What Early Years got up to this week

PRE-RECEPTION

It was fantastic to see so many parents at our Pre-Reception assembly on Thursday. The children enjoyed learning the songs and poems and love any excuse to dance. 

MATHS

Our Maths learning this week has been based around the theme ‘What comes before..?. The children have worked hard to use the stem sentence ‘… comes before … ‘ to explain their reasoning for the placing of numerals on a number line. They found this a little more challenging than ‘… comes after …’.  Next week, we will consolidate ‘What comes before…?’ and ‘What comes after…’ and encourage the children to use our key vocabulary. 

LITERACY

In Literacy this week we have continued to read ‘The Way Back Home’ by Oliver Jeffers.  We have encouraged the children to predict key events in the story. They are beginning to develop their imaginations!  

PSHE

The children have loved sharing their baby pictures with their friends and talking about how they have changed since being a baby.  In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson next week we will be thinking about our transition to Reception. 

On Thursday we were treated to a trip to Ferens Hall to watch the Year 6 production of ‘The Lion King’. The children were very respectful and listened well.  

RECEPTION

We have had a very energetic week in Reception this week.

Literacy

As part of our topic ‘My Imagination’, we explored the book ‘Billy’s Bucket’ written by Kes Gray. The book explores the imagination of Billy who asks for a bucket for his birthday. The children really enjoyed this story. We started by talking about what Billy saw in his bucket and then we explored the language used. Following this, we used our own imaginations to talk about what they would see if they had a bucket like Billy’s.

Afterwards, the children then wrote about their own buckets in their literacy books. We focused on describing what was in the bucket using descriptive vocabulary.

Phonics

This week, during phonics, we focused on Phase 4 words. This including reading words such as crowds, dresses, foxes and balloon. In our daily phonic sessions, we continued to read a sentence and then write it, as well focusing on three spellings. We are reminding the children to check and make sure it is a good sentence by including a capital letter, finger spaces and punctuation.

Maths

This week, we have been consolidating and revisiting this year’s maths learning. We have used this as an opportunity to assess and tailor learning to individual’s needs.

Jigsaw PSHE – Changing Me

This week, we revisited growth with the children, comparing their skills and abilities from Pre-Reception to the end of this year. Each year, it continues to amaze us how much progress the children make in such a short time. Consequently, we now have budding writers, mathematicians, and bike riders—each child showing remarkable growth and confidence in their abilities. It’s been a joy to watch their development, and we are so proud of all their hard work and achievements.

As the children reach the end of their Reception year, it is time to start thinking about their transition to Year One. We have discussed with the children that it is completely normal to feel a mix of emotions during times of change—whether it’s excitement, happiness, or even worry. We have encouraged them to talk openly about their feelings and assured them that sharing any concerns can help them feel better.

The children have had the opportunity to express any worries they may have, and we hope we were able to reassure them. Additionally, they will be able to write any worries down in a letter and post it into our worry boxes, providing another way for them to express themselves.

Find out more about Early Years here.