Reception 2023 - 2024
Mrs Olsen
Mrs Williams
Welcome to Reception 2023-24
Mrs Williams
Mrs Olsen
Mrs McIver
Reception 2023-2024
Welcome back to our Reception class page which we hope continues to be useful to you throughout this year. We will regularly update the page with notices of forthcoming events and general messages. It will also include the areas of learning that we will be covering and activities that you might want to try at home to help support your child's learning.
Summer Term 1
This term will again be packed full of exciting learning opportunities for our classes that will build upon prior learning and the good routines and relationships that have already been established. Our topic this half-term will be 'Growing'. We will be spending lots of time outdoors, preparing and growing seeds and plants and will be observing changes over time.
Dates for your Diary -
Kingfisher Class Stay & Play session - Thursday 9th May 2-3pm
PE - This happens every Thursday and children need to come into school wearing PE Kit (plain black/navy shorts or joggers/leggings and a plain white tshirt and school jumper or sweatshirt). Children also need trainers which are suitable for indoor and outdoor use.
Snack & Drinks We provide the children with milk, water and fruit for snack. Please don't send in any food for your child (unless it is for their lunch). Your child can bring a bottle of water into school each day but NOT juice. We also have children in Reception with severe nut allergies - please DON'T send in any products that contain NUTS. If your child has grapes in their packed lunch please make sure they are cut in half as they can be a chocking hazard.
Clothing & Belongings Please label all items of clothing, footwear and belongings. We have 60 children in class and it is very difficult to find missing items, especially when they are not labelled.
Photographs Please continue to send photos in from home so that we can share them in class, for instance when it is your child's turn to be a 'focus child' or if they take the Story or Knowledge box home.
Wellies The children use the outdoor area just as much as the indoor. As the weather gets wetter, the children need to wear wellies when playinging outside to avoid their shoes getting wet. Please send in a labelled pair of wellies that can be kept in school until the end of the year if your child not done so already.
'Foodie Friday' We continue to share and celebrate the food we make together! This half-term the children have shown an interest to make some simple biscuits and 'wobbly' jelly.
Identity Box The children are really enjoying this opportunity to share and talk about things that are special to them. Please help your child to fill the box with items which represent and reflect their identity and send it in for us to share.
Story and Knowledge Boxes We have beautiful sharing boxes that contain high-quality texts and various treats inside. One child from each class will take a box home weekly and the idea is that you share the text together. Please support your child with their illustration/fact after reading the information book. We would love to see photos of your children reading these books at home and tell us any comments they make about what they've read.
Maths
Maths is everywhere in our classroom inside and outside!
Counting is a skill we do throughout the year and it's great for you to count together with your child, just for fun. You can help your child to learn to count by making counting a fun part of your day. You might count the steps as you walk up them or the buses as they go by. This helps children begin to move towards matching one thing at a time with the number as they say it. Count socks as you sort them; count the juice boxes in your refrigerator; count the cars and buses going by. The more experience children have with counting, the more they will learn the meaning of numbers. Understanding the meaning of numbers takes experience with counting lots of things, and you can help by giving your child this experience regularly.
The children will be learning about numbers beyond 10; recognising them and learning about the pattern of numbers between 10 and 20.
Addition and Subtraction - we will be adding more, taking away and exploring calcualtion within numbers to 10.
The children will be identifying, naming and exploring 3-D shapes and measuring length, height and time. Follow this link for activities to do at home to support your child -
Phonics
We continue follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonic scheme of work. Please keep practising the letter sounds and tricky words we sent home at half-term. This is so important as the pace of the scheme is fast and the children will continue to learn new letter sounds and tricky words this half-term.
We will be reveiwing Phase 3 sounds and words this half-term - ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, oo, ar or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, er and words with short vowels.
New for this half-term we willl focus on:
blending longer words
reading and spelling root words ending in -ing, -ed, -est
New tricky words - said, so, have, like, some, come, love, do, were, here, little, says, there, when, what, one, out, today.
Your child will be bringing home a reading book and it is essential that you listen/support them to read this every day. Please record a comment in the reading record each time you listen to to your child.
There are lots of fun phonic games online that are free and can also support learning. Some of the ones we use in school include PhonicsBloom, Phonics Play and Top Marks phonics.
RE - Special Places
The question we will be investigating this half-term is 'What makes a special place holy?'. The children will explore and compare places of worship, including a church, cathedral, mosque and temple.
Our Favourite Five
Books are at the centre of everything we do. We love books in Reception! Each half-term we focus on five different texts to get to know them really well. We read them many times together and act them out with story props. We also use story maps to help retell the story. Throughout the year, via this page, we will show you the story maps so you can retell them at home too.
Here are 'Our Favourite Five' books for this short half term :-
Ed and Bunny Raise Some Money! by Matt Carr
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
Errol's Garden by Gillian Hibbs
Ravi's Roar by Tom Percival
Jack and the Beanstalk
Open Door Policy
We love to communicate with YOU the parent. If you have any worries or questions please come and talk to us at the door, at drop off or collection time. Also we have a class email address that you can contact us on directly:
https://outlook.office.com/mail/kingfishershomelearning@chesterbluecoatce.cheshire.sch.uk/ - This is the email address if your child is in the Kingfisher class (Mrs Olsen & Mrs Williams).
https://outlook.office.com/mail/robinshomelearning@chesterbluecoatce.cheshire.sch.uk/ - This is the email address if your child is in the Robin's class (Mrs McIver).
Many thanks for your continued support.
The Reception Team
