Inkpen Class

Welcome to Reception!

2023-2024 Class Information

Our teacher is Mrs Gosnell.  The teaching assistant in our class is Mrs Legender. Mrs Pritchard will be covering the class all day on a Monday and Tuesday afternoon. All of the adults in reception are very friendly and helpful in order to make sure that the children have the best start at Wintringham Primary Academy. 

At Wintringham Primary Academy, we have an 'open door policy'. We welcome you to discuss your child, their progress or any concerns you may have. We might not be able to talk to you straight away but we will endeavour to speak to you as soon as possible. You can also leave a message with the school office or send an e-mail to the school office who will pass it onto us - office@wintringham.cambs.sch.uk

The children need to bring their PE kits to school every Monday, starting on Monday 25th September and these will be returned home on a Friday. The children will have P.E on a Monday afternoon with Mrs Pritchard.

Home Learning Expectations

Reading

Frequently sharing books with your child and talking about the main characters and sequence of events will support your child to develop their comprehension skills. Visiting the local library is a great way to find a wide variety of books that link to your child’s interests. Please ensure that you read with your child for at least ten minutes five times a week when they begin to bring books home following the schools reading scheme. After reading their phonic book, please record this in their reading diary including the date, the name of the book and a signature from the adult who has read with them. You may also want to comment on whether your child enjoyed the book, if they found it easy or difficult, or use it as an opportunity to ask your child’s class teacher a question. The number of reads will be counted up at the end of every week, so it is important the children have their reading diary and their books with them. Whilst reading, please encourage your child to point carefully to each of the words as they read. Are they able to read the words from left to right using their phonic knowledge and are they able to recognise any words they know?

Numbots

Please support your child to interact with Numbots as much as possible, as this will support their subitising skills. You will receive a login bookmark over the next few weeks, which will outline how you will be able to log onto and Numbots.

Curriculum Overviews 

Knowledge Organisers

Parent Workshops

Promoting British Values in Reception

Democracy:

Speaking and listening activities promote discussions

Making decisions together

Listening to each other’s opinions

Turn taking, sharing and collaboration

Individual Liberty:

Freedom for all

Developing a positive sense of themselves

We listen to every child through pupil voice

Through our PSHE curriculum the children’s rights are promoted

The children are encouraged to make the right choices about how they learn and how they behave

Mutual Respect and Tolerance:

The classroom rules help children to understand how to share and look after each other

The children learn about different cultures, faiths and religions. They are encouraged to show respect and tolerance for different people, faiths, cultures and languages

The children study art and listen to music which reflects multicultural Britain

The children celebrate special days and festivals throughout the year

Rule of Law:

The children learn about their rights and responsibilities. They also learn about consequences of behavior and also learn to distinguish between right and wrong

The children have agreed to abide by the rules and understand that these rules apply to everyone

The Characteristics of Effective Learning

The characteristics of effective learning are important learning behaviours that we support the children to develop throughout the reception year. They are split into three categories:

Playing and Exploring - Engagement:

Can I do this?

Active Learning - Motivation:

Do I want to do this?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/help-your-child-try-new-things

This is a useful website to explore the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and to find out more information about how to help your child to try new things at home and to develop a growth mindset. 

Creating and Thinking Critically - Thinking:

How do I do this? 

We can help children to become effective learners by playing with them, listening and responding to them, acting as a sound board, supporting them to pursue their own interests, inspiring them, modelling discovery learning and both guiding and supporting them (without taking over). 

2023-2024

2022-2023

World Book Day 2023 - Thursday 2nd March 2023

The children have had a fantastic day to celebrate World Book Day. First, the children joined together to hear the story, 'The Day the Crayons Quit.' After reading the story, the children realised the crayons had been stolen and the children were tasked with a finding clues to the culprit. The children moved around the school and worked together to identify the different clues. After lunch, the police came and asked the children about their investigation. They then saw the culprit, 'The Highway Rat,' and went and arrested him. The children were very excited about this! After, the children read with different children from other year groups. Finally, the children listened to another Oliver Jeffer's story, 'Lost and Found,' and were then tasked to create a boat with a child from Zephania class. The children used the water tray to test these. Tomorrow, they will be having a boat race on the pond. Thank you for all your efforts with the children's costumes. They all looked fantastic.

Week Beginning 30.01.23 - Transport and Garden Developments

The children have had a fantastic and exciting week in Reception. The children have been focussing on the learning theme, 'Transport,' using the key text, 'Lost and Found,' to steer their learning. In group time, the children listened to the story and learnt about Antartic. The children considered how they could travel there from England, thinking about the different terrains and obstacles they might need to get around. The children also thought about how they could create a lost poster for the penguin, considering it's key attributes to describe it. In continuous provision, the children have explored number bonds to ten, made penguins with a range of materials including play dough and considered how they could recreate the Antartic with construction materials.

In maths, the children have been learning about the number five, six and seven. The children sang the song, 'Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer,' and then considered how they could place their aliens in the space ship. We then looked at what would happen if we had six aliens and then seven. The children have worked hard on their verbal reasoning skills and could explain how they knew the number was six or seven, based on the arrangements they made on their space ships.

In P.E, the children have continued to explore dance and are currently working through a unit of lessons entitled, 'On Parade.' This week, the children built on their previous learning, continuing to practise marching and link sequences of movements together. They worked in partners to use some of the movements we have practised to create a short composition. The children worked really well and were excited to show their friends their dances.

It has seen the start of our garden development which has been on the cards for a while. We are very luck to have had donations of materials from Mr Stockley and Durkan builders which has helped to enhance our outdoor area. The children have loved to explore the tyres, pipes and bricks creating car ramps, building houses and using them as large obstacle courses. The children have loved playing in the sand pit and are enjoying exploring all the new sand toys that they have found.

The children have had a fantastic outdoor learning session with Mrs Gregorious. They have practised a technique, 'Hapizome,' which the children found very exciting. The children used a range of natural resources to create a pattern on the canvas fabric. The children also created a wormery and we have had some new friends move in. They can't wait to watch them and see the tunnels that they create. 

Week beginning 2nd January 2023 and 9th January 2023 - Theme - Traditional Tales

The children have had a fantastic start to the spring term focussing on the theme 'traditional tales.' First the children looked at the key text, 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.' The children increased their confidence retelling a story, joining in with repeated parts of a story and hot seating the different characters. In continuous provision, the children role played in the cottage, wrote in porridge oats, ordered different objects from the story by size and made their own bear puppets. Outside, the children created ice dream catchers, explored colour in the water and created the bear's cottage using large shape bricks. During the focus activity, the children explored AB patterns. They were able to create their own patterns, continue a pre made pattern and spot errors in an AB pattern. 

The second key text that the children have explored is 'The Gingerbread Man.' The children continued to practise re telling a story, thought about alternative endings for the story and considered the different adjectives that could be used to describe the fox and compare him to a kind character. In continuous provision, the children have been creating gingerbread men with play dough, subitising using a dice and placing decorations on a gingerbread man or house, writing what the different characters might say and designing their own gingerbread men. During the focus activity, the children were writing about pictures from the story, focussing on applying their phonics skills and letter formation.

We were also very lucky to have our first Forest School session. The children were read a story, 'Yucky Worms.' They then had to find a specific colour string worm and count how many they found. Then, they pretended to be the rain by jumping up and down on the ground to encourage the worms to come to the surface.

In P.E, we explored move and hold. The children moved around the space of the hall and then had to freeze on command. Next, they looked at creating circles with different parts of their body and creating a box shape. Finally, the children had to think of their own sequence of movements, linked to the key skills learnt in the lesson. What a fantastic start to the term we have had!

Christmas Party and Reward Day - December 2022

The children have had a fantastic couple of days. Yesterday, the children enjoyed party food and danced away at the party. They even had a visit from the big man himself. Today, the children have enjoyed reward day. This morning, they went to different classrooms and took part in different activities including construction, arts and crafts and board games. This afternoon, the children watched a magician and were absolutely mesmerized. They then enjoyed some more construction with the key stage one children. Christmas lunch was a big hit for all the children. They enjoyed dining with all the year groups and loved having the teachers join them too. Well done Inkpen Class. What a fantastic bunch you are!

Week Beginning 21.11.22

The children have been enjoying exploring their new topic, 'Space.' The children started the week by thinking about what they already know and what they would like to find out. The children came up with questions that we will answer over the coming weeks. The children enjoyed exploring the text, 'Whatever Next.' They were able to confidently re tell the story and also wrote a post card pretending to be the bear who went to space. In continuous provision, the children have role played in the space station, used different construction materials to make rockets, used Numicon to create a rocket and wrote their own space facts. The children have thoroughly enjoyed their first week and are looking forward to learning more next week.

Week Beginning 31.10.22 and 08.11.22

The children have had a fantastic couple of weeks. Last week, the children learnt about Bonfire Night and completed lots of firework related activities. This week, the children have been looking at the new topic of food. They have been focussing on the story, 'Handa's Surprise,' in group time. First, the children listened to the story and answered questions regarding it. Then, the children focussed re-telling the story and putting the pictures in order. The children also thought about the characters in the story and enjoyed getting into role to answer questions. In continuous provision, the children have been creating African style necklaces, writing about fruit, using tweezers to move resources to create patterns and using fruit to count out to match numerals. I have put a post on Tapestry regarding tricky words in Phonics. Please have a look at this and let me know if you have any questions. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Week Beginning 10th and 17th October

What a fantastic first half term the children have had! They have settled into life at Wintringham and are getting on fabulously. The last couple of weeks, the children have continued to look at, 'A Brave Bear.' They have engaged well with the story have enjoyed getting into the role of the characters.

The children enjoyed being involved in a whole school Diwali day. They enjoyed listening to an assembly from Mr Kumar, using sparklers and creating Diwa lamps. They also created firework pictures, lanterns, creating Rangoli panterns and made Laddu.

Due to the rain yesterday, bulb planting was delayed until today. The children enjoyed planting the bulbs and we can't wait to see them flower in the spring!

We hope that you have a lovely half term and we look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 1st November.

Week Beginning 30.09.22 and 03.10.22

What a fantastic two weeks the children have had! The children have started looking at their new topic, 'Bears.' If you haven't already done so, please look on the school website class page to access the knowledge organiser for this topic.

In group time, the children have started looking at the book, 'A Brave Bear.' They have learnt more about brown bears and have role played what characters might be saying to each other.

In continuous provision, the children have been, making bears with playdough, using different construction material to create bear caves, measuring the height of bears and drawing and writing things linked to the story.

Outside, the children have enjoyed an exploration station. They have been looking at the different wildlife in the garden and also the variety of plants that we have. In outdoor learning, the children used different materials to create their very own leaf men.

Thank you for your support with reading with your children at home. I am looking forward to seeing you at Parents' evening on Tuesday. If you have not already booked an appointment, please would you be able to do so?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week!

Week Beginning 19.09.22

Welcome Reception families!

The children have settled in quickly to the new routines at school and all appear to be looking forward to starting full time next week. The children have been looking at the topic, 'ourselves.' In group time, the children have been looking at feelings and thinking about how things make us feel. In maths, the children have started to subitise numbers 1 and 2 and start to think about the number 3. The children practically made arrangements with counters to show the number 3. In continuous provision, the children have been creating pictures of their families, mark making around their favourite television characters, creating play dough faces and role playing in the home corner. Outside, the children have enjoyed mark making with chalk, exploring the climbing frame and playing in the mud kitchen. In outdoor learning, the children have represented numbers using different natural materials and made clay faces.

The children have really enjoyed starting phonics this week. They have learnt s, a, t, p and identified objects that start with those letters. The children have also been practising oral blending. Thank you for the observations on Tapestry. I have enjoyed seeing the children engaged with phonics at home.

Here are just a few bits of information, now the children are in the swing of school.

- P.E will start next week. Please can PE kits be bought in on a Monday and then they can go home on a Friday. - Our class bear, Eric, has started going home with children this week. Please could you take photos and write a bit about what he has been up to and then upload this to Tapestry. If you would prefer to write and add pictures, there is lined paper in his bag that you can use. I look forward to seeing what Eric bear gets up to each weekend. - Reading books will be changed on a Tuesday and a Friday. On a Friday, the children's' reads for the week will be tallied and the children will move up the reading chart if they have read five times. We count one read per date and it needs to be their phonics book they have been allocated. There will be occasions where the children are reading the same book more than once but this is good as it builds confidence, especially when we move to books that have words.

Next week, please bring your child's All About Me box on their allocated day. I can't wait to see what the children have to share.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

2021-2022

Wednesday 20th and Thursday 21st July 2022

What a fantastic couple of days the children have had! Yesterday, the children from each class worked to create a square based on a book character linked to their class name's author. The children in year five read poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah and created a square based on the poems that they read. First the children had to draw their design out and then they were able to recreate it. The children used a range of techniques including fabric painting, printing, applique and embroidery. These squares will then be joined together to create a large hanging display which I will hopefully be putting together over the summer. Today, the children have worked in mixed year groups to explore four different artists/techniques. The children have learnt about Yayoi Kusama, Andy Goldsworthy, Eric Carle and have had a go at tie dye. This has been a fantastic experience for the children and they have really enjoyed creating polka dot art, creating pictures using nature and creating animal collages. The children have worked together well and the older children have supported the younger children. Well done Wintringham. We are very proud of you!

Friday 8th July 22

The children had a fantastic trip to the zoo on Friday. They enjoyed looking at all the different animals, handling and getting up close with the tortoises and feeding the goats and donkeys. The children were well behaved and represented the school well. I was very proud of them. Here are some photos from the day!

Wednesday 29th June 2022

The children had a fantastic time today. Each class had an African drumming session and then, in the afternoon, created some African masks, African style jewellery and copied some of the beautiful African patterns. The children really enjoyed learning about some of the African culture and asked lots of fantastic questions. Inkpen class watched a video about Africa and then did some writing about it also. 

Week beginning 20.06.22

The children have had a busy couple of weeks learning about Mini beasts. In group time, they have been focussing on worms and the book, 'Yucky Worms.' The children have been thinking about how they feel about worms and learning about how good worms are for the environment. Thank you to those children that responded to the questions on Tapestry. We have been focussing on reading the past couple of weeks and, in particular, those high frequency words that appear when the children are reading. They have been doing fantastically with this. In continuous provision the children have been creating junk modelled mini beasts, creating under ground collages, threading pasta to create worms, writing worm facts and role playing in the mini beast investigation area. It is obvious that this is a topic that has captured the children's interests. I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Week Beginning 6.6.22

What a fantastic first week back Inkpen class have had! They have been continuing their topic of animals and looking at sea animals in particular. In group time, the children looked at the largest and smallest animals in the sea and drew and labelled a picture of a blue whale. They also looked at the different zones in the sea and the animals that live there. During the focus activity, the children looked at a picture of an under water scene and wrote sentences about it. I was really impressed with their sentence writing and their application of phonics knowledge. In continuous provision, the children have been, using cotton buds to create patterns on fish, identifying number sentences that equal a particular number, exploring floating and sinking and creating large scale under water scenes. With the weather getting hotter, please can you ensure your child has a named hat and water bottle in school every day please. We appreciate your support with this. I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Week Beginning 16.05.22

We have been very busy the past couple of weeks, looking at different types of animals. Last week we were focussing on pets and this week we have been looking at farm animals. In group time, the children have been looking at the stories, 'I want a Pet' by Lauren Child and 'What the Ladybird Heard' by Julia Donaldson. The children have engaged well with two focus maths activities, looking at addition in different contexts. One activity focussed on the selecting the correct coins to buy different pets and this week, we were adding together animals in pens. Alongside this, in continuous provision, the children have been creating pet faces out of lose parts, making play dough farm animals, mapping out the story of what the ladybird heard, creating posters about how to look after pets and making junk modelling animals. Well done Inkpen class. Keep up the great work! I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Week Beginning 2.5.22

The children have had a fab couple of weeks looking at dinosaurs. In group time this week, we have been looking at the book 'Dear Dinosaur.' The children have absolutely loved this story and even created their own favourite food dinosaurs. In focus, the children were writing their own letters to the dinosaur to tell him all about themselves. The children have been working really hard with their writing and I have been very impressed by all of them. In maths, the children have been practising counting out larger groups of objects and developing their strategies to support this. In continuous provision, the children have been writing instructions to draw dinosaurs, tangling and untangling dinosaurs, reading dinosaur related sentences, painting dinosaur sunset pictures and creating shape dinosaurs. The children have shown great enthusiasm for the topic, which has been lovely to see! Please can you remember to bring a sun hat in to school, every day, now the weather is getting better?

Week Beginning 18.04.22

Welcome back to Summer Term. I can't quite believe we are already in the last term of the year already. I hope you all had a lovely break and are rested and ready for an extremely busy term.

The first topic of the term is, 'dinosaurs.' The children have been busy practising their writing during group time, writing sentences about dinosaurs and writing questions that they want to find out during the next three weeks. The children also learnt the poem, 'Dinosaur Roar.' During child initiated learning the children have been creating dinosaurs, making dinosaur skeletons, drawing and labelling dinosaurs and exploring different dinosaur footprints.

Now the weather is getting better, fingers crossed it continues like this, please can you ensure that your child has a sun hat in school every day? Also, when necessary, please could you apply sun cream to your child before they come to school and then they can top it up at lunch time. They will need a named bottle of sun cream in their bag. Thank you in advance for your support with this.

The children have been doing really well with their reading but, this term, I am going to be focussing on encouraging the children to read at home. The expectation for the children is that they read for 10 minutes everyday and then this needs to be recorded in their reading diaries for the that date. Every Friday, I count the number of times your child has read during the week, and they are moved up the class reading chart. In addition to this, there is going to be an extra incentive to encourage your children. They will receive a prize out of the box. I have spoken with the children about this.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend and I am looking forward to another exciting week.

Week Beginning 14.3.22

Last week was Science Week. The children enjoyed conducting a range of investigations on Wednesday afternoon with the Pre-School children. They explored magnetic items, colour mixing, shadows and even friction using car ramps. Here are some photos of what the children got up to!

Week Beginning 07.02.22

The children have had a fantastic week learning more about the Lunar New Year, with the week ending with NSPCC Number Day. In group time, the children have been learning about the Chinese Zodiac and what the different animals mean. They have also been learning more about the Great Race and how the animals of the Chinese Zodiac came to be. In continuous provision, the children have been collaborating to create blossom trees, looking at patterns using red and yellow, creating their own Zodiac animals and using chop sticks to move pom poms into numbered pots. For NSPCC Number Day today, the children thought about their own safety circles and who keeps them safe. They also took part in a range of maths activities this afternoon including looking at subitising. I have put a February Half Term Happening Sheet in all children's bookbags. If you could fill these out with your children, I would appreciate this. They can then share these when they return to school. This might be a photo of what they have done or they might draw a picture. I hope you all have a fabulous half term and enjoy a well deserved break. It has been a very busy half term! I look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday 22nd February!

Week Beginning 31.1.22

What an exciting week we have had in Reception. The children have been continuing with the topic of transport and have been exploring the book, 'Lost and Found.' In continuous provision, the children have been, writing about what they would take to the south pole, making penguins using a range of creative resources, exploring numbers to ten using a tens frame and measuring the height of penguins using cubes. During focus, the children selected where they would like to go on holiday and wrote about what they would need to take. I am incredibly proud with how hard the children are working on their writing and they are really starting to use those phonics sounds and sentence structures to produce fantastic work. We were very lucky this week to have a visit from Mrs Molyneaux to teach us about the Lunar New Year. She provided us with some very informative presentations and then lots of activities to create for the festivity. The children engaged well with this and really enjoyed working with the rest of the school. Next week, the children will continue to learn about the Lunar New Year in class. I hope you all have a lovely weekend a well deserved rest.

Week Beginning 24.1.22

Last week, the children were learning about the story 'The Train Ride'. The children identified and discussed what they could see through the window of train rides around the world, e.g. 'I can see snow on the mountains' and 'I can see the beach'. Through one of the train windows, we could see a viaduct and we talked about the name of it and what it was. The children also drew a picture and wrote about what they would see out of the window of a different form of transport, e.g. a submarine and a rocket. On Friday last week, the children were played a clip of sounds from the seaside (without being told where the clip was from) and they were asked to draw a picture on their whiteboard of the things they could hear, e.g. seagulls and waves. After being told the clip was from the seaside, the children then added more pictures to their drawing of other things that can be found at the seaside, e.g. seaweed and crabs. For our adult-led activity this week, the children have been writing instructions of how to build a sandcastle. The children have been working hard on their writing and I am so proud of them all. They are applying their phonic knowledge well and are starting to use punctuation when writing sentences. In Maths, the children have been building and ordering towers up to 5. They have been using these towers to identify a staircase pattern and recognising that each number is 1 more than the previous number. The children have been making patterns in the sand, making 2D shape trains, making their own name trains and creating their own train pictures using sponges dipped in paint. This week, the children will be learning the phonemes oi and er their phonics sessions.

Week Beginning 17.01.22

Last week, we moved onto our new topic, 'Transport.' We spent the week exploring the story, 'Naughty Bus'. During the story, the Naughty Bus goes on a journey, causing chaos as it goes and ending up falling into a pond! During the children's choosing time, the children have been drawing and labelling different vehicles, creating different vehicles out of different materials, using playdough to make different transports and using magnets to explore a train moving around a track. For our adult led activity this week, the children have been exploring the composition of numbers up to ten. They added a different amount of bears in different colours to a bus tens frame and recorded this as an addition number sentence. They then repeated this activity for a variety of numbers within ten. In Maths, the children have been exploring weight, mass and capacity and learning to use key vocabulary related to these concepts. Thank you to everyone who joined Miss Knox for her reading zoom meeting on Thursday. We hope you found this useful and if you would like any further help with supporting your child to read at home, please get in touch. This week, the children will be learning the phonemes ar and igh their phonics sessions. I hope you had a lovely weekend!

Week Beginning 10.01.22

Last week, the children continued to look at traditional tales, this time focussing on the Gingerbread Man. The children became very familiar with the story and were able to re tell it confidently. The children also considered if the story could end differently and what that ending could me. In continuous provision, the children made their own gingerbread men, wrote about what the characters in the story might be saying, drew out the journey of the gingerbread man and created them out of play dough. For the focus last week, the children wrote their own version of the story. I was very impressed with all the children and their attitude towards their learning. They were applying their phonics knowledge well and trying really hard with their letter formation. Well done Inkpen class!

Week beginning 3.1.22

Happy New Year. I hope you all had a fantastic break and are refreshed and ready for the new term. Last week, the children were looking at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children enjoyed creating their own puppet show of the story, creating their own bears and Goldilocks, writing what the bears might have said and making their own bears out of playdough. During outdoor learning, the children looked at recognising numerals and then representing these with natural objects. The children have been working really hard on their writing and this is starting to pay off for them. They are applying their phonic knowledge well and developing their own cursive handwriting.

Just a couple of reminders. Please can all children have a named pair of wellies in school as the mud and the rain does not deter us from going out. Also, please can you read with your child every night for 10 minutes and record this in their reading diary. On a Friday, I tally up the children's reads and move them up a chart they have in the classroom. There are small prizes for each increment of 25 reads. Please can you help your child to get these? Thank you for your continued support with this.

This week, the children are looking at the story of The Gingerbread Man.

Week beginning 29.11.21

The children have had a fantastic week learning about space, in particular the moon. They wrote some amazing facts and I am so impressed with how their writing is developing. I can really see them applying their phonic knowledge which is fantastic. The children also wanted to make their own class copy of 'Whatever Next.' The children each wrote a page and I have put them together to form a book that will be added to the book corner. The children have also role played in the space station, built their own junk modelling rockets and created aliens out of playdough. They have loved the topic of space and this has been lovely to see.

On Wednesday, some magic happened and the school transformed into a Christmas wonderland. The children were very excited by this. It also brought a visit to our class, Barry the book elf. It would appear that every day he brings us a new Christmas story to read so we are very excited to see what he will bring next week!

Week Beginning 15.11.21

Reception have had a wonderful week continuing on our topic of food. In group time, the children have looked at a non-fiction text about keeping healthy and learnt why this is important and they have carried out an experiment with a banana, bread, milk and a yoghurt to see what happens if they are not kept under the right conditions. The children made predictions about what they thought might happen and then had a look at the end of the week, In continuous provision, the children have been creating their own pizzas, buying food with money, writing their own shopping lists and creating a rainbow of foods. Today the children took part in a whole school Joe Wick's workout for Children in Need and had a fantastic time. I have been really impressed with the children's reading and writing this week. Please keep reading with them and looking at their sounds from their key word books as this will help them. I hope you all have a lovely and relaxing weekend.

Week Beginning 1/11/21

Welcome back after half term, it was so lovely to see the children back at school and hearing about what they had been doing during their week off school. Last week, the children were learning about the festival of Diwali. The children worked in groups with the whole school to learn about this festival. First, read them a story about Diwali then they completed the following activities: making Diva Lamps, making paper lanterns, creating Rangoli patterns and creating Mehdi designs. For Bonfire Night, the children made firework pictures using the paint program on the computer and also using glue, salt and different watercolours. They also took part in a science experiment to make pretend fireworks in a glass. They helped to pour warm water into one glass and then a few spoonfuls of oil and 4 drops of food colouring into a second glass. After using a fork to mix the oil and food colouring together, the mixture was poured into the glass of warm water and the children were very excited to watch the mini firework display. The experiment was repeated a second time so different food colouring could be used to create different coloured fireworks, there was a lot of excitement amongst the children! The children have been independently role-playing in the fruit and vegetable shop, making repeating ABAB patterns using plastic fruit, writing about their favourite food and creating a healthy plate of food. The children will now have received their log in bookmarks. Please find below a list of websites that link to the children’s log in bookmarks –

Numbots – www.numbots.com

Spelling Shed – www.spellingshed.com

Please support your child to use Numbots as much as possible, as this will support their subitising skills. Phonics assignments will be set Tuesday-Friday each week on Spelling Shed and the assignments will be live from 8am until 5pm each day. These assignments will link to and support the phonemes covered in your child’s phonics lessons each day. Please also continue to read with your child for at least ten minutes every day and record this in your child’s reading diary. We have introduced lots of reading incentives within school, which involve the children reading at least 5 times a week at home. Thank you for your support and I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Week Beginning 18.10.21

What a fantastic first half term the children have had in Reception. It is hard to believe that they only started school 7 weeks ago! This week, the children have been finishing off looking at 'A Brave Bear.' The children thought about their favourite parts of the story and their least favourite parts. They also thought about what they would tell their friends about the story. In continuous provision, the children have been creating paw prints using different techniques, building bridges to balance their bears on, labelling different parts of the bears and sorting images to match the numbers 1-3. The children have also been really enjoying being outside. They have explored floating and sinking in the water tray and practising their throwing and aiming skills using skittles. I hope that you all have a wonderful half term and manage to get some rest. In your child's bookbag, you will find an Autumn half term happenings sheet. I would love to see what everyone has been up to! I have thoroughly enjoyed this half term and am looking forward to seeing you all back on Tuesday 2nd November.

Week Beginning 11.10.21

Last week, the children continued learning about the story 'A Brave Bear.' We have discussed how both baby bear and daddy bear felt when baby bear slipped over on the rocks, as well as what baby bear should have done when daddy bear told him to be careful and to only do little jumps. The children also looked at one of the illustrations from the story and drew their own maps to portray the route that the bears took from their cave down to the river. Afterwards, the children discussed any parts of their map that may pose more difficulty to the bears than others and also the reasons why. In maths, the children have been exploring the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 with the help of the Numberblocks. We have been exploring the composition of each number and encouraging the children to use the following stem sentences - "1 and another 1 is 2", "1 and 1 and 1 makes 3" and "3 and 1 more makes 4". The children have really impressed me with their knowledge of the composition of these numbers. The children have been independently making 2D shape pictures of bears, creating a collage paper plate bear and writing about different parts of the story 'A Brave Bear'. This week, the children are learning the tricky words 'no' and 'to' and will be learning the sounds h, b, f/ff, l/ll and ss in our phonics sessions.

Week Beginning 4.10.21

The children have had a fantastic week looking at our new topic, 'Bears.' In group time, we have started to look at the story, 'A Brave Bear.' We have thought about things that are hot, we have looked at some photos of brown bears in their natural habitats and we thought about what daddy bear and his cub might be talking about. In maths this week we have been continuing to focus on subitising and we have also looked at capacity. The children have really enjoyed exploring these practically. Focus activities this week included an activity in which they had to describe the position of a bear and follow instructions to hide one. They also drew around a picture from the book, 'A Brave Bear,' thinking about what else might be in their natural habitat. Continuous provision has included the following activities: making a bear using a fork and paint, writing a shopping list for a teddy bears picnic, creating a tally chart of the children's favourite bear books and building bear caves. Outside, the children have really enjoyed exploring the water wheels and mixing powder paint with water. On Tuesday, we went on a bear hunt with pre-school which was fabulous!

You will notice in your child's bookbag that there is a large blue book called a Knowledge Organiser. Each time we start a new topic, a new sheet will be stuck in there. These sheets contain words linked to the topic and are words we would like you to talk about with your child. Thank you in advance for your support with this.

Week beginning 27.09.21

Just a little note. Do not panic that your child' key word book isn't in their book bag. We are changing how we do these so they will be returned to your child next Friday with the new format.

Reception have had a lovely week continuing on the last week of the topic, 'Ourselves.' In group time, the children have been learning about their senses. They participated in activities such as looking through binoculars and seeing what they could see and using musical instruments to explore what they could hear. The focus activity this week was writing about things they could see. I was so impressed with how the children used their phonics knowledge to help them write known sounds. In maths, the children have been exploring mathematical language such as more, fewer, most and language relating to size. Continuous provision this week has included creating collage family pictures, labelling a body, creating a tally chart of different eye colours and threading hair onto people. Next week in phonics, the children will be learning g, o, c, k. I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and am looking forward to next week already.

If your child does anything at home that you would love to chare with me, then please upload this to Tapestry. I would really like to see what they get up to.

Week Beginning 20.09.21

Last week was children's first full week at school and I am so proud of them all for how well they have settled into school life. They measured with their feet and found things around the classroom that were bigger and smaller than their foot. The children were busy independently using their hands and fingers to create Autumn trees, drawing/labelling pictures of their family, making a variety of models using the wooden blocks and also exploring the different activities in the outdoor area. This week we will be learning the sounds i, n and m in our phonics sessions. I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are refreshed for the week ahead.

Just a little note about recording in reading diaries. Everytime you read with your child, please could you write the title you have read and a little comment. On a Friday, I count how many reads your child has done and this goes towards certificates at certain points. I only count one read per day so the maximum in a week would be 5. Thank you for supporting your children with their reading at home.

Week beginning 13.09.21

Last week, the children were busy writing a fact file about themselves where they wrote their name, their age and their favourite colour, before drawing a picture of themselves. They have impressed me with their beautiful drawings and mark making skills. The children loved to share their All About Me boxes. Thank you for supporting your child to put these together. They were all fantastic and we loved finding out more about each child. In phonics, the children have been learning to listen carefully to the sounds that adults have been orally segmenting. They have then been blending the sounds in their heads to understand what the adult was saying - I have been very impressed. This week are learning the sounds s, a, t and p in our phonics sessions. The children are all enjoying their lunch at school and the puddings are definitely their favourite part! Please ensure that your child brings a pair of wellington boots and their PE kit into school this week. I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are ready for the week ahead

Week Beginning 06/09/21

The Reception children have had a fabulous first week at school. They have settled into the school routines quickly are enjoying exploring all the areas of the school. I think the highlight of their week was either going upstairs or playing in the big climbing frame. They have got stuck into lots of activities and have really impressed me. Next week, I am looking forward to the children staying a bit longer and sampling lunch. I am sure they are looking forward to this too.

Just a couple of reminders. Please can children bring a water bottle and sun hat to school every day as the weather is still changing. Also, next week, the children will be bringing in their 'All About Me' boxes. Please bring it in on your allocated day and it will be returned home the same day.

Here are just a few photos from the week. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week!

20th July 2021

The children enjoyed working with a partner to design and make a car out of a shoe box. They used a saw to cut the dowling for the axels and then when complete, tested their car on a slope in the outdoor area to see how far it would travel. 

15th July 2021

All of the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves on Sports Day this week. The children completed a number of events, including a tennis ball throw, a standing long jump, a running race, an egg and spoon race and an obstacle course. They all tried their hardest and should be proud of their achievements. The children also cheered on their friends and showed good sportsmanship.

12th July 2021

All of the children had great fun this afternoon taking part in our Fit and Fun Read-a-thon. There was lots of reading, star jumps, dancing and running! Thank you so much for the sponsorship money that has already been sent in. Please could all money be returned to school by tomorrow. Thank you in advance for your support : )

W.B 5th July 2021

During group time this week, we have been exploring the book 'Errol's Garden'. This is a lovely book all about a boy named Errol, who lives in a flat with his dad and sister. Errol enjoys growing things and looking after all of the plants that he keeps in various containers in his flat, but he is starting to run out of room. He discovers the roof of his block of flats and decides, with the help of his neighbours, to create a rooftop garden for everyone to enjoy. The children had a chance to design their own dream gardens, a lot of which contained swimming pools! They also thought about what tools/equipment would be needed to look after their dream garden, including rakes and buckets, as well as what things they would grow in their garden, ranging from plants and flowers to fruit and vegetables. I completed phonics assessments and benchmark assessments on the children's reading skills this week. I am very proud of the children and how far they have progressed with both their phonics and their reading. A note has been written in your child's reading diary and an observation has been added onto Tapestry to let you know which level book they will now be bringing home, along with a next step for your child to work on when reading, where relevant. In maths, the children have been solving practical problems involving height and weight and also using cuisenaire rods to solve addition and subtraction sums. The children have engaged in some fun outdoor learning this week, including making a nest for a bird and building a ball run. The children worked together to create a bird's nest using a range of natural materials. They had to ensure that it had the following components; it had to be well camouflaged in case of predators, it had to be strong and sturdy to withstand the weather and it had to be soft inside to protect the eggs and the baby birds. Each group needed to consider the shape and construction of their nest and were challenged to try to build it using only one hand as birds only have their beaks and feet to use when making their nest. When building a ball run, the children within each group had to ensure that their ball run had a start and finish point, two levels at different heights, a change in direction and that the ball could travel from the beginning to the end on its own. The children had to think about how they were going to join the materials together to make the different components of the ball run. Once complete, they had a go to see how great their ball run was. They then discussed what they liked about their ball run and what improvements could be made if they were to build it again. There was a lot of excitement within school on Friday morning when myself, Miss Blyth and Mrs Legender saw a hot air balloon flying quite close to school. I have added the two photos that we took of the hot air balloon, just in case you did not get a chance to see it yourselves. In phonics next week, the children will continue to learn to read and write a variety of cvcc words as well as a number of new tricky words from phase 4. I hope you are all having a lovely weekend : ) 

W.B 28th June 2021

Now that our caterpillars have arrived, we have been looking at the book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' during group time. On Wednesday this week, the children listened to a poem whereby something was seen on the cabbages each day, in relation to the four stages of the lifecycle of a caterpillar. They had to predict what was seen on the cabbages on a particular day by drawing/labelling a picture on their whiteboard. On Friday, we discussed what the caterpillar did on particular days of the week and the children thought of something they had done yesterday, something that they planned on doing today and something that they were hoping to do tomorrow. The children drew pictures to resemble their ideas and enjoyed discussing their plans with the rest of the class. In maths, the children have been developing their problem solving skills by exploring the pattern of numbers and also the relationship between different numbers. The children have been writing a recount about our recent trip to Paxton Pits throughout the week. I have been really impressed as to what the children have remembered about the trip and also that they are starting to write at length. This will stand them in good stead when they move into Year One. On Wednesday this week, the children spent some time in Year One in order to familiarise themselves with both their new teacher and their new environment in readiness for September. At the end of term, all of the children will receive a transition booklet, which I hope they will enjoy looking at over the summer holiday. We will also look through this together during one of our group time sessions before the end of term. The children have engaged in some fun outdoor learning this week, including making their own sound maps and also drawing clock faces to scale on the floor of the playground using chalk. On Friday, we explored the word 'camouflage' and after discussing what it meant, the children were given a template of a minibeast to camouflage, thinking about what colours they would use and why. After decorating their minibeast, the children hid their minibeast outside for Mrs Pritchard and Mrs Legender to try and find. Some minibeasts proved quite tricky for the grown ups to spot and at the end we discussed which were successful hiding places and also the reasons why (linked to the idea that we wanted the minibeasts to be camouflaged). In phonics next week, the children will continue to learn to read and write a variety of cvcc words as well as a number of new tricky words from phase 4. I am looking forward to seeing all of the children at school next week, where our group time sessions will be based on the book 'Errol's Garden'. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend : ) 

23rd June 2021

What a wonderful day we had at Paxton Pits. The children were superstars, their manners were excellent and they were on their best behaviour all day. Jane commented throughout the day on what brilliant listeners the children were and what talented birdwatchers, minibeast hunters and both pond and otter holt builders they were. I hope you enjoy looking through the photos, you will be able to see how exciting the day was and I am sure that you will feel proud of your little ones, I certainly am very proud of all of the children after such a lovely day out.

W.B 14th June 2021

During group time this week, we have continued to explore our book 'Yucky Worms'. The children firstly drew sketches of worms using wax crayons and thought of words to describe how a worm moves through the soil. We then learnt the poem 'Today I Saw a Little Poem' by Spike Milligan - 'Today I saw a little worm, wriggling on its belly. Perhaps he'd like to come inside, and see what's on the telly?' We discussed the children's thoughts about the poem, including what the worm would like to watch on the telly. Using the children's previous ideas of how a worm moves, we worked together to replace the word 'wriggling' in the original poem, before rehearsing our new version of the poem. Towards the end of the week, we revisited our 'Scale of Yuckiness' to see if any of the children's opinions towards worms had changed and also looked at our worm poster to see which questions had been answered. If your child has done some worm research at home, could you please share this with Mrs Pritchard on Tapestry? In maths, the children have been practising their subitising skills, exploring the composition of different numbers and sorting groups of minibeasts using different criteria. The children have particularly enjoyed making ice lollies this week and had them as a refreshing treat after lunchtime on Wednesday afternoon - a great way to cool everyone down and we hope to be able to do this again soon. The children have engaged in some fun outdoor learning this week, including making mini teepees, finding objects both in the classroom and in the outdoor area to reflect all of the colours of the rainbow and making dreamcatchers. For the mini teepes, the children worked in small groups. They took four sticks and broke them into similar sizes. They then held the sticks together and tied an elastic band around the top of the sticks, before positioning the sticks out in a teepee shape, i.e. two sticks at the front and two sticks at the back. They decorated their teepee with ribbon and then placed a small world character inside the teepee to see if it would fit comfortably inside. The children also used sticks and ribbon to make their own dreamcatcher and were very excited to take them home yesterday. For our upcoming trip to Paxton Pits, unless indicated on your permission slip, please ensure that your child brings a packed lunch on the day, as well as wearing their school uniform (it is essential that the children wear long trousers as they will be walking through the nature reserve). The children need to wear comfortable trainers and bring a sun hat, sun cream, water bottle, hand sanitiser and a raincoat with them inside a backpack that they will be able to carry themselves. Next week the children will be re-capping the sounds air, ure and er in our phonics sessions. I hope you all have a lovely weekend : )

W.B 7th June 2021

Welcome back! I hope you have all had a lovely half-term. The children look very refreshed after the holiday which is a good thing as we have a busy half-term ahead of us! This week, the children have started to learn about minibeasts. During group time, we have been starting to look at our new book 'Yucky Worms'. We initially looked at the first double spread illustration, but the children were not shown what Gran was holding in her hand. The children discussed where they thought the boy and the Gran where, what they were doing, what they were thinking, feeling and saying and what they thought Gran was holding in her hand. They then worked in pairs to freeze-frame the scene and discussed their ideas about what they thought the characters were thinking, feeling and saying in this particular scene. We then moved on to discussing why we each liked or disliked worms and also the reasons why. The children completed a 'Scale of Yuckiness' and placed their worms on the scale to show just how yucky or not yucky they thought worms were. On Wednesday this week, the children received a letter from an unappreciated worm telling them that it does not want people thinking it is yucky anymore, asking them to find out some facts about how wonderful worms can be and having them share these facts with other people. The children want to spread the word that worms are wonderful and change Mrs Pritchard’s mind because she currently thinks that worms are quite yucky! The children thought of some facts they already knew about worms and also some questions they would like to find out about worms (please see Tapestry for a photo of this). Could you please support your child to research the answer to one or two of these questions and share the answers with Mrs Pritchard on Tapestry? The worm poster can then be updated with the answers that have been found out. The children have been exploring the composition of different numbers up to ten by firstly measuring the length of a minibeast using two different coloured counters. They were then asked to identify how long the minibeast was and how many of each coloured counter there were. The children needed to then find a different way of measuring the same minibeast in order to find two other numbers that added together to make the total number and recording the corresponding number sentences on their whiteboard. The children then repeated this process by choosing an alternative minibeast to measure and we discussed whether this minibeast was longer or shorter than the minibeast they had previously measured and also how they knew. In maths, we have been exploring doubling (using blank domino templates), sharing, finding the difference and odd and even numbers. The children have engaged in some fun outdoor learning this week, including solving 2D shape riddles and creating the shapes using a variety of natural materials, looking for camouflaged caterpillars and making a racetrack. The children were split into four randomly assigned groups and their challenge was to work together in order to make a racetrack for a toy vehicle using a variety of materials. Each group’s racetrack had to include the following features - a clear start and finish line, two tight bends, a tunnel or a bridge and at least one interesting feature on the route. The children had to think about how they were going to join the materials together to make the different components of the racetrack. Once complete, they had a go to see how great their own group’s racetrack was and to decide if anything needed either altering or improving. The children were given time to make these adjustments, before swapping over to have a go at another group's racetrack. They then discussed what they liked about the other group's racetrack and also why. For our upcoming trip to Paxton Pits, unless indicated on your permission slip, please ensure that your child brings a packed lunch on the day, as well as wearing their school uniform (it is essential that the children wear long trousers as they will be walking through the nature reserve). The children need to wear comfortable trainers and bring a sun hat, sun cream, water bottle, hand sanitiser and a raincoat with them inside a backpack that they will be able to carry themselves. Next week the children will be re-capping the sounds ur, ow, oi and ear in our phonics sessions. I hope you all have a lovely weekend : )