportunity to develop gross and fine motor skills. We looked at some secret symbols in class and the children chose to copy some of them and write me secret messages!
Weekly Newsletters.
6.5.20 As part of our training to become athletes for Our Mini Olympics in a few weeks time, we practised learning how to jump this week. After watching clips of high jumpers and long jumpers in the Olympics we practised using our arms to help us to jump further and higher.
Celebrating our Good News Topic. The children enjoyed sharing the Good News that Jesus is alive. He sent a new friend, The Holy Spirit.
02.11.20 This week we learnt about and celebrated Bonfire Night in a variety of ways. In P.E. we moved creatively to music and used ribbons to move like fireworks. We all had lots of fun!
In Come and See our current topic is 'Welcome'. We have been talking about how we welcome a baby into our family at home and into God's family. This week we have enjoyed watching clips of a Baptism in Church and have acted out class baptisms. The children have learnt lots and have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this special celebration.
Hello Yellow Day 2020.
We had lots of fun supporting World Mental Health Day today in class. The day began with some of us colouring in pictures of the feelings monsters and others looking at stories about feelings. At registration the children spoke about how they were feeling today. We watched a powerpoint called 'How are you feeling?' and this led to a class discussion about what makes us feel happy, sad, excited, angry and worried. Here are some of the children's responses:
What makes you happy?
Rosie - "rainbows" Miles - 'my mummy and daddy" Archie -"spiderman"
Mackenzie - "getting new toys" Regan - "movies"
Teddy - 'Evie" Felicity - "Sam" Aleks - "when it's my birthday"
What makes you Scared?
Teddy - 'bees stinging me" Felicity - "fireworks" Regan - "spiders"
What makes you sad?
Patrick - "rainy days" Teddy F - "if my cars are broken" Ruthie - "falling over"
What makes you excited?
James - "I'm excited to see Daddy" Felicity - "to sleep downstairs tomorrow"
What makes you angry?
Rosie - "lightening & thunder" Teddy F - "fire" Lucy - "when my sister be mean to me"
Miles - "when somebody shouts at me"
We looked in mirrors and made different facial expressions, such as angry faces, surprised faces and happy faces before painting our facial expressions onto plates to show how we feel today. In circle time we sang "If You're Happy and You Know it Clap your Hands". Children were encouraged to think of different feelings and we changed the words to some of their suggestions; If you're tired, go to sleep (Imogen), If you're cross, stamp your feet (Patrick), If you're excited, jump up and down (Verity), If you're worried, rub your tummy (Mrs Grant).
We finished our wonderful day with a story about feeling alone and began to listen to a compilation of CBeebies songs about feelings: https://youtu.be/uvMx-roJxRw
Stories to read and pictures to colour about different feelings.
Learning and talking about Feelings.
Making feeling masks.
This week we visited the ICT room and explored using the computers. We became familiar with the terms, 'mouse', 'screen', 'keyboard' and 'click' before accessing simple computer programmes.
The children have settled into school life extremely well. They have been busy making new friends and getting to know the daily school routines.
