Reception

Welcome to Reception

Reception Newsletter

Please find attached our latest newsletter. 

Watch out for the Evil Peas!

Over the past few weeks, the children in Reception have been busy helping Supertato to save the vegetables from the Evil Pea. Here are some of the things they took part in: 

• Dress as a superhero day: designing cool gadgets for our superhero vehicles; decorating biscuits; making superhero puppets and rescuing the toys from laser webs and traps in the garden. 
• Using graters and mallets to rescue the carrots from the blocks of ice. 
• Using mashers, knives, peelers  and other kitchen utensils to investigate peas and vegetables.
• Used different cooking utensils to prepare the vegetables for our class soup. 
• Explored printing with vegetables to make pictures.
• We compared different vegetables by weighing  and measuring them. 

Our topic ended with the Evil Pea  capturing our class pets in traps around the school. He sent a letter to each class, telling them of his evil plans. The children created their own superhero vegetable character, who went to rescue their pet. We then used our adventure to become authors and illustrators, creating our own story books. 

We are glad to say the Evil Pea is now safely back in the freezer!

Uniform Reminder-Boots

We would just like to remind you that children must wear shoes whilst in school, boots are not permitted. Boots can be worn to and from school if you wish, but your child needs a pair of black shoes to wear during the day. 

Thank you for your support. 

Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination...

It'a amazing what you can build from some scraps of wood, tubing, plastic sheets and our imaginations....  

It's January- we've joined the gym! 

We have taking part in lots of activities at the 'Finger Gym' to get our hand muscles nice and strong, which will help with our writing.

Here are some of the things we have been doing.

Thank you Foundation Stage for your contributions to Luton Foodbank!

Skills: Making Bird Feeders

During our skills sessions we have thought about changes that are going around us as  winter is about to arrive. We've talked about the weather, clothing we need to keep warm and changes in nature. We have been making bird feeders for our feathered friends as the weather is getting very cold and their food is becoming scarcer. They will go out on the bird tables around school and we will go to see how they have changed after a week. 

Look what we've learnt!

Our afternoons have been very action packed and exciting. All of the children have been busy practising different skills and to increase their independence in problem solving and making decisions. 

This week we have been looking at the festival of Diwali, focusing on dance and movement. We began by thinking of different ways to move and used these ideas to create dance actions in pairs. Next, we looked at how to use symbols to organise our movements and create our own dances.

We ended the week by making lots of sparkly headbands, wrist cuffs and sparkler wands to wear when we perform next week to our friends. For this, we used all of the skills we learnt before half term about joining different materials in different ways: glue, tape, staplers, paper clips and anything else we could think of!

Earrings

We have noticed a number of our pupils are coming to school wearing hooped earrings or earrings which hang below the earlobe.

These are not suitable for school as they may get caught during activities and result in your child being injured, something we do not wish to happen. 

We ask that if your child needs to wear earrings to school that they are small studs (those that sit on the lobe) and they should not be worn to school on the day your child has PE, we are not allowed to remove them or cover them with tape. 

Thank you for your support. 

Tricky Word Song

Here is the 'Tricky Word Song' that we enjoy singing in Phonics.

Phonics  Ideas for home

Silly Soup

Have a bowl and a spoon. Ask children to make your soup yummy by putting objects or pictures with your selected sound in the soup.  Any items that don't start with your initial sound will make the sound disgusting. As you mix the soup, sing;

We're making lots of silly soup,

We're making soup that's silly.

We're going to put it in the fridge,

To make it nice and chilly.

Cross the river

'Can we cross the river Mr Crocodile?' 'Only if your item starts with...'

Children to have a picture card or an item. If their picture starts with the initial sound you have called, they can attempt to cross the river. The adult is the crocodile who is very hungry and attempts to catch the children.

Bingo

Have a grid with four or six words. Children to cross the words as they are called. When all the words off, children call 'bingo'. This game can also be played with sounds or tricky words.

Splat

Have a selection of words or sounds in the middle. When a sound or word is called, it's a race to splat it as quick as possible. The first player to splat the word or sound is the winner.

Tricky Words

Tricky words are words which we can not use our phonics to decode. We must learn them by sight. The Phase 2 tricky words are; I, no, go, the, into.

At school we learn these by playing games, such as bingo, splat and snap.

Useful website links

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=phonics

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/expert-help/phonics-made-easy

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

Sound Pronunciation Guide