Reception Class

Welcome to the Reception Class Page 2023-24! 

Welcome Back to the Summer Term | St Mary the Virgin CE Primary School, Gillingham, Dorset

Hello and welcome to Reception class 2023-2024! 

Thank you for visiting our Reception class page for Summer Term. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holidays and a restful break, and I’m really looking forward to this next and final term in Reception! We’ve got another exciting and busy term ahead, please keep reading below to find out what exciting things we’ll be doing…

Some important information: 

In Reception the class teacher is myself, Miss Lemmings, and my wonderful, dedicated teaching assistant, Miss Begbie. We also have Mrs Bibby in class each day to support learning needs. On Wednesday mornings, Miss Smith will come in for the morning whilst I am out of class, planning our upcoming learning and activities! 

Our P.E. days this term are Wednesday’s and Thursday’s so please make sure to send your child into school in their full P.E. kit on these days 🙂 

Our 1:1 reading day is Monday, so please make sure you send your child in with their reading books on Monday’s, when we will listen to them read and give them new books if they are ready to move onto the next set of books. Please sign their reading diaries so we know when they have read at home 🙂 thank you.

We also change library books on Thursday’s, so please put your child’s Library book in their bag on Thursday’s if they would like this changing too. 

Each Friday I send home a Reception class newsletter with the news and learning for our class specifically. Please check your child’s bag on a Friday afternoon for this! Mr Booth also produces a whole school newsletter that gets sent on this day too for wider school information. 

Hopefully you have all got the hang of the “Seesaw” app. I use this app to send announcements to you all with any important information and reminders. I also sometimes use it to send you any news directly about your child through 1:1 messaging. If you have any queries or messages for me however, please can I ask that you contact the school office who will send your questions to me and we will aim to solve any issues or answer any questions as soon as we can. You can contact them by email on office@grimsargh-st-michaels.lancs.sch.uk, or by phone 01772 653600. I will then answer your query as soon as possible. 

And just a reminder that only water should be brought in water bottles to school, as this is our school policy. Thank you for your understanding!

Lastly, please check the Reception Class Gallery to see lots of photos of all the fun things we’ve been doing recently!

Many thanks,

Miss Lemmings x

Summer Term Learning: 

This term we will be looking at:

Maths: We will be focusing on odd and even numbers, doubling and halving, symmetrical patterns, verbal and object counting to 20 and beyond, subitising patterns, composition of numbers to 10 including 10, ordering sets of objects, sharing objects equally, 3D shapes, measure. 

Phonics: We will finish learning our final few Phase 3 sounds and consolidate all of our Phase 2 and 3 sounds and tricky words from this year. We will practice our independent reading and writing skills using these sounds, and also begin to use Phase 4 cluster sounds in our reading and writing too. We will learn some Phase 4 tricky words in preparation for Year 1. We will play lots of phonics games to help increase our confidence! 🙂 

(Click on this link for a video of me reading the sounds from Phase 2 and 3 for you to practice at home! Please note that we avoid pronouncing letter sounds like “suh” or “nuh”, and say “sss” or “nnn” instead, – this video will show you what I mean!) (new video coming soon!)  https://www.loom.com/share/ed12a56385664a3bba2fdd6ac1ca4d7e)

Literacy:  We will be focusing a lot on the composition of sentences and captions to help to support our independent writing this term. We will spend the first half term using core texts to support our topic learning – “Bee My Friend”, “BumbleBear”, “The Very Impatient Caterpillar”, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, “Oi Frog”, “Minibeast Bop”, and then a selection of non-fiction texts about life cycles, minibeasts and animals and their young. And then for the second half of term our Literacy topic will be traditional tales! We will read different traditional tales, use our acting skills to retell the story, and then use our creative writing skills and imagination to adapt and reinvent a traditional tale putting our own spin on it! 

Topic: Our topic work this term will feature: The life cycle of caterpillars (and we will have caterpillars in our classroom!), minibeasts and their features and different habitats, the life cycle of frogs, animals and their young, animals on the farm, growing and planting continued from last term as we watch the development of our plants in our outdoor area and greenhouse! We will also look at the seasonal changes of Spring and into Summer later in the term.  

R.E & Worship: Our topics will be “Special Places” and “Special Times”. We will think about our own special places that make us feel safe, happy and loved and enjoy telling our friends about where this place is, before looking at special places of worship for Christian and non-Christian faiths. We will then look at special times of celebration and how we might celebrate such as birthdays, anniversaries, bonfire night, weddings, baptisms, and then look at religious special times such as Easter, Christmas, Diwali, Eid. 

Understanding the World: We will be learning about the seasonal changes of Spring and into Summer later in the term, lifecycles of different animals and insects, minibeasts and their features and habitats, describing what we can see feel and hear outside, understanding special places in the community and that people have different beliefs, recapping our knowledge of plants and monitoring the growth of our plants in our outdoor area and greenhouse! We will go on a trip to Brockholes to look at minibeasts, habitats and go on a sensory woodland adventure, and we will also have a visit from “Zoolab” to look at and hold lots of different minibeasts and creepy crawlies! 

Expressive Arts and Design: We will enjoy using and exploring different tools and techniques, joining in with singing, representing ideas using junk modelling, combining different media to make representations of animals and objects, return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them, share their creations, explaining the process they have used, develop storylines in their pretend play, invent, adapt and recount narratives and stories with peers and teachers. 

P.E.: We will do two new units “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Superworm” following the Lancashire P.E. passport plans. We will focus on developing our strength and control in our fundamental movement skills (running, hopping, jumping, skipping, throwing and catching, balancing, climbing) and also develop our spatial awareness and safety, as well as control and grace in our movements. We will practice our dance for the garden party too ready to perform it to our friends and family! 

P.S.E.D:  We will focus on bouncing back when things go wrong, having and showing perseverance and resilience, eating healthily, oral health, moving our bodies (exercise), and getting a good night’s sleep. We will have a visit from Harold the Giraffe from Life Education to help us with our learning too! 

 

Our timetable for this half term:

Summer 1 timetable

 

What we will be learning throughout the year: 

Here is a useful guide on “What to Expect in Early Years” for parents! What-to-expect-in-the-EYFS-complete-FINAL-16.09-compressed

Reading resources for you to use at home! 🙂 Reading

Some useful links/sites/things to watch or play on at home that are super useful for the children, and fun!

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