Hello!

Each week we will give an overview of the week including some extra ideas for at home. We will also tell you a bit about what is coming next week. This will be posted to Tapestry and also on our class page of the website.

This week it has been so lovely to begin to get to know you and your children. They have all been great and have enjoyed getting involved in lots of different activities. We have been super impressed with how well they have come in and settled in the morning.

We have been playing games such as ‘Guess that sound’ where the children have displayed super listening skills and are learning to wait their turn if they would like to share an idea. We have been introduced to Fred our frog who can only speak in sounds. He has been asking the children to do some actions like h-o-p. In this game they need to listen carefully to the separate sounds and blend these into a word then do the action! For some words this might involve the word being repeated a few times, each time being blended a little more into a word. This is a great game to play at home, alongside other Fred games such as ‘What’s in Fred’s fridge?’ There might be items like h-a-m or m-i-l-k and the children need to blend each time to say what the word is. Or ‘Point to the…’ where you might say ‘Point to the m-a-t’. These games are all part of the children’s phonics journey. We have also read ‘Cows in the Kitchen’ where we have been exploring initial sounds. If you have this story at home, you might like to share this with your children.

We have been singing the number rhymes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, once I caught a fish alive and 5 little ducks went swimming one day. We have been reading number stories which have encouraged us to count to 10. We have been using 1:1 correspondence which is the skill of pointing to one item at a time and labelling it with a number.

We have been learning about the staff in school and how the staff help us. We have read the story ’10 Little Friends’ and have talked about what sorts of things we can do together and how we can play together happily. We have also been talking about rules and what kind of rules we can follow to make sure we are all happy and safe.

The children have done so well this week listening to instructions and learning to follow our rules and routines. They have immersed themselves in a whole range of activities. We are really looking forward to our year together and seeing them grow.

RE topic
As part of our RE topic about where we live and what makes it special, we are asking if you could provide a photograph of your house. You can do this either by sending in a photo on Monday or uploading one on Tapestry. If you have the Tapestry app, this is the easiest way to upload any photos.

Wellies and spare clothes
If you haven’t done so already, please bring in a pair of named wellies for your child. We like to have the option of outdoor play whatever the weather so these are important if it is wet. We also use wellies in some of our outdoor areas, namely the sand area and the mud kitchen. Also it’s useful to have a spare set of clothes in school which will stay on your child’s peg just in case of any accidents. Please also ensure that all clothing is named.

Drink, sun cream and hat
Please provide a water bottle each day. If the weather is sunny then please apply sun cream before school and a hat for your child to wear when playing outside.

If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch. You can do this via email, phone or a message on Tapestry (just press ‘add observation’ and make sure you tag only your child and not ‘Springbank Update’).

Have a lovely weekend!
The Reception Team