EYFS – Newsletter – 05.05.2023

A shorter week this week in Reception, sandwiched between two bank holidays, but we’ve still managed to pack lots in!

Our topic of Let It Grow continues to give us lots to get stuck into. The children have njoyed having the young chicks in class (we now have thirteen!) and watching as they grow. The children have been given opportunity to take a closer look by holding the chicks themselves. On Wednesday, the children split into groups to learn some interesting facts about chickens and then taught these facts to each other (and hopefully passed them on at home too!). We learned that chickens are the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which inspired the children to examine the features of our chicks for similarities to the large dinosaurs. On Friday, the children were also invited to get a closer look by holding the chicks carefully, which caused much excitement and flapping (in both chicks and children!). 

Phonics work this week concentrated on revisiting and rehearsing the digraph phonemes, ar, or, oo (book) and oo (moon). The children joined in activities to hear, read and write these sounds in words and sentences. As part of Literacy, we have spent time reading and acting out the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The kids all joined in with an audio play version that encourages everyone to take on different roles in the story and act it all out together. This was lots of fun and will set us up well for further exploration of the story next week as part of our Let It Grow topic theme.

Maths sessions saw the children investigate how to count on and add numbers. The children explored this is in fun ways by jumping along number-lines and building towers which has really shown an increased confidence in talking about the number system. At the end of the week we also added a garden centre to our maths shop, with children buying and selling plants and giving change. 

Inspired by our topic of growth, the children were very interested to grow their muscles and spent a long time building and using their own gym outside this week! There was lots of jumping, lifting and many push ups attempted – with lots of happy kids getting in some exercise.

 Friday was a special day in school, with lots going on to celebrate this weekend’s coronation of King Charles III. In class, we have designed and decorated crowns as well as created a special coronation outfit fit for a king! The children have learned a special coronation song and we joined the rest of the school to sing at a celebratory assembly in the school hall after a fun picnic lunch. 

We hope you all have another fantastic extended weekend, and we’ll see you on Tuesday!

The Reception Team