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Reception

Welcome to Reception

Spring Term 2024

 

It is hard to believe that we are half way through the school year already! It really is flying by, however it is an absolute pleasure to see how the children are continuing to grow in confidence, have formed strong friendships as well as developing a real love of learning.  

Our theme this half term is titled "Terrific Transformations". We will be begin by exploring ourselves and have we have changed since we were a baby and how we will continue to grow an change. This will enable us to discuss what we can do now that we couldn't do as a baby as well as being able to recall the life cycle of a human. We will then be exploring different animal life cycles, exploring the transformations to take place. As part of this, there will be a very special delivery in Reception, which we are confident the children will be very excited about and will really help them to learn how amazing transformations can be! As part of this work, we will be exploring the story Hattie Peck, this is a lovely story which will enable the children to further develop their understanding of main characters, settings and story structure. Throughout the half term, the children will continue to develop their ability to write an independent sentence. 

During this half term we will also spend time looking at Spring and what changes will be taking place over the coming weeks and months. We will go on a Spring hunt and develop our observational skills while we draw different signs of Spring. We will also compare how Spring is different to Autumn and Winter, the two seasons we have already explored. We will also be celebrating Mother's Day and exploring people who are important and special to us. 

As the half term comes to a close, we will be exploring Easter and what traditions are used to celebrate this festival. As part of this we will be exploring what Christians believe happened at Christmas, how this links to the Christmas story and how this has impacted the traditions. 

Further information regarding this themes this half term, can be found within the Knowledge Organiser, which explains in detail the vocabulary and concepts we will be exploring with the children.  

Within Maths we follow First4Maths. This half term we will begin exploring patterns which use ABB and ABBC repetition. We will then move onto composition, where we will be developing our ability to recall number bonds to 5 and partitioning and recombining sets of objects of 6,7,8 and 9, using part part whole model and ten frames.  Following this, we will be developing our ability to find 1 more and 1 less mentally and with increasing speed. The term will then end with us exploring directional language including through, across, over and under as well as representing spatial ideas in 2d using maps. 

Within phonics, we will continue to follow the Read, Write inc scheme.  The vast majority of the children will be starting to read Red Ditty books. Within each book there are three stories, all of which the children will have read in school. These will be sent home on a Friday for the children to enjoy with yourselves. They will also be given a book bag book, this will be unseen and provide the children with an extra challenge. Towards the end of this half term, we are looking to move the children to green books, which will also signal the start of set 2. When this happens the children will be sent home on a Friday with the new sounds that they have learnt. These will all be special friends (diagraphs or trigraphs). Please practice these with your child as much as possible. It is also important that the children continue to practice their red tricky words, as they will need these as they move through the different coloured books. Well done to those children who know all the tricky words already! 

The children will continue to experience fun, independent learning activities as well as adult led learning throughout all of our themes and topics. These activities will be aimed to suit the needs of the children at their level and encourage the children’s creativity, exploration skills, physical development and their abilities to interact with others. We will share the children’s learning with you through Tapestry. Please continue to share with us anything that the children do at home, as we love to see these and chat about them with the children. 

The children have access to the outdoor area at all times, thankfully as we move into Spring there will be less and less need for hats and gloves. However, please ensure that the children always bring a coat with them, even on sunnier days, as they will need them to be outside if it rains.  They will also need a pair of wellies in school in order to play in the mud kitchen, this is to prevent their school shoes from becoming too muddy and damaged. 

As always, every Friday, the children will join the rest of the school in our Celebration Assembly. As part of this one child will be chosen to be our Star of the Week. As parents, you will be invited into school to join the assembly, so you can see your child presented with their certificate and celebrate with them. The school office will contact parents on the Wednesday if their child is Star of the Week. Please just note that we won't be joining the assembly for a couple of weeks, while we settle the children into school life.  

Key information:

·      Please ensure all items of uniform are named, this will help us to ensure we can return them to the right child

·       Please ensure that your child comes into school wearing their PE kit every Wednesday

·       All children need to bring a water bottle to school every day. This needs to be filled with water rather than juice and again have the child’s name on. 

·       Please inform your child if they need to order a school dinner before they come into school. 

·       Don’t forget if your child would like snack it needs to be ordered and paid for online at the start of every half term. They can bring their own snack from home but please ensure it is a healthy snack, preferably fruit. 

·       Please ensure the children have a change of underwear and uniform in school case of accidents. 

 

We know that this is a lot of information, so if you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to speak to one of us, we are always available before and after school or you can contact us via email.  We look forward to an exciting first term!

 

Kind regards,

 

Amanda Robinson and Clare Swindley 

Clare Swindley: deputy@millfields.cheshire.sch.uk 

Amanda Robinson: arobinson@millfields.cheshire.sch.uk 

 

Painting

Painting

Ribbons

Ribbons

Fixing

Fixing

Trips

Trips