Although it’s been a slightly shorter week, we have managed to pack plenty in! On Tuesday we talked about why we had a day off Monday and recalled what we did for the Jubilee and learnt a little more about the Queen by looking at some photos of her over the years, from when she was a baby right up until this year.

We’ve also had a lovely couple of days looking at all the children’s baby photos and talking about how they have changed and what they can do now that they could not do then. To start this off, we read the book “Once There Were Giants” by Martin Waddell and talked about the girl in the story changing from being the baby to having one of her own and becoming one of “the giants”. All the children have drawn their families, talking about who “the giants” are in their houses and have been trying to label them or write their own names.

In Maths we have been learning about matching and sorting. The children were quite confident matching and most were able to sort objects by colour and some by size, so we have been talking about sorting in other ways, by looking at the similarities and differences between things.

Next week we will start Level 2 Phonics where the children will begin to learn sounds and the letters that represent them. The children will learn four new sounds each week and will come home with sound cards to practice and an information sheet for each sound we learn. This is the next stage in their journey to learning to read and it is really important that they practice their sounds often and continue to work on their oral blending to help them make the best possible progress. We now follow the Twinkl Phonics scheme and I will be arranging some phonics sessions for parents to attend shortly so you can understand how we learn to read in Reception.

Once the children start to learn their sounds we do use an app within school called Teach Your Monster to Read. It is a phonics app that was designed a few years ago by the Usborne Foundation to support children to learn to read and provides a fun and engaging way for children to practice their phonics and reading skills. The children will be set up with an account by me that they can log in to from home and at school so that they can continue from where they left off. Web based play is free any time but the app is usually a one-off fee of £4.99.

At the moment for a limited time the app is FREE on the Apple App Store Google Play and Amazon so if your child has access to a tablet or phone that they could play the game on I would recommend that you download it now whilst it is free.

If you have any queries about anything please feel free to contact me on the class email address beech@crowmoorschool.co.uk but please remember any urgent queries or reporting of absences must be addressed to the office by telephone on 235549 or email admin@crowmoorschool.co.uk

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you Monday morning.

Miss Jones, Mrs Kenny and Mrs Evason

Wow! Where did that week go? What a busy one it has been! The children have continued settling in to class, exploring our indoor and outdoor classrooms and getting to know each other better. I, however, must apologise to the children with older siblings I have previously taught. As I have been at Crowmoor for quite a few years now, I do sometimes use a big brother or sister’s name by mistake! Sorry!

In phonics we have been working on listening for the first sound in words and on our oral blending (saying the word when we hear it spoken in sounds e.g. c-a-t, d-o-g, h-o-p etc.). The children found this a little tricky at first but are becoming more confident with practice. To help with this we have been playing ‘I spy’ using sounds rather than letter names (e.g. the sound ‘sss’ rather than the letter name ‘ess’) and practicing oral blending playing ‘Fred says’ (like Simon says but Fred only talks in sounds) and through our daily routine – put on your c-oa-t, get a p-e-n, this is r-e-d etc. It would be great to continue practicing this at home – get your b-oo-k, or your b-a-g, or your c-u-p OR it’s time for b-e-d! 🙂

In Maths we have been practicing reciting numbers correctly in order, singing lots of number songs and talking about positional language – in, on, under, behind, next to etc. We have also been carrying out the Reception Baseline Assessments.

The children all brought home books this week, a free-choice story book from our book corner and a wordless book. Please ensure you record in their yellow reading records each time they read and the children get in the habit of reading each book at least twice before it is changed. This helps them get to really know a book, which supports their comprehension, and it will be the expectation when we start to read phonics books as it helps children to build their fluency.

I will be holding parent sessions in the next couple of weeks to talk about how we learn to read in reception and will be in touch shortly with dates and times.

Next week we are going to start looking at our baby photos. Thank you to everyone who has brought photos in or posted them on Tapestry already. It’s been so lovely to see them all and I know the children will love looking at them too. If you’ve not managed to send one in yet or post on Tapestry if you could do this by Tuesday morning that would be great. Thank you.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you bright and early Tuesday morning.

Miss Jones, Mrs Kenny and Mrs Evason

Hello and welcome to a new school year and to Beech Class. We hope you all had a lovely restful break and are looking forward to the term ahead. We’ve had a lovely week getting to know everyone and I’m getting better at recognising faces at home time – please bear with me! 🙂

The children have settled really well and are starting to learn their new rules and routines. They have enjoyed making new friends and exploring their new classroom both inside and out. Hopefully you will have seen some photos on Tapestry of them settling in but please let me know if you have not been able to access your account. Remember to check your junk mail folder for the activation email as they often end up in there!

Next week we will be continuing to get to know the children before launching our Theme for the term –  “Who are we?”. We will be going ‘back in time’ to learn about how they have changed, how different things were when our parents and grandparents were 4 and 5, all the way back to life during WW1, including Remembrance.

We will also be carrying out the Government’s Reception Baseline Assessment. This involves some practical activites that the children carry out with me on a 1:1 basis. Please see this link for more information.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reception-baseline-assessment-information-for-parents

If you have any queries about this, please feel free to contact me on the class email address beech@crowmoorschool.co.uk

If possible, could you please send in a picture of your child as a baby or post one on Tapestry by the end of next week (Friday 16th September). Thank you.

It was incredibly hard to choose a Golden Certificate Winner this week as all the children have done so well adapting to their new class and routines but a huge well done to Ryan for settling in so well and being such a fantastic helper at tidy up time! 😊

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Miss Jones, Mrs Kenny and Mrs Evason