Author: Mrs Solakova

Hello parents and children,
this is what we’ve been up to this week.

In our English lessons we began to read new book called ‘Weirdo’ by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird. We talked about what makes us kind and unkind and discussed what command sentence means. The children practised their writing by thinking and writing different command sentences like:
Show him around!
Be good friend!
Don’t call him weirdo!

In Little Wandle we continued learning phase 4 sounds and this week the children learned 4 new tricky words. Please take some time to practise these with your child. In the pink folder you will also find a letter explaining in details important rules when learning phase 4 sounds and tricky words.

In Maths this week, the children continued to develop their subitising skills in increasingly complex arrangements. Some arrangements are easier to subitise than others – e.g. a set of 6 dots arranged in a structured die pattern that exposes the double-3 pattern is easier to recognise than a random arrangement of 6 dots. We’ve met Number 6 and had lots of fun playing with him!

We’ve also been busy creating lovely display to celebrate Mary next week. The children learned about the 12 apostles and why May is the Month of Mary Have a look at our lovely art work. We did well, didn’t we?

Things to remember:
Coronation picnic – Friday 5th of May (weather permitting). Children are welcome to come dressed in white, red and blue.
Friday morning is reading morning, so you are very welcome to come and share a book with your child.

Have a lovely long weekend!
Mrs Solakova

21.04.23

It is unbelievable that the summer term is upon us! Where did the time go? I really hope that you have had a restful break, with lots of memorable moments and of course chocolate eggs :).
The first half of the term is 6 weeks long with quite a lot of Bank holidays. We are going to be learning about life cycles (the caterpillars arrived yesterday and we are all very excited to see them grow and transform into butterflies). We will also be learning about the royal family and the upcoming coronation. Towards the end of the half term we will take part in an Art week and will produce a piece for a very special exhibition.
In RE we will be talking about The Holy Spirit, Good news and Pentecost and will held a fiery Pentecost party.
In Little Wandle we will continue with phase 4 sounds and tricky words, so watch out for new tricky words in your child’s orange book.

Update on Tapestry:
We are still experiencing technical difficulties with Tapestry at the moment. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

31.03.23

And just like that it’s the end of another term! An amazing term full of fun, learning and excitement!
This week we really enjoyed learning all about Easter, welcoming you for a special Hot Cross Bun gathering, creating Easter cards, making Easter baskets and so much more.

In Little Wandle we continued reading longer words and words that finish with ‘s’ like queens, torches, cheeps. We also practised spelling words like visit and had to remember that we say ‘z’, but write ‘s’. The children are definitely building their confidence and it is so lovely to see them becoming more and more independent.

Our Easter cards are looking fabulous too and we are all very proud with our messages inside… all done by the children. Brilliant writing Reception!

We continued planting fruit and veg outside and the garden is looking smashing! With strawberries on the fence and cabbage, carrots, radishes and lettuce in the raised garden. The children carefully placed some seeds and watered them. We really hope that they will grow!

Thank you very much for coming to our Hot Cross Bun gathering. It was lovely to share our learning with you and sing some songs. And the buns were so delicious!

The Easter Bonnets looked absolutely incredible! Well done to Rosanne and Luke for winning the competition and to everybody else for taking part.

Things to remember:
Easter holidays – 03. 04. 2023 – 17.03.23 (Monday 17th – inset day)
Practise books – due to having a stock-take during Easter holidays (please check your emails) no books have been sent home this week. Instead you can use the Collins Ebook logins and read with your child. All titles read so far have been added (you can find a sticker with your login details in your child’s reading record).
As always thank you for your continued support!

Have an Eggcellent break!!!
Looking forward seeing you soon!
Mrs Solakova

24.03.2023

Hello everyone,
another week for us in Reception full of new learning and lovely experiences. In RE we were thinking about Jesus and how he dies on the cross to save all of us. We discussed fairness, trust and love for one another. We made beautiful Easter art and Hot cross bun posters. Really looking forward Tuesday, so we can gather together and think about Good Friday.

Vegetable patch update:
Outside we were busy prepping the soil for new vegetables. The children helped clearing everything out and then getting all the weeds out. The soil is all ready and we are planning to plant radishes, beans, onions and carrots. Strawberries are also on the list :). We are all very excited and hope that they all grow big and strong.

In Little Wandle this week we are continuing with Phase 4 sounds and are reading long words like ‘waiting’, ‘zooming’ and ‘singing’. The children are getting better and better chunking the long words up, if needed.

In English we wrote our own captions ‘I will not ever eat…’. We are absolutely loving the book. Why don’t you have a go too:

In Maths this week, the children continued to explore the composition of numbers within 10, focusing on the ‘special case’ of when 2 equal parts combine to make a whole. The children used their skills of comparison and identify when 2 sets are equal or NOT equal. They noticed a range of familiar representations including dice and fingers to explore the idea of ‘2 equal parts’, and then find the whole by combining these parts. They also used the stem sentence: ‘This is a double because ….. is a part and …… is a part.’

Dates to remember:
Tuesday 28th of March, 2:15pm – Hot Cross Bun Gathering
Friday 31st of March Easter Parade (deadline for Easter bonnets is Tuesday 28th).

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

What a week! A very scientific one! Yes we did lots of science experiments, but also we were singing, performing, creating and learning. We are getting busier and busier :). Throughout the week we’ve conducted lots of experiments to celebrate British Science Week. Our tiny seeds are not that tiny anymore. Some of them are growing very, very tall. We compared them and recorded our observations while practising forming sentences:

We also made lemon volcanoes and talked about how the soda and the citric acid react and create bubbles.

We also talked about floating and sinking and the children were testing their ideas and marking the results. After experimenting and discussing we found out that wood and cotton float, but metal will sink.

In English we began reading a new book ‘I will not ever never eat a tomato’ by Lauren Child. We had a testing session and the children had to draw and label one fruit or veg they will never eat. The winner is…. brussel sprout 🙂

In RE this week we finished our very special Lenten promise tree. The children are trying very hard to keep their promises, so well done everybody!

We also read the story ‘Once they were giants’. We talked about growth and how during Lent we are growing in goodness and kindness and try to be a little bit more like Jesus.

And finally Happy Mothers Day! I really hope you get spoiled and enjoy the day with your families.

A mother is the tender touch
that soothes our little aches,
The patient way that overlooks
our mischief and mistakes,
The smiling face that shares our jokes
and triumphs of the day,
The helping hand that reaches out
when trouble comes our way.
A mother is the warm embrace,
the love that knows no end,
The one who proves from day to day
to be our dearest friend!

Please check your tapestry account for a special mothers day message on Sunday morning!

Have an amazing weekend!
Mrs Solakova

10.03.23

What a surprise this week! Planned to go on a spring walk and ended up building snowmen and having snowball fights 🙂

Despite the cold weather the daffodils we have planted in October are looking amazing and smell gorgeous. The children are looking after them so well… have a look at yourself:

In Little Wandle this week we continued reading longer words. We even read a word with 7 sounds… we had to chunk it not 2, but three times. We are also practising writing sentences and the children are really doing well remembering the rules, capital letter, finger spaces and full stop. In your childs orange book you will find some of the longer words we have read.

In PSED this week we talked about friendships and discussed what a good friend is. The children were able to compare good and bad choices and then to apply different strategies.

Things to remember:
Friday morning (17.03.23) – Mothers day assembly

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Solakova

03.03.2021

A week full of books we’ve all had. With storytelling, bookmaking and dressing up.
We began the week by opening our new Doctor’s surgery. The children are now so confident writing, so we decided to make our own label. We were making sure all the patients are looked after and everyone is healthy.

A key focus in Maths this week was to consolidate the ‘stable order principle’ – rehearsing the order of the first 10 numbers and understanding that the position that each number holds in our number sequence does not change. While working with numbers to 10, the children developed their understanding of the ordinal aspect by consolidating their understanding that each number has a value of ‘1 more’ than the previous number.

In Little Wandle this week we’ve been revisiting the sounds already learned and continued blending longer words. Instead of adding new tricky words (as from now until the end of the spring term we will be revisiting the tricky words already taught) in your child’s orange folder I will be adding longer words like farmyard, carpark. We are learning how to chunk them. Please practise them home for building fluency.

English:
We are beginning to read new book, ‘The tiny seed’ by Eric Carle. First we planted our own tiny seed and then we made books explaining how the seeds grow.

In RE we pretended that our classroom is Church and role played Mass. We had priest and readers. We said the special words for Mass and everyone took part. Have a look at yourself:

And finally what an amazing outfits!!! You all looked AMAZING!

Have an amazing week!
Looking forward seeing you all next week!
Mrs Solakova

24.02.23

What an yummy first week back we’ve had. With pancakes and delicious toppings. The children had lovely time mixing the batter and then flipping the pancakes… well at least we tried and nothing went on the ceiling 🙂

Our pancake cafe was fully booked and we even had to have a waiting list! We invited Nursery children too to help us with all the prep work.

In RE this week we talked about Lent, and how during Lent we will try to grow in many ways…. and it could be very hard. The children all had their Lenten promise heart to take home. Please help your children and think about what that promise could be and then return them to school so we can create a special Lenten promise tree.
Wednesday was a very special day as Mrs Porter gave us the ashes. We talked about where do the ashes come from and why we are receiving them.

Finally thank you very much for coming to parents consultations meetings. It was lovely to see you all in person and talk about your children’s progress. And as always thank you very much for supporting us in this journey. We wouldn’t be able to do it well without your help and determination.

Things to remember:
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
3rd of March (Friday) we will be celebrating World book day and the children can come and dressed as their favourite book character.
Please bring in your Lenten Promise by Friday 3rd March.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Solakova

10.02.2023

And just like that it’s the end of another half term. A very good end indeed. With lots of interesting activities, thinking about wellbeing and staying healthy not just physically, but mentally too.
We were very excited to take part in the special Taskmaster education challenge week and every day we had to do the different activities. On a Monday we made THE BEST rainbow. We only had the prime colours and as an extra challenge had to think about how to make all of the colours:

Well…It is the best!
On Tuesday we designed a game and played a different version of Duck, duck goose and on Wednesday we had to go out and make a self-portraits only with things that we found on the playground. The portraits are absolutely brilliant and super creative!!!

Thursday was a super fun day as we choreographed a dance. We used the music from our previous PE lesson ‘He is a pirate’ from Pirates of the Caribbean. Please check your Tapestry account for a special surprise!
Friday was a design a hat day… Well we made some hats using junk modelling:

As this year’s theme was Let’s connect we connected with Nursery and had a special yoga session and then made stress balls.

Later that week we connected with the rest of the school by making a piece of a puzzle. We only used our fingertips to create the different shades.

Little Wandle
As already mentioned we are not going to learn any new sounds or tricky words, but instead we are concentrating on how to read longer words like FARMYARD or CARPARK.
So when we read those super long words we have to chunk them up first. For example
C-A-R car, P-AR-K park; CAR – PARK, CARPARK.

The rest of the week we spent on reading books about emotions, building cosy dens and spending quality time playing with our friends. It was a lovely week 🙂

Have a wonderful half term and a restful one too 🙂
Mrs Solakova

03.02.23

Numbers, patterns, shapes … they are everywhere!!! All we have to do is look around… and they are there!
We had a memorable day with lots of exciting activities. We had fun wearing our special number outfits and taking part in all of the activities:
On the playdough table we were counting fruits to go on the trees and were shaping the numbers with playdough

The writing table was visited by our friends, the numberblocks. We were building ladders out of squares:

Outside we were feeding the penguins with yummy fish:

We also played a board game and had to fit the circles into the 10 frame placemat. And finally … smashing outfits reception. I am impressed!

Little Wandle
This week we’ve learned the final 2 digraphs/trigraphs taught in reception. We also learned three new tricky words: sure, pure and are. Please practise them with your child, for building fluency.

In RE we were listening to the story Mary and Joseph taking baby Jesus to the Temple. Have a look:

After seeing the story we acted out the main events. We dressed up as Mary, Joseph and Simeon and Anna. The children had to repeat key phrases from the story and to remember what comes first, second, etc.

Important Dates:
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
06.02-10.02 – Children’s mental health week (we’ve planned amazing activities)
10.02 – Non uniform day – Dress to express
13.02-17.02 – Half term week

Hope you have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova