Reception

Wow! What an amazing week of rehearsals and shows! Reception have worked so hard over the last few weeks, meticulously practising lines, learning dance routines and singing songs. We couldn’t be prouder of how well they performed to such large audiences!

Here are just a few snapshots of our wonderful show! Please take time to celebrate your child’s part in the nativity and discuss all the things you both enjoyed about the performance!

Phonics:

This week has been a review week, where we revisit all of the sounds we have learned this half term. We are very proud of how well the children are doing at picking up these new digraphs (two letters that make one sound, e.g. ee, ai, oa).

If you have any extra time to play games, it would help all the children to practise the Harder to Read and Spell words (HRSW). The children know that HRSW are words that cannot be sounded out – you, me, push, pull etc).  You might like to hide them around your house as a treasure hunt for your child to find or place them for your child to read each time they go up the stairs! Learning to recognise these words by sight will help your child immensely when they are learning to read full sentences and longer books.

This week in Forest, our Reception children went on a wonderful “Loud and Proud Walking” adventure, exploring the forest through sound. Using sticks, they tapped trees, benches and stones to discover the different noises each material made, describing what they heard with words like loud and quiet. They even tried copying the sounds with their voices before swapping their sticks for stones to see how the sounds changed. The children showed fantastic curiosity as they compared long and short sounds and discussed why objects make different noises, a wonderful muddy, hands-on session full of learning and fun.

In Phonics, we have been reviewing all of our sounds that the children have learnt. It is great to see such amazing progress from every child as they progress with their reading and writing. These are all of the sounds we have learnt so far.

Brrr! This week has seen some rather cold days, but this has been the perfect opportunity for us to explore our gardens and the forest. We have noticed a big change in the weather and the temperature outside. Lots of us has a wonderful time scraping ice and frost off of the equipment to make our own “snowballs” and mixtures in the mud kitchen.

We have also loved looking at our new ‘Curiosity box’ where we have been describing what we can see, as well as exploring and testing different materials.

Mini Explorers

We have had such a fun week exploring the forest. Here we are fully engrossed in our “loud and proud walking”. We had to use a stick to explore the sounds we could make on different surfaces in the forest. Can you spot the things we tested? You might like to try this activity again at home or on a local walk. Does a stone make the same sounds as a stick when you tap or scrape things?

Phonics

This week in Reception we have been busy using all of our phonic knowledge to help us label pictures, play games and make words. We have been learning about letters that go together to make one sound, such as ee, ai and igh.  We have also been practising our harder to read and spell words. We know that these are words we cannot sound out so we must learn to recognise these by sight – we are beginning to get the hang of it and will continue to practise these over the next few weeks!

How you can help at home:

• Practise recognising the new sounds we have been learning – can you spot them in any stories you are reading together?
• It is the time of year where we see hats, scarves, gloves etc all flying around – please help your child to be independent when getting dressed/undressed and check that everything is labelled! They may need some extra time to get ready in the mornings as learning to zip up coats can be quite tricky!
• Play games together that involve taking turns such as snap, snakes and ladders and other simple board games

In Reception this week, the children have been busy creating their very own rhyming books as part of their literacy learning. Each child chose an animal, such as a cat, dog, or rat, and added new pages each day filled with rhyming words linked to their chosen animal.  As they built their books, the children learnt to hear and generate rhyming pairs, practising these patterns through games, reading and shared writing. They also explored the key features of a book, discussing elements like the front cover, title, illustrations, and how pages are sequenced. This book making project strengthened their phonological and rhyming awareness and also developed their confidence as becoming authors and storytellers.

The Reception children have also been excitedly planting flowers and greenery to help make our playground look brighter. This hands-on project linked perfectly to our learning about growth, as the children explored how plants develop from seeds and what they need to grow strong and healthy. As they dug, watered, and are waiting for their plants to begin to sprout, the children also learnt about the importance of nurturing living things and caring for our environment. Through observing changes over time, they began to understand the life cycle of plants.

These are the phonics sounds we have learnt this week. Please practice these with your child at home.

How you can help at home: 

• Practise the phonics sounds above.
• Can your child find any rhyming pairs around the house? What does fork rhyme with?
• Can your child tell you what a plant needs to grow? How did they plant their plant?

This week we have been learning all about Remembrance. We attended a special assembly where we learned all about what Remembrance day is and why it is important. We heard from some of our friends and their parents who are in the military.

We know that Poppies are the special symbol of Remembrance and we worked hard to create our own. We used lots of different skills to create these – as you can see, some of them were created using watercolour paints, whilst some others were made using cupcake cases which we turned into a wreath.

We watched an animation about Remembrance https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/poppies and also read a poem which we used for our watercolour art.

How you can help at home:

• Practise your child’s reading book at least three times a week and record this in their reading record
• Discuss the ever changing weather and seasonal beauty – pine cones, conkers, leaves, acorns
• Practise playing maths games – this could be dominoes, board games, puzzles or just spotting numbers on items around your house e.g. clocks, microwave, oven etc
• Visit the local library and talk to your child about their visit – can they show you how to borrow and return their books?
• Play games that involve phonics – a sound hunt around your house or garden, I spy, spotting objects in books that begin with the same sound etc

Wow! What a wonderful week full of colour! We have been learning all about the Hindu festival Diwali as well as looking at patterns and comparing sets of objects in maths.

You can learn more about Diwali here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/my-first-festivals-diwali

Here we are making colourful Diwali patterns and pictures!

We used our knowledge of letters and sounds to write some amazing poems and shopping lists for Diwali. We are very proud of the fantastic progress we have made so far this half term!

Looking for a free activity to enjoy together this half term? Visit your local library and take part in My First Library Adventure, by bringing the special bookmark (which came home from school) with you. If you have lost yours don’t worry. Just ask at the library for a new one. 

Choose from hundreds of picture books, fact books and beginning to read stories to share at home.

Complete the Adventure to enter the special prize draw. Fifty lucky Hertfordshire Reception pupils will win a personalised, signed book from author/illustrator Ged Adamson with two overall winners enjoying an author visit with their whole class. Find out more here: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/libraries-and-archives/news-and-campaigns/startingreception

How you can help at home:

• revisit the sounds we have taught so far – please see previous blogs
• Continue to read with your child everyday
• Enjoy lots of family time – perhaps go for an autumn walk (we’d love to see photos), visit the library, encourage your child’s independence in getting dressed, shoes, coats etc
• Play games, sing songs and rhymes with your child, encouraging them to listen for the sounds they can hear in words

This week in Reception, we continued our learning all about the famous artist Clarice Cliff and her colourful designs! To challenge the  children’s knowledge and art skills, they decided to have a go at creating their very own Clarice Cliff-inspired artwork.

The children started by cutting out different shapes from tissue paper, carefully choosing colours and shapes that they thought would look great together. The next day, they got creative using glue and bottles to make their designs! The children loved sticking their tissue shapes onto the bottles to make their very own decorative masterpieces. It was amazing to see how the designs turned out, full of imagination and creativity, and personality.

We also started a Literacy topic on poetry this week. The children have enjoyed listening to nursery rhymes and talking about their favourite one. We learnt the poem ‘Purple is’ which is about different things that are the colour purple.

This week in Reception has been very busy! We have been trying out lots of new activities to help us practise our fine motor skills, maths skills and phonics.

We have been working hard at subitising this week – we have been discussing how we see numbers inside other numbers and also matching amounts of objects to numerals. We used tweezers to help us match the correct number of conkers to each number card – it was very tricky as the conkers were slippery!

You might like to use these number rhymes to help practise number formation at home. You could try writing them in mud, water or with chalk on the floor.

Phonics

This week in Phonics, we have been checking our understanding so far – we have been using our knowledge of the sounds we have learned to practise writing words and labels for pictures, including maps of the playground. Here are the sounds we have learned so far:

Expressive arts and design

This term we have been learning about the British artist Clarice Cliff – we know she created some beautiful pottery that was known as “Bizarre”. We have looked at the vibrant colours and shapes in her work. So far we have practised drawing shapes, tracing shapes and painting them. We are working towards our own design inspired by Clarice Cliff’s work – watch this space for more of our fantastic artwork!

How you can help home:

• Practise all of the sounds taught so far – you might like to hide them as a treasure hunt around your house! Talk about sounds in the environment – where can you spot the sounds you already know?
• Help your child to recognise and write their name independently – also help them to use a tripod grip when holding a pencil and forming their letters correctly.
• Talk about Clarice Cliff and ask your child to describe what they can see, what they like/dislike about it. Maybe you could try making your own artwork together – we’d love to see some of your creations on Tapestry!
• Continue to establish good bedtime routines for your child – build reading into your daily routines. Reading anything and everything your child is interested in will help them enormously! You could try reading recipes together, football results in the newspaper, comics, postcards or even invitations.

On Thursday, we celebrated National Poetry Day. The Reception children learnt a poem about the different leaves you see in autumn. We spoke about the different features of a poem and the children used some actions to help them remember the poem.

Look at our wonderful poetry pictures!

We have also been continuing to explore the signs of autumn. The children enjoyed exploring the Reception garden and playground, searching for signs of seasonal change. They were especially excited to use magnifying glasses to investigate the contents of our investigation box and talk about their observations and extend their learning from last week.  The children also enjoyed using their autumn treasures in their play, such as making ‘leaf lasagne’ and comparing the different sizes of conkers and leaves and doing some conker paint rolling.

This week in Reception we have been very busy exploring the signs of Autumn – we have a very large Horse Chestnut tree in our garden and have spotted lots of the conkers falling off! We have been using  some of these conkers to make our very own Conker Pie – ask us how we made it!

We also learned all about the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah. We know that it is the Jewish New Year. We found out lots of interesting facts from Miss Reuben. She even brought in some apple and honey for us to taste – it was delicious. You can watch a video about how some Jewish families celebrate here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/the-lets-go-club-celebrating-rosh-hashanah

Phonics

This week we have learned the sounds:

g, o, c, k

Here are their rhymes to help us when we write them:

g – goat – start at his ear, around the face and down the beard
o – ostrich – around the ostrich’s body
c – camel – curl around the camel’s back
k – kid – down the body, up the arm, down the leg

How you can help at home:

• Look for signs of autumn – conkers, pine cones, acorns and leaves changing colour
• Talk about festivals and celebrations you share together as a family
• Read at least 3 times a week – talk about the pictures, encourage your child to talk about their favourite page
• Practise the sounds we have learned so far in Reception – s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k
• Encourage your child to practise mark making – sticks in the mud, water on the floor with brushes, chalk; these all help with preparing your child for writing!