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COMMUNICATION LETTER
16th January 2014
Dear
Parents/Carers,
Happy New Year! Many thanks for the Christmas
cards and lovely presents you so kindly gave me. Christmas already seems such a
long time ago. You may have noticed that we have a student teacher with us at
the moment. Miss Carter is in her second year of teacher training and finishes
her placement with us at the end of next week.
Topic: Our
topic this term is Percy the Park Keeper
(you may be familiar with the range of stories about this lovely character and
his numerous animal friends). It will lend itself beautifully to work based on
the changing seasons, growing and life cycles amongst many other things. Our
role-play corner will predominantly be Percy’s Hut but will also involve
chances for the children to practise their gardening skills and will become a
garden centre too. Our classroom will become a mini version of a park, complete
with a duck pond and bandstand. I am hoping to take the children on a visit
linked to our topic later this term and will write with more details nearer the
time.
The
children will be spending lots of time outside this term so if they have a pair of wellies in a named carrier bag
that we could keep in school for the term we’d be grateful. We do have a number
of spares so please don’t worry if this is a problem. We will take part in
maths, art, science, geography and drama activities outside as well as working
on teamwork, problem-solving, communication and of course, gardening and
expanding our nature knowledge. In addition, each Tuesday afternoon is a
timetabled slot for us to spend time with Year 5 working on curricular
objectives outside.
Literacy: The children will still choose
two books each day. Please keep up the wonderful work you are doing as your
support with reading practice is making all the difference to your child’s
progress. Your comments in the Communication Book are extremely valuable so
again, many thanks.
We will continue the
introduction of sounds that letters make in words, now moving onto the tricky
long vowel sounds e.g. –ai, -oo etc. It is at this point in the year that some
children can start to find retaining these sounds difficult so I would like to
stress the value of regular practice e.g. playing the Pairs Games etc. to
reinforce these skills.
We will be developing
knowledge on how to segment words into separate sounds for spelling (e.g. cat
is c-a-t) and gradually increasing the children’s independence when writing
simple phrases and sentences.
Tricky Words will continue
to be added to the children’s packs so please ensure these are kept in their
book bags. You might like to start asking your child to spell these words but
only once they are truly competent at reading them.
Maths: This
term the children will be building on the skills that they acquired last term;
they will be developing their understanding of counting, adding and subtracting
through practical activities, games and discussion, investigating shapes and
comparing the weights of different objects. The children will continue to use
our ‘lending library’ of maths games which need
to be returned on a Wednesday please, so that the contents can be checked
before the games are re-issued on a Friday.
Thank you for your
valuable support with these maths games. Please feel free to use the
Communication Book to comment on your child’s level of enjoyment and success
with the maths games as well as their reading experiences.
R.E: We will continue thinking
about Being Special and Special Times this year to include work on Birthdays,
baptisms and of course Easter and I hope to take the children on a visit to the
church later this term to look at the font and find out about baptism.
Assembly: There will be a class
assembly for parents to attend on Thursday 3rd April in the hall at
9.10am.
Sharing time will be on a Thursday which is an
opportunity for the children to show and talk about something relating to our
topic or something that they’ve taken time to make at home.
You can see what we’ve been up to by looking at the
Reception blog on the school website at http://www.northleach.gloucs.sch.uk/.
On the
website you can also find a link to the ‘Support for Learning’ booklet that
contains handouts that you may find useful.
If
you have any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to ask,
