EYFS – Newsletter – 24/01/2020

What a full and fun-packed week it’s been in Reception!

Thank you to all parents and carers that were able to attend our Dinosaur building event on Tuesday. It was great to have so many enthusiastic people and it was lovely to see the children working together to create some fantastic dinosaurs, from small and detailed to huge mechanical contraptions! 

On Wednesday, we had a day packed with stories, as it was the first time Reception class have joined the rest of KS1 for the Story-time assembly and in the afternoon.Everybody was hugely impressed by how well the class sat and listened among all the older children. In the afternoon, the children greatly enjoyed a visit from this week’s Mystery Reader. The story, ‘The Rabbit, The Dark and The Biscuit Tin,’ really engaged the audience of children and all were thrilled to find a biscuit tin overflowing with treats at the end of the story!

This week, lots of children got to enjoy using our new library book scanner to ‘beep’ in and out their home reading books using their bar-codes. Books are kept by children for a week and should be returned to school on a Monday to be changed. 

On Friday, we were invited to our first Learnatic assembly, where superstar children are celebrated for their fantastic work, attitude and effort. This week, Grace was awarded with 50 team points and a gold star for her colour team for working so hard to produce some excellent independent writing. 

Forrest Schools was also a lot of fun on Friday. Out in the school grounds, the classes took in turns to create their own dinosaurs from found objects and build habitats for any dinosaurs that might be passing by. We had nests built with cosy blankets of leaves and moss surrounded by sharp defence, and even an extra tall home built to accommodate a Diplodocus! In the garden, children used tools to dig in the soil to recover lots of interesting objects. The children uncovered letters, numbers and all manner of dinosaur bones, eggshells, teeth, spikes and fossils.

Next week in Phonics we shall be learning the phonemes ‘qu’ and ‘ch’. These digraphs (two letters that make one sound) are commonly found in words that the children will be reading, so keep an eye out for them in books, signs and packages at the weekend. In Maths, we shall be exploring the names and properties of 2D and 3D shapes.