This week in Reception has been another busy and exciting one!

Phonics:
We have learnt two new sounds: k and ck. The children enjoyed practising the actions that go with each sound, writing them on whiteboards, and reading words and sentences containing the new sounds. We also learnt the tricky word ‘the’. Tricky words are words that cannot be sounded out using phonics, so the children learn to recognise them by sight.

I have attached the parents' information sheet about both sounds below as requested! 

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to the phonics workshop this week — we hope it gave you a helpful insight into how we teach phonics in Reception!

Maths:
In maths, we have been learning about the whole and parts. We looked at familiar objects and identified the whole when only part was shown. The children also explored identifying parts of their own bodies and used full sentences such as: “My shoulders are a part of me and the whole of me is 'Lucy'.” We then moved on to identifying animal body parts — for example, if we see teddy bear ears, we wouldn’t guess the whole is an aeroplane! We also investigated composing and decomposing sets of 2 and 3, and finally revisited 2D shapes, discussing their names and properties.

Drawing Club:
This week in Drawing Club, we wrote our letters to Santa. We started by reading a special letter sent from Santa himself, explaining that he is getting everything ready for Christmas and inviting us to write our wish lists.
We read Santa’s Special Letter and then had a go at writing our own. The children wrote ‘Santa’ and had a go at asking for the gifts they would like for Christmas, ready to post on our trip!

PE:
In PE, we worked on developing our running and stopping skills. The children moved around like different safari animals, then played a variation of What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? called Let’s Explore. We also practised some paired activities to build teamwork.

RE:
We revisited the idea of God as a creator and talked about how we can look after the animals God has made. We thought about our school dog, Betsy, and discussed how Miss Langley might care for her — including things we should do (use a lead, give water) and things we shouldn’t do (give chocolate).
We then had a very exciting visit from Betsy herself! Before she arrived, we talked about how to behave around animals — being calm, gentle, and quiet. The children were fantastic and many showed great bravery stroking her.

Star of the week: Congratulations to Henry, who is our star of the week, for persevering with his name writing. Henry will be taking home his certificate and Wilfred the Elephant to write in the book all about his time spent with Wilfred over the next week and will bring him back next Thursday.

Please remember to read with your child, even for just 5 minutes! Please also remember to record it in the reading record. We will only change your child's book if you have read with them 2 or more times in that week! Reading books are changed on Tuesday's and Thursday's. Please remember to have the library book in your children's book bag on Thursday to be changed. 

Any issues or concerns we need to know about, please speak to the Acorn team before and after school or email at: acorn@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk