Reception
Autumn Term 1 (2017-18)
Topic: Me, Me, Me!
Welcome everybody to an exciting first half term! What a pleasure it has been welcoming all our new friends and families in to reception. We understand it isn’t always easy leaving your precious children with us, especially if they are a little upset as you leave. But please be assured it doesn’t take them long to get engaged in the stimulating reception environment. We have already had a fantastic start to the year where children are coming in to school settled and ready to begin their learning. This is very impressive and we will be continuing to promote children’s independence by encouraging them to come into the class room on their own. We would appreciate your support in this by saying your goodbyes quickly so that our day begins with efficiency!
Topic
Our theme for this term that we are already underway exploring is ‘Me, me me!’ We will be looking into what makes us unique and celebrating that we are all special individuals.
In week one children have started to investigate the concept of self- portraits and will be paying particular attention to detail; including the position of the features on our faces, their size and colour. This will spark an important discussion around feelings and emotions. Through these discussions, children will be learning to express themselves. This is a crucial developmental target that we endeavor to teach through the exposure of a variety of vocabulary.
Literacy
This term we will be continuing with Read, Write, Inc for those children that have transitioned from the nursery which will be differentiated depending on what their level of understanding is. For the new children we will be beginning to introduce this phonics programme by introducing a new sound a day. To support your child with this we encourage you to also revisit this new sound in the home environment so they can consolidate this new learning.
We will have a daily core text session which will be planned around our topic books, This is an opportunity for children to enjoy a high quality story session with opportunities for teachers to model writing. We will be encouraging children to use their phonic knowledge in their own writing during independent learning time. Our topic books for this half term are: Owl Babies, Cleversticks, Handa’s Surprise and Shopping Basket.
We will also be having a real focus on the importance of reading and how we need to care for our books. Children have been becoming familiar with important book conventions such as how to hold the book up the right way, which way to turn the page, who an author and illustrator are, predicting what will happen next in the story and being able to recall events that took place after reading a book. We encourage you to please read with your child each night and sign their purple reading log. We have introduced a new reading incentive where children are challenged to read as much as they can and will be rewarded by their class teacher if they reach a certain amount within the term. We hope that this will help encourage children to experience pleasure and interest from daily reading. Our goal is for children to choose to read themselves from the earliest stages and therefore they must be fully involved in the reading process so please read, read, read!
Maths
In reception we have two maths sessions a day. One is number basics which is before lunch and the other is a maths session straight after lunch. Number basics supports children with skills such as counting up, on and backwards, number bonds and problem solving. The session straight after lunch is a maths session with differentiated learning opportunities in smaller groups.
This term we will be fostering a sense of excitement and interest in maths and we can do this by getting children to notice that maths is all around us! We will be particularly focusing on children’s number knowledge to 20 and number recognition. We know the reception children will master this very quickly so we are looking forward to introducing further challenges.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
This term we are going to be focusing on the importance of having great learning behaviours within reception. This will include teaching children expectations and routines of the day. We will be empowering children to have a strong sense of belonging in our classroom. We will also be talking a lot about the importance of friends and how we should be interacting with them; including being gentle and using kindness, sharing and introducing the class rules. The environment has many opportunities for children to collaborate, share dialogue, speech and foster relationship building. At home you could play board games, or encourage your child to talk about what they like at school and who their friends are.
Physical development
Our reception environment offers a wide range of physical development opportunities. We have been fortunate to have our outdoor area extended with a lovely grassed area which we look forward to using. The climbing apparatus just outside our reception yard will be used by reception children in small groups. This will support children to develop their gross motor skills which we know is so important. During this term children will have the opportunity to participate in exciting PE sessions in the school hall. During these sessions we will be focusing on the importance of taking responsibility for dressing and undressing and also keeping active. The children will have many opportunities to practice their cutting skills and manual dexterity by bead threading and using the tweezers to pick up smaller objects. Having experiences such as this on offer at home will create a great link and help your children to further develop these highly important skills in writing.
Reminders
Clothing
Please ensure you clearly label every single piece of clothing, including coats. Also a change of spare clothes is important.
Drink bottles
Please feel free to bring in named drink bottles with water only in them. Juice is not appropriate in reception.
Wet play
Please bring in a suitable waterproof coat and wellington boots so that your child can take part in all experiences outside, whatever the weather.
Book bags
Please ensure your child brings these in each day to reception and that they go home each night. We do put important letters and notices in there most days.
PE
Please ensure that your child comes to school with a labelled PE kit ready for our PE sessions.
If you have any concerns/questions please do not hesitate to see a teacher or make an appointment if necessary.
