This week has been another busy week where we have been thinking about what changes are happening in Autumn. First we went on a very special Autumnal walk and collected lot’s of natural materials like twigs, small seeds, leaves. Then we used our creativity and imagination and created beautiful art. I am very impressed with all the children. They had fantastic ideas… they used small leaves for hair, twigs for arms and legs, seeds for eyes. Have a look yourself 🙂
On Wednesday we had a very, very special celebration. Our lovely school had a birthday!!! We had a fun afternoon with lots of surprises…. disco lights, loud music, musical statues…. and popcorn with film… so much fun!!!
We also planted some very special flowers around the special 60th birthday tree!
In Little Wandle this week we’ve learned these new graphemes and phonemes:
Please remember that it is really important to practise the new sounds with your child. A key part of our reading is encouraging the children to orally blend the sounds, so why don’t you play that game over the weekend: Can you touch your? You need to say some phonemes and your child will have to blend them in their head and touch the part of the body you say. For example: Can you touch your L-E-G?
Maths
This week the children were learning how numbers can be composed of 1s and we began to investigate the composition of 3. The children met number 3 and found out all about number 3. We went for a picnic and our 3 Learning friends had to share 3 chairs, 3 pears, 3 plates.
Gentle reminders: Please remember to book your Parents consultation on Arbour. We are still collecting various items for Harvest. So any donations would be highly appreciated. Thank you to those of you that already shared their family photos. We are creating a lovely gallery and the children love looking at the pictures and talking about their families.
Have a fantastic weekend! Looking forward seeing you all on Monday! Mrs Solakova
What a busy week we’ve had! We were very excited to model on our new ‘Creation table’ and use our imagination to create different things. We’ve had castles, caterpillars, elephants, nests and so much more. We’ve been learning how to join, stick, link, fringe …. We were also labelling our work, thinking about all the different graphemes we’ve learned so far.
At the end of the week the children voted and please put your hands together for our winners! I wonder who is going to win next week…
Little Wandle This week we’ve learned 4 new sounds. Please practise the new sounds over the weekend and support your child with their Little Wandle home learning. This will really help them remember the new phonemes and graphemes.
In Maths this week we discussed why counting is as important as subitising. Last week we used subitising to identify the numbers in a set and this week we developed counting skills to enable us to identify how many they are in a set that cannot be subitised.
We also explored all sorts of things that can be counted, including sounds. We sang counting rhymes to support our learning. Why don’t you have a go too:
Have a fantastic weekend! Looking forward seeing you all on Monday! Mrs Solakova
What a wild week we’ve had…. someone walked in our classroom and left some footprints on the floor, black fur and a ripped piece of paper…
The intruder also left a sack labelled ‘Sam’s stuff’. Inside the sack we found different things beginning with ‘S’, like sandwiches and strawberries, and also a book…
The book was super mysterious too. Especially when we read only half of it… The children were thinking about what could happen next, who might be Sam and why he left his sack in Reception.
We will continue reading the story next week and hopefully will find out!
Little Wandle Thank you so much for supporting your children. I am impressed by how well they are writing their letters and remembering all of them. Great job Reception! The first writing certificates are now ready and will be given on a Monday. This week we’ve learned 4 new sounds:
We also played lots of blending and sound talking games. Maybe you can have a go at home too.
What’s that noise? Think about the different sounds the animals make While playing the game instead of saying ‘What noise does the cat make?‘ you can say ‘What noise does the C-A-T make?‘ Then your child will have to blend the phonemes in their head and make the sound. Have fun!
Maths In Maths this week, the children were encouraged to quantify sets of objects by subitising, rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by ‘just seeing’ and knowing straightaway without needing to count.
Subitising can be categorised as ‘perceptual’ or ‘conceptual’. Perceptual subitising is used for very small sets of objects (initially up to about 3) and conceptual subitising is used when sub-groups can be perceived within a larger set and the whole is recognised, e.g. if 6 dots are arranged in a dice pattern, children may recognise this as ‘two 3s’ and know this is 6.
The focus for this week was perceptual subitising and the children were subitising up to 3 objects. We met number 1,2 and 3.
Have a fantastic weekend! Looking forward seeing you all on Monday! Mrs Solakova
It has been such a pleasure to meet all the new Reception children. We had a fantastic start to the term and the children are settling in very well. In the past 2 weeks we have been learning about the areas of the classroom, how to safely use equipment, how to tidy, where to find resources and so much more. Our role play corners have been particularly busy. We prepared lot’s of delicious meals in the home corner and camped under the stars, reading stories and melting marshmallows by the fire. What a treat!!!
Lunch time was also a success and the children are becoming more familiar with the routine and where to go. I am really impressed by how polite they are saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to the dinner ladies. They are showing super skills while walk and balance their trays. Well done Reception!
We are very good following the timetable, knowing what we are doing at the moment and what is coming next.
Our first PE session went really well too. This term we will be doing gymnastics and think about the different ways we can move changing speed and direction. We are also going to learn how to listen and respond appropriately to instructions.
This week we began our Little Wandle journey and the children learned four new phonemes
If you are able to, please support your child practising the new sounds. Pronunciation of these sounds is really important, rather than ‘s-uh’ we teach ‘ssssss.’ Avoid adding ‘uh’ or ‘er’ to the end of sounds. Practising how to form these letters is also crucial – why not practising forming them with chalk, paint, tracing the letter on your back and guessing what sound it is.
Today the children chose their first sharing book, so look out for reading and writing folder and reading record book.
Lots of children came into school today sharing their feelings about Her Majesty the Queen’s death. Here at St. Adrians we encourage children to discuss how they think and how they feel. At home it is just as important. Maybe you and your child might want to watch the video and talk about it with you.
The children prepared a little something for our Friday assembly, reflection on what we have learned about the Queen.
‘I miss her and I am going to make her a card and send it to Heaven.’ ‘I am going to give her a card and flowers out the window and it will fly up to Heaven’ ‘The Queen died and would make her a picture and give her flowers to put on the floor like the others.’
Have a lovely weekend! Looking forward seeing you all on Tuesday! Mrs Solakova
The children absolutely love the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, often choosing the story at storytime. We are, therefore, exploring the story sequence in more detail and learning to retell the story.
They became fierce cheeky Jacks, very cross mums and fierce giants in our Giant’s Castle.
A great inspiration for making our own castles.
The children also retold the story using puppets.
We’ve planted beans and can’t wait to see the roots and shoots appear.
The education for children at St. Adrian’s is based on the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ framework. These are government guidelines that set out the curriculum delivered to each child, from birth until the end of the Reception class. The framework is organised into the seven areas of learning. Our first priority is to ensure children are happy, settled and ready to learn.
You can access the Early Years Foundation Stage framework here.
In the stimulating and caring environment at St. Adrian’s, children learn to feel confident and able to learn through enjoyable and challenging play.
Play is a very important part of growing up. From birth to five years old, children grow, develop and learn rapidly. They choose their friends and develop their own preferred ways of learning. This involves finding out the answers to questions, developing the confidence to ‘have a go’ and learning new skills, as well as consolidating and extending what has already been discovered.
When children start school, they have already learnt a lot from parents at home and in pre-school. We want to build on what children already know and can do, continually taking them to the next stage.
Children learn many new skills from being involved in purposeful, structured play, both indoors and outdoors. Whilst in the Foundation Stage, children spend periods of time involved in activities planned by an adult and periods of time doing activities they have chosen themselves.
You can access the Nursery handbook here. You can access the Reception handbook here.
The Learning Environment
The indoor and outdoor ‘classrooms’ are arranged to give children plenty of space to move around, to work individually and in groups, large and small.
Resources are well organised and labelled so that children know where to find what they need and can be independent in their play (and tidying!). This means that adults can spend more time joining in with children’s learning.
Through this supported play, children can explore, develop and use their curiosity and imagination to help them make sense of the world in a secure environment. They learn skills, build up ideas and concepts, think creatively and imaginatively and communicate with others as they investigate and solve problems.
Let’s find out more about the areas of learning
Each of the following learning areas have early learning goals. Individualized learning and care enhances the development of every child to help them work towards the early learning goals and give them the best possible start in life.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Nursery and Reception classesprovide a secure environment for children to develop as confident individuals. Opportunities are provided for each child to become a valued member of a group and community sothat confidence and self-esteem are promoted. Children are encouraged to work and play cooperatively and establish effective relationships with other children and adults. They have many opportunities to demonstrate their independence and seek help where needed, developing an understanding of what is right, what is wrong and why. The other six areas of learning are underpinned by secure personal, social and emotional development.
Communication and Language
We provide a stimulating environment in which the children can listen and respond to stories, non-fiction writing, songs, nursery rhymes and poems and take part in role-play with confidence. The children love to discuss the text, retell stories through small world activities and make up stories of their own. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the school day in a language rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners help to build children’s language acquisition.
Physical Development
Physical development in the Foundation Stage at St. Adrian’s is about providing opportunities for children to develop and improve their skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement both indoors and outside. Physical activity is vital in children’s all around development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross (large body muscles) and fine (small muscles in hands and fingers) motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood. The development of a child’s strength, coordination and positional awareness is developed through movement opportunities with both objects and adults. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well being. Fine motor control and precision helps with eye-hand coordination, which is later linked to early literacy and writing.
Literacy
Comprehension
Language comprehension (both reading and writing) develops when adults at St. Adrian’s talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.
The children will learn comprehension skills alongside learning to decode the words on the page. This will help them to make sense of what the words say and what the text means. These skills help children become keen and confident readers.
Word Reading
The children will learn about rhyming words, listen for sounds in words, recognise letters and use these to blend words. They will be introduced to letters through the Letters and Sounds programme and develop a love for books from the school reading scheme as well as from the class library. Children learn to enjoy words and language. They love to sing rhymes and share books with others.
Writing
Children are encouraged to make marks and use pictures, symbols, letters and familiar words to communicate meaning. They experience a wide range of writing tools and are encouraged to hold them carefully and form letters correctly.
Children develop good small muscle manipulative skills in their hands and fingers before they can form letters.
Mathematics
Through practical activities the children are encouraged to sort and match objects by colour, size and shape, and to recognise, recreate and devise their own patterns. They experience counting games and activities, number rhymes, songs and stories. They learn to use mathematical understanding to solve practical problems. Our curriculum also includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics. We believe that it is very important for the children to develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, and spot connections.
Understanding the World
In this area of learning, children are developing the crucial skills of knowledge and understanding that help them to make sense of their physical world and their community. They are encouraged to solve problems and find out about the world around them through using their five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. This forms the foundation for later work in science, design and technology, history, geography, and computing.
Expressive Arts and Design
Creativity is fundamental to successful learning. Being creative enables children to make connections between one area of learning and another and so extend their understanding. We provide a huge range of practical activities that promote creativity through art, music, dance, role-play and imaginative play. The frequency, repetition and depth of children’s experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond and observe.
Religious education
In the foundation stage religious education drives the whole curriculum. Through engaging, practical, integrated activities, children can learn more about themselves, other people and the world around them and develop their religious knowledge, skills and understanding. Religious education plays an active contribution to the areas of learning outlined in the curriculum for the foundation phase but has a particular and important contribution to personal and social development, communication and language, literacy, understanding of the world, art and design.
Characteristics of Learning
There are three main characteristics of learning outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.
Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and “have a go”.
Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy their achievements.
Creativity and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas and make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
At St. Adrian’s we focus on learning behaviours and developing the language of ‘how I am learning’. Our learning super heroes help us talk about how we are learning:
Reception children took part in a Pentecost party on Thursday. Many thanks for all the vibrant outfits. Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season. This feast, sometimes referred to as the birthday of the Church, will be celebrated this Sunday.
The children learnt that at Pentecost Christians come together to share their happiness and joy because Jesus had kept his promise and sent the Holy Spirit to be their friend. We can all share in this happiness and tell everyone.
As mentioned before, the coming of the Holy Spirit can be difficult for young children to understand. We explored such things as air, wind and fire to help explain the power of the Holy Spirit. The children made ‘tell the good news’ streamers and fiery hats.
They also decorated the classroom with red paper chains and enjoyed healthy red snack foods; strawberries, tomatoes and red peppers. We were blessed with an extremely blustery day and the children were so excited chasing bubbles in the wind calling out ‘Share the good news, the Holy Spirit is here!’
The children listened to the following scripture story Acts 2: 1-4
We sang ‘Happy Birthday to the Church’ and the following song is one of their favourites:
Below is our Pentecost prayer:
Thank you, God! For the Good News of Easter. Thank you, God! For the new life of Jesus. Thank you, God! For the Good News of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, God! For the Good News of your love.
Lastly, they have also made ‘Happy Pentecost’ cards to share with their families. Look in your child’s book bag if you haven’t already been presented with your card.
Thank you for all the amazing Mary and Joseph outfits today. The children enjoyed immersing themselves in our RE Curriculum Day dedicated to Saint Joseph.
We began with a virtual whole school assembly where the children learned about Saint Joseph. They discovered five key facts:
Saint Joseph listened to God.
Saint Joseph looked after Jesus and Mary.
Saint Joseph trusted God.
Saint Joseph shared his faith with Jesus.
Today Saint Joseph is the patron of God’s worldwide family – the Church.
The children listened to a reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew 1:18-25 (adapted)
Joseph loved Mary and was engaged to marry her. When Joseph found out that Mary was going to be the mother of a baby, he was not sure what to do. He wondered ‘Should I still marry her or perhaps I can quietly break off our engagement?
They also listened to the story of The Day Jesus was Lost in the Temple and how Mary and Joseph looked for him.
We composed our own prayers to St. Joseph and the children wrote a prayer asking Saint Joseph to look after their family.
You may wish to say the following prayer at home:
We learned that Saint Joseph worked hard as a carpenter and had our own woodwork hut.
Over the past few weeks Reception children have been introduced to the fact that numbers are made up of other numbers. The children’s understanding has been developed through a sequence of 3 steps.
Step 1 – we began by exploring regrouping a whole into different parts and identifying what values are hidden within numbers.
Children are encouraged to use subitising (recognising a small group of numbers at a glance without counting) when looking at groups of objects. For example, in the photo below rows of 3 and 4 were identified.
Step 2 – we talked about combining parts to create a whole. This is the start of calculating – addition.
The children were encouraged to notice and find different parts that can be combined to make the same whole; concluding that there are lots of different ways to make a total. The photo below illustrates how we used a 10 egg box carton to look at multiple ways of making number 10.
Step 3 – calculating the part of a whole that is missing. This is the introduction of subtraction.
In the photo below the children played a game finding the missing number from a total amount of carrots.
In the photo below the children were given a starting amount (the part), a target to reach (the whole) and they found ‘how many more…?’ (the missing part) when building towers with Duplo.
How to can help at home
Talk about how a collection of toys can be regrouped eg. farm animals, all the animals are part of the whole farm but they could be regrouped into sheep, cows, horses, pigs and farmers (humans). Each group is part of the whole farm. Or 7 vehicles could be regrouped as 4 cars and 3 trucks.
Give your child a target number and, using dominoes, can they try to find all the dominoes that have that number of dots altogether where either side of the domino would become a part. Talk about what they notice if one side of the domino shows 0 dots.
At meal/snack time find the total two groups of items. For example, pears and bananas. Ask your child to find the total initially starting with the pears and then adding the bananas, then starting with the bananas and then adding the pears. Talk about how the order of the fruit doesn’t matter when adding.
Introduce a range of different problems that require your child to calculate a missing part.
How many more…? If we need a snack for four people and there are two bananas, how many more do we need?
How many left…? How many cakes left now that Mummy and Daddy have taken their cake?
What is the difference…? You have three sweets and Mummy has two sweets. What is the difference between the numbers of sweets you have?
Play Kim’s game. Show your child a small collection of different objects on a tray and identify the whole (the total number of items). Hide them all and remove some objects. Reveal the objects left. Can your child calculate how many have been taken – the missing part.
The vocabulary of parts and whole has been emphasised throughout our learning. The children’s understanding of equal, more and less and ‘altogether’ has also been developed to describe the whole.
Maths Challenge
Your child may wish to have a go at the following maths challenge:
Collect a small amount of items outside eg. sticks, leaves, stones (10 items to begin and extend to 20 for extra challenge)
Once there are a few items, explore how they might be grouped.
Create groups and then use subitising to say how many are in each group (if the amounts are small enough).
Talk about the parts and the whole and then count to find the total.
I would love to hear about your child’s mathematical discoveries on Tapestry. We always have fun sharing the children’s home learning in class. This also often inspires their friends to also ‘have a go’!
As part of our Relationships and Health teaching the children discovered how God created the world and why the Bible is so special.
Last week we read the story of creation and talked about how our bodies were created by God. We are all God’s children and part of his special plan.
The children learnt the following song ‘If I were a Butterfly’
You may wish to share the following class prayer at home:
Dear God, You made our amazing world and all the amazing things in it. Thank you for making me and loving me. Help us to take care of ourselves and the world. Amen.
This week the children began to understand that the Bible is special because we are all in it and part of God’s family. In the Bible we hear stories about Jesus and that still has meaning for us today.
We acted out a story from the Bible, Jesus and his disciples during the Last Supper. I washed the children’s feet to show the children how Jesus is our role model. Jesus is showing us a way of behaving, he showed love to his disciples and he wants us to show that love to others.
The children made some great suggestions about how they can show love to others “You can take turns”, “You help tidy up”, “Look after someone who is sad”. I made a suggestion that you can give someone a smile.
You may wish to share the following class prayer at home:
Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my perfect role model. Thank you for loving me. Help me to share that love with others. Amen
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend in God’s amazing world.
