Over the next few weeks, your child will be spending time getting to know their class teacher. During this time they will take part in the Reception Baseline Assessment. This short, interactive and practical assessment will help to measure the progress made between Reception and Year 6. Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any questions.

Our topic this half term is:

Marvellous Me!


Key Books: All about Families, We are Family, It’s ok to be different, Super Duper You, The Colour Monster, The Jazz Man, Leaf Man, The Lost Acorn, Pumpkin Soup, Autumn Poems.

 

Communication & Language

We will be offering a wealth of opportunities where the children will need to speak, pay attention, listen and understand. They will listen during carpet inputs, listen to stories, interact with adults and other children and follow simple instructions.

Physical Development

We will be developing our co-ordination and movement by playing different games during our PE lessons and in the outside area. We will also improve our fine motor skills with the use of small equipment and play dough. We will ensure all children can wash and dry their hands thoroughly and we will be encouraging children to attend to their own toileting needs.

Personal, Emotional and Social Development

PSED is continually taught throughout each school day. We will support your child to make friends and learn to get on with others, understand and talk about their feelings, learn about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, develop independence and ultimately feel good about themselves.

Literacy

We will be starting our reading and writing journey! The children will be beginning to learn their phonics with our programme called Read Write Inc. They will be introduced to a new sound each day.

We will be teaching your child how to correctly form letters and how to write their name. A love for books will be fostered and Story time will be a feature every day! The Reception Team have created the most special book area in the classroom where the children will have access to many different types of books and have the opportunity to visit our school library on a weekly basis.

Maths

In Maths, we will be practising our counting and number recognition. We will ensure that we have an understanding of number to 5 including the composition of each number. We will also explore patterns with numbers to 5. We will be playing with and investigating shapes and encouraging the children to talk about them. We will be teaching them the names of 2D shapes.

Understanding the World

We will begin our learning for ‘Understanding the World’ by exploring the similarities and differences between all children in the class. We will discuss different cultures and share our own experiences.

As we move into Autumn we will be looking at our how our world around us changes.

Expressive Arts & Design

We will be exploring a variety of materials, tools and techniques and experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function. The children will be drawing self-portraits and pictures of their family. We will celebrate these by displaying them in our classrooms.

Over the last few weeks , we have been learning how to say how many there are after counting, knowing that the last number in the count indicates the total number in a group. We have then learnt how to compare the quantities where the difference in amounts is less - ‘more than’ ‘less than’ ‘fewer’ ‘the same as’ to compare collections.

This half term , the children in Reception have been learning how to travel in a range of different ways and how to stop on a given signal. We have also introduced small apparatus into basic games activities.

Here are some documents that you may find useful as your child begins their learning journey at Ireland Wood Primary School. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact a member of the Reception team.

• What to Expect in the EYFS
• RWI Phonics Parents' Meeting September 2022

Developing your child’s Fine and Gross Motor Skills

Developing your child’s gross motor skills and large muscle development plays a vital part in your child learning to write. A child needs strength in their arms, shoulders and wrists before they can begin to be able to hold a pencil and make marks. Mark making is one of the first stages of a child learning to write and is the main focus for us when your child first starts Reception. We encourage the children to make small and large marks with different types of media such as with pens, paintbrushes, giant chalks, paint , playdough and mud. 
 

Dough Disco is a high tempo, high energy session with play dough. Designed to encourage maximum participation the sessions are created for all levels of ability. Children develop fine motor muscles by manipulating the dough in a variety of ways, which in turn helps to improve their mark making and writing. If you wanted to have a go at home, there are some videos on you tube you can try, or simply put on your favourite music and dough dance away!

Here are some of the Dough Disco moves;

• Squeeze (small portions for smaller hands);
• Pat;
• Poke – using all your fingers one at a time;
• Squash into a pancake;
• Tear;
• Twist;
• Roll into a ball;
• Roll into a sausage;
• Pinch;
• Use tools to make patterns – these can include household tools such as plastic forks, potato mashers, cookie cutters etc.

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