A busy week in year R this week with the Gruffalo paying a visit! He left clues for the children to guess who had been in our outdoor area and we have been doping lots of Gruffalo related activities all week that the children have really enjoyed from drawing and labelling out favourite part of the story, making Gruffalo crumble and retelling the story with puppets, We also learnt the Gruffalo song and sung it as a class.

In Maths the children have started to learn all about number 0 being nothing and one less than 1 and number one- where it is on a number line, how to write it and identifying 1 thing.

We have also had lots of fun dressing up this week and the children came in today very excited about the disco so we have had music on for them to practise their dance moves!

The children are certainly tired this week and are showing that they are ready for a half term so we hope you have a fun but restful weekend, especially after the Disco!

Have a lovely weekend.

Year R team

Hi all,
We have all had a great week this week in year R. This has been our first full week since starting so the children are most definitely ready for a restful weekend!
This week in literacy we have been reading ‘The Colour Monster’. The children really enjoyed this book and sharing their feelings with their class mates during class discussions. We discussed the different emotions that we can sometimes feel and what we can do when we are feeling that way. All of the children completed some fantastic drawings of a time they felt a type of emotion like the colour monster.
During maths we have been learning about repeating patterns. Lots of children enjoyed showing us some patterns they had made during discovery time with resources such as multi-link and making their very own patterns on paper!
We hope you enjoy looking at some of the pictures we took over the week.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you all on Monday.

From
Year R team.

What a fantastic week, the children are definitely growing in confidence and finding their feet!

The children have been extremely busy this week practicing their phonics and completing lots of activities relating to the ‘sound of the day’. We have also been reading a story called ‘mixed’. The children seemed to really enjoy this activity and completed some amazing work relating to the coloured characters within the story, which I’m sure they can tell you all about.

In maths this week we have been learning to compare amounts including using the words ‘more than/less than’ the children were able to complete lots of learning activities during their discovery time relating to this.

Next week in literacy we are going to be reading ‘The Colour Monster’. The activities then during continuous provision will relate to this book. In maths we will be looking at different types of patterns too.

We hope you have a lovely, restful weekend and we look forward to seeing all the children on Monday morning.

  Wow what a busy week!

The children have done so well at starting to learning the routines of being full-time. Our focused story this week was ‘The Lion Inside’ and the children all had a go at sequencing the story but putting pictures in order and retell the main parts. As it is a story about a lion and a mouse, during discovery we put out lots of activities for the children to do from painting a lion on a paper plate to retell the story with puppets and making a home for the lion and mouse out of various construction.

In Maths this week we have started to look at thing that match and then sorting a range of objects thinking of a category e.g. colour, texture, size. Any sorting you can do at home will help reinforce this.

Next week we will be thinking about what makes each child special and unique and what they are good at. In maths we will be looking at comparing quantities using language more and fewer and comparing size.

We are running very low on junk modelling If you have any clean recycling that can be used we would really appreciate it- things like yoghurt pots, cereal boxes and egg boxes etc.

Have a lovely weekend,

Wow what a busy week!

The children have done so well at starting to learning the routines of being full-time. Our focused story this week was ‘The Lion Inside’ and the children all had a go at sequencing the story but putting pictures in order and retell the main parts. As it is a story about a lion and a mouse, during discovery we put out lots of activities for the children to do from painting a lion on a paper plate to retell the story with puppets and making a home for the lion and mouse out of various construction.

In Maths this week we have started to look at thing that match and then sorting a range of objects thinking of a category e.g. colour, texture, size. Any sorting you can do at home will help reinforce this.

This week we said ‘goodbye’ to our fluffy friends and welcomed instead 10 very hungry caterpillars and some tadpoles! We look forward to seeing how they change over the next couple of weeks…

We’ve spent a great deal of time outdoors this week, working on our gross motor skills using the ropes, bikes and scooters. We also decided during PE time to get out in the sunshine and play some tennis instead of staying indoors for gymnastics We learnt how to hold and position a tennis racket and how to balance and bounce a ball safely. We’ve been delighted to now have access to these things during our Discovery time now that we can use them safely.

Our garden, with lots of help from the children, continues to grow and develop with lots more plants added. We enjoyed smelling the flowers and herbs which we hope will entice minibeasts and pollinators to our garden (mint, lavender, curry plant and strawberries). The children were very surprised to see that over the weekend, the frame of a greenhouse had sprung up in the Bug Area! Mr Aquilina, husband of Mrs Aquilina, very kindly built it for us and it is our intention to clad the frame with recycled 2litre bottles, e.g. coke/lemonade. If you have any standard 2 litre bottles that you are able to bring in (with the bottoms cut off ideally) we would be very grateful, thank you. We hope to start this process next week.

Thank you to our two parent-volunteers who have been in reading with the children this week (Mrs Watson and Mrs Walker).

Next week, is Diversity Week and we look forward to teaching the children about faiths other than Christianity.

In Maths this week we have been looking at four-sided shapes; specifically the similarities and differences between squares and rectangles. We have also been practising using the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. Note, ‘fewer than’ is used similarly to ‘less than’ but for quantities of countable amounts. For example, pens and sweet are countable, whereas, water and sand are not countable. We would say, ‘you have fewer pens than I do’ but ‘you have less sand than I do’. Please ask a teacher if you would like to discuss this further to clarify.

Have a lovely weekend in the sunshine, everyone! See you on Monday…

The Year R Team

PS – If you could please take a moment to name all uniform over the weekend, it would make our home-times a lot simpler. Thanks in advance.

Our eggciting learning continued this week when a variety of eggs appeared in our Curiousity Cube. Whose eggs do you think they are?!

Our text driver this week was called ‘How to Grow a Dinosaur’ and we enjoyed spotting clues and then putting some pictures in the right order to retell the story. So many of the children wowed us with the writing to match the pictures this week. We are so proud of them for applying the sounds we have learnt to their writing.

In Maths we have been looking at 6 being 1 more than 5 and 7 being 2 more than 5 on a Hungarian number frame. We did this alongside the nursery rhyme 5 little men in a flying saucer to see what would happen if 1 more man joined… then another.

In phonics we have been continuing to apply our phase 2 and phase 3 sounds to reading and writing. Starting next week most of the children will be continuing to learn the rest of the phase 3 sounds.

The children also took part in a jungle drama workshop on Wednesday where they learnt banana language and resucued Snow the leopard from the silly crocodile!

In their book bag today the children have come home with a Super Six envelope. Inside this envelope are 6 words. These words need to be learnt by the children by sight to help them with their reading fluency. Words on greeen card can be sounded out but we would like your child to learn them by sight. Red words are tricky words that cannot be sounded out. We will then check them regularly at school and once they have managed to confidently recognise and read the word by sight 3 times, they will be given a new word or words. Please support your child in learning these words at home. These words must come to and from school inside this envelope every day as we are unable to support your child in learning them if they are not in their book bag.

To end the week, some chicken eggs arrived and are currently in an incubator to hatch next week! We will tell you more about it once they have hatched…

We hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

The Year R team

What a busy week! On Tuesday, we celebrated Shrove Tuesday with a pancake race! We got into teams and cheered each other on. On Wednesday, we joined a beautiful service in the hall, led by Mr Crozier to mark Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent. The children really impressed Mr Crozier with their quiet sitting and thoughtful answers to his questions.

This week in Phonics, we have been continuing practising the sounds we have learnt so far and applying them to reading and writing.
Please continue to read your child’s phonics book daily and speak to you child’s class teacher if you are having any difficulty doing this.

This week we made an exciting discovery of some eggs in our outdoor area. At first we were not sure what they were or where they came from so we kept them warm and safe in the classroom. Surprisingly on Wednesday they hatched and we are now looking after 2 tiny baby Dinosaurs! We had to do some research to find out what type of dinosaurs they are- Starfish class have a stegosaurus and seahorse class have a triceratops. We will be continuing to learn about Dinosaurs next week.

In Maths we have been thinking about the composition of the number 5 and singing 5 little specked frogs noting that there are 5 frogs altogether but some are in the water and some on the log. e.g. 3 in the water leaves 2 on the log as 3 and 2 make 5.

We were very impressed with the effort made for World book day and it was a delight to see the children in their costumes. Thank you for your support with this. We read the story Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, about a boy who wants to be a mermaid and at the end of the story joins a mermaid parade. We then made our own parade accessories and went singing and dancing in a procession around the school!

Have a super weekend and we look forward to seeing you all again on Monday!

The Year R Team

This week in Year R, like most other weeks, has been very busy! On Tuesday, we had a beautiful liturgy with Miss Heath from Oaklands which Father Jeremy and Mr Cunningham also attended. We began by thinking about what makes each and every one of us special and unique. The children created beautiful stars to illustrate their strengths which have hopefully made it home. We particularly enjoyed accompanying Miss Heath on the guitar, singing ‘This Little Light of Mine’.

Unfortunately this week, Mrs Lavery’s birthday present was “stolen from the middle area” – shock, horror! We had to section off the area in order to look for clues; a search which then extended into the outdoor area. We heard wonderful theories, linking the scratches to the red paint. My personal favourite was that it was a chicken with red feathers who stole the present and hopped over the fence! We really developed our understanding of the words ‘unusual’ and ‘unexpected’ in a practical way and some children chose to record the evidence found in writing too.

Please continue to practise all phonics sounds, paying particular attention to the digraphs (two letters making one sound, for example, ch/sh/th) which many children will need to spend longer recognising and applying. It is common at this early stage of exposure to digraphs for children to read them separately and blend an alien (not real) word, for example, f-i-s-h instead of f-i-sh. You could encourage them to get their ‘digraph spotting binoculars’ on if they’re struggling with this.

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be making changes to the Phonics groups and how we allocate books. Please be aware that a few children may bring home a book which they have already recently had. Unfortunately this is unavoidable but equally, it is not a bad thing either. We would encourage you to reread the book, paying more attention to comprehending what’s really happening, rather than just the sounding out of words. You can find a ‘Comprehension’ section in the back of the Big Cat books. If you’d like more variety, a range of e-books has now been allocated to all pupils, via the Collins website. Please let us know if you are unable to access this.

We have noticed that a number of children are finding number recognition difficult in school. Whilst their counting and representation of amounts is improving greatly, it would be really beneficial to spot and name numbers when out and about (up to 10, and beyond if your child can).

Have a super weekend everyone. Stay safe and see you on Monday!

Mrs Atkins, Mrs Lockwood-Peck and the whole Year R Team.

Using our supersenses of touch and sight to find hidden objects.

God made us unique!

This Little Light of Mine

Our final week with the children has been an utter delight. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are certain that they have too! From proudly remarking that they do indeed like brussel sprouts, to booing the baddie at the panto performance and making beautiful Christmas crafts, their behaviour has been impeccable and we are so proud of them. The children were even able to sit and watch a 45 minute Christmas Carol concert performed by Key Stage 2 in the playground.

Topping the proud stakes was when the children gave Mrs Knight “goosebumps” by performing the following two poems. Ask them to perform the poems to you over Christmas for a real treat! Snowman poem. Snowflake poem.

Unfortunately, due to several highly frustrating technical issues, the nativity film has not yet been completed. Mrs Atkins will continue working to get this to you ASAP. Apologies for the delay.

We have been overwhelmed by your generousity and thank you all sincerely for all your kind gifts, cards and words. Thank you. We wish you all a wonderful, restful Christmas with your loved ones. Take care and stay warm and safe all. We look forward to seeing everyone again on Tuesday 4th January 2022.

The Year R Team