EYFS Newsletter – 14.02.2025

We’ve made to the end of a fabulous and fun-packed half-term in Reception! This also brings to a close our latest topic of Amazing Animals, which the children have really seemed to enjoy. This week, we have concentrated on creatures that live under the sea. We’ve watched some fascinating videos showing the behaviours and habits of whales, crabs and octopi and used maps and online images to explore the ocean environments. 

The children have had chance to get their hands on some real coral, crab claws, starfish and a whole array of sea-shells to help them get a better feel for life below the waves. We heard about how many animals under the sea are invertebrate – we learned what this word meant and which animals can be categorised as such. The children loved playing sorting game on the interactive board in which they got to investigate different animals using an x-ray machine and decide whether they were vertebrate or invertebrate. 

This week too, Reception’s ‘Ice Tunnel’ was replaced with an ‘Undersea Adventure’ through which the children could ‘swim’ and see which sea creatures they could spot along the way. This activity provoked lots of great writing practice and further discussion around the creatures seen within. Up above this ‘Undersea Adventure’ was a rock pool with a range of shells and pebbles and an array of tactile letters in the pool for children to practice their counting and word building skills. We’ve also had plenty of creative opportunities inspired by our aquatic friends, with many choosing to craft a jellyfish from a paper bowl by adding tentacles in different media or using bubble-wrap to print a pattern onto fish to create lovely underwater scenes. 

Our Phonics sessions this week have introduced the new phase 3 sounds ‘oa’ (as in boat) ‘oo’ (as in book) and ‘oo’ (as in moon). The children engaged in stories and interactive games to rehearse how to hear, read and write these sounds before putting their new skills and knowledge into practise. There was a hunt going on outside, with children completing matching and captioning challenges inside. 

Maths this week saw us investigating the numbers 9 and 10. The children explored how to build and count these numbers in different ways using a range of apparatus.

Tuesday’s Valentine’s Disco was a lot of fun this week, with lots of happy dancing, twirling, laughing, indoor snowstorms and lots and lots of sweets! Thank you to everyone for supporting this event as it really does help raise valuable funds to help enrich the children’s education at Cookridge.

We hope everyone gets to enjoy the half-term break next week. When we return our new topic in Reception is to be ‘Around the World’ in which we shall be learning about life in countries all over the world. You should have already received a notification requesting any photos or stories that you don’t mind sharing of the children visiting any world countries or any family history or heritage in other countries that we can explore together to help engage everybody in this fascinating topic. Please send any photos via a Tapestry observation (as we previously did for family photos and favourite toy photos). A big thank you to those that have already sent them in. Though it is yet to begin, we would also like to invite family members to attend an end-of-topic celebration event on Wednesday 26th March at 2pm (just thought we’d give you plenty of notice in case you need to book time off to attend). 

Enjoy the break!

The Reception Team

KEY DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Friday 14th February – Last day of Spring 1 term.

Monday 24th February – First day of Spring 2 term.

Wednesday 26th March – Foods of the World Parent Event – 2:00pm – parents and carers invited to join us in Reception to share in our learning and enjoy some delicious foods.