This week the children brought home a learning pack developed by Herts for Learning.
The packs include fun activities and ideas for parents/carers to enjoy with their child. The activity ideas, alongside the time you spend with your child, will help develop many skills your child needs to prepare them for the next step in their education.
Today, with much excitement, the children received a library sticker specially created to link in with the Time to Read book, The Runaway Pea, which your child brought home a couple of weeks ago. You will find a leaflet inside your child’s book bag promoting the benefits of using the library. All Hertfordshire libraries, except the smaller community libraries, are now open.
Below is a short video produced by Hertfordshire Library Service providing tips on how you can help your child develop a love of reading.
Now that the children have settled into Reception, I plan to hold a ‘curriculum information’ session after half term to provide you with more information on what you child will be learning over this next academic year. This session will be via Zoom – more details to follow.
Many thanks for supporting your children and helping them to settle into Reception.
Today I collected your child’s Letters and Sounds book. I will collect the books every Thursday and return them on Friday with our new Letters and Sounds learning and sounds added.
I hope you are finding the books useful at home. This week we have started using magnetic letters to begin to read and spell simple words eg. as, it, is, an, at, map, pat, tap, tip, pip, sat, sit. All words that use the sounds we have learnt so far. Thank you for all your support helping your child learn to read at home, I was so impressed at the children’s progress.
For those children who may already be aware of our new sounds, please concentrate on learning to form the letter using the school cursive script. We call it our ‘whoosh’ writing. Details are in the Letters and Sounds book. This will really support your child’s future writing skills.
If your child is not quite ready to hold a pen and write yet, concentrate on lots of hand/ finger skills to develop the small muscles in your child’s hands and fingers. For example, cooking, gardening, getting dressed/undressed (especially buttons) or doing up their coat zip.
This week I introduced a game on a website called Phonics Play www.phonicsplay.co.uk
The Phonics Play website has some fantastic phonics games. Whilst there is a subscription charge, this is currently being halved and some games are free. Reception children are currently working on Phase 2 so just click on the Phase 2 games.
Precautionary note: Remember e-safety supervision. St. Adrian’s website includes a useful e-safety advice link.
Here is another game we have played in class today. You may wish to have a go at home.
Which One?
Lay out a selection of familiar objects with names that contain three sounds (e.g. bus, pig, pen, cup, dog).
Check your child can recognise each object.
Ask your child to listen carefully while you sound talk the name of one of the objects, leaving a short gap between each sound eg. b-u-s
Help your child to put the sounds together and say the word and identify the object.
Once your child can confidently listen to your ‘sound talking’ and blend the sounds together, perhaps your child may like to have a go at ‘sound talking’ each object. This will help your child learn to spell words using their knowledge of phonics.
I am currently organising my routine to set a weekly ‘changing reading books’ day. Next week I will change the reading books and words strips on Monday. Books and other reading materials will then be changed on Tuesdays. Please do let me know if you feel your child needs new books at any other time. However, ensure you read each book with your child at least three times before requesting a new book This will help build confidence, fluency and comprehension. Spend 10 minutes each day if possible, frequent and short is best.
Some of the children were fascinated by insects we discovered in the garden. This generated many enquiries about all the different types of bugs, what they eat, where they live etc. The children played with our ‘big bug’ set and we used a bug chart to find out the name of each bug. This was a good opportunity for the children to make comparisons and look at differences and similarities.
We have been exploring many messy play opportunities such as ‘gloop’ (cornflour, water and food colouring). This inspired the children’s inquisitive minds and they decided to add bubbly water and recreate a volcano. Watch this space for more scientific experiments!
Our creativity table has been very popular and the children have been learning many basic techniques such as joining, sticking and decorating. We have been encouraging the children to plan with a purpose in mind. Treasure boxes being a popular choice this week.
Today the children experienced a fun rainy day. We used powder paints and washing up liquid in the puddles to mix bubbly colours. A good opportunity to develop the children’s fine motor skills (small muscles in hands and fingers). Not to mention the finger skills required when changing into dry clothes.
May I take this opportunity to remind parents to send in a pair of named wellington boots that we can keep at school.
The class are settling in really well with everyone arriving at school happy and ready to start the day. This week we have concentrated on securing our daily routine including our handwashing, prayers, register, group circle time, singing, stories and lots of learning through play. Not forgetting snack and lunch time!
We particularly concentrated on making friends and learning everyone’s names during our group time.
Maths Challenge
Below is a maths challenge for the weekend. This will give the children an opportunity to bring something in from home:
• Find a small plastic container (a container small enough to fit inside your child’s book bag). • Talk to your child about the sorts of things which will fit in the container. • Make a collection of tiny things together and see how many will fit inside the container – 1, 2, 3 or more? • Talk about things that are the same about the objects – for example, they are all small. • Talk about the things that are different – the colour, what they are used for, are they soft or hard? • Bring the container and some of the items that fit inside it to school so we can all share and talk about them.
Make sure your child’s name is on the container.
I shall look forward to some interesting conversations next week! Enjoy your weekend.
I hope you are all well and looking forward to your child’s first day at school.
I have posted two new videos on the Memo section of Tapestry. A hello from Mrs O’Connor and Mrs Reid and also a video tour of the classroom and outside area. I hope both these videos will help your child prepare for their first day.
You may also wish to watch this hand washing video with your child. We will be learning the song at school.
Rub the palms, one two Rub the knuckles, one, two Rub the insides of the fingers And the back of them too Rub the thumbs one, two And the nails one, two Now it’s time to rinse them Happy clean hands for you
I am conscious that some children may find separating from their parents a little challenging. If your child is at all anxious, please prepare your child as much as possible with lots of positive encouragement. Reassure your child that we will have fun playing together and making friends. When you say good bye to your child, a little tip would be to wave briefly and say “See you soon”.
I am very much looking forward to meeting all my new Reception class children and getting to know their families. I’m also very excited and have been busy at school making sure the classroom is ready.
Many thanks to those parents who activated their child’s Tapestry on-line learning journey and completed the ‘All about Me’ section . I enjoyed reading about all the fun activities the children enjoy at home and also finding out what is important to you and your child. If you haven’t already activated your account, it would be great if you could find the time to do this in the near future. I often send information and messages to parents through Tapestry. Please do not hesitate to email the School Office if you are encountering any difficulties. Emails are checked periodically and queries can be forwarded to me. I am also happy to re-send a Tapestry activation email if you wish.
On behalf of Mrs Sallis, Mrs O’Connor, Mrs Reid, Mrs Heffernan, Mrs Ruffell and myself, I would like to say a big thank you for the kind and generous gifts. We were overwhelmed by your generosity.
This week both Reception groups continued to protect their ‘bubbles’ but also enjoyed celebrating together.
On Tuesday, we watched the Year 6 End of Year Leavers’ Mass together.
Today, we held a joint ‘Sports Day’. The children competed against each other in relay teams. Races included running through hoops, pass the bean bag and a sack race. The children also enjoyed a well deserved lolly and enthusiastically participated several fun dance games.
May I take this opportunity to thank you all for your support throughout the year. It has been an honour and pleasure teaching your children. They have been a credit to you all and adapted so well to the recent changing circumstances.
Wishing all the children a continued happy and successful school life at St. Adrian’s.
To help the children remember those trigraphs (3 letters/1 sound) we watched the antics of Geraldine the Giraffe (Mr Thorne Does Phonics). Just Google ‘Geraldine the Giraffe’ followed by the sound you wish to find. Below are the videos we watched in class this week.
Meet the Teacher
The children made an ‘All About Me’ wheel on a paper plate to share with Miss Perry, our Year 1 Class Teacher. Each member of the class had the opportunity to chat with Miss Perry and tell her all about their family, favourite hobby, animal etc.
Miss Perry set the children a challenge for over the summer holidays. She asked them to create a portrait of themselves to bring into school on their first day into Year 1. This can be a painting, drawing or collage creation. The portrait will form the basis of their first topic ‘All About Me’.
The children have also been writing a book about themselves in Reception. The aim being to develop confident, independent sentence writing. They wrote about likes/dislikes and described their features such as hair and eye colour. We are aiming to finish the books next week to take home. They are very proud of their books and looking forward to showing off their writing skills.
Maths
This week the children have been writing numerals 0 – 20 in sequence. They used a number line to self-assess their numerals, looking out for reversals of numbers (eg. 3, 7, 9) and making corrections as necessary.
Religious Education
We have been talking about God’s wonderful world and thinking about we can take care of God’s world. We read the creation story from the Bible and discussed the basic concept of ‘fair trade’ and sharing the world’s resources such as food and water. We shared a plate of biscuits and the children immediately exclaimed “That’s not fair!” when Mrs Palmer had the most biscuits on her plate.
Below is a video you may wish to watch at home – God’s Creation according to Genesis.
This week we have been looking at doubling. We used multi-link cubes, Numicon and our fingers to visualise numbers doubled. We also played a ‘Double the Number’ game. Below is variation of the game which you can try at home.
You will need:
Dice.
Counters – two different colours eg. 10 red and 10 yellow. If you do not have counters at home, use two different coloured pens. The idea is that each player will be marking off their numbers with the same colour counter or pen.
Draw a simple number grid – an example is shown below.
What to do:
Each player chooses one colour counter/pen.
Take it in turns to roll a dice – double the number – put your counter on the number.
If the number has already been covered you miss a go.
The winner is the player with the most counters (or marked off numbers with a pen) on the board.
Variation
Create two grids with different numbers on each grid. Each player has a different grid. Play a ‘bingo’ version of the game.
Further challenge
What numbers do we have left?
What number do you need to roll on the dice to mark off that number?
Support
If your child needs a little support, use objects to show your child what the numbers look like when doubled.
Board games
Board games, such as Snakes and Ladders, support your child’s mathematical understanding enormously. Once your child is confidently playing a board game, introduce two dice to develop doubling numbers.
Letters and Sounds
This week we have been revisiting the following digraphs (two letters/one sound).
ar – car, bark, hard, shark, park, market or – for, fork, sort, born, cork, cornet, storm ur – fur, burn, hurt, surf, turn, burp ow – cow, now, down, how, town
We have also been writing sentences to include tricky words and some of the sounds revisited so far.
The teeth of sharks are sharp. Come and see the storm. The cat has a fur coat. I like to go to the town.
To encourage independent writing we made books together. We used card, hole punch and split pins to create the outside cover. The children provided me with their ideas, I made the front cover and they began writing their own simple stories. A challenging time for Mrs Palmer drawing and creating alien, horse, dog, castle and rocket front covers.
Science
Invisible Ink
The children are still really interested in science experiments. This week, our story time inspired a discussion regarding the concept of visible and invisible. We decided to make invisible ink. Here is a short video of the experiment we tried at school:
Physical Development
Obstacle Course
The children collaborated together to create an obstacle course. Throughout the process, I observed excellent team work with the children listening to ideas and agreeing how the course can be used. In particular, I was impressed by the discussions and adaptations to ensure the course was safe and not wobbly.
Expressive Arts and Design
Stick puppet story art
It is always wonderful to see the children motivate and teach each other. One member of the class created a story show. The process involved drawing a background scene, sticking a strip of paper across the scene and creating cut out characters on lolly sticks. The characters moved along the strip of paper acting out a story within the scene. The children were excited to learn a new skill from their friend.
Another busy week at school with the children eagerly embracing all opportunities to learn.
Maths
We read the story of Zog by Julia Donaldson and explored mathematical ideas based on the dragon flying lesson. For example: The dragons are practising their flying. First there were 7 dragons, 2 flew away, how many left? This progressed to the children making up their own subtraction problems.
During our busy finger sessions, the children also began looking at number bonds to 10. They used tweezers to pick up pompoms and placed them into the holes of Numicon pieces. We are planning to continue to investigate number bonds next week. At home, parents can challenge their child to separate objects into pairs of numbers that, when added together, give the number 10. Perhaps use 10 favourite toys or 10 pieces of fruit.
We also played the ‘Compare the Number’ game suggested in my blog on Monday. I was impressed at how well the children listened to each other’s ideas.
All these sounds can be found in children’s Letters and Sounds books. Watch the following short video to hear how each sound is pronounced.
Now that the children are familiar with the sound of each letter, we are also learning the letter names. One way of explaining this to children is that a dog makes the sound ‘woof’ but its name is ‘dog’. We played ‘Alphabet Bingo’ in our Letters and Sounds lesson and the children enjoyed playing the game independently during learning through play.
We are scientists!
As you are probably aware, Reception 2 are particularly fascinated by colour mixing and enjoy experimenting with different materials in the water tray. It was lovely to hear the children declaring that they were ‘scientists’ and we decided to create our own science experiment.
The children were very keen for me to share this experiment with you at home. I have a feeling they would like to try it again!
You will need:
Milk (whole or 2%) Dinner plate Food colouring (red, yellow, green, blue) Washing up liquid Cotton buds
What to do:
Pour enough milk in the dinner plate to completely cover the bottom to the depth of about 1/4″. Allow the milk to settle.
Add one drop of each of the four colours of food colouring — red, yellow, blue, and green — to the milk. Keep the drops close together in the centre of the plate of milk.
Use a clean cotton bud for the next part of the experiment. Encourage your child to predict what will happen when you touch the tip of the cotton swab to the centre of the milk. It’s important not to stir the mix. Just touch it with the tip of the cotton swab.
Now place a drop of liquid dish soap on the other end of the cotton bud. Place the soapy end of the cotton bud back in the middle of the milk and hold it there for 10 to 15 seconds. Look at that burst of colour! It’s like fireworks night!
Add another drop of soap to the tip of the cotton swab and try it again. Experiment with placing the cotton bud at different places in the milk. Notice that the colours in the milk continue to move even when the cotton bud is removed.
Story Telling
The children have been adapting the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff this week. Each day we retold the story with different characters. Ideas suggested were unicorns, dinosaurs, knights, kings and princesses.
My favourite suggestion was The Three Trolls who stamped and stomped across the bridge instead of trip, trap. Guess who popped up from under the bridge shouting ‘Who goes stamp, stomping over my bridge’? Yes, it was The Big Billy Goat Gruff!
Handwashing Station
Finally, I thought I would share this picture of a super ‘handwashing station’ created by the children using the building blocks. We did, of course, ensure that the children understood we must use clean, fresh water when washing our hands for real. However, I thought it was a lovely example of how the children have embraced the way the world has changed in recent months.
