What would you do if you went to the zoo?

This week

The children have been learning about Zoos. We read the book Dear Zoo and talked about the types of animals that can be found in zoos and speaking in full sentences to describe them. During a Philosophy for Children session we looked at pictures from Anthony Browne’s book Zoo and discussed why animals are in zoos and how they might feel being there. In phonics, we learnt the sounds ‘oa’, ‘oo’, ‘or’ and ‘ear’. In maths, we developed our understanding of the number 10.

Next half term

Next half term we will be learning about plants. The children will be developing their observational drawing skills, discussing different types of plants and considering growth and change. In the first week back in phonics, we will be learning the new sounds ‘oi’, ‘air’ and ‘ure’. We will also be learning the tricky word ‘my’. In maths, we will be looking at addition by designing our own gardens and adding flowers to different plant beds.

Our learning

This week we are returning to our weekly section about learning in Reception. After the three prime areas of learning, PSED, PD and CL, there are four specific areas: literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, expressive arts and design. In Reception, literacy refers to reading and writing skills. We support the children in these areas through daily phonics sessions and daily story sharing so that they have the skills to be independent readers and develop a love of reading widely. For writing, we offer messy play to develop fine motor skills alongside purposeful writing opportunities, such as creating posters for Mr Biddulph to demonstrate our tidying up skills: we are real fans of ‘find it, use it, return it’.

Home learning challenge

Over the half term go outdoors with your Acorn, Pumpkin or Sunflower and see if you can spot any bulbs growing as a sign of Spring’s approach. You can also look at the home learning challenge on our website for more ideas to inspire your child’s learning. Don’t forget about Bug Club!

Reminders

We love to do modelling with cardboard boxes. It supports the development of our fine motor skills and helps us with our problem solving. Please bring in any unwanted (but clean) boxes or cartons in on the first day back.

To support our learning about plants, we are making a request for gardening equipment that we can use both outdoors in our raised beds and in our plant shop role play area. If you have any unwanted gardening equipment please do bring it in for our Reception children.

Safeguarding: E-Safety

In order to help our children use the internet in a fun but safe way, here are some golden rules for keeping safe online to discuss with your child. Ask them to explain why they are so important.
• Don’t give out personal information such as your address or phone number.
• Don’t send pictures of yourself to anyone, especially indecent pictures.
• Don’t open emails or attachments from people you don’t know.
• Don’t become online ‘friends’ with people you don’t know.
• Never arrange to meet someone in person who you’ve met online.
• If anything you see or read online worries you, tell someone about it.

World Book Day

We will be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 2^nd March and as part of our focus text called ‘I am Henry Finch’ by Alexis Deacon, we are inviting children to donate £1 to dress up as anything that can fly in honour of the inspiring main character Henry, a courageous bird. If you haven’t already, please hold off from reading this story with your child. All proceeds will go towards books for our school.

On 6^th March, Alexis Deacon will join us at 3:20 for a short book reading and chat in the Seminar Room for parents and children to attend. An independent bookseller will also be set up there for parents to look at, buy or order books, including those by Alexis Deacon. We hope to see you there!

Thank you

Thank you to all of the mystery readers who have shared books with us this half term.  Thank you also to our parent volunteers who support and extend our learning. We are also grateful to all the adults who helped make our trip to Shepreth Wildlife Park a fun and safe day. Finally, thank you to all of you for your support this half term. Have a restful half term break.
The Reception team