Welcome to Year R!

Teachers: Mrs Claire Millard (Early Years Leader), Mrs Susie Christer, Miss Liz Collins, Mrs Wendy Kaye

Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) : Mrs Liza Raper,  Miss Becky Deegan,

Miss Karen Snowden

All about ‘b’

On Friday it was Children in Need and we happened to be learning the letter ‘b’. So what better way than baking bear biscuits, buttering bread to have with our bananas at a Teddy Bear Picnic, drawing our bears and sorting buttons. Take a look at some pictures of our phonic fun!

Fantastic Phonics

Wrens and Robins are having a great time learning the names and sounds of the letters. Everyday we practise the sounds we have already learnt, using Jolly Phonics songs and actions to help us. Take a look at the multisensory ways we have covered some letters so far. You can also practise the songs at home using the YouTube link posted below.

A very warm welcome to all our new children! We are really pleased with how well they have settled and made new friends. All children have brought home a reading book and reading record. Please keep these together in their book bags after you have shared them at home.

Here are some photos of the fun we have had!

What a busy time we have had recently! The cold weather gave us fun learning experiences as we explored snow and ice through our senses. We have continued to love writing and you will finding us writing in all areas- outside, on clipboards, in the model area....everywhere! We have just started exploring the story of the Three Little Pigs, and are really enjoying building houses and seeing if they can be blown down. Take a look at our slideshow below for some super pictures.

Don't forget, it is our Assembly and Curriculum Talk on Thursday 15th March at 9am, we would love to see you there.

Robins and Wrens have enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year. We explored musical instruments for our Dragon Dance, keeping a steady beat and working together. We also loved tasting noodles, exploring with our senses. Using chopsticks was a challenge too! We also practised our cutting skills by making masks for the animals from the Chinese New Year story.

Don't forget, keep practising your keywords at home. The phonics app, Teach Your Monster to Read is free to download for this week only!

The children came back after Christmas keen and ready to learn! We thought about the next steps in our learning and set ourselves goals, such as finishing our next set of keywords, counting to 20 or writing our names. Ask your child what their goal is! We have made clay medals to celebrate our success when we reach our goals.

We then started our topic 'Once Upon a Time'. We have loved sharing our favourite stories, with 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' proving a huge hit. We have made bears from playdough and paper plates, acted out the story, made story maps and explored bears trapped in ice. One of our Wrens found a great book in the library about Pirates, which is inspiring our innovation of the story into 'We're Going on a Treasure Hunt'. Watch this space for more of our exciting learning me hearties!

How can I help my child at home?

 Here are a few reminders about how you can help your child with their learning:

• Help your child learn how to write their name neatly, with all of the letters correctly formed. You can use the name card we handed out at the last parents evening. If your child is confident with their first name, you can move on to learning how to write their surname.

• Read as often as you can! You are welcome to come and change reading books regularly, as well as enjoying books from home and the library. Keep practising the new phonic sounds sent home every week. Your child also has their keywords to support their stage of learning.

• Play the Maths ten grid activities that are sent home in book bags.

• Encourage your child to write labels, sentences, cards, story maps etc. Pop notebooks and pencils around the house so they can draw and write when they are playing.

Remember, little and often, and lots of fun! Come and see your child's teachers if you would like any more information.

Another wonderful week for us all! The children have brought home their Reading Record and a book to share at home. Please write in the record when you have read the book and feel free to change it for a new one in the corridor outside Robin Class.

Take a look at our photos from this week, showing some of our learning through play.

Book Week

What a wonderful week we have had! We began with a staff performance of 'Anna Hibiscus' Song' which inspired our learning for the week. We have learnt to count to 10 in Swahili, tasted mango, learnt different drumming beats, visited Alton Library and created an example of Batik. We finished the week by dressing up as our favourite characters and sharing our learning with the school in a special assembly.

Transition to Year 1

The children have been talking a lot about their new Year 1 teachers and classrooms. We are exploring trying something new and understanding this change in the best way we know how- play! Our role play corner has been changed into a 'Year 1 classroom'. The children have been playing and teaching each other, enjoying being in role as Miss Thompson and Miss Hall.

Another busy week!

What a lot of fun play and learning we have done this week...

Visit from Mr Weir

The children were delighted to have a visit from Mr Weir this week. We used this opportunity to ask him all sorts of questions:

"Are you having lots of barbecues?"

"Have you been on holiday?"

"Do you miss us?"

The answer to all was a huge "yes!"

Visit to Eggars

The children had an amazing visit to Eggars this week. We took part in drawing activities, a secret location hunt, a drumming workshop and watched 'The Lions of Zululand'  singing and dancing. The children loved every minute, and were great at walking there and back. Thanks again to all our helpers for making this trip possible and to Eggars for the warm welcome and the tasty ice lollies at snack time!

Scarecrow competition

Robins and Wrens had great fun thinking about, designing and creating our Lego Man card-swap scarecrow for the Alton in Bloom scarecrow competition. Take a look at our pictures below, we are very proud of the certificate we won for our Wootey group entry.

Shape, Number and Pattern Walk

Today we enjoyed our Shape, Number and Pattern walk in the local area. We were amazed by how many shapes we found, maths really is all around us! The children became expert shape detectives and were eagerly talking about and describing what they could see. Huge thanks to all the helpers who came with us, we couldn't have done it without you. 

Number Facts

This week the children have been really enjoying Maths. The children chose to explore the Numicon and different ways of using the Numicon to fill a 100 board. We have also looked at Part-Whole relationships, e.g.

5 is the whole.

2 is a part, 3 is a part.

5 is the whole.

Why not try this at home? You could use bricks, sweets or teddies to try splitting numbers in different ways.

Location, Location, Location

This term our topic is 'Location, Location, Location'. We are busy making plans for all the things we would like to learn, and the places we would like to visit. Click on the link below to visit 'Simple City' on Purple Mash. You may need the login details that were emailed out, or ask a member of staff if you have forgotten them!

Chicks

The children have been thrilled to have the opportunity to hatch chicken eggs in the classroom. Awe and wonder has prevailed as we've watched the whole incredible process from egg to chick!

Numberblocks

All the children have enjoyed watching Numberblocks on Cbeebies, and really benefitted from the excellent mathematical imagery and modelling the series provides. Click the links below to enjoy and learn more at home