Reception
Welcome to Year R!
Term 5:
This term has been filled with themes such as Around the World with Paddington Bear, Busy Buzzing Bees and Down at the Bottom of my Garden, focusing on mini-beasts and life cycles.
Some of our highlights are:
- Practising our sound talk and blending skills with complex and compound words containing two or three syllables
- Talking about words that end with ‘ed’ and ‘ing’
- Telling each other what we know about a sentence including the use of capital letters at the beginning, finger spaces between words and punctuation at the end
- Understanding what a full stop, question mark and exclamation mark means
- Talking about why finger spaces are important
- Taking part in daily phonic writing such as spellings and sentence writing
- Reading in groups to practise our prosody and comprehension skills
- Looking at maps and globes of the world
- Identifying what the colours mean on a map
- Learning about different contrasting countries and some key facts including landmarks, flags, food and culture. The countries we have looked at are the United Kingdom, Egypt, the Philippines, Brazil and Italy
- Celebrating the King’s Coronation with special school celebrations including a street party style lunch and whole school outdoor COOL Time
- Finding out about a range of mini-beasts and their habitats, and taking part in bug hunts and dressing up for a Bug Ball!
- Forming all the letters of the alphabet in a pre-cursive script with some children having a go at writing in cursive
- Taking part in some ‘big write’ challenges such as lists, speech bubbles, character descriptions and sentences
- Continuing to write the letters in our names in a joined up cursive script with a capital letter only at the beginning
- Learning about doubling numbers
- Continuing our number order skills by using and exploring numbers to 20
- Exploring addition and subtraction using concrete, pictorial and abstract elements
- Continuing our teen numeral writing skills
- Creating many themed arts and crafts, focusing on form, colour, printing and texture
- Developing our ICT skills by learning how to click, drag and click using a mouse on a computer
- Practising our scissor cutting skills even more with complex shapes and lines
- Learning new Worship songs
- Knowing there are different faiths around the world
- Finding out about how stories are special to different people and listening to some of these stories such as Jonah and the Whale, and David and Goliath
- Exploring our bodies on the PE apparatus, learning about balances, jumping safely as we dismount and how we can travel in different way and directions
- Frequently visiting areas around such as the HIVE, ICT suite, library and Wildlife Area as part of our Teacher Time
- Joining in with a whole school Science Week, Around the World Week and a talk with an author asking us for inspiration as she writes a book about Bison
- Watching real life tadpoles grow
- Exploring un-tuned instruments such as the Ocarina and learning how to cover the holes and blow short and long sounds
- Having a pretend aeroplane flight with real life crew from British Airways
- Making yummy pizzas and marmalade sandwiches.
- Demonstrating our COOL Time Character Characteristics whilst we learn through play indoors and out
Term 4:
Our stimulating learning themes this term have been ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’, ‘A Book Week of Crocodiles’, ‘999’ Emergency!’ and ‘A Cracking Easter!’
Some of our highlights are:
Practising our sound talk and blend skills with words containing digraphs/trigraphs and longer words with two or three syllables
Learning even more tricky words
Continuing to learn about what a sentence is and identifying full stops, exclamation marks and question marks
Creating story maps to show our morning routine, inspired by the story Professional Crocodile
Listening to non-fiction books to help us learn facts and knowing the key features of this genre of book
Reading in groups to practise our prosody and comprehension skills
Have a go at forming all the letters of the alphabet in a pre-cursive script
Taking part in a ‘big write’ challenge every two weeks where we have made a shopping list, labelled body parts and written a sentence or two in a speech bubble.
Spelling words as part of our daily Phonic sessions as well as writing a dictation each Friday
Continuing to write the letters in our names in a cursive script with a capital letter only at the beginning
Learning how numbers are made up of smaller numbers and finding out about number bonds to five then ten
Knowing how to combine two groups of objects to make a total in a range of visual and pictorial ways
Learning to read, write and solve a number sentence to add two numbers together
Exploring the part-part-whole method to help with our calculation skills
Having fun with 2D shape by naming and identifying them, and understanding they can be rotated but still be the shape.
Challenging ourselves to partition shapes and join shapes to make shapes
Understanding and using positional language
Continuing our numeral writing skills
Looking at the signs of Spring in the world around us
Creating many themed arts and crafts, focusing on form and texture
Developing our ICT skills by learning how to click, drag and click using a mouse on a computer
Knowing what the Internet is and how to stay safe on the computer
Practising our scissor cutting skills even more with complex shapes
Learning new Worship songs ready for our Easter Festival in church
Finding out why Christians celebrate Easter and why the cross is a special symbol. We waved school made palm leaves, had a ‘last supper’, made Easter gardens and even had some hot cross buns to help us immerse ourselves with our understanding of the Easter story.
Learning a dance routine with weekly practices for our school Dance Festival
Frequently visiting areas around such as the HIVE and Wildlife Area as part of our Teacher Time
Coming to school in our sleepwear in order to raise money for Comic Relief
Demonstrating our COOL Time Character Characteristics whilst we learn through play both indoors and out
Exploring the big playground as part of our Active Play at lunchtime
Designing, making and eating pancakes
Exploring
Having visits from the Emergency services including some very exciting vehicles!
Term 3
Our exciting learning themes this term have been ‘The South and North Pole’, ‘Year R’s Prehistoric Adventure’, ‘Chinese New Year’ and ‘Safe me, Safe Us’.
Some of our highlights include:
- Learning the sound of the remaining digraphs and trigraphs
- Practising our sound talk and blend skills, including longer words than require us to chop them up!
- Learning many tricky words
- Joining in with Shared Storytelling to create our own story map of The Polar Bear, which we also acted out to our class friends
- Reading in groups to practise our prosody and comprehension skills
- Joining in with some Writedance sessions that help us with our Herne Handwriting Patterns
- Have a go at forming many cursive letters
- Continuing to write the letters in our names in a cursive script
- Exploring the bigger numbers within ten, comparing place value and the different ways these numbers can be represented including subitising
- Having a go at number bonds to five
- Combining two groups of objects together to make a total
- Practising our numeral writing skills 0-10
- Looking at the signs of Winter in the world around us
- Creating many themed arts and crafts, using cold colours
- Looking at maps and globes to find out what the world looks like, identifying water and land as well as locating where we live in comparison to the Arctic, Antarctic and China.
- Finding out about many animals from cold places around the world and some facts about them
- Finding out about Chinese New Year such as where China is, how Chinese New Year is prepared for and what happens. We created a range of arts and crafts, listened to music and even tried some Chinese food! Yum!
- Coming in from playtime to find a dinosaur had been in making a mess and leaving a dinosaur egg in our very own classroom!
- Watching our daily Dino Cam to see which dinosaurs have visited our school when we are at home
- Finding out some facts about dinosaurs and learning the names of some of them
- Developing our ICT skills by learning to change the size and colour on a paint package, and complete an e-story independently
- Knowing that the X at the top corner of a computer activity will close it
- Practising our scissor cutting skills in a range of learning activities
- Learning new Worship songs
- Hearing about stories from the Bible and the lessons they teach us such as ‘Zacchaeus’, ‘Jesus Calms the Storm’ and ‘A Miraculous Catch of Fish’
- Learning how to throw, catch, roll, bounce and move balls as part of our PE hall times. We also had a go at balancing beanbags and tossing them in the air to catch using a tennis racket.
- Develop our understanding of the effect exercise has on our bodies including why we have warm ups and cool downs
- Frequently visiting areas around such as the HIVE and Wildlife Area as part of our Teacher Time
- Demonstrating our COOL Time Character Characteristics in our own play
- Pairing up with our Junior School Buddies for the first time
- Going on a Winter Walk to the local woods, exploring what we can see, hear and smell
- Exploring how to play some instruments and knowing their names-maraca, claves and triangle
- Going onto the big playground as part of our Active Lunchtimes, finding siblings and making new friends
- Finding out how to stay safe in a variety of ways
Hedgehog
Dormouse
Term 2
Our exciting learning themes this term have included ‘The Wonderful World of Julia Donaldson’, ‘Let’s celebrate!’, ‘Sparkle and Shine’ and ‘It’s Christmas!’
Some of our highlights are:
- Learning many sounds of graphemes, including digraphs, and learning to sound talk and blend
- Exploring numbers to ten, comparing place value and the skills of more and less
- Practising our numeral writing skills
- Joining in, discussing and exploring repeated patterns in songs, body percussion, stories and dance. We created patterns using colours and sizes to explore patterns that are AB, AABB, AAB and even ABC
- Being part of Maths week with the rest to the school, developing new mathematical skills during our daily snack time challenges
- Looking at the signs of Autumn in the world around us, including going on a walk to Curtis Woods to find Autumn treasures and searching for the Gruffalo
- Exploring autumnal colours and learning how we can mix red and yellow to make the colour orange
- Finding out about some ways other children celebrate different festivals such as Hanukkah and Diwali
- Finding out about Bonfire Night and creating many sparkly arts and crafts
- Learning about Remembrance Day, producing poppy art work and taking part in a special two minute silence
- Developing out ICT skills using a mouse and a computer to click and drag in order to make a picture
- Making a range of sculptures such as Diwali candles and hedgehogs using clay
- Practising our scissor cutting skills some more
- Singing and learning Nursery Rhymes we did not know
- Learning about The Nativity Story from the bible and all the characters from it
- Finding out about what babies need and how they grow. We even brought in baby photos to guess which of our friends they were
- Visiting St Martins at Herne church together for the very first time
- Performing our first Nativity Play to parents in the hall
- Joining in with some Writedance sessions that help us with our Herne Handwriting Patterns
- Exploring more complex handwriting patterns as we prepare to get ready to write
- Having a go at writing the letters in our names in a cursive script
- Exploring our gross motor skills in the hall by moving our bodies and enhancing our balancing skills in many ways using BEAM exercises
- Visiting areas around the school such as the HIVE and Wildlife Area as part of our Teacher time
- Taking part in special Worship and reflective times with the rest of the school
- Finding out about Christingles and making our own
- Using our creative skills to decorate our classroom with Christmas themed arts and crafts
- Having a class elf come to stay and having a visit from Santa himself!
- Writing letters in the form of shared writing that were collected by Elfie the North Pole Postman
- Going to the cinema in Herne Bay with the year group to watch a Christmas film
- Finding out about our COOL Time Characteristic Characters whilst we learn through play and enjoy receiving stickers with them on when we have demonstrated a particular characteristic
Term 1
We are just so proud of all the children in Dormouse, Squirrel and Hedgehog class, who have transitioned into our Herne Infant family really well. We started our first few weeks together by getting to know each child on a 1:1 basis in their new classroom, shortly followed by half day sessions in two small groups. This built up to being all together for mornings. We even tried our school dinners for the first time! Finally, we all came together for whole day sessions, learning many routines and making many friends. We have just completed our first week of full time! How exciting!
Some of the things we have done include:
- Getting to know all of the adults who are here to help us learn and keep us safe in our class and the Year R family
- Having daily circle times, where we got to learn our friend’s names and playing lots of games and singing songs to support speaking and listening, and turn taking
- Identifying the sound of our class instrumental to know when it is time to stop, look, listen and when it is time to line up during outdoor active play times. We also have a tidy up song, which helps us to boogie whilst clearing away all of our things.
- Learning where all our things go and where to put things in our inside and outside environment
- Going for a little tour around our school, seeing siblings, new friends and adults that form part of our wider school family
- Making many arts and crafts to brighten up our rooms that help us with our fine motor skills such as cutting, drawing, painting and printing
- Having class worship, joining in with whole school Worship and year group Worship. We have been good at finding out what Worship is and the many symbols of God and Jesus
- Joining in with COOL Times (Continuing with Our Own Learning through play), developing and demonstrating many skills whilst we play. We have learnt about some Characteristic of Effective Learning Characters such as Frieda the Feelings Flamingo, Cleo the Chameleon and Toby the Turtle.
- Counting forwards and back whilst singing songs and even lining up
- Understanding the breadth of number knowledge of numbers to four such as subitising, making the number with smaller numbers plus the different ways the number can be represented. We are also having a go at writing the numerals
- Starting phonic sessions to help us learn the sounds of some graphemes of the alphabet
- Reading books in small groups and on a 1:1 basis
- Visiting areas around the school such as the HIVE, library and hall
We would like to thank the parents for all the information you gave us regarding your wonderful children on our parent partnership days, and for their valuable support throughout this transition time. The children have done so well!
