Foundation Class
Dear Parents and Carers, January 2012
Welcome back to your child’s second term in Reception.
It’s going to be a very busy term with lots of exciting things to do.
We are sad to loose Mrs Cook and Mrs Johnson from our team, but excited to welcome our new full-time teaching assistant Miss Rule.
Our main themes for this term are based on well known stories.
We use activities based on familiar fairy tales to develop an understanding of story structure and lots of talk and drama to motivate and stimulate our basic literacy skills. The Gingerbread man and Jack and the Beanstalk will be two of our key stories. Within a wide range of activities we will be exploring scientific concepts and investigating materials, their properties and how they can change.
At the end of this term ‘Robots’ take over as our theme. The children learn to operate and program toy ‘bots’ which lead to designing and making robots from recycled material.Culminating in our famous ‘Robot Exhibition’!
With literacy in order to support early reading and writing, our phonic (letters+sounds) activities will continue. This term the emphasis is on building simple consonant /vowel/ consonant words, moving onto more complex words and letter combinations. Your child will be encouraged to experiment with writing and combining letters to represent what they say. Activities based on our handwriting scheme will begin to reinforce correct letter formation.
Children in reception will also continue to take part in the class based guided and shared reading activities started last term.
Along side a library book to share we will also start sending home weekly reading scheme books and support materials. An invitation to an evening workshop on reading and writing is attached. Please try to attend this evening as we will be sharing information about how to support with reading at home as well as outlining the different strategies used at school to help your child to learn to read, write and spell.
In numeracy work, we use a variety of games and investigations with mathematical themes i.e., comparison and measurement of weight, as well as using shapes and patterns. This term we will be continuing to count objects accurately and consolidate number order and recognition beyond 10; using practical activities to explore addition and subtraction. In reception our focus is on making the abstract nature of numbers, their patterns and manipulation, as practical and concrete as possible.
P.E. this term will be concerned with ‘gymnastic’ movement and dance, transferring body weight on and around low level apparatus. Due to the hall timetable movement lessons and apparatus sessions are now on Tuesday. For children who wear earrings they will need to be removed for the day or taped over with micro-pore (please provide).
Outdoor PE sessions for reception will not start till later in the spring, along with the better weather. However, we do continue to use the outside areas around school for many activities during the school day. Therefore your child will need to wear/bring an appropriate warm, shower proof coat on a daily basis, plus scarf, hat, gloves and Wellingtons as the weather conditions dictate.
As always please feel free to come in and see your child’s teacher to discuss any matter that may arise during this term.
Yours sincerely
Janey Morrison Alice DeCloedt
