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Reception Spring Newsletter

Welcome back to all our families. Hopefully, you have had a wonderful festive period with family and friends, full of fun and laughter and we look forward to hearing all about it.

Our topic this term is 'Awesome Adventures!'. During this topic we will be going on an Awesome Adventure on pirates ships, to different countries, on a broom with the witches and maybe even on the back of a flying animal!

Class Tigers

We will be exploring our topic through each of our areas of learning and we will be providing parents with a weekly newsletter on Class Dojo, showing our story of the month, text of the week, rhyme/song of the week, activities we will be doing and key vocabulary. This will give parents/carers the information they need to support their child further at home.

Class Lions

Class Dojo: At St Botolphs we have started using class Dojo as a positive behaviour system, rewarding children for their amazing work. You will be able to see the points they earn and children will be able to redeem their points for prizes. We will also use Class Dojo to keep parents updated with different events happening at school and any exciting things that are happening in class. Parents can also contact the class teachers directly with any questions they have.

Tapestry: We will still be using Tapestry to show parents/ carers what the children have been doing that week in more detail. Please check this on a regular basis and when your child does wonderful things at home, you can post photographs or short videos on Tapestry for the teachers to see and comment on.

Our core Christian values for the term will be Respect in the first part of the term and then Reverence in the second half of spring. We will explore these themes in our class worships.

PE: Our PE day will continue to be a Monday but as always, please make sure your child's PE kit is brought in on a Monday and we will make sure it is sent home on a Friday. Please make sure that both indoor and outdoor PE kits are provided.

Homework: On a weekly basis we will send home sound books. The expectation is that the sounds/words will be practised on a daily basis from Monday to Friday. On Friday's when the sound book is returned, the children will recap sounds from that week with a member of the Reception Team. If they do not know these sounds, they will be placed in the book again the following week, to continue to be practised at home. Please read and write these sounds with your child to ensure they are secure with them. We will also be sending home a maths activity each week for your child to complete. Again, this will be sent home on a Monday and we ask that this will be returned on a Friday.

Areas of Learning

Personal, Social and Emotion Development: We will be exploring and sharing different emotions during our circle time sessions each week. We will be beginning to understand our own feelings and how to ask for help in challenging situations.

Communication and Language: We will be practicing asking and answering different styles of questions such as, how, why, who, what and when. We will be working towards following instructions with several parts.

Physical Development: The first part of this area of learning is gross motor skills, these are all the big movements such as climbing, negotiating space and ball skills. The children will practise most of these movements outside. The second part of this area is fine motor skills. We will participate in a daily Dough Disco session to develop muscle control in the fingers we use for writing. Pencil control is one of our top priories at this time year, the children need to practice this constantly. Therefore, please make sure you practice the sounds and words that go home on a weekly basis in our sound books.

Literacy: This area involves everything from listening and enjoying stories to recognising letters to writing letters and words. We will have key stories throughout the term that we will be looking, as well as a different rhyme or song each week. At this age the performance is the key element. Children will be expected to be able to not only recite their song/rhyme but understand the words and sentences within each one. This will provide the a starting point for children to create their own verses.

Read, Write Inc: In our daily sessions, we learn new sounds and words, revisit old ones and practise our blending and segmenting skills. During this term, we will hopefully start Ditty books with some children and they will come home with stories to practise at home. Read, Write Inc is based on practising what the children already know. It is a celebration, an opportunity for them to shine at home with their adult. We also practise writing letters and words daily. You can help by completing daily practise of new sounds and/or words at home.

Maths: In Reception, maths is taught through White Rose Maths. This scheme is all about supporting children and their understanding of numbers through using physical resources. Even though recognising numbers in an important aspect of maths, the key element in our new curriculum is learning about what makes a number and number, ie. three is three objects or one and two objects together. We will also give the children opportunities to learn about time, capacity and the comparison between different sizes.

Understanding the World: This area is very knowledge based. We will be learning about history, geography, science and Religious Education. Initially, we will be looking at family traditions that have happened over the Christmas period, please talk to your child about the traditions that you have as a family and/or the traditions you had as a child. Look out for different areas as we go through the term on our weekly newsletter so you can share your own knowledge with your child.

Expressive Arts and Design: This area explores music, songs, role play, construction, anything that involves creativity and imagination. We will be providing the children with lots of different opportunities to use their own ideas to create their own picture, structure or a whole new world.

Finally, as we return from our Christmas break it is more important than ever that we follow the government information and advice to minimise the disruption to your child's education that Covid-19 has caused. We will be monitoring the advice for education settings very carefully and will notify you if any changes need to be made.

One way we are minimising the risk is to keep our rooms and areas safe is to keep windows and doors open to maintain ventilation. We have air monitors in each classroom and keep our rooms inline with the safety advice we have been given. This may mean that at times the rooms are colder than we would usually see at this time of the year. Please dress your child accordingly with warm layers under their school uniform and appropriate outdoor clothing for the season. Any pieces of clothing or footwear brought into school will need your child's name on it to avoid any confusion or loss.

Your support in sending your child to school regularly and on time is vital so that we can recover some of the lost learning they have already faced and allows us to prepare them for their future learning in such uncertain times.

We are looking forward to another fantastic term and would to take this opportunity to say thank you for all your support so far this year. If you have any questions about anything this term, either come in and see us or please use Class Dojo and we will get back to your as soon as we can.

We are wondering where our journey will take us this term. Exciting times ahead!

Miss Kaye, Miss James and the Reception Team