Reception
Summer Term
Spring is almost over and yet you wouldn’t know. We have been discussing the weather and seasons all year in Reception and this week we got freezing weather and hail! Those goblins have escaped once more, closely followed by Jack Frost and this has brought about some great community discussion again. We have also noticed some more exciting seasonal changes such as leaves on the trees and blossom too. Can your child tell you about the seasons and the changes we see in the world? What signs of spring can you find in the coming bank holiday weekend?
ILT progress
The children are getting so independent now and we can stand back often in ILT and watch the amazing hard work and self-critiquing happening. They are so conscientious now and the dedication to getting to brilliant blue is amazing. We have been focusing on new collaborations this week and this will continue next week as well. Can your child name some new people that they would like to work with in the future? We have also discussed what makes a good collaborative project and listed a few that would work with more than one person. Can they think of any projects that work with more than one person?
ILT Parent and Child Session (Friday 3rd May 9-11)
If you would like a place, please email me (Elizabeth).
Outside Days
Each week, we now work on skipping skills. These are PE sessions and will support the children in readiness for Year 1. Our aim is that all children can skip with a rope by the end of the summer term. Last year, all but a few children could do this and it is not only a great skill but also excellent for the heart. On top of this, there is a huge link between physical development and the co-ordination necessary to be able to skip and academic development. One impacts on the other and so skipping, and all of the brain and body work involved, develops academic ability too.
As well as PE we will also be doing more geography, history and science. This week we have been learning some geography, looking at Google Earth, finding school, our homes and also places we have visited. We will be reading some books set in Africa and specifically the countries of Kenya and Ghana. We will be locating these settings on a globe and Google Earth, finding out about the world as a diverse place with a variety of landscapes, animals, weather and cultures.
Do you have any stories at home set in other countries? If so, can we borrow them?
Maths
This week we have been comparing numbers using the vocabulary more, less, fewer, next, before etc. We have looked at number lines to 20 to identify the number which is more or less than a number from 1 to 20. Please practise counting forwards to 20 and backwards from 20 regularly. Children find counting backwards much harder but would ideally be able to do this confidently by the end of the summer term.
Reading
Please continue to practise the phase 2, 3 and 4 tricky words and the phase 2 and 3 sounds on Phonics Play. We have taught all the phase 2 and 3 sounds now except the trigraph ure.
Username: Forest01
Password: Newlaithes01
Writing
Most children can now write sentences which can be read by others with capital letters, punctuation and finger spaces. This is awesome and means we can spend the rest of the year embedding this skill and also developing writing at length. Please continue to develop basic sentence writing at home. Spelling is a have a go approach at this point except for the tricky words, which are the only ones we expect the children to spell accurately. How many tricky words can your child write from memory?
Tapestry Summaries
If you have not yet read and commented on the 4th summary, please can you do this at the weekend? The best progress is made when school and families work as a team in the education of children.
DT Resources and Outdoor Resources
We are continuing to collect for the DT area but we would also love some outdoor open ended resources too. Do you have any piping, crates, safe pallets, tyres, plant pots, compost, seeds or bulbs that you do not need/want? If so, please let us know.