Nursery

Firstly I would like to wish you all a (belated) Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year and that Santa was kind!

Welcome also to the new children who started in Nursery this week and their parents :-)

Squiggle Whilst You Wiggle
This week we learnt a new story, song & dance called 'Little Water Shute' which focuses on creating wavy movements and lines. At home try cutting paper circles in half. Your child can then stick them side by side and use a writing implement to draw wavy movements along them.

Maths
We have focused on counting and number this week - linking one number with one object. At home try to create lots of opportunities to count objects. The children are learning about different counting strategies, e.g. 

• scanning - running their hand over the objects or picking each one up;
• touching each object;
• organising - e.g. putting them in a line;
• partitioning - moving each object as it is being counted.

Some points to look out for:

Does your child realise that the number of objects is the same no matter how they are organised?

Does your child understand that, when counting a set of objects, the last number said represents that number of objects.

After counting, can your child remember how many objects were in the set without having to recount?

Phonics
Over the next couple of weeks we will be focusing on Rhythm & Rhyme.

Top tips for listening:

•Remember that rhyme is a difficult skill to master so playing lots of games will help your child develop these skills . When your child can tell you a list of rhyming words and non-words, after being given a start, they can be considered to be well on the way to grasping rhyme (e.g. you say cat, mat, sat…and the child continues fat, pat, mat, rat).

•  If you visit the library, ask for books that have a rhyme in them. The librarian will know where to find these easily.

 

•  Try and collect objects that rhyme and put them in a box or a basket for you and child to explore and play with.

 

•  Remind yourself of the rhymes you knew as a child and say them with your children.

 

•  Try to think of words that rhyme with your child’s name or their favourite toys or television characters.

I hope that you enjoy doing these activities with your children. Feel free to comment on any that work particularly well!

 

Reception planning for first week back

Happy New Year!!!!! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

Here is the planning for our first week back.

Phonics
Those children that are moving onto Phase 3 Phonics will be learning new digraphs (two letters that make one sound). We will look at qu, ch, sh, th. Please practise writing these sounds and saying them at home, pointing them out in words when reading with your child, doing the actions and singing the song etc to help embed their learning. We are also practising writing some sentences using the sounds we know so far and the key/tricky words. You can practise this at home, perhaps using a picture to support learning and provide a context for the children's writing.

Those children that are in Phase 2 will be recapping all the sounds we have learnt so far in order to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of each individual letter sound. Please practise them all at home by sounding them out on their own, blending them with other sounds to read words, practise writing the letters and doing the actions/songs at home with your child. You can use phonicsplay.co.uk (Phase 2) for some games to help with their learning and make it fun.

Please can everyone recap all their key/tricky words and also practise Lists 1-6 again. We will be handing out List 7 on Tuesday. We are also going to be learning some alphabet songs so the children can learn the names of the letters now that we have learnt all the sounds so please practise this at home as well. YouTube has some alternative versions of the "traditional" alphabet song if you feel like a change.


Here are the songs for all the Phase 3 digraphs we will be learning over the next few weeks....

Numeracy
In maths we will be concentrating on the numbers 11, 12, 13 in the first week back as there has been some confusion in the lead up to christmas with recognising and forming the "teen numbers." Please practise these at home. We will also be looking at counting out sets of objects and looking at 1 more and 1 less.
When your child is confident with this, you can move them on by allowing them to do it mentally. So ask them what is 1 more than 5? What is 1 less than 7 etc. Start with numbers up to 10 and at first they may want to use their fingers to help them. Once they are confident they can move onto numbers past 10.

Counting is so important, and finding an opportunity to count with your child will help them progress even more. Counting things you see, things you can touch, things you do. By doing this on a regular basis you will help strengthen their ability in mental maths.
When your child is confident counting forwards (up to 100?) you can start asking them to start from different numbers, turn this into a game. You can then practise counting backwards, counting in 2s, 5s, 10s until your child is confident with their mental maths.

The key is to Make It Fun.

Merry Christmas

                                         

 

Hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and a wonderful New Year. We have had a great first term with the children, worked hard and enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you for all your hard work and support at home, it is greatly appreciated. Now it's time for a well earned rest and we will see you in the New Year.

 

Miss Atkinson

 

(PS We will post the planning/useful websites/ideas to try at home etc after Xmas and New Year)

Christmas in Reception

The countdown to Christmas begins....... 

There are lots of fun things planned for next week including the cinema coming to visit, making christmas cards and our Reception Party :-)
(We will still be doing phonics and numeracy sessions as well)

Phonics
Last week we started writing some simple sentences using some of the key/tricky words we have learnt;
"the sun is hot" "the ink is wet" "the bus is red"
We have been concentrating on leaving spaces between our words to make them easier to read, and also learning that we write from left to right and when we reach the end of our board/paper we must start again underneath on the next line going left to right again.
Don't worry about capital letters or full stops at this stage, we will be looking at these in the New Year. If you would like to practise this at home make sure you include CVC words. There are some examples of these words on your Lists 1-5. We will be carrying on with these this week.

Numeracy
We have been looking at the + and = signs and using them to write number sentences. We have been using the book "Father Christmas Needs A Wee" to complement these activities. In the book Father Christmas visits different houses and drinks different amounts of drinks before he becomes desperate for the loo. In class we have 2 houses that Father Christmas visits and drinks at, the children must add all the drinks together to work out how many he had altogether, we then write a number sentence to represent this, e.g. in the first house he drinks 3 cups of tea and in the second house he drinks 4 hot chocolates. Then Father Christmas realises he needs a wee. How many drinks did he have? Children count out 3 objects and 4 objects then count them altogether, writing the number sentence 3 + 4 = 7
Using a book can help to make learning real for the children and also makes it more fun. Have a look if you have any books at home that you could use to recreate a counting activity and bring learning to life.

                                    
         

       

Shine Star Shine!

A massive WELL DONE to reception and nursery for their performance today in the Christmas Show. They all did brilliantly and we are very proud of them. The costumes looked great on stage so thank you for helping with your child's outfit, it is much appreciated!

 
                                                  

The blog is now secure.....

I have now set up the blog so it is a readers only site - if you have passed you email on to me then you should be able to log in and view the blog - leave a comment and let me know!!

Thanks
Mrs Foster

Nursery

In maths last week we learnt the numbers 6 and 8. These are really tricky numbers to form but the children made a great attempt. Please practise at home! 

In Phonics we will be continuing with Body Percussion. Here are some more ideas for you to do at home with your children:

Action songs

Singing songs and action rhymes is a really important part of your child’s development. This can be made a fun  experience by adding multi-sensory experiences such as action songs in which your child has to add claps, knee pats and foot stamps or move in a particular way.

 

·If your happy and you know it

·Wind the bobbin up

·I’m a little tea pot

·Incy Wincy Spider

Roly poly

This is a rhyme with actions

(Rolling hand over hand as in the song ‘wind the bobbin up’).

Ro…ly…po…ly…ever…so…slowly

Ro…ly…poly…faster.

(you can increase the speed of your action as you increase the speed of the rhyme)

You could add in new verses, such as:

Stamp…your…feet…ever…so…slowly

stamp…your feet faster.

Say hello ever so quietly

Say hello louder!

Look listen and note how well your child can:

•   join in with words an actions to familiar songs

•  copy sounds and actions and make up patterns of sounds

Rehearsals are under way for our Christmas play. I am sure you will have heard your children singing the songs at home!