Hello!

We have had a fun and busy week in reception this week. The children are doing brilliantly with rules and routines. When they arrive at school, we alternate 'wake up shake up' and 'dough disco'. Wake up shake up helps with gross motor skills and co-ordination and dough disco is a fun way to help the children build strength in their hands ready for learning to write.

In phonics this week we have been learning how to recognise the letters m, a, s and d.  As well as being able to pronounce these sounds correctly and recognise them by sight, the children have been learning to form these letters with specific handwriting phrases. You will be receiving a green Speed Sounds Book to use at home which includes the letters and the handwriting phrases. This provides opportunity for your child to practise formation at home, as well as to practise recognising the letters quickly. It is recommended that you practise these daily (a quick 5 minutes will be fine). In addition, you can use the flash cards to do a quick recap of the sounds every day.

We have also been continuing with lots of Fred Talk games to practise oral blending. At home, maybe you could ask your child to s..i..t and see if they are able to blend the sounds to carry out the correct action. Other examples might be j…u…m…p, h…o…p, c…l…a…p. You can use Fred Talk at any opportunity to practise blending sounds with your child.

We have also sent home formation sheets. These are to keep at home to practise formation whenever you have the chance. These are not compulsory so use them as and when you have a spare moment.

In maths we have been learning all about the number 1. The children have been coming up with wonderful ideas of where we might see the number 1, which items come in ones, what they can see one of. They have been on a ‘one hunt’ around the field looking for nature objects and they have been challenged throughout the week to come up with their own ideas to show or find one of something. They have also been learning how to subitise, which is where they look at a number of objects and can see how many there are without the need to count. We have practised this so far with 0, 1 and 2 objects. You could try this at home using objects, such as Lego, coins, sweets. Reveal the amount for a short time then hide it and ask your child to say how many they could see. Ant home you could practise counting to and back from 10. Along with this you can count objects to 10.

In Understanding the World, we have been learning all about Harvest and what it means. The children have been exploring the idea of different seasons, how crops grow and where food comes from. They have also explored the idea of sharing through stories such as The Scarecrow’s Wedding and working together when reading and discussing The Enormous Turnip. The children have been involved in bread making to create their very own hedgehog bread. They have been part of the whole process. They watched Mrs Vincent make the dough and discussed the ingredients and process and then they had the opportunity to shape it into a hedgehog.

Next week we will learn:

• Sounds: t, i , n  and p
• Maths: We will continue our learning of the number 1.
• Understanding the world: What happens in Autumn? We will be looking for signs of Autumn and how Autumn is different to other seasons.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Tuesday! Remember that Monday is a training day.

The Reception Team