Hello!

This week we have introduced the story Jasper’s Beanstalk in our new Talk 4 Writing unit. The children have been reading and enjoying the story, they have come up with actions to help them to retell the story. 
Next week we will be creating story maps to help retell the story and the children will be writing the story using their phonic knowledge.

This week we have been focusing on the concept of 1 more using the staircase pattern. We have been using our reasoning skills to explain how we know that a number is bigger or smaller than another number and where they should be placed in a staircase pattern. We have used multilink to create these patterns with towers of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. The following Numberblocks episode is useful for comparing numbers. You might like to watch this together at home: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bmkk2p/numberblocks-series-3-peekaboo

If you have multilink or Numberblocks at home you might like to create some staircase patterns together. You could play a game where you swap two towers and see if your child can explain why the pattern is wrong and how to put it right. Maybe you could swap more than 2 or hide some. Can they order the towers? Do they know that each time going up it should be 1 more?

Next week we will be using conceptual subitising to describe parts of a whole set. This is where the children identify a whole quantity as a result of composing smaller quantities. For instance, knowing that there are 6 dots because they can see 5 and 1 more, or seeing there are 3 and 3. We will also be concentrating on the number 7, making it in 2 parts in different ways using a range of resources.

The chicks have been living in their cage and have been entertaining us all with their antics! They like to cheep quite loudly too! Earlier this week the children had a chance to hold a chick. They have also been painting chicks along with lots of other chick-based creative work. We have said goodbye to the chicks now as the chicks head back to the farm.

We had lots of fun on Thursday for World Book Day. The children looked fantastic and enjoyed some book-based activities throughout the day. They also attended their very first assembly with Year 1 and 2 where they listened to an extract from a story and took part in a parade to show their outfits to the other children.

Thank you for giving your time to attend parents’ evening this week. It is always lovely to see you and talk with you about your child’s progress. We are so proud of the children and the progress they have made so far this year. Thank you for your continued support in listening to your child read, helping them with formation and writing and other activities you do to supplement and support what we are teaching in school. We really do appreciate it.

And what a great day we had today at Swithens Farm in Rothwell. The children had a fantastic time and they were a credit to our school. They had a tractor ride, met lots of rabbits, guinea pigs and meerkats, fed lambs, had a tour of the farm feeding carrots to a wide range of animals and even had chance for a play in the beach area and the soft play area. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend!
The Reception team