Reception

Why are there no elephants or lions in Rottingdean?

This term we will be learning all about what life is like in Kenya - which animals live there, what the weather is like and what it's like for children who live there.

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This term we will be going on a journey to Kenya. We will be using our imaginations to board a plane and fly off to the African Savannah.  When we are there we will learn about the different climate in Kenya and discover that going to the park in Kenya is not the same as going to the park in Rottingdean as there are a number of different creatures out there...  We will be doing this through the books: We're Going on Safari, Handa's Surprise and The Ugly Five.

In maths we will be consolidating our number knowledge to 10, understanding what 10 means and different ways that we can make 10.  This is the essential scaffolding that we will need to go on to bigger numbers and understand tricky concepts.

In phonics we will continue to recap on our knowledge of Phase 3 digraphs as well as Phase 2 single letter sounds.  We will practice these skills in both reading single words and sentences as well as writing words and sentences.

This website has some good games you can access for free which we use in school. 

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm

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Any questions, please talk to us at the end of the day (easier than in the morning) or email clareprice@stmargarets.brighton-hove.sch.uk or rachelgoddard@stmargarets.brighton-hove.sch.uk or

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Helping the children to become more independent

Please begin to encourage your child's independence by allowing them to have a go at taking their coat off and put it on their peg.  As the weeks go by, we strongly urge you to leave your child at the door or in the cloakroom and allow them to come into the classroom on their own.

Please could you ensure that your child brings a school book bag to school and leaves it in the book bag boxes in the classroom, not on their pegs.  We often need to put letters into their bags and it's much easier to do so if their bags are in the classroom, where they should be.

Most are now able to go to the toilet independently but of course we will still help if there are any toileting accidents. We are running rather low on spare clothing, so please return any your child has come home in. 

Helping your child to develop their fine motor skills

Fine motor skills are an essential part of children being able to access the school curriculum and life beyond!  Without them children are unable to hold a pen well enough to write or use a pair of scissors to cut!  Please continue to help your child to develop their writing skills by asking them to write their own names at every opportunity and encourage them to do lots of colouring in, threading and other 'fiddly' activities such as hammer beads and playdough.  Sand is also a fantastic material to help children to develop both gross and fine motor skills - digging in the sand requires a lot of strength and the more fiddly aspects of filling a bucket with a spade really help with their fine motor skills.

Blending Strips

The Blending Strips are to help your child practise the skill of segmenting and blending words together.  Please encourage your child to say each individual sound and then blend it into a word.  It is best if you do this in a random order as children are very good at reciting what they have learnt!  Again, when you are confident that your child has mastered the strip, please return it to school and we will move them onto the next one.

Tricky Word Books

The Tricky Word Book is to support your child in learning High Frequency Words and Tricky Words.  These are words that they will encounter frequently in a range of texts and words that, no matter how hard you try, just can’t be sounded out!  The idea behind these books is that you can support your child in recognising and learning them.  We would be grateful if you could practise reading these with your child for short amounts of time, but regularly.  When you are confident that they have recognised them 3 times, please return the book.  We will check their recall and then move them onto the next set of words. 

Reading books and Reading Records

The reading book is for your child to read to you and the reading diary is for you to record how they have got on.  Initially they will need a lot of support, but as time goes on and their letter and sound knowledge improves, they will become more independent.  When you are reading with them please encourage them to: sound words out; remember tricky words and high frequency words (words that we see all the time and shouldn’t waste our time sounding out e.g. it, is, and); to use picture clues in the book, and to recognise words and sentence patterns that they have seen on previous pages.   It is also important that they practice their one-to-one correspondence when they point to the word that they are reading.

School uniform and PE kit

Please ensure that all of your child's clothes are clearly labelled.  As I'm sure you can imagine, 4 and 5 year olds can struggle to keep hold of their own things and without a clear name label in them it is difficult for us to return the correct item to the correct child.  This is especially true when the children are getting ready for P.E. as all of them are on the carpet at the same time changing their clothes and things can get mixed up!  

It is essential that your child has a P.E. kit, consisting of a yellow t-shirt, green shorts and plimsolls.  This needs to be kept on their peg ready for when we have our P.E. lessons.  These are on Tuesdays and Fridays.  P.E. kits should be left on their pegs until the half term holiday.

Thank you for your continuing support - the children have made a great start to their reception year!

Mrs Price, Miss Goddard and Mrs Stevenson.