This week has been an exciting week, we officially began our rainbow challenges and enjoyed listening to the story of Handa’s Surprise and recalling the different animals and fruit that featured in it. The children have been taking advantage of some of the sunnier days to explore outdoor areas such as the mud kitchen and allotment garden, harvesting the last of the sunflowers and finding the seeds inside (we hope next year to plant them and grow sunflowers that are “all the way up to the sky”).
In Phonics: We learnt the t and p sounds, this has meant that we now know enough sounds to make some words such as sat, tap and pat.
Maths: We have been practising counting out collections of objects, painting ‘fruit’ into baskets for Handa and matching objects to numbers.
Rainbow Challenges: We attempted two rainbow challenges this week – the red challenge (arts-focused) which was to make an observational drawing of a bowl of fruit, attempting to include details such as colour, shape and texture and the green challenge (STEM-focus) to construct a trap for the cheeky animals. We’ve loved challenging ourselves to improve our drawings and make our traps more and more complicated.
In PE: We have continued to practice finding our own space and moving safely as we play games.
Next Week
We will be starting the story ‘Rosie’s Walk‘ a tale about a hen who walks over, under and around the farm and unwittingly manages to avoid being captured by a fox. We’ve chosen this story to support children in their use of positional language, describing objects positions in relation to one another – i.e. Rosie is beside the table, now she is on top of the hill, etc.
In Phonics: our sounds next week will be i and n. We will learn how to correctly form both of these letters and identify different objects that start with and feature these.
In Maths: We are working on the concept of cardinality, knowing that the final number said when counting denotes the total amount of the collection. We will be doing this through teacher-led songs and games.
Rainbow Challenges:
Blue – to count out ‘spines’ on playdough hedgehogs, matching quantities to numerals.
Green – to create the farmyard in Rosie’s Walk using a range of different construction materials.
Yellow – to draw a map of Rosie’s walk around the farm and to attempt to label some of the landmarks using known sounds.
Gentle Reminders
Please do check your children’s hair for headlice or do a preventative treatment as we have had a few cases in Reception of headlice.
Key dates for your diaries
Monday 14th of October, 8.45 – 9.45am: Phonics Workshop for Parents
Friday 18th of October, 8.30 – 9.15am: Family Friday
Further Information
Following our parent meeting on Wednesday (thank you so much to all who attended/tried to attend!) we are attaching the slides and some other documents that we hope will be helpful to you.
Parent Curriculum Session Reception
Letter formation phrases and visual guide
Please do get in contact with us if there’s anything further you wish to know.