Church Visit

As part of our work on special places, Reception visited Northleach Church last Tuesday. The children were encouraged to explore the church, looking carefully at its features, using their senses. They also had the opportunity to ask Ilse the curate questions about the church and the people who worship there.

Pirates ahoy!

Reception have been busy this term creating pirate related artwork.

We've been practising our cutting skills making Jolly Rogers...

We've been making treasure maps look old using tea bags and carefully tearing around the outside...

When they were dry we decorated them and marked our treasure with a X.

..and this week we've been making a pirate crew using collage. We will introduce you to Captain George, Cutlass Amy, One-Eyed Noah and Cannonball Charlie soon.

 Even Bailey is getting in on the Pirate act!

Rosie's Baptism

Last Wednesday we went to the church for the baptism of our class baby. The children voted on a name and eventually the name Rosie Lilac was chosen. The vicar was kind enough to carry out the ceremony and we had two very proud parents and lots of Godparents.

Home Communication Summer 2018

 

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 13^th 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 8^th 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

Spring Has Sprung!

Spring has sprung in Reception. Daffodils have sprung in Percy's park and the Easter bunny paid us a visit.

Look how our beans are growing!

We were also donated this amazing Blue Tit nest which was abandoned for some reason.

Growing Mad!

Last week was National Science Week. We learnt lots about plants, their parts and what helps them grow well. 

We're now growing beans.

We're experimenting to see what helps beans grow best.

We predicted what might happen.

We acted out The Enormous Turnip story.

We watched time-lapse videos showing plants and seeds growing.

We also planted the potatoes that we have been chitting on our windowsill.

Percy Problems

We've had a visit from Percy the Park Keeper...

He's given us a problem to solve. How many flower pots does he have altogether? We've been trying to work it out.
The children have been enjoying listening to stories and writing letters and drawing pictures of him.

Watch this space for more Percy news...