What a GREAT start!
Wow! What an BUSY first full week the children have had in our new Reception Class! As the week has progressed, they have all began to really settle into school life and the many routines and rules that we have. We are proud of them trying hard to come into school independently and trying be grown up when saying goodbye - we appreciate your support with this.
We have been practising at getting ready in the cloakroom quietly and independently. Our lines walking into, out of and through school at all those tricky transition times, are now becoming quiet and calm, and it’s helping everyone to feel settled and ready to learn and play. They have even mastered lining up in register order already!
At lunchtime, the children are lining up well and taking their lunch to the table independently. Many seem to love school dinners already!
Whilst listening to stories and when learning on the carpet, many children are trying hard to sit smartly, listen carefully and stay focused, with many keen to answer questions. We will continue to keep working on this every day and really appreciate your support with this too.
We have also been really impressed by their play. Many children have been making new friends or strengthening existing friendships, playing together, talking, sharing and helping each other. It has been a joy to observe so much imaginary play around many areas of our provision – this really is one of the foundations for so much learning they will do in the future.
As well as all this, the children have been doing lots of special ‘jobs’ with the adults in Reception – showing us what they already know about sounds, writing, shapes and so on. They have all enjoyed learning some playdough skills with Mrs Bolton and have helped to create collage Colour Monsters in small groups. Our focus story this week has been The Colour Monster which helps the children to learn about and understand their emotions – please see Tapestry posts for photos and details of these activities. They even helped to create a fresh wormery in our outdoor area and were so excited to put the worms in themselves. You could try asking them to tell you some interesting facts about worms!
It really has been week of new learning for both the children and adults in Reception as we’ve started our new phonics scheme – Little Wandle. The children have loved learning the ‘copy me’ sign and our Ready for Phonics song. Every day we have introduced a new phoneme (sound) and its grapheme (how it is written), using interactive teaching techniques and games. Then today, we practised everything we have learnt through the week, with so many children mastering all 4 GPCs (Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence) s, a, t, p, which is fantastic. We look forward to seeing you at the Little Wandle information meeting on Wednesday evening.
We are very excited about our new class and can’t wait for all the learning, play and fun in the year ahead! We imagine the children are going to be rather tired after their first full week in school and having already learnt SO much!
Wishing you all a relaxing and happy weekend.
The Reception Team 😊