Reception Class

Welcome to the Reception Class Page 2023-24! 

Hello and welcome to Reception class 2023-2024! 

Thank you for visiting our Reception class page for Spring Term. Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a restful break, and I’m really looking forward to this next term! 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 teaching assistant, Miss Begbie. We will also have Mrs Bibby in class each day to support learning needs. On Wednesday mornings, Mrs Wood 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 Friday’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. 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 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. 

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!

Miss Lemmings x

Spring Term Learning: 

This term we will be looking at:

Maths: We will be subitising and exploring patterns within 5 and greater than 5, one more and one less, counting to 20 and beyond, ordering numbers, composition of 5, number bonds to 5, numbers to 10 being made of “5 and a bit” structure, equal and unequal sets, doubling and halving, odds and evens, composition of numbers to 10, symmetrical patterns.

Phonics: We will learn Phase 3 sounds and tricky words! Your child will come home with Phase 3 sound mats and tricky word mats soon to practice these at home. We will become more confident to read captions and sentences using phase 2 and 3 sounds, and we will also practice writing more to begin to write CVC words and captions independently. 

(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 saying “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 read and explore different stories related to our topic work (see topic section below!). We will read focus texts “The Great Explorer”, “The Blue Penguin”, “How to Catch a Dragon”, “Dear Earth”, “Rosie’s Walk”, “The Tiny Seed” and more. We will also looking at ordering and sequencing, using finger spaces when writing sentences (to rehearse, to read and to write), we will look at character feelings and how they can change during stories, we will look at who the Author and Illustrator are. 

Topic: Our topics will feature: the seasonal changes of winter, being an explorer, our world and where we live, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Arctic animals, Antarctic animals, animal adaptations to the cold, the north and south poles. And in the second half of this term, we will look at countries around the world, travel and transport, maps, our changing earth, and growing and planting. 

R.E & Worship: We will be focusing on “The Stories Jesus Heard” from the Old Testament. We will look at how there is the Old and New Testament. We will read the Bible stories “Noah’s Ark”, “Jonah and The Whale”, “Daniel and the Lions Den”, “Joseph’s Coat”, and “Moses in the Bulrushes” and learn the meanings behind these stories, and how these morals help us today. We will then begin to learn about the Easter story, Lent, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and the symbols of Easter and the cross. 

Understanding the World: We will be learning about the seasonal changes in winter, how to keep warm, warm clothing, warm food and drink (making hot chocolate!), freezing and melting, ice, the blubber experiment to learn about Arctic animals keeping warm in icy temperatures, caring for the environment, where we live (on planet earth), where the Arctic and Antarctic are on the globe. We will also look at growing and planting, the parts of a plant, what a plant needs to survive, plant our own seeds and look after them, and countries around the world and how they are different to ours.

Expressive Arts and Design: We will create some winter artwork using different techniques and equipment. We will learn what “cold colours” are, as well as doing some colour mixing. We will make some Chinese lanterns and Chinese dragons for Chinese new year! We will enjoy doing some dragon dancing for Chinese New Year, and we will also enjoy our dance unit in P.E. and learn how to keep time with the music and put movements together! 

P.E.: We will start our new dance unit of “Nursery Rhymes”! We will do different movements with our bodies to represent certain nursery rhymes and songs, and we will learn to move to the beat of the music by focusing on the beats and counts. We will then put a sequence of these movements together in groups to create a short dance! We will then perform our group dances to each other and comment on which parts we enjoyed. We will also begin our “travel and transport” unit, and represent different vehicles with our bodies, different speeds, and negotiate space safely. 

P.S.E.D:  We will think about keeping ourselves safe, what’s safe to go in our bodies, keeping safe outdoors and indoors, who keeps me safe, internet safety (and taking part in activities for Online Safety day). We will also think about caring for our world, caring for our homes, caring for our classroom, and being kind and helpful.

 

Our timetable for this half term:

Spring 2 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!