EYFS – Newsletter – 15.12.2023

We’ve had a wonderful time in Reception this week, with lots of fun things going on. There continues to be much festivity as we approach Christmas, with Children choosing to write Christmas cards and letters to Santa as well as a wealth of Christmas themed artworks. Of course, our visiting elf Teddy has been up to all sorts of fun and even visited the school garden with us on Thursday’s Forest Schools session. The week has been building towards Friday’s performances of our Christmas concert with the Year 5 and Year 6 children, with a rehearsal in front of the other classes in school helping us make sure we were ready for the big day!

Our Maths work this week has been all about NOTHING! That is, we introduced the number ‘zero’ and the concept of what this means in the number system. The children had a great time spotting imaginary nothingness and playing hide-and-seek to help them understand the meaning of zero by using phrases such as, “I can see zero children in the DT area.”

Phonics this week has seen us introduce the phonemes of ‘ss’ and ‘s’ (/z/). The digraph ‘ss’ is often found in the middle and end of words such as ‘kiss’ and ‘missing’, whereas the single ‘s’ found after a ‘voiced consonant’ makes the /z/ sound, as in the word pigs. This particular sound can confuse children as it has the same grapheme (written letter) as ‘s’  in snake but comes naturally in speech. We read and matched words and pictures, wrote labels and some children even read and then drew a picture to show they understood a sentence.

The children all greatly enjoyed a lovely Forest Schools session on Thursday with Mr Gamble helping us all build a fire to make some hot chocolate. We also loved an opportunity to visit, feed and pet our menagerie of Cookridge animals. Please see Mr Gamble’s website post from Thursday for a selection of pictures from the day.

Thank you to all who were able to join us for the Christmas concert this week. We hope you enjoyed the show!

Have a fantastic weekend!

The Reception Team

DATES FOR THE DIARY: 

Monday 18th – Friday 22nd December – All children in school are invited to wear a Christmas jumper with their uniform every day next week (in place of their regular jumper).

Tuesday 19th December – Reception and KS1 Christmas Disco 3:30pm Children with tickets will go straight to the disco and can be collected from the school hall at 4:3opm.

Friday 22nd December – Reception Christmas Party – Children may bring in a small treat for themselves to eat in the afternoon (these must NOT c0ntain nuts),

Friday 22nd December – Christmas Dinner 

Friday 22nd December – Last day of Autumn Term. School reopens on Monday 8th January 2024.