Reception: Class 2 and Class 3
Welcome to Reception
We are the class teachers: Mrs Wellard & Mrs Kerswill (Class 2), Miss Gale (Class 3)
Key Information
In the autumn term, we have PE on Tuesdays in Class 2 and Class 3.
In Reception, we also plan and organise a range of activities which support physical development of both gross and fine motor skills within our daily continuous provision.
You can find further details of what your child is learning each week by looking at the half termly plans.
Schools must complete the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) for each child in the first 6 weeks after they enter reception. See the parent guide below for further information.
Please make sure you are sharing books with your child and that you are supporting them with their reading at home. Once your child starts to learn phonics, they will bring home books to practice the sounds and words that they know and are learning.
See below for the Reception suggested reading list.
Stars of the Week!
Congratulations to the following children for being this week's stars of the week.
Class 2: Ava
Class 3:
This week we have revised the 'oa' and short 'oo' sounds and the 's' and 'a' sounds.
In maths we have been learning how to count objects that can't be moved. We have also been counting in fives and tens.
We have read the book 'Tell me a Dragon' by Jackie Morris. We have been drawing our own dragons and thinking about what is special about them.
Phase 4 tricky words have been sent home with your child but please remember to consolidate and practise Phase 2 and 3 words first that were sent home in the Autumn Term. If you need a new set, please speak to your class teacher.
The tadpoles have been released back into the pond and if at all possible, updates will be given on them. We have enjoyed watching the life cycle of the frog from frog spawn to froglet.
Autumn Treasures
Reception have been talking about the changes around them in Autumn, the temperature change, trees losing their leaves and needing to wear warmer clothes.
Mrs Ruth, Mrs Kerswill and Miss Law have challenged the children to complete an 'Autumn Treasure Hunt' in their own time. The children have started bringing their bags back to class and we have enjoyed using our senses to explore what they have found.
The Human Body
We have been learning all about our body parts. It was fun to draw around each other and to label the different body parts. The children have been looking at artists such as Paul Klee and creating their own self portraits, looking very carefully at facial features.
Hedgehog Rescue
Pam from Greatfield Hedgehog Rescue in Okehampton came in to speak with the children about the work the charity does to rescue and rehabilitate injured and sick hedgehogs. We learned about the things we can do in our garden to look after hedgehogs.
This week we have learned the graphemes 'sh', 'ch' and 'th'.
'Th' has a voiced phoneme and an unvoiced phoneme as in the word feather or in the word thunder. Encourage your child to stick out their tongue when they say this sound.
Please use the flashcards that have been sent home to practise all the single letter phonemes and these new digraphs. You could try playing games by putting the cards together to blend into simple words like
c-a-t or sh-i-p.
This week we have learned the 'ng' and 'ai' digraphs.
Although reading books are changed on a Thursday, we do hear the children read their books through the week. Please could you ensure that your child has their reading book and diary with then every day.
This week we have learned the phonemes 'oi' and 'ear'.
We have started learning all about minibeasts and listened to the poem 'Moaning Minibeasts'. Perhaps you could go on a minibeast hunt in your garden or the park and see what you can find.
We are also looking at signs of Spring and have frogspawn in our classroom.
This week we have learned about the 'air' trigraph, as in chair and the 'er' digraph as in 'ladder'. We have listened to the story Superworm and taken part in science week and created some inventions. We have also learned all about the festival of Holi and threw paint ourselves in the outside area.
A reminder that next Friday (21st March) is our Garden Day. We would like to walk to the park in the morning but need some parent volunteers to help us . If you can help for the morning please let Mrs Kerswill or Mrs Wellard know.
This week we have revisited the graphemes j.v and w. We have been learning to blend with these letters.
In maths, we have been looking at number doubles and how whole numbers can be made up of equal parts.
We had a book browsing session with our topic books and we enjoyed a trip to the local park for our garden day.
This week we have been learning all about Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell. We have been on a snail hunt in our outside area, looked at spirals within nature and learned all about the artist Henri Matisse and his picture called 'snail'.
We have revised the graphemes y, z and zz. Please practise the tricky words that were sent home with you from the Autumn Term workshop.
We have been looking at repeating patterns in maths.
This week we have revised the 'qu', 'ai', 'ee', and 'igh' sounds.
We have been learning about the festival of Easter and why some Christians put a cross up over Easter.
We walked to the Church to celebrate our Easter assembly and Ru was awarded the Jade Stokes Shining Star cup.
Today we wore our pyjamas in to class to celebrate that we had filled our marble jar up.
We wish you all a very Happy Easter and look forward to seeing you back in school on Tuesday 22nd April.
People who help us
Medical students from Plymouth university delivered a 'Teddy Bear Hospital' session with both Class 2 and Class 3. The children took part in a carousel of activities and became junior teddy medics! The children learnt about the heart, bones, temperature and the importance of washing our hands. We also had a go at bandaging our own teddy and writing prescriptions.
Hedgehog Bread
We made bread after our harvest festival and listening to the story, 'The Little Red Hen'.
We watched the dough rise, kneaded and shaped it and then cut spikes in the top with scissors to make hedgehog rolls. We used raisins for the eyes and put them in the oven to bake.
Pyjama Day!
We earned 2 marble Jars and we chose to come into school in our pyjamas as our reward.
We have been making good choices and doing fantastic listening and learning!
Garden Day!
The children thoroughly enjoyed their first Garden Day.
We read 'Stanley's Stick' in the morning and completed some Stick themed activities e.g. stick bubble wands and nature drumming.
We also read the story 'Leaf Man' and participated in leaf themed activities, e.g. Leaf threading and leaf art.
We had great fun with the parachute and worked together to lift the leaves into the air!
We finished our day with hot squash and a sing-song.
This week we have learned the digraphs 'ur' as in fur and 'ow' as in brown owl.
We celebrated World Book Day and did a whole school poem about what we saw in the forest. We had to perform this in a whole school assembly at the end of the day.
We have also learned some interesting facts about spiders. Maybe you could go on a spider hunt!