EYFS Newsletter – 14.01.22

Another full and fun-packed week in Reception! 

Our topic of Amazing Animals has continued to inspire a lot of great play. We have been thinking a lot about pets in class, and the veterinary practice in our role play area has been very busy taking care of some poorly animals. Some children have also been kindly sharing pictures and stories of the pets they have at home. 

Of course, we have been looking after our very own new class pet hamster. At the start of the week he was names Hamstalini and he’s certainly made himself very cosy in his hutch in the middle of Reception class. As hamsters are nocturnal he does spend much of the time sleeping during the day, but he’s been out to see us a few times and the children have been very interested to help with his care.

In Phonics sessions this week, we have been learning some new phonemes from ‘phase 3’. Children have, taken part in a Jumping Jellyfish game to rehearse the ‘j’ phoneme; opened mystery boxes to practice word and sentence writing and placed ‘v’ words in a van. We’ll continue looking at phase 3 phonemes next week, concentrating on the letters w, y and z and digraph zz.

Maths this week has seen us exploring the number 5 and its composition. The various ways to make up the number 5 (number bonds) have been investigated in different ways, with children really enjoying and activity around the song “Five Little Monkeys”. Using counters and coins in the class pet shop has also been a fun way of exploring how to make 5.

Thursday was Forest Schools and we were blessed with a mild and sunny day to enjoy our school garden. The children loved getting up close and personal with the school rabbits, especially the babies that were born just before Christmas. Some even chose to assist Mr Gamble in cleaning out the two rabbit hutches and adding clean bedding.