Hello Reception 2 Families 

It has been nothing short of wonderful having all of the children return to school this week! Thanks everyone for cracking on, brushing yourselves off and being at the school gate with your friendly smiles every day! It is really appreciated and I am certain that your positivity rubs off on your gorgeous children because they have been a delight this week. 

Thank you also for a really great parent's evening. This new normal is bonkers and I was worried that the telephone and Zoom meetings may have gone belly up with technical hitches but they went very smoothly and efficiently. It was great to speak to you all and to  celebrate the amazing progress that your children have made in such a small time, under these extraordinary circumstances. 

This week we have been really busy learning about 3 important events, the Hindu festival of Diwali, Road Safety Week 2020 and Anti-Bullying Week 2020. We have explored each of these events through lovely whole class discussions and have reflected upon what we have learnt through some lovely independent and adult led activities. 

In maths we have been warming up our brains during carpet times by practising our number recognition to 20 and counting to and back from 20. Our new learning has been 2-D Shapes. We have practised naming them, looking for them in our environment, talked about their features and learnt new mathematical vocabulary associated with shape.

In literacy we explored the Rama and Sita story and shared great describing words for the characters.

In phonics we have embarked upon Phase 3 of the Letters and Sounds Curriculum and have learnt about what a digraph is-2 letters making 1 sound is our mantra! Digraphs will feature heavily now in the children's phonic journey. We continually recap and consolidate Phase 2 too. Please see the link below for a comprehensive guide to what phase 3 phonics entails. Have a read as it will help you to support your child at home. 

Whilst exploring our topics we have also been busy modelling Diva lamps with clay and then painting and glittering them. Diva lamps are small clay tealights which decorate Hindu homes during the festival of Diwali. We have also made road safety posters and designed some groovy odd socks for Odd Socks Day/Anti-Bullying Week-thanks for getting involved with this and sending the children into school in odd socks. It was good fun!

This week I have carried out a 1-1 assessment with all the children. In it, I've established where the children are up to with reading the Phase 2 phonemes, their ability to blend the Phase 2 phonemes in order to read, their ability to recall and write the Phase 2 phonemes to write/spell words, how they are doing with remembering their Tricky Sight words, number recognition to 20, ordering numbers to 10/20, counting to 20 accurately and finally their ability to recognise and name simple 2-D shapes. The children tried very hard and they are all at different stages in these aspects of their learning. The assessment has helped me to gauge gaps in their learning and establish the support they need to secure these Early Learning Goals during their Reception year. I will send home a copy of the assessment and this will enable you to tailor, practise and support your child at home to help them to secure these goals. 

Next week, as part of our Festivals of Light Topic, we will be getting scientific and will explore night and day, light and dark and sources of light. In maths we will begin to embark upon early calculation skills and explore 1 more and 1 less of a given number to 5/10/20.

Our Medal Winner this week is Tayla! We celebrated Tayla because she has settled so well into school life! Well done Tayla!

Miss Hodgson and I can't wait to see you all on Monday, have a super weekend and I'll end with some lovely photos of our brilliant week at school!

Mrs Cook x