Reception – Another half term!

24.05.24

Hello parents and children,
This week we added the final touches to our garden. It is looking wonderful and also attracting lots of bees and butterflies. The children are feeling very proud of what they achieved and every day they will check for weeds and water the plants.

In Little Wandle this week we have been looking at -ed word endings, deciding whether it makes -ed sound like in hunted or -d sound like in bumped. We also read words with -est endings like softest and strongest. We also learnt the last 2 tricky words for reception:

Please practice all tricky words at home too, so your children can feel confident recalling them. Don’t forget to continue reading both practice book and library book.
Thank you for your continued support.

In Maths we explored sharing and grouping which are both different methods of division. We talked about sharing as dividing a set equally between a certain number of groups. And grouping as dividing a set by placing a certain number of items in each group. We learnt that to share we need to take one object at a time and give it to one child before taking the next object and giving it to the next child, repeating this process until all the objects are gone or each child has an equal amount.

Wishing everybody a very restful half term. I have heard lots about your plans for the holidays and can’t wait to hear all about it from the children when they return.
Mrs Solakova

Reception – Church’s Birthday!

17.05.24

Hello children and parents,
It won’t be enough to say that we all had a lovely day today! Our Pentecost party was such a success with glorious weather, delicious food and most importantly …. wonderful children!!! They practised hard and learnt our very special song, remembered important facts about Pentecost and were able to explain in detail why we are celebrating today. Well done children.

On Thursday we made delicious red jam sandwiches, decorated with balloons and bunting. We set up the food and cut grapes, strawberries and watermelon. Thank you children for being so helpful. Our families felt very welcomed in our rather red classroom 🙂

In Little Wandle this week we continued reading long words, however some of this week’s words were extremely long… handstand has 9 sounds!!! We also learnt 4 new tricky words:

In Maths we continued working with shapes, however this week we learnt how to identify shapes within shapes and that shapes can not only be separated to make new shapes, but also that shapes can be combined.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Looking forward seeing you all next week!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – Boats ahoy!

10.05.24

Dear children and parents,
Here are some updates on our exciting week.
First and very important we truly enjoyed the wonderful weather. From decorating plant pots to water fights, the children had plenty of fun learning and exploring! As usual they were super helpful and our outside area is looking better than never.

As you can imagine we were also busy learning to read words like string, strap, scrunch. They proved to be very difficult to segment as you can often miss a sound … We also learnt 4 new tricky words:

In Maths this week we were learning to further explore the properties of shapes
and spatial relations. The children had plenty of opportunities to Provide opportunities to explore the attributes of shapes and to select shapes for a particular purpose. We created lovely mosaic with shapes and the children built on the learning from previous
steps by now manipulating shapes. Children explored moving, turning, rotating and flipping shapes to fit into the spaces provided.

We are very excited to show you what we’ve made…. We learnt lots about boats, how they travel, why they float and what makes them move. The children explored floating and sinking by placing different objects in a water tray. They predicted which objects would sink or float and then tested their predictions. Then they designed their own boats:

The trickiest part was to actually build the designed boat. The children worked in teams having to negotiate what materials would be best for a boat, what would make it unsinkable.

And of course at the end we went to test the boats! Are they going to sink or are they going to float? If they sink, why… what went wrong?

Well done reception for another great week!
Looking forward seeing you again next week 🙂

Dates to remember:
Friday 17th May – No Reading morning

Friday 17th May – Pentecost party at 9:15am

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – May the Month of Mary

03.05.24

Dear children and parents,

We entered May thinking about Mary, Mother of Jesus. The children prepared a lovely display with the 12 Apostles and helped write their names. They were singing the hymns beautifully and their behaviour during the assembly was exceptional!

In RE we also continued our learning about Pentecost and read the story of the Holy Spirit.

Forty days after his Resurrection Jesus returned to his Father in heaven. His friends were sad. They missed him.  They felt lonely and afraid without him.  On Pentecost day, they were all together in the house.  Crowds of people came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. The friends of Jesus did not go out to join them.  They stayed all together in the house.  They talked about Jesus and remembered what he had told them.   As the wind filled the room, they began to feel different.  Joy and happiness filled their hearts.  It was wonderful.  They knew that Jesus had kept his promise to send a new friend, the Holy Spirit.  “Let’s go out and join the crowds.”  Peter said.  “Let’s tell them the Good News that Jesus is alive.”

Based on Acts 2: 1-4.

We talked about the Holy Spirit as something we can’t see or touch, but feel. The children began learning a new song as well:

In Little Wandle we continued learning phase 4 sounds, but this week we focused on words with short vowels like train, track, bring and smash. We also learnt 4 new tricky words. Please practice these at home too for building fluency.

In Maths the children built on their understanding as they explored the change structure of addition by adding more and subtraction by taking away. The focus was on increasing and decreasing a quantity by a given amount, while continuing to work within 10. The children used real objects to see that the quantity of a group can be changed by adding more or taking away.

And finally… a caterpillar update! The caterpillars are growing big and fat and entering into the next stage of the life cycle – chrysalis. We observed the changes carefully and talked about what comes next.

Dates to remember:
Monday 6th May – Bank Holiday
Wednesday 8th May – School photos
Friday 10th May – Reading morning

Have a wonderful weekend!
Looking forward seeing you all on Tuesday!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – Earth day!

26.05.24

Dear parents and children,
This week we discussed some very important matters, including how to reduce the use of plastic, how to look after our planet and what we can do to help. We’ve been reading a story called ‘The tale of the toothbrush’. The story of Sammy and Sophia really helped the children to understand the impact their choices have on our planet: 

We’ve been doing lots of activities around that book and the children built a bank of ideas on how and why we must reduce the use of plastic. They had different ideas and strategies: 

When you go shopping you need to bring your own bag.
Recycle your plastic making sure it goes into the correct bin.
Bring your own reusable bottle and don’t buy plastic bottles from the shop. 
Buy loose fruit and  vegetables instead of wrapped ones. 

We also discussed ways to reuse plastic just like Sofia did. She reused Sammy the toothbrush to clean her shoes and brush her doll’s hair. We even displayed our ideas and made labels for each one.

At the end of the week we all went around the school for litter picking. Unfortunately there was so much litter…. we collected 4 full buckets, but lots more was left behind. The children were able to understand the importance of recycling and how important is to keep our streets clean from plastic.

In Little Wandle this week we’ve been reading CVCC words like nest, best, gift etc. We also learnt 4 new tricky words. These have been added to your child’s orange book.

In Maths this week, the children became more familiar with numbers beyond 10 and the pattern (stable order) of numbers to 20 and beyond. They also focused on seeing the pattern of ten and 4 more, ten and 5 more, ten and 6 more, and so on. They played lots of games linked with counting and recognising numerals like bingo and adding counters to two ten frames. They were able to build 15, 16, 17 etc, by adding 10 counters to the first ten frame and 5, 6, 7 more to the second ten frame.

Great learning this week Reception!
You all deserve a special certificate!!!

Dates to remember:
Friday 3rd May – No Reading Morning
Friday 3rd May – Crowning of Mary Assembly at 09:05 – Parents are welcome to attend

Monday 6th May – Bank Holiday

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – First week back!

19.04.24

Welcome everyone to Summer term!
I really hope that you’ve enjoyed your Easter holiday and are ready for another busy term. We have lots of exciting adventures planned and I am really looking forward to the wonderful learning in the coming weeks!
We began a new project this week, a sensory garden full of scented and colourful plants. In there you can smell different spices like rosemary and curry!

In Little Wandle this week we revisited everything learnt in Spring 2, therefore no new sentences/tricky words will be added to your childs orange book.
In your childs book bag you will find the new summer home learning grid. Please choose at least three of the activities and once ready, share them with us. We can’t wait to see them!!!

In Maths the children focused on the concept of 3-D shapes and their properties. We already explored some of the properties of these shapes earlier when sorting
objects that are 3-D, looking at 2-D shapes, however this week we were naming the 3-D shapes and discussed how we know that that a shape is 3-D, and not 2-D. We explored the idea of flat faces and curved surfaces in activities such as printing and rolling/sliding the shapes down a ramp. We also learnt how to see the 2-D shapes within the 3-D shapes.

The children also embedded their learning by going on a 3-D shape around the school! They found lots of cubes, cuboids and spheres, however the pyramids and cones were trickier to spot.

RE
Pentecost – Good news. In this new theme the children will learn about the gift of the Holy Spirit and serving as a way of life. They will explore what we mean by Good news and know that everyone at times will have good news to share. They will appreciate their own good news, talk about how they feel when they have good news to share and celebrate the good news that they hear from other children and adults. These experiences will lay the foundation to help children understand the Good News that Christians celebrate at Easter – that Jesus is alive!
This week we read ‘The jolly postman’:

We discussed how it feels when we hear good news and then talked about good news we can share with each other. Have a look at some of the wonderful examples:

Dates to remember:
Friday 26th April – Reading morning
Friday 26th April (PM) – Litter picking

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – Happy Easter!

What a week!
Looking after the chicks, preparing for Easter and welcoming families for Easter egg hunt.

Today was the last day having the chick, but luckily they are going to a loving home. Miss Osman will keep them all in her garden and will send us little updates on how they are doing! During the week we took them for a walk, cleaned the tank and gave them food and water.

Thank you so much for joining us today for a lovely Egg hunt and Easter basket craft. It was lovely seeing so many of you joining us for this special occasion!

The children looked absolutely amazing wearing their Easter bonnets!!!

I hope you all have an amazing Easter holiday!

Mrs Solakova

Reception – New life!

What a week everyone!!! So many things are growing in our classroom, so many things to care for… It’s all helping us to grow in love and care and be a little bit more like Jesus!
As probably you all know the eggs arrived on Monday and started hatching Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning we had 3 chicks and the rest of the eggs hatched during the day. And that was very exciting for the children, watching them peck and slowly breaking the shell.

The chicks are now all hatched and healthy. They are eating and drinking and of course ready to be cuddled! Everyone had a turn and all the children were super careful while holding them. 

Our beans are doing really well too. We make sure that the cotton is moist all the time and that they get plenty of sunshine. Some of them are still sprouting as others formed roots and leaves. Soon they will be planted in the garden!!!

In Little Wandle this week we began reading words ending in -ing. We are also continuing to revisit the tricky words, digraphs and trigraphs. The children are also learning how to write some long sentences like: The goat was born this morning.

In Maths we were learning to see greater numbers as a whole number and its parts at the same time. The children were encouraged to represent their different compositions of
numbers to 10 by providing varied representations to show the different compositions.
We used the stem sentence 5 and 5 are a bond to 10, 6 and 4 are a bond to 10, etc.
The children used visuals to support their understanding.

In RE we continued thinking of different ways to grow in love and care. Thank you very much for bringing your Lenten promises to school. They are now part of a beautiful display. The children are very good at remembering their promises!

Dates to remember:
Monday 25th March – deadline for Easter bonnets
Tuesday 26th March at 9:00 am – Stations of the Cross reflection assembly
Wednesday 27th at 9:00 am – Easter art competition parade
Thursday 28th at 9:15 am – Meet the chicks and Easter craft morning
Thursday 28th – Nursery and Reception cake sale (after school)
Thursday 28th – Last day of term. School finishes at 1:30pm

Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Solakova


Reception – A very scientific week!

15.03.24

Dear children and parents,
This week we’ve been busy talking about the world around us and understanding the effects of changing seasons on the natural world. We were looking for signs of Spring and painted posters for each season. We talked about the different activities we can do in different times of year and the colours we see.

This week the theme for British science week was time and that opened up lots and lots of discussions about what time means and how we can measure time. We talked about things that go very fast (the fastest animals or ways of travelling) or very slow (growing plants, building a house).

We planted some beans, talking about what the seeds might need, how to look after them and how long it will take for them to grow. The children had to think about what comes first, second. Next week the children will start writing a diary, carefully observing the changes.

1 Find a pot, 2 Put soil in:

3 Put the seeds, 4 Water the seed:

During the week we were making puppets for our end of week sneaky shadow puppet show. We performed in front of each other telling stories and acting out. The children loved using the torches and seeing the effect of light on the screen!

If you need some fresh fruit or veggies, please come to our brand new market. You will find potatoes, cabbage and cucumbers. Also milk, eggs and honey! The children did the labels all by themselves and helped set up the stalls. Well done everyone!

In Little Wandle we read our first super long words like fantastic and shimmer. I’ve added a few of the them to the orange book. Please practice them with your child and if they struggle let them chunk the words.

In Maths we are continuing to think about numbers to 10. The children used conceptual subitising to identify a whole quantity within 10 by subitising the smaller groups that make up that number. This skill will support children to develop mental images for addition and subtraction, which helps children to move away from counting on and counting back.

Have a lovely weekend!
Looking forward seeing you next week!!!
Mrs Solakova

Reception – World book day and Mother’s day celebrations!

08.03.24

Hello children and parents,
The focus for this week was definitely Mothers day! We’ve been busy practicing our song, we painted rainbow flowers and of course decorated fantastic Mother’s day cards! In our writing sessions we were thinking about why we love mummy and how we can help her at home with chores! Here is some of our writing… excellent work reception!

On Thursday we had a wonderful day celebrating love for books and reading. The children looked absolutely stunning in their outfits and they were very excited to talk about their favourite stories in class!
We were thinking about all of the places we can read the book and came out with several ideas:
You can read alone or you can read a friend!

You can read outside (how about on a Tuk Tuk bike) or you can read inside:

You can read with a teacher or with a friend:

There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. Giving a child time and full attention when reading them a story tells them they matter. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary, feeds imagination and even improves their sleeping patterns.

To celebrate their birthdays, children are encouraged to donate a book to our class library. The reward for doing this is to come to school in a favourite outfit.  You can view our class wish-list on Amazon.  
Reception wish-list https://amzn.eu/3RN7MT3

And finally to all of you wonderful mums!!!
I love my mum because she is the best!
I love my mum because she always cares for me!
I love my mum because she is beautiful and cooks delicious meals.
I love my mum because she takes me to school every day!
I love my mum because she cuddles me every and reads a bedtime story!

Have a wonderful Mother’s day and make sure you check your child’s Tapestry page for a special Sunday message 🙂

Mrs Solakova