FLETCHER (Reception)

Welcome to Fletcher Class! 

We are named after the author Tom Fletcher who wrote the books

There's a Monster in Your Book and The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet

In Fletcher class you will find

       Miss Cooke                                      Miss Wordsworth                                Miss Machin
     Class Teacher                                  Teaching Assistant                       Teaching Assistant 1:1
                                                                                         

PE kit reminder

Fletcher class have PE lessons every Monday morning so please don't forget to bring your kit to school! 

Your PE kit should consist of:
Plain white T-shirt (no sports logos)

Black shorts/tracksuit bottoms/leggings

Black pumps/trainers

Nursery chicks

10.07.19 Whilst Nursery were out at the park, we spent some time with their little chicks. The children were all so kind, caring, gentle and quiet around them and showed lots of excitement and awe as they stroked, held and watched them move around!

Timing our races

10.07.19 Today the children were challenging themselves by racing each other around the climbing tree. To extend their learning, I suggested that they could measure the time it took to climb all around the tree and they were very quick to identify that they could use the timer on the iPad for this. The children were very independent and capable of organising their activity by working out who could be in charge of the iPad and timer and what order they could go in to do their races. But the learning did not stop there! One of the children then suggested that they could write down how many seconds it took each child to travel around the tree, so we provided them with writing tools to do this. The children were so resilient and focused during their activity as they tried their hardest to balance and move across the tree with great care. They were so determined to beat their times and their friends times. What a brilliant, independent challenge guys, well done 

Transition week

Just a reminder that next week, Monday 15th July - Friday 19th July, is our whole school transition week where all children will spend the week with their new class teachers in their new classroom. We will miss you all but hope you have a very exciting week.

Please drop your child off at their usual classroom Monday morning as normal but ensure that from Tuesday to Friday, children are dropped off and collected from their new classrooms.

Instructional writing

02.07.19 The children have shown a brilliant understanding of bossy verbs and have been able to use these in their instructional writing today. We were very impressed with the 'stretchy sentences' that the children thought of and how well they could explain the process of building a house for a stone. Take a look at some of our instructions below! 

Building a house for a stone...

28.06.19 The children were very intrigued in their challenge down in the garden today which was to build a house for a stone. This will feed into our Literacy lessons next week where the children will be writing instructions using bossy verbs! This task sparked lots of discussion about what size the house should be, appropriate materials that could survive different types of weather and what materials we should use. The children worked in small groups or partners to complete their challenge. We were very impressed with the creative and critical thinking skills that the children showed throughout the activity as they worked together to trial different materials and ways of constructing! Well done everybody 

Read and relax

28.06.19 Thank you to everyone who joined us for our sunny read and relax session this week! The children enjoyed the challenges we had both indoors and outdoors and even finished the afternoon off with a lovely splash in the pool! Thank you again 

Nature Play

26.06.19 What a fantastic morning we have had in the garden at our Summer Nature Play session. Thank you to all of the parents who joined us for a game of 'Wiggly Worms', some pebble painting and a spot of pond gazing.

The Yorkshire Arboretum 

14.06.19 We had such a fun day on our class trip to The Yorkshire Arboretum in York! During the morning, we went pond dipping where the children were able to find and care for creatures in the water using nets, bowls and dishes. The children spent some time identifying the creatures, discussing their properties and then placing them carefully back into a tank. We found some wonderful creatures including baby dragonflies and pond water fleas! After our lunch break under the shelter, we will then went on a minibeast hunt where we worked in partners to search for and identify minibeasts. We discussed and explored the properties of the minibeasts we found, their food sources, how they survive and their importance in our world. The children made some exciting findings such as beetles, worms, slugs, snails, spiders, woodlice and even toads! After this, we spent some time searching for wet soil, brown leaves and twigs to create a special little habitat for our creatures, before we safely returned the creatures to their original habitats. We learnt so much on our trip about many different creatures and habitats and it was such a wonderful way to complete our minibeast topic from last term. Well done Fletcher class for making such an brilliant effort towards your learning today. The staff at The Yorkshire Arboretum were very complimentary about our behaviour and enthusiasm, I am very proud! Take a look below to see everything we got up to and the creatures that we found 

Show and tell

14.06.19 Well done to everybody who has taken their turn at bringing something in to share with the rest of the class during our first two show and tell sessions. The children have all shown great enjoyment and pride in sharing their special toys, memories and photographs with everybody. By doing show and tell sessions in school, the children are given the opportunity to develop or demonstrate their self-confidence and ability to speak in front of groups of people. This is a very important skill to have both now and in their later life! We have really enjoyed looking at and listening about the exiting things that the children have brought in so far and we can't wait to see what the next group of children bring in next week to share with us! 

(6 children are chosen at random each week to take part in show and tell. If your child has not had their turn yet, don't worry! It will be coming soon )

Maths sessions this week

14.06.19 Fletcher class have learnt about weight, capacity, length and time during our maths sessions this week and they have had lots of fun whilst doing so! 

Capacity: The children explored capacity with water and several different sized bottles. The children worked out the most efficient and quickest way to fill the bottles, whilst using vocabulary of capacity such as full, half full and empty. All of the children were able to use good language to describe the different capacities they made and could reason, explain and prove the best ways to fill the bottles up.

Weight: The children were given 3 boxes (small, medium and large) and were asked about which box they think would be the heaviest and lightest (and most importantly, why!). The children discussed their initial ideas, with most of them thinking that typically the biggest box would be the heaviest and the smallest one would be the lightest. We encouraged children to use the language of weight to describe their thoughts and ideas, which they were brilliant at doing! The children were very interested in exploring the boxes by lifting them up and feeling, comparing and ordering the different weights. This open-ended task provided them with lots of questioning, discussion, reasoning and exploration opportunities and many children enjoyed revisiting this activity during the provision several times.

Time: We explored time again with the children this week by focusing on ordering our daily routines. The children were able to use the correct language relating to time to explain when they would do certain things in their normal day to day routines. Such as brushing our teeth 'in the morning' or going to sleep 'at night time'. The children were very good at pointing out the time during the day, such as when it became afternoon and when it would soon be evening.

Length: We explored length by measuring our bodies and other objects using non-standards units of measure. We were very good at remembering that length is when we measure something from one side to the other. The children chose their own things to measure with such as pencils, wooden bricks and lollipop sticks. The children were very good at lining the objects up from one end to the other, before counting them to see how long different things around the classroom were. We challenged the children even further by asking them to 'estimate' how many objects long something was. Most of the estimates were very close and sensible and throughout the week the children have become much more confident with this!

Take a look below at the pictures to see the fun that we got up to as we learnt! 

Technology

13.06.19 Whilst we were exploring the outdoor area, the children were very eager to use the i-Pads to take pictures of each other and take silly selfies! All of the children took turns to use the i-Pads and showed great skill in unlocking it, opening the camera and pressing the correct buttons to take the pictures and view them afterwards. Take a look below at some of our silly pictures! 

Our first PE lesson

10.06.19 Fletcher class had so much fun during their first PE lesson today and were very excited to take part in it with our brand new PE coach. We explored throwing and catching which required us to use our hand-eye coordination skills.  Well done to everybody who took part! Pictures below 

Sports Day

07.06.19 Well done to everyone who took part in our Sports Day activities this year and thank you to all of the parents, relatives and friends who came along to support the children. It really was a fantastic day and the children all took part brilliantly! Everybody made such a fantastic effort with their races and with cheering along their teams. Also, we would like to say a big well done and thank you to everybody who took part in the families and friends race. The children were all very excited to watch you take part! Take a look through the pictures below to see the fun we had! 

Sports Day Reminder

Please see below for the arrangements for sports day, this Friday the 7th June:

Carle class: 9.15am

Fletcher class: 10.30am

Freedman class: 12.45pm

*Please note that each classes sports morning should last approximately 45 minutes, however this is only a rough guide and each session may take slightly longer.

 Releasing our butterflies

23.05.19 After our read and relax session today we invited the children and their family and friends to come outside and watch as we released our beautiful butterflies into the outdoor area! We were amazed to watch them spread their wings and fly away for the very first time. Some of the butterflies were still strengthening their wings so the teachers had to very carefully place them into the planter area until they were ready to fly. The children were very eager and excited to take a closer look. Thank you to everybody who came and shared this moment with us! We have enjoyed taking great care of our little friends and we are all very proud of the children for the levels of care and concern they have shown! 

Maths challenge

23.05.19 This week in maths we have revisited doubling and halving numbers. The children are very good at explaining that when we double a number the answer will be bigger and when we halve a number the answer will be smaller. To help us explore these concepts we have used whiteboards, pens and loose objects to help us work out a range of word problems. It is important that children are encouraged to use a range of methods and resources to work out problems, so offering these opportunities is vital for them to become confident mathematicians! Please use the attached document below which shows some word problems that you can read to your child for them to work out. We would love to see the different methods the children use to work out the problems so don't forget to upload pictures or videos to tapestry to show their teacher! (This would also be brilliant evidence that would contribute towards their assessments for the Early Learning Goal for Number!) 

Handwriting

23.05.19 As your weekend challenge, we would love to see you practising your handwriting at home in as many different and creative ways as you can. See what tools you have lying around the house or garden that you could use instead of a standard pen or pencil (this just makes it a bit more fun!). See if you have any twigs in the garden, cotton buds, strong straws, craft sticks or anything similar that could be used as a writing tool. Then take some craft paint, shaving foam, glitter or anything you can possibly get your hands on that is lying around the house and have a go at forming your letters in the materials you use! (Using chalks on an outdoor path is another fun way to practise handwriting, or even dipping a paintbrush into water and writing on dry ground). It is important that children are encouraged to hold a writing tool effectively to form letters which are mostly correct, in order for them to achieve the Early Learning Goal in Writing. So, pick up whatever you can find lying around the house and get writing! We would love to see the fun and interesting ways you find to practise your handwriting to PLEASE don't forget to take pictures or videos to upload to your child's Tapestry profile! The children really do love sharing the learning that they do at home with their friends and teachers in school and this would be a brilliant opportunity for them to do this 

Please see the Jolly Phonics website for some more information about correct pencil grip and letter formation: http://jollyreading.com/2-learning-the-letter-formation/ 

What is the smallest thing in the world?

22.05.19 The children were very intrigued with the strange, new and exciting object which was brought into the classroom today. We didn't know what it was, what it did or who might use it, but we were VERY inquisitive and interested to find out more. "It looks like a toy car"..."It's black"..."But it has silver on too". After some exploration time and discussions, the children worked out that it was a microscope and it is used to see 'tiny' and 'small' things. All of a sudden, we noticed a lens that we could see through so we inserted a tray with tiny objects on that we could look at closer. We were BAFFLED! We saw circles, lots of circles. "Maybe it's grass"..."I think it's a tiny ant"..."It looks round, like circles". We continued to observe, discuss and try work out together what it was that we could see, until we worked out that it was different parts of a grasshopper. The children were mesmerized by the amazing patterns and detail that they could see on the tiny parts of the creature. We then enjoyed looking closely at different fabrics on another tray and the children were very quick to realise that we could look at the materials on our very own clothes. We started to look closely at our school shirts, jumpers, socks and tights and we used brilliant language to describe the tiny parts that we could see and to compare the similarities and differences between them. Then, we posed a question to the children... "What is the smallest thing in the world?". They then began to independently search the outdoors for what they think could be the smallest thing in the world! The children showed great independence and maturity as they organised themselves by sharing out the jobs and by sharing the tubs and magnifying glasses with each other. Throughout their investigations they discussed and explored size, materials and living things. We also created some observational drawings to show what we could see through the microscope! This learning continued throughout the entire afternoon as the children continued to search for the answer to their question. Towards the end of the day, we had narrowed our possible answers down to ... a tiny dolls house ... a seed ... and a snails egg. The children will continue to search tomorrow to hopefully become even closer to finding the answer to their interesting question. Keep posted to see what happens next! 

Our beautiful butterfly friends!

21.05.19 This term in Fletcher class we have been taking great care of our little caterpillar friends in our Minibeast area. We have learnt so much about their life cycle, what they eat and how they grow, and this learning also been embedded through our Talk for Writing story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' which we have been learning alongside our interest led topic. The children have loved observing the little caterpillars with great care and have applied their learning and knowledge through independent and adult led writing opportunities, observational drawings and endless amounts of peer discussions. Today was a very special day indeed as our very first butterfly came out of a cocoon! What was even more exciting for the children was that by the end of the school day a total of FOUR butterflies had appeared in our net! We had lots of excited and fascinated children who were amazed to observe and talk about the different colours the butterflies had on their wings. We watched closely as they began to stretch their wings, dry their bodies and prepare themselves for flying.

UPDATE (23.05.19):  We now have a total of SEVEN butterflies and the children are more excited than ever! Please make sure you take a look at our beautiful new friends when you come into class. I'm sure your child will love explaining everything they have learnt about their life cycle and the changes they have observed over the past few weeks! 

This week

This week we have focused on story writing. The children have learnt that stories have a beginning, middle and end. They have been thinking of some amazing stories, a lot of them containing superheroes! We have really enjoyed writing our own story books in provision.

Phonics

We are still continuing to revisit our sounds during our phonics sessions along with revisiting reading and writing tricky words. The children are all showing great skill in remembering how to read tricky words although we must keep practising to ensure we are fluent in doing this confidently! A tricky word is a word that we have to just remember by sight. We do not say the sounds in these words as they are not yet phonetically plausible with the sounds that we learn in Reception. A fun way of helping children to practise reading tricky words is through the game of tricky word pass the plate! Get some paper plates (or even pieces of paper that you have lying around the house), write a tricky word on each plate (See the tricky word list below) and put on your child's FAVOURITE song! When the music plays, pass the plates. When the music stops, read the word! It's that simple  Remember to take pictures or videos to upload to tapestry to evidence your child's learning!

Tricky words that we have learnt: I no to the go he she we me be was my they her all are said so have like some come were there little one do when out what 

Maths

In Maths this week we have been exploring counting on by using fruits from The Very Hungry Caterpillar story. First, we made a group of fruits (E.g. 5 oranges) and we put that number 'inside our heads' and remembered it. But the caterpillar was still hungry! So we got another group of food for him to eat (E.g. 3 strawberries). We then counted on from the first number to find out how many pieces of fruit he ate altogether (E.g. 5...6...7...8). It is important that children are able to count on and back from a given number up to 20 in order to achieve the Early Learning Goal for Number at the end of the year. We remind children to count on from the GIVEN number (E.g. 5), rather than starting to count from the start at 1. The children have all done extremely well with this concept this week, although we would kindly ask for you to keep practising at home to ensure the children consolidate their skills fully! Why not practise counting on at home during your routines? Try counting on to see how much food is on your plates at meal times, or even count on to see how many boys/girls there are altogether in your family or group of friends. If you have any fruits at home, you could even continue the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar just like we did in school! Please don't forget to upload your child's learning to tapestry so we can all see!

Dinner Menus

We are currently reviewing the school dinner systems. Please be aware that menus will now be sent home on Wednesdays and must be returned to school by Friday morning at the latest.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Easter Bank Holiday School Closure

Please note that school closes for the Easter bank holiday weekend tomorrow, Thursday 18th April at 3.30pm. School will reopen on Tuesday 23rd April. We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Easter Bonnet Parade

Just a reminder that we will be having our Easter Bonnet Parade on Wednesday 17th April at 9.15am. Parents are invited to watch in the outdoor area. We hope you enjoy making your bonnets together over the Easter holidays and look forward to seeing you all after the break.

To say a huge thank you to all of our mummies for everything they do for us, we spent some time reflecting on why we love our Mummies and thinking about all the wonderful things they do to help us. As a Mother's Day gift, we carefully planted a special sunflower seed in pots. The children were very interested in the seeds and we had lots of discussions about growth and changes that happen over time as we prepared our plants. The children showed a very good understanding of what plants need to help them grow such as soil, sun and water, and some children proved this by writing instructions to tell other people how to plant a seed correctly! We also created mother's day cards and decorated special gift bags to put our plant and card inside. The children in Fletcher class were definitely feeling the love for their Mummies as they quite confidently and happily told us all about the super things their Mummies do for them and why they love them so, so much!
 

                                                         Happy Mother's Day! 

Phonics challenge

This week we have continued to revisit our previously taught sounds and we are becoming much more confident in applying our knowledge of these into our reading and writing! The staff are all very impressed with the progress the children have made this term as the reading that we are hearing and the writing we are seeing is just FANTASTIC! Well done everybody! :) Although, to ensure your child continues to make good progress with their reading and writing, please keep checking this page to find activities you can try at home!

Below is a document titled 'Real and fake words' with a list of words on which contain either the digraph /ar/ or adjacent consonants. Print this document and cut up the words and see if your child can sort the words into a pile of real words and fake words. If you do not have access to a printer, just simply write the words out onto a piece of paper yourself and cut them up ready for your child to sort! Challenge your child to do this a few times to see if they can read the words and sort the piles even quicker. Using a minute timer/stopwatch can really engage and excite children into reading faster as it then becomes a fun little challenge for them to try and beat the time! 

Maths challenge

This week we have been learning how to count on from a given number to find an answer. To help us do this, we have been using our fingers and number tracks. It is important that your child can count on from a given number to find an answer, in order to achieve the Early Learning Goal for Number at the end of the year. To help your child achieve this, try this game at home!:

1. Roll the online virtual dice (or real ones if you have them at home!)
2. See if your child can count the spots or SUBITISE the amount (Subitising is looking at an arrangement of objects or marks, such as the spots on a dice, and knowing the number automatically WITHOUT having to count them) 
3. After identifying the number on the dice, find this same number on the number track (see the document below, or just write out your own number line!)
4. Roll the dice again and count this many on to find the new answer.

So, for example, roll the dice and land on 4. Put your finger on number 4 on the number track, or hold the number four inside your head and remember it. Roll the dice again and land on 6. Find 6 more than 4 by starting at number 4 (either on the number line or in your head) and count on using your fingers to help. When your child counts they should begin counting from the first number they started with. So, it should sound like this.. "Four...five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten". 

We have all been very interested in learning about the different types of technology we have in school. After spending some time talking about what technology is, we decided to hunt for some around the provision. The children were fantastic at identifying the range of technology we have in Reception and they were able to easily talk about the things they found! Most children were able to explain why we have or need the things they found and they could justify what makes them technology.

Maths Challenge

This week in maths we have been looking at time and distance. We looked at the days of the week, what we do on certain days and also our daily routines. We found that most of us have the same kind of routine through the week on a ‘week day’ but at the ‘weekend’ when we are not at school lots of us have different kinds of routines. Whilst at home you could talk to your children about your daily routine. What does it consist of? What have you just done? What are you doing? What will you do next? Can you make a time line of how one of your days went at the weekend?

We also had lots of fun rolling objects to see whose could go the furthest, who rolled near our object, whose didn’t go as far etc. and then measured how far our object went using bricks. E.g. My object was *5* bricks away. Play a game at home using any objects. Whose went the furthest and whose stayed near and didn’t go as far?

Don’t forget to upload the things you do together on to Tapestry so we can see it all!

Phonics Challenge

In phonics this week we have continued to revisit the sounds we have already learnt and the children are becoming so confident when writing and reading at applying the skills they know. We all just need to keep the practise going! J

We have also been looking at adjacent consonants near the end of words. E.g. mil-k, pin-k, ben-d, lif-t. The children have tried really hard to grasp this concept and are doing so well with their reading, writing is always a little bit trickier. See if you can sound out, spell and write some of these words together – remember they only need to be spelt phonetically correct they don’t need to be spelt how we would spell everything!

We are still focusing on letter formation in school so look back to last week and use some of those ideas to practise this with your child.

Don’t forget to upload the things you do together on to Tapestry so we can see it all!

Maths Challenge

This week in maths we have continued exploring the number 8 along with the concepts of addition, subtraction, one more/less and ordering numbers. We practised subtraction by using pancakes and we made up ‘number stories’ which involved people coming along and pretending to eat some of them! We had to use our maths skills to work out how many were left over. Whilst at home, see if you can make up your own maths story based on subtraction (and addition too!) to find 8 using real objects in your house. E.g. Holly was eating 5 apples but then 3 more fell off the tree and landed in her bag! How many could she eat altogether? - use some apple and have a go at moving them around to make the groups 5 and 3 before pushing them together to count them all and find the total!

To support your child with one more/less, try saying quick-fire questions to them whilst you are walking to school, driving in the car or even whilst you’re out shopping! Try randomly and regularly asking questions such as “What is one more than 5?” and “What is two less than 8?”. The more your child is asked these types of questions and given chance to discuss their ideas and give reasons for their thinking, the more confident they will become with finding the answers and becoming little mathematicians! If at home, why not use objects or toys to help them work these problems out practically?

To practise ordering numbers at home, take a look at some of these online games where your child can practise ordering numbers up to and beyond 20!: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/5-7-years/ordering Please add any pictures, videos or comments to your child’s Tapestry profile to evidence their learning! Thank you :)

Phonics Challenge

In phonics this week we have continued to revisit our previously taught sounds and have learnt some new adjacent consonants. We are becoming very good at reading and writing words and sentences which contain these letters and sounds, but we still need to be practising lots and lots to make sure we achieve the Early Learning Goal’s for Reading and Writing at the end of the school year!

We are really pushing the children to be reading sentences now to ensure they reach the ELG at the end of the year. This week some children showed lots of excitement towards playing this online reading game, where they had to read the question and decide if the answer was yes or no. Please have a go at playing the game your child to help them develop their reading skills and fluency: http://www.ictgames.com/tellAtRex_v3.html Please add any pictures, videos or comments to your child’s Tapestry profile to evidence their learning! Thank you :)

We are focusing on developing the children’s letter formation in Reception by having daily handwriting activities for the children to complete. If you have any child friendly trays, plates or bowls try pouring flour/rice/sugar (or any other type of sensory materials that you have lying around the house) onto them for your child to practise forming their letters in. They could use their fingers to write the letter, or even use a twig or pen to do this.

If you have access to the internet, try using this virtual letter formation activity where your child can follow the formation.

Exploring the globe

The globe sparked lots of curiosity and wonder this week. The children were very interested in observing it and talking about the geographical differences around the world. Discussions relating to time, distance, travel and climate were all raised and the children had lots of questions to ask!

Tallulah “I live near Asda” 
Imraan “I used to lived in Africa.” 
Miss Cooke "Where in Africa, Imraan?" 
Imraan “Nigeria I think” 
Sonni “Where is England?” 
We found it and he pointed to the sky and said “Were in earth now!” 
Ava “I’ve been to Benidorm before” 
Miss Cooke "Oh I bet it was nice there! How did you get there?" 
Ava "I don't remember" 
Macy “I just been to, I don’t remember what it’s called. It was Tenerife” 
Miss Cooke "How did you get there Macy? 
Macy “I think I been on an aeroplane. You know I’ve been to a beach but it was a different one it wasn’t in Tenerife” 
Miss Cooke "Was it Blackpool?" 
Macy "I don’t know" 
Tallulah “My brothers having a birthday at Blackpool, where’s Blackpool?"

We found it on the globe and spoke about how it was in England but in a different part, away from Leeds. We spoke about travelling on land and across sea. Tallaulah thinks you might drive to Blackpool and might get the boat across the sea! After many discussions, we decided it would be a bit silly to swim across the sea because, as Macy explained, "That would take a long long time!". We also discussed the weather, and the children were very confident in recognising that some countries are hotter and colder than others. When Sonni pointed to the top of the globe at Greenland and asked "What's this place called?", we spoke about how it's near the north pole. The children quickly linked this to their knowledge of Santa and immediately thought it must be cold and snowy in that part of the world. Through our discussions, the children were able to show a good understanding of distance, time, travel and climate. 

Writing using adjacent consonants

 We are becoming much more confident at writing words that contain adjacent consonants. The children have picked this up very well and are able to say the sounds together really fast (b-r, f-l, c-r etc). Take a look below at just a few examples of the writing we have produced this week!

World Book Day 2019

Thank you to every single person in Fletcher class for making such an effort with their World Book Day costumes today. Every child came to school dressed up as their favourite book character and most children enjoyed bringing in their favourite book to share with the rest of the class. The children were so excited to talk about their characters and books and there was so much imaginative play seen and heard throughout the day. Children were really enjoying getting into the role of their characters and acting out stories based around these. We even managed to link our World Book Day with our phonics practise by asking the children to write the name of the character that they dressed up as! (Take a look at the pictures below to see some examples!) What a fantastic turn out - well done guys for all your effort and excitement throughout the day and thank you again! You all looked fab :)

Pancake Day

We had great fun in Fletcher class on Pancake Day. Throughout the day, we explored recording and data collection by creating tally charts to show which pancake topping was the most popular. Some of the children showed a great interest towards doing this and were glued to their clipboards for hours! We compared amounts, discussed which were bigger and smaller and came to conclusions about which topping was the most and least favourite. At the end of the day, we came together to taste some yummy pancakes with either golden syrup or jam on! Mmmmm :)

 Ordering numbers

This week we looked at ordering numbers up to 20. After Spiderman muddled all of our number cards up, the children were challenged to put them back in order again! They worked very well with their partners to discuss, share ideas and challenge each others thinking to solve their problem. The children demonstrated that they are becoming very confident at ordering numbers, well done guys!

World Book Day

Don't forget World Book Day is on Thursday 7th March. Children are invited to dress up as characters from books and bring in their favourite stories to share with their class. 

Reading books

Don't forget, we are now changing home reading books in Fletcher class on Monday every week but please ensure your child brings their book and reading record to school every day. Thank you! 

Phonics

In phonics this week we have learnt how to read and write words which contain adjacent consonants (2 consonant letter sounds that appear next to each other in a word - e.g. /fl/ oat .. /br/ ush .. /fl/ ag. We teach these as separate phonemes (sounds) but we explain to children that we say these really quickly together! So, instead of saying /b/ /r/ /u/ /sh/ we would say /br/ /u/ /sh/! The children have picked this up very quickly and have shown great skill in reading and writing words with these in. This week we have covered the adjacent consonants /bl/ /fl/ /cr/ and /br/. Please practise reading and writing words that have these sounds in with your child to help build up their fluency. Why not...

- Write words containing the above adjacent consonants down and hide them around the house/garden for your child to read. How many can they find and read in one minute?

- Read out words for your child to practise writing. How many can they write in one minute? Can they try this again but beat their original time?!

- Think of their own words containing the above adjacent consonants. How many can your child think of and write? Who can write the longest list of words?

Please don't forget to capture your child's learning through pictures, videos or written notes and upload these to Tapestry! It it all fantastic evidence to help support their assessments :)

Maths

We have been very busy in Maths this week doing lots of learning (and eating!). We have had lots of fun whilst learning about sharing. We have learnt some new words 'share' and 'equal' and we have become very confident at recognising and explaining that when we SHARE objects every group needs to have an EQUAL amount. We practised this by getting into groups of 4 and sharing biscuits out between ourselves, making sure that we all had an equal amount. When you are preparing your breakfast/lunch/tea/snacks this weekend, why not challenge your child to share some food out onto the plates so that everybody has an equal amount? It is vital that children are given opportunities to use REAL objects/resources to help with their mathematical thinking and learning, so letting them help with dishing out the food at home would be a perfect opportunity for this! It would be fantastic is you could practise recording this on paper by drawing what you have done too! This week we explored drawing big circles to represent how many people there were and then drawing marks inside them one at a time as we counted out and shared the biscuits. As always, don't forget to upload your learning onto Tapestry so we can see all the fun you have been having as you learn at home! :)

HALF TERM Phonics challenges

We have now finished learning all our phase 2 and 3 phonics sounds. We are currently spending our phonics lessons revisiting and revising these sounds to become super strong and confident with our reading and writing and also improve our fluency. We continually give the children lots of opportunity to apply their phonics knowledge in the provision everyday through games and activities. The Early Learning Goal (ELG) that the children should be reaching by the end of their reception year for reading and writing is as follows:

Reading: Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words (tricky words). They demonstrate  understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

Writing: Children use their phonics knowledge to write words in way which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words (tricky words). They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

It is really important now for children to be writing for a purpose as much as possible and we encourage you to do lots of this at home. They could help you out by writing things such as shopping lists, cards, letters, etc. - they could even write a sentence or more about something you do in the holidays! We would love to see everything they do! Upload something to Tapestry or bring it in to school by Tuesday 26th February - I am certain your child would love to show me and the rest of the class what they have done! We really encourage you to let your child use their phonic knowledge to do their writing independently - they know a lot of sounds now so if they get stuck, segmenting the word slowly together will help them to remember. Not all the words that your child writes will be spelt correctly, but, as the ELG says, "Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible" so do not worry, this is completely normal.

HALF TERM Maths challenges

We have been exploring 3D shapes again this week in Reception and the children are becoming very confident at using the correct language to describe the properties of each one (sides, corners, faces, points). During the holidays, why not try these activities to help consolidate your child's shape knowledge even further?...

> Play shape shop. Ask your child to 'phone' the shape shop by pretending to hold a phone to their ear. They are phoning up to buy a shape, but they have forgotten the name! Ask your child to describe the shape that they want by naming the different properties of it (E.g. the shape I want to buy has 3 sides, 3 corners and is a flat 2D shape). How many shapes can your child describe?

>2D/3D shape hunt around the house, garden, shops etc. How many 2D/3D shapes can your child recognise? If you have some 2D/3D shapes at home, why not hide them around the house for your child to find and sort into piles of 2D and 3D. If not, why not draw some 2D shapes and see how many 3D shapes/objects your child can find within your house? (E.g. a pringles tube is a cylinder)

> How many 3D shapes can your child make using play dough? See the recipe to make it at home below! Can your child help with the measurements? See if they can count out the correct cups of flour/salt etc. 

https://theimaginationtree.com/best-ever-no-cook-play-dough-recipe/ 

Trip to the field

Phonics

This week we have learnt the sounds /ear/ and /ure/. The children have shown a brilliant understanding of these sounds so far, but if you carried on exploring these sounds at home with your child it would help their reading and writing skills to flourish even more! You could do this by playing this game...

Can you beat the timer?

Print the word documents below that has a range of words containing the /ear/ and /ure/ trigraphs (A trigraph is when there are three letters together that make one sound!). Cut them up and see how many your child can read before the timer runs out (5 minutes!). This is to help the children with their fluency in reading and to build up their pace. Remind your child to say each sound out loud and in order, before blending them together. Your child should keep doing this until they can hear and read what word it is. Challenge your child further by seeing if they can complete this quicker next time!

Maths

This week in maths we have been looking deeper at the number 7. We have focused a lot on subtraction. This is a hard concept for the children so it would be good if you could practice subtraction with objects at home. Start with 7 objects and then take some away, see if the children can record this by using marks. This week we have also looked at doubling 7 and representing this in different ways and we have also explored Odd and Even numbers. 

A huge thank you to parents/carers this week for their donations for the bake sale which was raising money for the shark project in Carle class. Another huge thank you to those of you that could make it to our first read and relax session today. It was lovely to see so many parents interest in how their children read and getting involved in all the reading activities we had set up.

Phonics

This week in phonics we have introduced two new sounds to the children. These sounds are, 'er' and 'air'. The children have had a lot of opportunity to embed their learning through various reading and writing activities. It would be good if you could revisit these sounds with your children by reading some words which contain these sounds? For example, hammer, chair, hair, pair, fair, ladder, tower and shower.

Maths

This week in maths we have introduced our new number, 7. We have been investigating this number in great detail by using a story to support our learning, this story is Handa's surprise. We have discovered the different ways of making 7, using our fingers, objects, and pictures to represent this. Maybe you could see if your child can tell you a way to make 7? We have also learnt one more and one less than 7, using concrete resources to support us.

We will be celebrating Chinese New Year across Early Years, we have lots of lovely activities and provision set up for the children and we will also be participating in some food tasting so the children can explore foods from other cultures. This will all help them to learn more about this celebration.

Phonics

This week we have learnt the sounds /oi/ and /ur/. The children have shown a brilliant understanding of these sounds so far, but it would be fantastic if you could keep practising these sounds at home to build an even deeper understanding and good memory of these! You could do this by playing this game...

Picture Hunt!

Print the word document below that has a range of pictures which words contain the /oi/ and /ur/ digraphs (Remember; a digraph is when there are two letters together that make one sound!). Stick them up around the room and get your child to hunt round writing each word down in a list. Remind your child to say each word into their hand, shake it up and then segment the sounds out slowly out loud – this will help them hear every sound in the word. Encourage your child to listen for every sound again if you notice they have missed one out! Challenge your child to see how many words they can write altogether! To challenge even further, you could even ask your child to write sentences with the different words in! The children are becoming fabulous at this. Also within the word document you will find a sentence writing prompt, with our sentence writing rules on – ALWAYS include a capital letter, say it into our hands, use finger spaces after each word and full stops on the end. If your child finds these words easy to write you could provide them with some even trickier words with these sounds in such as... poison, tinfoil, spoil, voice, noise.

Remember: they do not have to be correctly spelt, just phonetically correct!

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE A PICTURE/VIDEO AND UPLOAD TO TAPESTRY! 

Maths

This week the children have done so well in maths and have learnt and understood so quickly! We began the week with a quick shape refresher – our objective was to describe shapes to our friends so well they could guess what they were! We were really good at this, we then got the slime out so we could feel the shapes in the slime and have to describe them without looking ourselves too, the children had great fun!

We wonder if you and your child could look round the house for different shapes. What different ones can you find? Are they 2D (flat) or 3D (fat)?

We then went on to exploring length which involved lots of new language – long, short, longer, shorter, longest, shortest, longer than, shorter than! So much! The children tried really hard to use this language all the time when comparing different sizes, sometimes slipping in to bigger and smaller, but with a small reminder they could remember the correct mathematical language. We were really impressed. We also introduced height and explained how length is when we measure something along the floor but height is when we measure how high something is coming off the floor. There was a bit of new language for this too! Tall, taller, tallest and taller than – we were happy to know we could still use the word short though! The children took to this really quickly, so we decided to introduce measuring with non-standard units, which was so much fun! This is when the children measured how long or tall something was in cubes and then compared using the cubes instead. It was good to hear the children comparing using numbers and deciding things were longer or taller because the number was bigger, well done guys.

What can you find in your house to compare the sizes of? Is it long or tall?

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE A PICTURE/VIDEO AND UPLOAD TO TAPESTRY! 

Read and Relax Sessions

Read and Relax will take place on the following Fridays this term:

Storytime Session

Children will be bringing a letter home tonight inviting parents to join us for a storytime session on Tuesday afternoon next week. We apologise for the short notice but would like to reassure parents who are unable to attend that there will be a further opportunity next term. We hope that many of you can make it and we look forward to seeing you!

Phonics

This week we have learnt the sounds /ar/ and /ow/. The children have shown a brilliant understanding of these sounds so far, but if you carried on exploring these sounds at home with your child it would help their reading and writing skills to flourish even more! You could do this by playing this game...

Word Jump!

Print the word document below that has a range of words containing the /ar/ and /ow/ digraphs (A digraph is when there are two letters together that make one sound!). Lay them out across the floor either inside or outside and say a word for your child to find and jump on. Remind your child to say each sound out loud and in order, before blending them together. Your child should keep doing this until they can hear and read what word it is. Challenge your child to see how many words they can read and jump on. To challenge even further, you could even put a five minute timer on to see how many words they can find in that amount of time! If your child finds these words easy you could write these words down on paper and add them to the game... start, frown, crown, brown, starfish, marking, parking.

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE A PICTURE/VIDEO AND UPLOAD TO TAPESTRY! 

Maths

We have explored lots of mathematical concepts this week including one more, one less, representing numbers, doubling and halving. We have explored all these concepts by working with the number 6. The children really enjoy being active during their sessions where they use concrete objects such as toys and multi-link cubes to help with their learning. To help your child develop their knowledge of halving, please have a go at this activity at home...

Halving ladybirds

Print the document below titled 'Halving ladybird', or just use a space on your floor at home. Give your child a number of objects and see if he/she can half that number by sharing them out either into the two sections of the ladybird or into two piles on the floor. Can your find count the number of items in one group to find what half of the amount it? It is important that you ALWAYS remind and encourage your child to use language to explain what they have done, in as much detail as possible! To help them with this at school, we call these 'stretchy sentences'. Try modelling the sentence "Half of __ is__" and see if your child can repeat it back to explain what they have found! Can your child half numbers up to 10? Or even 20?

DON'T FORGET TO TAKE A PICTURE/VIDEO AND UPLOAD TO TAPESTRY! 

Our Digging Project

A group of children showed a real interest in the story 'A bigger digger' and it sparked real interest and fascination towards digging and finding things in the ground! A group of children followed this up throughout the morning by digging in the soil outside whilst others created maps that included labels, showing where they were going to dig and what they were going to find. The children were so amazed to find stones of different shapes and sizes, as well as old toys, pen lids and leafs. In the afternoon, we went down to the garden and continued our digging explorations. Great persistence and determination were shown by the children as they dug and dug through the soil, even though it took lots of strength, effort and time. The children became so excited when they began to uncover what they thought were real life DINOSAUR BONES! The white and red objects in the ground were very intriguing, so we continued to dig. After lots of time working together as a team to dig deeper, we soon realised they weren't made of bone... it was wood! The children were quick to notice that their findings looked like wood from a tree, then decided to use the internet to research 'How do trees grow?'. We came back inside and sat down to research all about trees. We then learnt that the 'Dinosaur bones' were actually in fact the roots from a tree. We learnt that the roots help trees to stand tall and strong on windy and rainy days. We were also interested to find out that the roots soak up rain water and help the tree to grow and blossom.

Look at all that learning that we achieved, just from reading a simple story and following the children's interests! By doing this, the children developed their... 
 

relationship skills, self-confidence, ability to manage feelings and behaviour, communication skills, physical development, writing skills, awareness of shape and size, understanding of the world and technology skills! 

Come in and have a look through our project book to find out about the journey of our new and exciting 'Digging project' 

Happy New Year everybody!   It has been lovely welcoming everyone back into school and watching the children settle back into their school routines with so much ease and pace! We have already learnt so much during our first week back!...
 

Phonics

This week we are learning the sounds /ai/ and /oo/. The children have learnt that the digraph /oo/ can make both a long and a short sound, so it is really important that when they read words they carefully blend the sounds and listen closely to make sure they are using the right sound! Please practise these sounds with your child at home by talking about or pointing out words that include these sounds. You could even practise singing the Jolly Phonics songs together:

Jolly Phonics /oa/ song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0u65e9pBDo

Jolly Phonics /oo/ song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxiRp9Vxz98

Maths

We are exploring the number 6 in lots of fun and engaging ways this week. We have enjoyed exploring the different number bonds to 6 through a game of 'grow me, show me, throw me'. Why not practise this with your child at home?...

How to play:

1. Ask your child to hide their hands behind their back. Say "Grow me 6" and encourage your child to use both hands to 'grow' 6 fingers. (Your child might grow 2 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other, or 3 on one hand and 3 on the other, and so on).

2. Say "Show me 6" and ask your child to show you their hands/fingers. Discuss how your child has grown 6 fingers. Can your child explain what they have done? Encourage your child to use 'stretchy sentences' by saying things such as "I have made a group of 5 and a group of 1" or "Double 3 makes 6". It is important that children are encouraged to explain and justify their mathematical thinking, so try give them lots of time to think and talk!

3. (Now for the fun bit...) Say "Throw me 6!" and your child will throw their 6 fingers into the air and cheer "woooooshhhh!".

4. Repeat the game. How many ways can your child make the number 6? Can he/she find all the different ways of making 6? Can they use 'stretchy sentences' to explain how they made 6?

Please note, school re opens for Spring term on Tuesday 8th January.

The children have really enjoying taking part in our weekly music sessions where they have learnt new action songs and used musical instruments to make rhythms and follow a beat. The children have all shown excellent listening and attention skills each session and have really impressed our visitor! For our last session, we enjoyed a Christmas special where we sang songs about Santa, presents and the snow. The children have impressed us with the effort they have shown in their sessions and they have all made such good progress with their awareness of rhythm and ability to use different vocal sounds and volumes in their voices when singing! Well done Fletcher class! 

Thank you to everybody who came to our Christmas Stay and Play session this week. It was lovely to see so many of you join us and take part in our morning routines and activities. The children had a wonderful time! If you didn't manage to join us, don't worry! We will be holding more Stay and Play sessions in the New Year, so keep posted to hear about dates and times 

Important dates!

It is now the last week of term and we are extremely busy in Reception on the run up to Christmas!;

Wednesday 19th December 2018

Wear your party clothes to school

Christmas Lunch 

Thursday 20th December 2018

Wear your party clothes to school

Christmas party day

Meeting Santa! (Don't forget your £1!)

Friday 21st December 2018

Wear your Christmas jumper to school

Break up for Christmas holidays at 2pm.

Don't forget, we break up for Christmas on Friday 21st December 2018 and will be returning to school on Tuesday 8th January 2019. Monday 7th January will be a staff training day and school will be closed. We hope you all have a wonderful last week of term and enjoy your Christmas holidays. Thank you and well done to everybody for a brilliant first term in Reception!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Reception team! 

Maths

In our Maths sessions this week we have been exploring the number 5 even further. As well as discovering what is 1 more than 5 and what is 1 less than 5, we have also learnt about doubling 5! We did this by playing musical doubles. We each had 5 multi-link cubes and danced around the classroom to some of our favourite music. When the music stopped, we had to find a partner and join our groups of 5 together to find what double 5 makes. The children were very good at using their stretchy sentences to explain what they had found! Some children could explain that "Double 5 makes 10" and even "Two lots of 5 makes 10"!. Why not look around the house for some objects or toys that you could use to play musical doubles with your child? 

Phonics

This week in phonics we have learnt 2 new digraphs (2 letters which make 1 sound) which were 'ee' and 'or'. We read words with these digraphs in and also spell them. The children are becoming so good at forming their letters and remembering what letters are in each digraph. The links for the Jolly Phonics song for these sounds are below;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jj1WAkE6mQ

We have also continued to learn our new Tricky Troll words this week and have concentrated on the words 'you' and 'my'. We recapped on all the tricky words we have already learnt too and the children were really good at remembering them which is great.

How you could help at home: Continue to recognise letters with you child and encourage them to be enthusiastic about this. Reading with your child - their school book or phonics game - will also really help them to practice their phonics. Books are changed on a Friday if they are put in the basket, thank you :)

Preview learning; Next week we will be practising all the phonemes and digraphs we already know by doing some Christmas writing.

The children did a fantastic job in our Nativity this week and put on 2 amazing shows! We hope you enjoyed it, thank you for coming!

Our Nativity

The children are all enjoying practising for our Nativity show next week. Please practise the songs below with your child over the weekend so they can be super singers at the performance. Also, if your child has a speaking part please make sure you are practising their lines at home so they are confident with the words they have to say.

Thank you!

Thank you to everybody who took part in our Children In Need event by dressing up or donating. The children had lots of fun wearing their pyjamas to school 

Autumn Half Term Challenge

After the half term we would really love to hear what you have all been up to. It would be great if you and your child could create either a collage of pictures, or a picture drawn by your child, showing what you have been getting up to during the week. Your child will then have time to discuss this and share it during their key worker time. We are really proud of how all the children have settled over their first half term, well done everyone! Thanks for a great start to the school year.

You can either upload these to tapestry or your child can bring these in to school. Thanks.

As part of our Maths Mastery focus, the children have been learning about the number 1. To develop a secure understanding of the number 1 we have been representing it in different ways by using things such as objects, movements, noises and written marks. We have also been exploring children's thinking through detailed discussions, where we encourage the children to explain and justify their answers. The children have all demonstrated a secure understanding of the number 1 and it has been amazing to see how they have used the provision to apply their learning and explore this even further! Throughout the year, we will continue to support the children in becoming masters of maths by exploring numbers 1-10 in fun, engaging and meaningful ways. Keep checking our page to follow our journey!

Key Person System

At Sharp Lane Primary School we continually strive for the best outcomes for our pupils both academically and emotionally. Our Key Person system plays a vital role in connecting and tuning in with children and families at a more personal, small group level. Whilst Miss Cooke will have overall responsibility for the children in Fletcher class, your child's Key Person will play an essential role in caring for your child, supporting their development and developing rich relationships with families, resulting in a 'community of learners' approach. Spending daily time in our Key Person groups supports our ethos of 'togetherness' which is embedded within our key family approach. Through this approach, we are able to become engaging companions for curious young minds, supporting their explorations and observing their discoveries. It is through this approach that we are able to observe our children flourish whilst achieving wonderful outcomes and most importantly being 'happy'. 

Reception Class Curriculum meeting

We hope that your children have had a wonderful start to the year and have settled well into their new class. The team are thrilled to invite you along to a curriculum workshop where we will share information about the Early Years Curriculum, how children learn in the Early Years, how we support learning at Sharp Lane Primary School and ways in which you can support at home. The dates for these sessions are: Thursday 20^th September at 3:30pm or Tuesday 25^th September at 9am. We look forward to seeing you at one of these.

How Children learn in Early Years

In Early Years we recognise children as competent and capable learners born with inquisitive minds. Listening to the children's curiosities and interests is a key method through which we are able to interact, scaffold and co construct learning alongside the children, creating a learning environment in which children flourish into confident explorers and reflective learners. Throughout the year the children's learning in Reception Class will reflect this 'community of learners' approach where children interests are the basis for future learning. This alongside discrete teaching sessions of key skills in Phonics and Maths will support the children in becoming independent and motivated learners.