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Reception - St Mary

Welcome to Reception!

Class teacher - Mrs Robinson

Learning support assistants - Miss Dawson, Mrs Oglesby and Miss Barranu

Spring 1

Welcome back Reception and Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and a well deserved rest with your loved ones, and are ready for a new half term as we continue to love, learn and grow in Reception!

Key Dates

End of Half Term - Friday 17^th February

The Reception gate opens at 8.35am and will be closed at 8.45am.

Please ensure your child arrives promptly to school each day.

At the end of the day, the doors open at 3.10pm.

Please arrive promptly to collect your child.

Our Learning in Spring 1

We monitor the children's progression through adult and child daily interactions, observations during

whole class, group, individual teaching and during continuous provision.

Our topic this half term is 'Space'

Events, Celebrations and Cultural Capital

Literacy

In Phonics we will be completing Phase 2 and moving on to Phase 3 of the Little Wandle phonics scheme.

Please continue to help your child practise the sounds as often as possible to ensure they are embedded.

In Literacy we will be writing captions, designing and writing posters and using Tales Toolkit to develop the children's story writing with a focus on character, setting, problem and solution.

Maths

In Maths we will continue using the White Rose maths scheme.

Please see below for what we will be focussing on this half term.

Religious Education

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

PE (Physical Education) in Reception will take place each Friday. Therefore, your child should arrive at school in their PE kits each Friday. They will not need their standard school uniform on this day as they will stay in their PE kits all day.

In line with our school uniform policy, your child’s PE kit should be as follows:

- Plain navy joggers (no brands or logos).

- A pair of trainers (velcro trainers if they cannot tie their laces independently).

- Your child can wear their usual white polo shirt and navy school jumper on a Friday.

Home learning

Below I have listed the homework that we expect your child to participate in weekly to support their learning and achievements in school:

Reading – 10 minutes a night

Listening to your child read for 10 minutes a night makes a significant difference in their progress and attainment. It helps them practice key reading strategies and skills, develop their comprehension skills and supports their overall fluency and accuracy, which are vital skills they need for the future. Every Friday an eBook will be assigned to your child’s online account based upon the sounds they have learnt in phonics that week. The children will have practiced this book in their guided reading sessions so will be familiar with the text. The purpose of them practicing it again at home is to become more familiar with these sounds and fluent when reading them.

Your child will also choose a reading for pleasure book. This is a book that you can both read and enjoy together and encourage reading for pleasure. This will be a physical book that your child takes home and they will be given the opportunity to choose and change every Friday. As it is a reading for pleasure book, it is not necessarily aimed at your child’s reading level, therefore can be challenging, which is why we are asking for an adult to read this and your child to join in where possible. The reading for pleasure book is important as it is how we will help build a love of reading together. Please ensure your child brings this back to school every Friday ready to change in our school Library.

Reading eggs – once a week https://readingeggs.co.uk

Reading eggs makes learning to read interesting and engaging for kids, with great online reading games and activities. Children love the games, songs, golden eggs and other rewards which, along with feeling proud of their reading, really motivate children to keep exploring and learning.

My Maths and Mathseeds – once a week https://mathseeds.co.uk/

Every Friday, your class teacher will set home learning for your child on MyMaths.co.uk. This will be based upon what they have learnt that week so your child can practice the skills taught at home to reinforce key strategies.

Mathseeds is an online website that your child can use to develop pupils’ confidence and fluency in Maths and the interactive lessons provide step-by-step examples to break down learning into manageable chunks. The log in for this is the same one you use for reading eggs.

Phonics home learning – once a week

Every Friday, we will send home a phonics sheet in your child’s book bag for them to practice over the next week. The sheet will have the list of sounds your child has learnt that week, words and sentences for them to read and write with these sounds in and then a list of tricky words that the children need to know. These words will be familiar to them and ones they have practiced in phonics sessions.

You can then practice these sounds further on fastphonics (www.readingeggs.co.uk/fast-phonics-games), which is the same log in as reading eggs.

Learning logs – Autumn 2, Spring 2 and Summer 2

Last year we introduced our project-based home learning to replace the homework board we previously used. Pupil, parent and teacher voice all showed that project based home learning was the preferred style of home learning as it gave children more freedom to learn about real life world events, share personal experiences and it has helped motivate them to engage in home learning as it is child managed. It encourages the children to be more independent, inquisitive and provides more opportunities for outdoor learning together. This can be completed in your learning log, a scrap book of your choice or it can be uploaded onto Seesaw.

Instead of completing these every half term, we have reduced this to three half terms a year to make it more manageable. They will therefore be given out on the first Monday of Autumn 2 (31^st October), Spring 2 (27^th February) and Summer 2 (12^th June). We ask that their project is brought into school on the last week of that half term to share and celebrate with their peers. You will be given a sheet of paper that will be stuck in your child’s learning log that will outline what the project is and ideas of activities you can do.

Please find below lots of useful websites and links to great resources that can be used

to support your child's learning at home!

Government support for home learning for children aged 0-5 years - https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/

Phonics websites

Mr Mc is doing fun and interactive daily phonics lessons for children age 4-5. He focuses on new digraphs and has lots of different ways to revisit already learnt sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTcZnvuTeovlznioLRo0GOA/videos

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

https://monsterphonics.com/games/

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-3-games.html

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Phonics apps

Jolly Phonics Lessons

Meet the alphablocks

Read with phonics games