Hello Reception 2 Families!

It's been a busy week R2 HQ! It has been super interesting finding out  about the different festivals that people celebrate in our topic work but we stepped away from the Festivals of Light  theme this week and began to think and learn about Light and Dark, Night and Day and Sources of Light. The children brought so much prior knowledge to the subject and we have had some fabulous class discussions. This week we moved carpet places which shook up the class dynamic. We practised how to be a good shoulder partner, using eye contact, good listening and turn taking in conversation. The children blew Miss Hodgson and I away in their ability to do this! The children will come to use shoulder partners more and more, as a means of sharing ideas, thoughts, knowledge and feelings during our wonderful class discussions.

In maths we have embarked upon some early calculation skills and we explored how we find 1 more and 1 less of a given number to 5/10/20. The children love exploring number and they have really soaked this up. They have practised using a number line to count on/forward to find 1 more (early addition)  and how to count back to find 1 less (early subtraction). Using a number line will feature heavily in their mathematical development, so the ability to move along and count with accuracy is really important. 

In literacy this week we have explored various non-fiction/information texts to help us to find out and learn facts about Light/Dark, Night and Day and Light Sources. We enjoyed some fiction too when sharing the beautiful story The Owl that was Afraid of the Dark. In it, we explored how being in the dark makes us feel and the owl discovered that the dark isn't so bad after all! I love sharing stories with R2! After several weeks of limbering up our fingers to get them ready to learn to form letters correctly, this week we began our weekly handwriting sessions. You will find a practise sheet in your child's book bag to help them to practise the formation of our first set of letters from the Long Ladder Letter Family   l i t  .  Each week we will work through the letters in the letter families and handwriting sessions will consist of a whole class carpet session, where we practise together on whiteboards and then on to small group sessions with Miss Hodgson and I to practise with a pencil and paper. The letters practised will then go home for an extra practise. Thanks for your support with this. In phonics we have now gone full steam into Phase 3 where we learn digraphs. We still use the Jolly Phonics songs and actions which serve as a mnemonic to help the children to make those letter/phoneme (sound) correspondences. 

On top of all this awesome learning we have enjoyed creating some lovely night and day collages, shared some fun times outdoors with various resources and equipment, child-initiated play in our classroom areas, dance with Mrs Murphy, our weekly outdoor Zoom Assembly, yummy food and fun play times at lunch time with Mrs Begum and to top it off, a special Zoom session with Trafford Music Services, where we learnt the song actions for an up and coming Christmas Musical Extraveganza that we are going to take part in soon! Please find below (at the very end of this class page, after this week's photo slideshow) a letter from Mrs Ogden. our Music Coordinator, which has links to the words and actions/signings  for the songs that we are learning for the Winter Concert. Please get involved and practise them at home. The songs are completely non-religious. 

As we head into the season of glitter and glue, I'd like to say thanks to those of you that donated gifts to our PFTA for the Christmas Raffle  Raising funds for our school isn't easy in this current climate, so your generosity is so very much appreciated. Pease support the PTFA by buying LOTS of Christmas raffle tickets when they go on sale! Who doesn't love a raffle eh?! It is Glam Up Friday this Friday. So your child can wear their favourite party outfit, fancy dress or what ever makes them feel good to school! This week we will begin to find out about Advent and what it means to Christians. We will also begin to explore 3D shapes and we will be writing letters to Father Christmas! As a Speaking and Listening activity, we'll be scaling the Christmas toy catalogues with a partner to speak and listen to one another about what we would like to ask Father Christmas for. Miss Hodgson and I continue to be so proud of your little folk and we can't wait to see all of your lovely smiley faces at the school gate on Monday! Have a super weekend, especially if you are putting up your Christmas tree! Here are some photos from this week, that we hope will show you what amazing happy little learners your children are!

Mrs Cook x