Category: Reception – St Adrian

13.01.23

It was so lovely to see everyone after the holidays and hear all the amazing stories and experiences the children have had during the festive season.
I would also like to take the opportunity and thank you all for the lovely gifts. We are beyond thankful!

In RE last week we talked about Epiphany and the children created an amazing Epiphany display. Have a look yourself:

This week we began a new topic and in the next 4 weeks we will be talking about Local Church – Community/Celebrating. The children will be learning that the Christians belong to the local church community – the parish, which celebrates in a variety of ways. That they celebrate tradition and story and find their meaning in Jesus.
So, as part of the new topic we held a special celebration, back to school party, and what is a party without a cake… or in our case without a cupcake. The children were busy mixing all the ingredients and baking delicious cupcakes:

Next week we will write our very own invitations!

Little Wandle
In Little Wandle this week we began learning phase 3 sounds. Please check your child’s pink folder for all phase 3 sounds sheet and a homework.

This week we introduced 3 new digraphs and a trigraph.

As always I highly recommend that you practice the new digraphs/ trigraph every day, as this would really build fluency and will boost your child’s confidence.
No new tricky sounds have been taught this week, because we are currently reviewing the ones already learned in Autumn term.

Maths
This week, the children used their perceptual subitising skills (seeing the quantity without counting) in increasingly complex arrangements, moving from dots in a line and arrangements of 2, to a focus on standard dice arrangements. Towards the end of the week we played lots of fun dice games like snakes and ladders and the children were encouraged to subitised the dice dots instead of counting.
If you happen to play a dice game over the weekend, please take some time and post it on Tapestry so we can celebrate in class.

Our new role play is up and running and the children are having so much fun selling and buying healthy fruit and veg. As you all know we love learning while playing, so our Market helps us talk about healthy and unhealthy choices, lot’s of counting, measuring and social skills are involved in our Play. Here are some pictures of our busy, busy day 🙂

And finally please check your child’s book bag for Spring term homework grid. You are welcome to do all the activities or choose at least 3 of them. Then you can either post them on Tapestry, email a photo to the office or bring a copy to school.
Please let me know if you have any difficulties accessing Tapestry.

Have a fantastic weekend.
Looking forward seeing you all on a Monday!
Mrs Solakova

16.12.22

What a week it’s been!!! Full of surprises….

On a Tuesday we had our dress rehearsal and actual performance in one go… The children were absolutely fantastic! Did you hear all the singing? Little superstars. Well done EYFS for being so confident on the stage. I can’t describe how proud you made me feel.
BIG Thank you parents for supporting us in learning the lines, providing outfits and simply being there for us.
News, News, read all about it!!!

To finish off the week we had a scrumptious Christmas dinner! And guess what… all the teachers were serving us the food! What a treat!

And finally… our special visitor! Santa checked that we had all been good and then gave us presents! Thank you Santa for the lovely surprise!

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

09.12.22

Hello parents,

What a week we’ve had. With lots of practising, trying the costumes, singing the songs and remembering the lines. The children are getting better and better and are super excited to show you everything they’ve learned next week.
We made a beautiful wreaths to decorate our classroom and also to help us remember that the wreath represents God’s love, has no beginning and no end. We added 5 more characters on our advent calendar and tried to keep the promises we made.

Little Wandle
This week, as mentioned in my previous blog, I was assessing the children and also we revisited our tricky words. Well … the tricky words proved to be very tricky, so they were all around the classroom during learning to play. We played a special fly swatter game on the carpet, competing against each other. So much fun ….

In our sand tray we were decorating a christmas tree and the baubles were tricky words. Such a great way to play and learn at the same time.

The tricky words are so tricky because we can’t decode them, which means that we have to sight read them. Please make sure that you practise them with your child every day as this would really help them remember and use them confidently. New words are added each week and you can find them in your child’s orange book.

What a lovely finish to the week… we planted a tree and carefully filled the whole making sure the tree is nicely tucked under the soil. Hope our tree will grow big and strong for many years to come.

Dates:

Tuesday 13th December 10:30 am – EYFS Christmas performance.
Thursday 15th December Christmas Jumper and Party Day…if we are lucky a special visitor – HO!HO!HO!!
Friday 16th December – deadline for KK gifts (please find the sticker in your child’s reading record)

Thank you very much to all the families who have sent in their clothes for our Nativity. If you have not already done so, please aim to send them in Monday morning. If you have any problems getting hold of the items, please let me know.

Next week we will visit the library on a Friday morning.
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
Our reading practise books need to be returned by Monday. Please make sure that they are in the zippy bags together with tricky words book and reading record.

To all the families with ill children, I am wishing you a very speedy recovery and hope to see you all back to school on a Monday morning.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs Solakova

02.12.22

And just like that it’s already December. Where are the weeks going.? We had lots of buzz around the classroom when everyone was talking about advent calendars, chocolate and Santa. What a better way to celebrate the beginning of Advent than decorating the classroom? We were busy wrapping presents, making Christmas cards, and practising, practising, practising for our Nativity.

Next week we will be making our own stockings for the fireplace!
It was very exciting that we can now use our Little Wandle learning and write letters to Santa independently.

We’ve been retelling the Nativity story and the children had lots of fun using the small world area and pretend to be Mary, Joseph, King or Shepherd. We even did a story map to help us remember the sequence of the story.

In Little Wandle this week we revisited all the graphemes and digraphs learned so far. We’ve been focusing on words with ‘s’ at the end (plurals and verb forms) and learned 3 new tricky words:

be
me
we

Over the next week I will be carrying out Little Wandle assessment with every child. Please keep a look out for any extra sound or word cards in your child’s reading folder, these are the ones they are not yet secure with. Please look at these daily with your child and make any relevant comments in their reading record.
As always, BIG THANK YOU for supporting us in this journey!

Things to remember:

Monday 2:30 pm Library visit – You are very welcome to join us!
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
Our reading practise books need to be returned by Monday. Please make sure that they are in the zippy bags together with tricky words book and reading record.

Looking forward seeing you all on the Christmas Disco!!!
Mrs Solakova

25.11.22

Hello parents,
Thank you very much for sharing lovely photos and artefacts from your child’s Baptism. We loved looking at them and discussing what is Baptism, welcoming into God’s family.

We played in our church, baptising babies and saying the special words: ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy spirit. Amen’. We made a beautiful stained glass windows and wrote a special prayer.

Little Wandle
This week we’ve learned 4 new digraphs:

Thank you for helping your children practise the new diagraphs.
Please make sure that you ‘read’ the new tricky words too.

Maths

This week, the children were building on their understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2. Through practical experience, they will consolidate their understanding of a whole being made up of smaller parts.

Things to remember:

Monday 2:30 pm Library visit – You are very welcome to join us!
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
Friday non – uniform day in exchange of £1/£2 pounds.
Saturday – family disco 4pm-7pm
Our reading practise books need to be returned by Monday. Please make sure that they are in the zippy bags together with tricky words book and reading record.

Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs Solakova

Hello parents and children,

What a week! At the beginning we came to school wearing odd socks and on a Friday we were all covered in spots and stripes. The children were also learning about Islam and took part in a special Islam assembly.

Odd socks day went really well and we spend the day showing off our odd socks and designing even more on the craft table. We also talked about what makes us different and how being different makes us stand out! Elmer the patchwork elephant helped us all to understand it. We all decided that if everyone was the same the world will not be as colorful as it is.

In RE this week we were learning interesting facts about the muslim prayer mat. We were very lucky to have a real pro. Thank you Year 2 for showing us how muslim people pray. It was very interesting and we learned so much. We also watched a video and if you like you can show it to your mummies and daddies :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02q87r8

Little Wandle
We continued our journey in learning new phonemes and digraphs. The children are brilliant in blending and they are even practising how to read a full sentences. Here is what we’ve learned this week:

Please practise the new phonemes and graphemes with your children. This will really help them become confident in recognising them.

First Library visit
We are very blessed to have such a lovely space for reading and sharing wonderful stories. Our first visit was on a Monday afternoon and the children were absolutely brilliant showing everybody their best behavior.

Reading morning

A big thank you for staying and reading with your child. We were all very excited to show you our lovely classroom and all the fabulous things we were busy with.

Children in need

On a Friday we came to school all spotty and stripy. We talked about different ways to support children in need and why we need to do that. We made Pudsey bear masks and learned new words like charity and donation.

Things to remember:

Monday 2:30 pm Library visit – You are very welcome to join us!
Friday reading mornings – 8:45am to 9:00 am.
Our reading practise books need to be returned by Monday. Please make sure that they are in the zippy bags together with tricky words book and reading record.

Isabel Thomas visit – Tuesday 2:15pm
Dressing of the tree and Advent service – Friday 25th of November

Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs Solakova

11.11.2022

Hello everyone,
This week the children were thinking a lot about Remembrance day. We talked about the soldiers and the war, about our families and those ones who are not with us any more. We were busy creating a lovely display by painting a poppy in our hands.

In learning through play we had red playdough and black buttons and during our funky fingers we were cutting and putting together paper poppies.

Today we joined a very special assembly and said a prayer with the rest of the school.

In Little Wandle this week we’ve learned 4 new sounds:

Please take some time and practise the new grapheme. Maybe you can think of a CVC word and use them to make some words. If you do please write them on a piece of paper and bring them to school for show and tell.
We are also getting so good at writing and the children are taking any opportunity to write independently or with a support. Have a look yourself:

Please also remember to read with your child. I am pretty sure that they will be very excited to show you their blending skills.
The reading practise books need to be returned by Monday!

Exciting news!!!
Now when we are all settled we would like to invite you to come and read with us. As you probably already know, our brand new library is up and running and we are so excited to borrow books and share them with you. You are very welcome to come and join us every Monday afternoon, just before pick up time, at 2:30pm.
Also every Friday morning we are going to have a very special Reading morning where you can come and read with your child. We will start at 8:45am and promptly finish at 9:00 am.

Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs Solakova

04.11.2022

Hello everyone,
I really hope that you had a lovely half term week.
We are now into Autumn 2 term and the children are all settled in, knowing our daily routines, rules and expectations. They were so excited to tell us all about their holidays and the different places they went.

This week it was a firework one! We talked about fireworks, watched some videos and discussed safety. We made fireworks with pipe cleaners, with runny glue and glitter, drew them on a colored paper. Lot’s of fun!

Little Wandle

This week we introduced 3 new digraphs:
ss, ff and ll and also learned a new phoneme

We are very excited to let you know that we’ve been reading books for a very first time. It is a very challenging experience for all of us, but all we need to do is keep on trying and never giving up!
Please check your child’s book bag for a reading book and a letter explaining how to successfully support your child at home. Please do not hesitate to contact me in case you have any concerns.
Would be lovely to see your comments in your child’s reading record, as this would really help us plan further and be aware of any support that is needed. 

Maths
In Maths this week we

This week, the children continued to engage with activities that underline the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are altogether. They reinforced their understanding of cardinality – that the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether in a set of objects.

A key focus this week was deepening children’s understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. The children were also exploring ways to represent numbers to 5 using both their hands.

Have a fantastic weekend!
Mrs Solakova

21.10.22

Can you believe that the children have been in Reception for half a term? It has been very challenging, but also fun, engaging and full of wonderful memories! I would like to thank you all for helping us with smooth transition and supporting us in all we do!

This week it was a good one…. with lot’s of new experiences! We really cracked on with our practise for the Harvest assembly and were very busy collecting leaves for a beautiful Autumn crowns. And then we performed our song in front of so many people. Well done! And guess what…. we even stayed for the whole assembly, listening to all the wonderful songs.
I big thank you for your generous donations!

We also get to practise tennis and a real professional tennis player came to our school showing us how to properly hold the tennis racket and how to balance and dribble the ball.

Please make sure you rest well and have plenty of fun during half term.
In case you are stuck for ideas you can visit this lovely website. There you will find plenty of suggestions for how to have fun and learn at the same time.

https://hertfordshire.50thingstodo.org/app/os#!50thingstodobefore5/welcome

Can’t wait to hear all about the things you did. Don’t forget that you can also use Tapestry to share and record your your wonderful experiences!

Have a fantastic half term!
Mrs Solakova

14.10.2022

Hello children and parents!
It’s been another busy week… we were practising our Harvest song, getting ready for next Thursday and can’t wait to see you all in the morning. Please note that the time has now changed and the assembly will take place at 9:15am.
We also planted some hyacinths and daffodils and are taking a good care of them… fingers crossed that they will grow in spring.

We learned 4 new graphemes:

Please spend some time with your children practising our new graphemes. Make sure you check their school bag for a new tricky word book. In the book you will find the first three tricky words that we’ve learned.

We also began to do our first spelling words. We learned how to use our segmenting fingers and segmented CVC words. The children then had to write these words on their boards. We experimented writing on different surfaces like sand, mud, boards…. great writing Reception. Have a look at how we spelled Sam from our favourite story!

In Maths this week the children were encouraged to represent quantities in different ways by using a number of fingers on one hand. So for example four can be 3 and 1, but can also be 2 and 2. We also played a fun bingo game.

Finally, it’s been a pleasure to see all of you yesterday. Thank you for your positive comments and all the support. Please look for your activation Tapestry email!
Can’t wait to see all the fantastic home learning!!!

Reminders:
Harvest Assembly – Thursday 20th of October at 9:15am
Friday Inset Day

Have an amazing weekend!
Looking forward seeing you all on Monday!
Mrs Solakova