Winter is whizzing by!

How can we have been back for 2 weeks already! The time is absolutely whizzing by in school, perhaps because we’ve been so busy!

Last week, our focus story was Noah’s Ark from the Bible. The children have listened to and discussed the version in our children’s Bible, focusing on important and perhaps new language such as Ark, flood and promise. We have also read other versions of the story and the children have enjoyed playing with Noah’s Ark small world toys. The children even thought about a new year promise that they could make such as tidying their playroom or going to sleep on their own – this might be useful to discuss at home! 😊

This week, we have begun our main topic for this term – Frozen! The children started by exploring what winter is like in our school grounds here in Collingham. After that, we discussed hibernation and migration and will continue to recap these concepts next week. We had great fun making bird feeders which we hope will attract lots of birds to your garden this weekend. Don’t forget to do some bird spotting or counting for the Big Bird Watch next weekend and tell us about what you’ve done for homework!

In Maths, the children have continued to consolidate their learning about number 4, working out all the ways that 4 is composed (2 + 2, 3 + 1 etc). We have also continued learning about 2D (flat) shapes, with a focus on the 4-sided shapes, square and rectangle. They loved watching the Numberblocks Flatland programme and finding out about some other 4-sided shapes – trapezium, rhombus, kite, dart and, Miss DL’s favourite, parallelogram! Lots more on this next week, as well as number 5!

In Phonics, the children have been trying hard to remember all our Phase 3 sounds and were excited to learn another trigraph (3 letters 1 sound) this week – ear. Many children are becoming more fluent when reading and we love how their prosody (expression to give meaning to the words) is developing. Regular practise at home really does help both these skills and gives them so much confidence when reading in school. We have also been working super hard on our handwriting, ensuring that all letters are formed correctly (using the formation phrases), with some children now even able to write on the lines on their whiteboards and in their books – fantastic! Again, any writing at home is such a help for them – shopping lists, labels on drawings/ on toys/ on anything (!), cards, word lists, playing school and so on! Please encourage correct letter formation if they are writing at home. 😊

Have a lovely weekend and happy bird spotting!

The Reception Team 😊