At the Bottom of the Garden

Welcome back! We hope you have had a wonderful Easter break and that the children are looking forward to returning to school for the start of our Summer term. As you are all aware we have said a fond goodbye to Miss James as she embarks on her new journey, we will all miss her greatly! With that being said, as of Monday Mrs Dixon, who has taught some of your children in Nursery, will be returning early from her Maternity leave to teach Reception Class on a Friday. Mrs Dixon is extremely excited to be returning on Friday and seeing all of the children. She has made the effort to come into school on a number of occasions to familiarise herself with everyone and I am sure you will all give her a warm welcome back on Friday. 

This half term our topic will be all about minibeasts and their habitats. The children will learn about how to protect minibeasts and how to care for their environments so that they can flourish. The children will touch on things that are growing in the garden/outdoors  and consider how they can contribute to a healthy planet through planting and growing. 

Our first text will be 'Mad about Minibeasts'. The children will be finding out about many different minibeasts and talk about which one is their favourite and why. They will re-cap adjectives and describe different minibeasts as well as writing minibeast fact files. 

The children will further explore our topic through a wide range of enhanced activities across the provision such as minibeast art in the style of Andy Goldsworthy, creating minibeast habitats in the construction and pond dipping in our water tray. We are excited to go on minibeast hunts and create bug hotels in the outdoor area this half term!

In phonics we will be moving on to phase 4 and applying our phase 3 knowledge. Throughout phase 4 the children will learn to read words with short vowel sounds and adjacent consonants, longer words and compound words and words ending in suffixes: ing/ed/ t/ ed/ id/ est. 

This half terms tricky words are as follows:

said, so, have, like, some, come, love, do, were, here, little, says, there, when, what, one, out, today. 

We are looking forward to welcoming you all back on Monday.

Miss Belnavis and Mrs Dixon x

Once Upon a Time

Happy new year! I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and are ready for an action packed half term. Our new topic will be Once Upon a Time where we will be sharing lots of wonderful traditional tales. Our first text will be The Three Little Pigs where we will begin our talk for writing sequence. The children will be sequencing and story mapping the text. The children will then be rehearsing the text using the story map and actions to support them. 

In Maths we will be covering the following units: Alive in 5, Mass and Capacity, Growing 6, 7, 8.

P.E days will remain on a Friday, please ensure that all children have their kits. 

We look forward to seeing you on Monday.

x

Welcome to Reception 

Hello and welcome to our Reception Class page!

Key Days

PE will be on a Friday 

Forest School on Thursday

In the class you will find.....

Miss Belnavis - Class Teacher (Monday-Thursday)

Miss James- Class Teacher (Friday)

Mrs Burns - Teaching assistant 

Miss Downing - Teaching assistant 

Mr Kirtley- Forest school teacher

Autumn Two

Whizz, Bang, Pop!

Hello and welcome back. This half term our topic is called 'Whizz, Bang, Pop' and we will be finding out all about celebrations. We will start by learning about the Hindu celebration, Diwali. The children will be taught about the customs and traditions for this celebration through videos and the story Dipal's Diwali. They will make Diva lamps in the dough, create Rangoli patterns and explore the story of Rama and Sita. We will learn that people have different beliefs and celebrate in different ways. 

We will then enjoy a week all about Bonfire night where the children can reflect on their own experiences of this. The children will create their own firework and bonfire pictures using a range of media. We will further explore why rules are important and connect this to fire safety. 

Moving into weeks three and four we will explore birthday celebrations before heading into advent and Christmas celebrations!

In Phonics the children will complete their phase 2 letters and sounds before beginning to learn Phase 3. 

In Maths we will be learning about measure and patterns, subitising, representing and finding 1, 2and 3, one more and one less to 3 and the composition of 1, 2 and 3. Finally we will be looking at circles and triangles and positional language.

We will continue to update you on Tapestry with weekly learning. 

Miss Belnavis and Miss James x 

Autumn Term One

I hope that you have had a fantastic summer and that all of the children are ready to start their school journey! We are super excited to meet all of the children and welcome them at St Mary's. Our topic this half term is called Marvellous me and My Magnificent World! The first few weeks of school we will be getting to know one another, settling in and forming new friendships.