PRE-RECEPTION
Our Topic – Community Heroes
Our topic this term is ‘Community Heroes’. We launched this on Wednesday with our exciting Little City workshop. During the session, the children had a fabulous time role-playing the different occupations and exploring the roles people play in our community. It was fantastic to see them working together and developing their Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) skills.
Moving forward, in Pre-Reception, we will be focusing on the roles and responsibilities of our Year 6 pupils and how they help us around the school. To support this, throughout the term, we will be inviting the Head Girl and Head Boy to spend some time with the Pre-Reception children to talk about their school journey and explain what their roles involve.
Phonics
The Bear Cubs have been exploring sounds and learning some of our new Little Wandle games. Specifically, the children are learning to hear the phoneme ‘s’ and how to pronounce it clearly. To help with this, we have introduced the rhyme: ‘Show your teeth and let the s hiss out – ssss, ssss!’
To learn how to pronounce the sounds, there are some very helpful videos on the Little Wandle website. Please keep in mind, however, that these videos are intended for parents and should not be shared with the children, since they will not begin learning the graphemes (the written letters that represent sounds) until they start Reception. You can access the nursery rhyme videos by clicking the button below:
In addition, the Teddy Bears have also been working hard on developing their Phase 1 phonics skills in a small group, with a particular focus on behaviour, listening and attention for learning.
PSHE
Our Jigsaw PSHE puzzle this term is ‘Celebrating Difference’. This week, the children have been thinking about what makes them special and unique. Next week, we will be encouraging them to think about the things they are good at.
We have also been learning about fireworks safety and the importance of keeping safe during the Bonfire Night celebrations.
MATHS
In Maths, we have started exploring the number 1. In particular, the children are developing their understanding through:
- Subitising: recognising how many objects there are without needing to count them
- 1:1 correspondence: matching one number to each object as they count
- Number recognition: beginning to recognise the numeral 1
RECEPTION
What a fantastic first week back! It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school and hear all about their half term adventures.
Literacy
This week, we have been learning about Diwali and how it is celebrated around the world. The children enjoyed listening to and acting out the story of Rama and Sita, while learning new vocabulary linked to the festival. Consequently, they have enthusiastically incorporated this new language into their imaginative play.
Expressive Arts and Design
The children have been busy creating beautiful Rangoli and Mehendi patterns as part of our Diwali celebrations. Throughout this process, they showed great creativity and care in their designs. In addition, as part of our Diwali learning, the children had great fun making salt dough Diya lamps. They were very proud of their creations and are looking forward to taking them home to display during the Diwali celebrations this weekend.
Phonics
This week, we learned the phonemes: h, b, f and l. During this time, the children practised:
- Saying the sounds aloud
- Blending sounds to read words (for example, l-o-g)
- Forming the letters using cursive handwriting
Finally, we also introduced the tricky word ‘the’. Tricky words cannot be easily sounded out and need to be recognised by sight.
Find out more about Early Years
