Welcome to Reception !

Term 2

Our exciting learning themes this term have included 'Remember, Remember', 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' and 'Sparkle and Shine'.
 
Some of our highlights are:
 
"    Learning the remaining graphemes sounds, including some long sounds and digraphs. 
"    Practising our sound talk and blend skills to decode words and to spell some
"    Having a go at recognising tricky words
"    Exploring what a sentence is and the common features of them
"    Exploring numbers to ten, comparing place value and the skills of knowing 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 ABAB.
"    Looking at the signs of Autumn in the world around us, including going on a walk around the perimeter of the school
"    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 momentous occasions and different festivals such as birthdays 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  minute silence
"    Developing out ICT skills using a mouse and a computer to click and drag in order to make a picture on programs such as Simple City, Purple Mash and 2Paint
"    Making Diwali Diya's using clay to make a thumb poit before letting it dry so we could decorate it
"    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 as part of our Harvest Festival
"    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 and COOL Time sessions
"    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
"    Coming together with our families for the Herne Festival of Love and Light after school in our school grounds
"    Finding out about all of 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

Well done to all the little Hedgehogs, Squirrels and Dormice who have transitioned into our Herne Infant family very well indeed. We have started our school journey 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. We then became a whole class family by all coming into together for the mornings.  We even tried our school dinners for the first time before we went home. Now we are full time and our days have been full of activities to help us learn our new routines and creating friendships with our peers. This week is our first full week of being full time. Although they are already tired, they are doing so well!

Some of the things we have done so far 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
• Joining in with daily circle time where we began to learn our new 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 times, joining in with whole school Worship and coming together as a year group for Celebration Worship each Friday. We have been good at finding out what Worship is and the many symbols of God and Jesus we have
• Finding out about our five school values of Love, Trust, Respect, Honesty and Forgiveness
• Joining in with COOL Times (Continuing with Our Own Learning through play), developing and demonstrating many skills whilst we play. We are beginning to find out about our school’s Characteristics Characters
• Discussing our feelings and relating these to the Colour Monsters
• Counting forwards and back whilst singing songs and even lining up
• Understanding the breadth of number knowledge of numbers to three 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. So far we have explored ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’ and ‘p’
• Warmed up our bodies and busy fingers to explore the ‘dot’ handwriting pattern as part of our range of Herne Handwriting Patterns we will learn across the next two terms

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. We look forward to welcoming you at our Parent Information Workshop on Monday 25^th September.