Welcome to Reception!

There are 3 classes in Reception -

Class RR - Miss Rigby, Class RN - Miss Newton (Mon - Thurs) and Mr Williams (Fri)  and Class RL - Miss Lindsay.

Teaching assistants who also work with us are Miss Hadfield, Miss Roczniak, Miss Poulton and Miss Zahra.

Spring 2 - Growing

This half term our topic is 'Growing'. We will be reading 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and lots of our learning will be based around this story. 

Communication & Language

Children will be practisiting their story telling skills during our 'Helicopter Stories' sessions. In these sessions, children will orally tell their own stories whilst their classmates act them out. The sessions encourage creativity and imagination alongside developing language skills and building children's confidence. We will also be re-telling the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', using actions and props to help us. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We will be reading the story "The Weather Inside Me" by Sheryl Webster. We will use this book to help the children identify how emotions in our bodies can feel like different types of weather. Children will also learn that our emotions are changeable and can come and go, just like the weather. These topics will be delivered through circle times using our 'Think Equal' programme. 

Physical Development

The children will continue to develop their fundamental movement skills such as running, jumping, hopping, skipping and climbing during our weekly PE sessions and also during outdoor provision. They will also continue to develop their fine motor skills through daily activities such as cutting with scissors, threading beads and playing with playdough. 

Literacy

This half term we will be reading 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. The children will become familiar with the story, joining in with the repetative refrains - "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!" We will be discussing the characters in the story and children will use their phonic knowledge to begin to read and write simple captions and sentences. 

Mathematics

This half term children will: 

-continue to develop their subitising skills for numbers within and beyond 5. 

-explore the structure of the numbers 6, 7  and 8 as '5 and a bit'. 

-join in with verbal counts beyond 20, hearing the repeated pattern within the counting numbers.

-order quantities to 10. 

-sort odd and even numbers according to their shape.

-understand that two equal groups can be called a 'double' and connect this to finger patterns.

Understanding the World

Children will be learning all about the season of 'Spring' and will look for signs of Spring in our school forest and garden areas. They will be planting beans, seeds and plants and will learn what a plant needs to grow in order to care for them. They will make observations of growing plants to see what changes happen over time. They will learn lots of new vocabulary related to growing plants and will learn the key features of the life cycle of a plant. 

Expressive Arts and Design

Children will create observational drawings and paintings of plants and flowers and will practise their printing skills by printing with different varieties of fruits and vegetables. Through play, children will continue to have daily opportunities to explore painting, cutting/sticking and collage, drawing and junk modelling. 

Things to remember...

Reading/Book bags

Reading books/sheets will be changed every Monday. The children will also be able to choose a book from their classroom as their "Reading for pleasure" book. Please take the time to read your child's reading sheet/book with them as many times as you can throughout the week. This really helps build their confidence and makes such a difference to the progress they can make. 

Please make sure the children keep their reading books/sheets in their book bags and bring their book bag to school every day. This is so teachers are able to read with your child at any given opportunity throughout the week. 

Homework

Phonics/tricky word homework will be given out every Friday.

PE

This half term we will continue with our Manchester City PE sessions every Monday. Our indoor PE sessions will continue to be Gymnastics.

Please make sure that children come to school in their PE kits on their PE day. 

PE days for each class - 

RN (Miss Newton/Mr Williams) - Monday and Thursday

RR (Miss Rigby) - Monday and Tuesday

RL (Miss Lindsay) - Monday and Friday

Please also make sure that your child comes to school each day dresssed appropriately for the weather. They will need a warm and waterproof coat as we will go outside to play in all weathers!

Dates for the diary...

Thursday 7th March - World Book Day (Stay and Read in Reception - 9am - 10am) 

Monday 11th March - Friday 15th March - Science Week

Friday 15th March - Red Nose Day (Children come to school in their own clothes and bring a donation for Comic Relief)