It was lovely to see the children come back happily after the Easter break, excited to see their friends and tell us what they had been up to over the holiday.

 

Literacy

 

We are continuing to learn digraphs (when two letters make one sound, such as ‘oa’ in ‘road’) and trigraphs (when three letters make one sound such as ‘air’ in hair). Children continue to read and write daily in their phonics lessons and are listened to read on a one-to-one basis with an adult each week. We are also encouraging the children to write simple sentences. We teach them to say the sentence out loud lots of times, so they know which word comes next and to check what they have written to see if it makes sense. We are continuing to update the sound books each week and add to the Red Words too.

 

Please continue to listen to your child read and write in their reading record. Remember that we want reading to be an enjoyable and fun thing to do. Choose the time carefully and if it is just a page or two, that is okay. When you read a book to your child, can they read any of the words to you? Can they spot any tricky words? When you are out and about, can they read any words on signs? Or spot digraphs?

 

This half term we will be focusing on the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ which links well with our learning about growing and lifecycles. We are learning the story and actions to help retell it independently. We will also be acting it out and making up our own different version of the story. We are continuing to use the vocabulary of ‘character’, ‘setting’, ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ in relation to stories and describing the characters from the story too.

 

Maths

 

We have been learning numbers to 20 and beyond, looking at how numbers including and more than ten are made up of a group or groups of ten. Such as 15 is one group of 10 and five more. This term we will be looking at adding more and taking away, doubling, sharing and grouping. We will also be looking at shape and how shapes can be combined to make other shapes.

 

PE

 

We are focussing on hand-eye coordination and ball skills, learning to dribble and then moving on to using a racket. We will then move on to athletics and playing some team games in preparation for sports day. The children are much more independent at getting changed for PE and are now able to change in under 10 minutes! Please continue to make sure that their school uniform and PE kit is named.

 

Understanding the World

 

This term we are focusing on growing and looking at the lifecycles of different animals and plants. We have been busy planting seeds in our outside area and learning to care for the plants. We are really looking forward to our trip to Tropical World in May which links well with this topic. As part of our Religious Education learning, we will be looking at how we can

be good helpers and who are special people for Muslims and Christians. In Art, we will be looking at the artists Yayoi Kusama and Barbara Hepworth. As part of our Past and Present learning, we will be looking at children’s television from the past and looking at the life of Baroness Floella Benjamin. If you have any objects from the past that reception class would be unfamiliar with, we would love to borrow them for these sessions. As part of Green Week, we will be learning about the three Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle), finding out about and sorting the different materials items are made from.

 

Tapestry

 

Remember that if you want to know what we are learning in class each week, log on to Tapestry. Each Friday I upload our weekly round up of what we have been up to.

 

Also, as the weather gets warmer, please make sure your child has a named water bottle in school and that their jumper is named too. You may wish for your child to have a sun hat for sunny days and provide sun cream for them to apply themselves.