‘We cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together.’

Reception are thoroughly enjoying our ‘Once Upon a Time’ theme this half term and creating their own magical stories. We have talked about how we can make our stories more interesting for the reader and how we can use expressions and actions as the story teller. In this weeks story sacks, we enjoyed the adventure of Kevin the carrot who was feeling angry. He lived in a ginormous, dark forest…
Reception, can you remember the story and tell your grown ups at home? Have a look at some of our story boards below to help you remember.


What have we been learning this week…

RE: This week in RE we thought about celebrations and family gatherings. We had a lovely discussions about weddings, and the children shared their experiences together. Then we heard a special story about a Wedding in Cana, where Jesus helped by turning water into wine. It was lovely to hear the childrens discussions, ideas and their deeper thinking: “remember when Jesus helped someone who was ill, maybe he helped this time at the wedding”, “maybe he did a miracle!”.

Phonics: This week in phonics there has been lots of partner work and it has been lovely to see the children take on the different roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘storyteller’ and how they support each other with such patience and encouragement. During our ‘partner practise’, partner 1 (the ‘teacher’) uses the lollypop stick to point to the sounds and words for partner 2, ‘the storyteller’, to read and then they swap. Not only have we been reading ‘green words’ (words that can be blended e.g. ch-o-p) we haver also been introduced to red words. These are tricky words because they cannot be blended e.g. I, the. We have lots of these red words hiding around our classroom so that we have lots of opportunities to see them and practise.

Maths: This week we have been exploring the number 5 and the different ways it can be made. To do this, we have the help of 5 little speckled frogs (well, 5 Fred’s from Phonics!). We had great fun singing the song together and stopping after each jump to discuss how many on the log and how many in the pond. As we explored this further we noticed that the frogs had moved into different parts but the whole was still 5. Then we got created and thought of our own parts that the frogs could jump into!

Next week in Maths: we will be exploring time and will begin by looking at changes and sequencing key events. As part of this we will be looking at how we have changed since babies, e.g. what we looked like then and what we look like now. We thought it would be lovely to create timelines and look at pictures of ourselves as babies / toddlers and compare that to now. If you would be happy for your child to share a picture of themselves as a baby or toddler in class please email one to s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk.


Let’s Celebrate!

Co operative Roger Robin: Daisy
Daisy, in Reception we talk about working as a team and you are certainly a wonderful member of our team. You are always kind, considerate towards others and are a supportive and encouraging learning partner to your friends. Thank you for making our classroom such a happy and caring environment.
Thank you for being you!

Curious Clara Clownfish: Oscar
Oscar, you always enjoy our maths topics and have been particularly curious this week, creating your own number games and track games in order to deepen your own understanding. You also shared these games with your friends, inviting others to join in with your play. Thank you for sharing your curiosity and love of numbers with us all; we’ve had lots of fun with the number games!
Well done Oscar! 


Important Notices & Polite Reminders:

  • PE - Please ensure that no jewelry (earrings, bracelets, watches) is worn on PE days (Tuesdays and Wednesdays). It is important that earrings are removed at home as we are not able to do this for the children in school. Any jewelry items such as these are best kept safe at home everyday to avoid getting lost or broken.

  • Lost property - we have a number of items which have remained unclaimed by the children and don’t appear to have names in. They are taking up quite a bit of space in our cloakroom area; if you could have a quick look at the picture below and let me know if you recognise any of the items that would be greatly appreciated. These items will need to be moved to the school lost property at the end of next week.

As always, if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact via email - s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

Have a wonderful weekend,

The Reception Team