PRE-RECEPTION
This week, we have been learning about the school’s Medical Team as part of our community heroes topic. We visited the new Medical Centre and practised bandaging each other. On Thursday we had a visit from Sidcup Fire Brigade. All the children had an opportunity to use the hose and sit in the engine. It was very exciting.
The children have been working hard to create Christmas decorations for our EYFS stall. We will be selling these for £1 each, and the children will decide on something to purchase for the classroom with the proceeds. This activity is part of our financial literacy education, where we teach foundational concepts like money management. We hope it will be a rewarding experience for the children.
MATHS
In Maths, we have been working on creating and continuing patterns using shapes, colours and objects. The children particularly enjoyed making their own patterns with coloured spots.
PHONICS
In Phonics, we focused on teaching the children to recognise the ‘p’ phoneme (sound) and pronounce it correctly. We have used the phrase, “Bring your lips together, push them open, and say p-p-p.”
Next Week
- We will continue with our community heroes topic, learning about the school’s catering staff. The children will also be baking biscuits to sell at the Christmas Fayre.
- In Maths, we will move on to simple two-step repeating patterns involving colour, size, shape, sound, and movement.
- In Phonics, we will focus on recognising and pronouncing the phoneme ‘i’. We will also learn the Little Wandle Foundations nursery rhyme “Pat-a-cake”. A copy of this rhyme is in your child’s book bag for you to sing with them at home. You can also watch the Little Wandle version by clicking on this link.
- In our Jigsaw PSHE lessons, we will be discussing how to make friends.
RECEPTION
It has been a busy and exciting week in Reception, full of wonderful visitors!
Literacy / Topic
Continuing with our theme community heroes, we have been learning about the important roles of Police Officers and Firefighters.
On Thursday, the children were thrilled to welcome two Police Officers. We had prepared questions in advance, and the officers spoke about their jobs, showed us some of their equipment and even brought clothing for the children to try on.
We also had a visit from the Fire Brigade. The children loved exploring the fire engine, sitting inside, spraying the hose and learning about the different tools and equipment used by firefighters.
Finally, on Friday, we welcomed a Nurse. The children asked the questions they had prepared earlier in the term and learned about her role and the equipment she uses. Afterwards, they had great fun practising their bandaging skills on one another!
Maths
This week, we continued exploring the composition of numbers 1 to 5. The children consolidated their understanding that numbers are made up of smaller numbers and confidently discussed the parts they could see. They practised partitioning numbers into two parts in different contexts and explored the concepts of ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ within 5.
Phonics
This week we learned the phonemes: sh, th, ng, and nk.
We practised:
- Saying the sounds aloud
- Blending the sounds to read words (e.g., sh-o-p)
- Writing the letters using cursive formation
We also introduced the tricky words: she, he, of, and go. Tricky words are those that cannot be easily decoded (sounded out) and need to be recognised by sight.
Find out more about Early Years here.
