Please find attached the Powerpoint for the Year R welcome meeting.

Welcome to Year R Meeting September 2021

To view the presentation that we recorded, please log into Tapestry and follow the link.

Please remember to join us again on Teams on Monday 4th October at 4pm for the Phonics meeting.

From The Early Years Team

This week we had an unexpected visit from the Gruffalo! The children enjoyed going on a hunt for him and then listening to the story, retelling it and talking about their favourite parts!

Here are some photos of their learning:

Here is some home learning we would like you to focus on over the weekend and coming week:

Phonics-
This week we have continued with phase 1. The children have been practising playing with words that rhyme. Over the weekend, please encourage your child to continue doing this at home, Here are some examples to say to your child and see if they can think of words that rhyme with it-
dog- they could continue with- log, bog, frog
cat- they could continue with- mat, hat, sat
van- they could continue with- can, man, tan

There are lots more of course! Please have fun with rhyme- it really helps children to tune into the sounds within words and recognising which are the same and which are different.

Reading-
Every child has recieved a log in for Collins eBook. This does not replace the books they will still get given at school but instead is an additional resource for supporting reading at home. We will add books weekly to it for your child to talk through in the same way they do with their lilac books.
Another idea to encourage story retelling at home is to use teddies/props for your child to act out their favourite story ensuring they quote key phases from the text. Could they have a go at retelling the Gruffalo to you as its a recent story they have heard at school?

Maths-
We have now been learning all about the number zero and one. Encourage your child to show you what these numbers look like. Can they show you on their fingers? Can they collect objects? Can they explain what zero is? Can they use the vocabulary one more to explain the number one?

Phonics-

This week your child will be learning the phase 2 phonics sounds s, a, t, p.
We have attached links to videos from The Department of Education to support you with pronouncing the sound correctly. It will also give you some ideas of what you can do at home to support your child further with practising this sound.

s sound- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlqMDXWEtXs&t=1s 

a sound- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-2SNtGeodQ

t sound- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdYxh-23INc&t=10s

p sound- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBIZBegHqsE

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Do ask us any questions that you may have; we are always happy to help.

From The Early Years Team

We hope your child has felt settled into their new Year R classes and have been excited to tell you about their day when they have come home.

Here are some photos of the children’s learning this week. They have enjoyed lots of physical activity on our climbing frame, fine motor development using the hammers and nails as well as demonstrating expressive arts and designs at the colouring table:

Here is some home learning we would like you to focus on over the weekend and coming week:

Phonics-
This week we have started phase 1 phonics which is focusing on the sounds they can hear in their environment.
When you are out and about this weekend please encourage your child to listen carefully to the animals they can hear, vehicles passing or wind blowing in the trees. Talk about what the sound is, how loud it is and whether they can use their hands/mouth to copy the sound. We will talk about their findings next week.

Reading-
All children will have come home with a Lilac book and their homework journal. This book has no words so we encourage the children to talk through what is happening in the story/pictures. Ask questions including:
What is the character doing? Why are they doing that?
How is the character feeling?
What do you think might happen next? How do you know?
Do you like this story? Why?
We ask you read with your child for 10 minutes a day and record this in their homework journal for us to see/respond to.
We also encourge you to read exciting picture books to your child frequently so they enjoy the love of reading and are exposed to good vocabulary.

Maths-
We ask that you continue to sing counting songs with your child to help them with recalling numbers to 5/10. We have attached some song sheets to support.
Encouraging your child to count in their play/everyday life is vital to their development.
Can they count their cars? Can they count how many dolls they have? Can they count the peas on their plate? Can they count the cars that pass by on a walk?
Lots of opportunites for incorporating number into daily tasks.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Do ask us any questions that you may have; we are always happy to help.
From the Early Years Team

The children spotted some eggs that had hatched over the weekend along with some footprints. They all came up with some ideas of what they could have been.

We then enjoyed a dinosaur workshop where we learnt about all the different dinosaurs and their sizes. The children then spent time fossil hunting.

The children also got to meet two life sized dinosaurs which was amazing for all to experience!

In RE the children learnt about the sacrament of the Eucharist and listened to the story of the Feeding of the 5000. The children then enjoyed baking their own bread and tasting it.

We hope you all have a wonderful summer break.
From the Early Years Team .

On Monday the children had a fantastic time playing tennis games to celebrate the Wimbledon tournament. They also enjoyed strawberries and cream!

We also enjoyed taking part in a music lesson with singing and rhythm clapping.

The year R children also shared their liturgy with Father Jeremy.

We hope you all have a great weekend.

In maths this week the children have been exploring weight. They have used the scales to compare objects. They had a great time with this and recorded their findings!

From the Early Years Team.

The children enjoyed listening to the story The Zoomers. They had fun creating their own animals by mixing two together and talking about what they like to eat.

In maths the children have enjoyed engaging in solving subtraction problems.


In the outside area the children also enjoyed working together to build tall towers and then watching them fall down.

We hope you have a great weekend.

From the Early Years Team

This week Year R have been on safari! We have on a safari bus and seen some African animals through our binoculars… the children’s favourites were the cheetah and the elephant.

Here are some examples of their work after watching the safari.

The children also enjoyed writing newspaper reports to explain about the animals that we had seen in Waterlooville after they escaped the zoo! We came up with ideas on how we could help the zoo capture them to take them back to safety.

This week we have been focusing on how to keep our bodies healthy. The children have enjoyed learning about the importance of our skeletons too and creating their own in the art area.

The children have also written about how to keep our bodies healthy.

In RE the children learnt about the sacrament of Baptism. We looked at photos from when the children had their baptisms and then rein-acted our own using dolls from the role play and water.

We had a great time at our Carnival on Friday afternoon. The children performed their song and dance so well.

We hope you have a great weekend.
From the Year R team.

This week we have enjoyed exploring materials. A mermaid wrote to us to say she had lost some of her scales and needed us to find a way to make her new ones that are waterproof, bumpy, strong and shiny. The children tested the materials in the water and then used the language to describe the properties.

The children then wrote to the mermaid to explain what material they thought was best to use for her scales and why.

The children also really enjoyed getting into role as a mermaid and imagining they were swimming through the ocean looking at different sea creatures.

The children also enjoyed experience touching and feeling a real fish that we bought into school to explore. We talked about what adjectives we could use to describe the texture and smell of the fish.

The children had a great time at their Sports Day this week. All children worked really hard to partake as a team.

We hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
From the Early Years Team

This week we have been looking at the book the snail and the whale! We have been making whale art from paper palates and making a slit in the plate so the whale can move. Some children even decorated the plate with paint and paper to represent the whale swimming under water.

The weather has been beautiful this week so lots of children did discovery outside. Some of the boys worked together to create a car track from rain pipe tubes and Experiment with the angle of the tube and how fast the car would move. They even added water to make it a water track!

We have been exploring the concept of sharing amounts equally in maths. We have been using teddy’s on a picnic with plates to do practise sharing. The children pretended that the multilink was different foods like blackberries, blueberries and strawberries!

Have a lovely weekend, enjoy the sun!

From the early years team