Dear
Parents/Carers,
The
summer is nearly here! I can’t quite believe we’ve reached your child’s final
term in Reception and that it’s almost a year since I went to meet them at
their pre-school settings. They continue to be a delight to teach.
Topic: We will be starting our new topic of
‘Pirates’ very soon. Please can I ask that you keep that as our secret for now?
We will be learning about life on board, our role play areas will reflect a
pirate theme and we will be linking pirates to lots of our learning in maths
and English.
I
have booked a trip for Wednesday 13th June where I would love it if
all children could dress as pirates for the day please. This is a heads up that
you may want to start considering their costume. A stripy top would be sufficient.
Please don’t feel you need to spend money. More details about the trip to
follow.
I’d
also love to hold a pirate art day where the children can work together to make
a life size crew member with an adult supporting them. If you would like to
help with this, please let me know. I’m thinking of Tuesday 8th May
as a possible date.
In RE we will be thinking about how we are
special and how babies are welcomed into the Christian and Islamic faiths and
will visit the church for a class ‘baptism’. We will hopefully revisit the
church later in the term as part of our work on Special Places.
Support at home: Some of the children are coming to the end
of the blending lists but all children please need to revisit their Sounds Book
and play the pairs games in order to remain secure in their rapid recall of the
sounds. Children can begin to forget sounds that they once knew well if they
don’t recap especially the recent
trickier multi-letter sounds. This term we will be practising naming the
individual letters of the alphabet and to recognise the capital form of
letters. I will continue to introduce ‘tricky words’ as the children are ready
for them so please revisit these too! Once the children are secure in reading
the words they then need to be good at spelling them, so you might like to
practise this with them at home as a spelling test. It’s also a great way for
the children to improve their writing skills at the same time.
Maths
topics to be covered this term include adding and subtracting, capacity, 3D
shapes and time. Can I please remind you about the digit cards to 20 that I
gave some of you at Parents’ Evening? Children need to be able to recognise
numbers to 20, put these numbers in order and say which number is one more and
one less. Any additional support you can give your children in practising these
skills will be invaluable. If you’d like some more digit cards, please ask.
Thank
you so much for the comments you continue to make in the red Communication
Books. These are very valuable and your feedback is much appreciated. Can I
please ask that you continue to let me know about your child’s achievements out
of school too such as moving into a new group at swimming lessons etc.
PE and Swimming: We will be taking as many of our PE lessons
outside this term when the weather allows. The children now have PE on a Monday
and a Friday. The Monday session is going to be led by our sports coach Jon. Please ensure that the children have a hat
with them at school every day to protect them from the sun and their own water bottle,
so we can take these outside with us. The children will hopefully have the
opportunity to swim several times per week after half term. I will send home a
list of items needed for swimming nearer half term.
We’ve
unfortunately had to throw away some of our pairs of spare wellies. If your
child could bring in a spare pair to use in school or you’re able to donate old
pairs, we’d be very grateful.
Please
don’t forget that if you’d like your child to continue to receive daily milk
after their fifth birthday that you now need to pay for their milk using the
website https://www.coolmilk.com/parents/
Please
don’t forget that you can see what we’ve been up to in class on our blog,
accessed through the school website at www.northleach.gloucs.sch.uk and please feel free to comment.
Thank you
for your continued support,
Liz
Bradley
