Author: Emma Kendrew

Autumn 1: Week 5

On Monday, we introduced our new focus text for the next two weeks.  It’s one of our favourite stories – We’re going on a Bear Hunt.

The children loved listening to Michael Rosen re-telling the story. If you’d like to join in with the story together at home, here’s a link to the video.

(This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)

Phonics

This week, we’ve been working really hard on our oral blending skills. We’re also learning how to use our letter knowledge to say the sounds and blend them together to read words.

Help at home: Please use the ‘Learning at home’ sheet to regularly practise all of the letters and tricky words. Little and often works best!

This week’s letters:

This week’s Tricky word: is

What is a Tricky Word?  Tricky words are words that children learn to read by sight because they don’t always follow the usual phonics rules. Learning these words helps children become more confident and fluent readers.

Reminders!

  • Library books and reading records need to be returned every Thursday.
  • New library books and reading records are sent home every Friday.
  • eBooks are assigned every Friday. To celebrate your child’s reading skills, please listen to your child read their eBook daily.

Finally, here’s a snapshot of some of our fantastic independent learning this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Kendrew, Mrs Linton, Mrs Spearman and Miss Dean.

Autumn 1: Week 4

Wow! It’s been another busy week in reception this week. The children have really been showing off their interests, they’ve built a plane and flown to Lanzarote, built a steam train and visited Scotland and London, made a volcano, several rockets over them week a farm for dinosaurs and a school for babies! All whilst making new friendships and learning to take turns. It really has been a hive of activity.

Phonics and Reading Practice

We started our reading practice session and enjoyed sharing our books in small groups with the reading teachers. We also wowed them with how well we are remembering our sounds. In phonic we learnt the next 4 phonemes i,n,m,d and have really enjoyed playing lots of oral blending games.

Help at home: Please share the Little Wandle home learning sheet that your child came home with today and also log on to the Collins Hub site with your child’s details to listen to them talk about their reading book.  (all the details are in the reading records that came home today, individual passwords are stuck in by the dinosaur on the inside page.) Please return reading records with a comment in on Thursday so they can be updated.

Sharing Book

On Thursday we visited the school library and chose a sharing book to bring home biased on our own interests, please enjoy reading these books to your child and return them on Thursday so they can be swapped for a new one.

 

 

Autumn 1: Week 3

We’ve had a busy week in Reception! The children have really coped well with all of our carpet times. They’ve shown great listening skills and have been ready to learn during all of our carpet sessions.

Phonics

This week, we have learnt our first four phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) s,a,t and p.

During our phonics learning, we listened carefully to the initial sound in a word and sorted objects by the sounds they begin with.

Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week.  Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.

Poetry Basket

Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week we introduced our first poem called Chop Chop.

Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.
Cut off the bottom and cut off the top.
What there is left, we put in the pot.
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.

Help at home– Ask your child to recite the poem to you, can they remember the action as they perform it to you?

Reminders

Don’t forget to attend out Welcome to Reception meeting at 6pm next Wednesday. This will give you some basic ‘need to knows’ about life in Reception. There’ll also be an opportunity to ask any questions.

Please continue to send in family photos so we can share them in class and add them to our class display. We’re also filling up our autumn tray, please keep looking out for signs of autumn when you are out and about and adding them to the tray. Thank you.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Mrs Kendrew, Mrs Linton, Mrs Spearman and Miss Dean

Reception 2026 have arrived!

Our Reception children have settled in so beautifully and are doing a fantastic job getting to know their new classroom, routines and friends. It’s been wonderful to see how much more confident and comfortable they’re becoming each day! Thank you so much for preparing them so well.

From Monday 14 September, we’d like to encourage the children to start coming into the classroom independently, as they’re now becoming familiar with the morning routine. This is a lovely next step in helping them to build their confidence, independence and sense of responsibility.

We really appreciate your support with this and know that, together, we can help the children feel proud and confident as they begin their mornings independently. If you ever have any questions, concerns or would simply like to have a chat, please don’t hesitate to speak to us, the door is always open and we’re happy to help.

This week the children have had a fantastic time exploring the classroom and garden area, our mini forest school is a big hit as well as our newly developed ‘Dino Land.’ At lunchtime the children have been supported by their buddies, who helped them to collect their tray and lunch and showed them where to sit. We finished the week going on a ‘Buddy Hunt’ the children looked all over the school before they finally found them in their classroom working very hard. It was a really fun way for the children to explore their new school.

Help at home: Next week we will begin talking about our families. To support our learning please can you send a photo of your child with their family. Please can we also ask for any autumn walk donations e.g. conkers, pine cones. acorns and leaves of different shapes and sizes. Thank you.

Reception Email
Learning doesn’t just happen in school! We love hearing about the wonderful things the children are doing at home. Please feel free to send us any ‘WOW’ moments. If you have any photos you would like to share with us, please use our Reception email: stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org 

Thank you for a wonderful first week and all your support.

Mrs Kendrew, Mrs Linton, Mrs Spearman and Miss Dean

 

Welcome to Reception

We’ve been busy over the summer holidays washing all the teddies and toys so we’re ready for when you start ‘big school!’

Your classroom is all ready and set up and we’re looking forward to lots of learning, making new friends and having fun!

We’re so looking forward to the year ahead, getting to know you and your children.

See you all soon,

Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Linton, Mrs. Spearman and Miss. Dean

A Super Busy Week-Sports Day and Transition Morning

Wow! What a busy and exciting week we’ve had!

It all started on Tuesday morning with our Early Years Sports Day. Every single child was absolutely amazing! It was so lovely to see their enthusiasm, determination, and fantastic participation throughout the morning. They tackled every race and activity with big smiles and lots of energy – they really did us proud!

A huge thank you to all the families who came along to cheer the children on. Your support made the morning even more special, and it was wonderful to see everyone enjoying the event together.

On Wednesday, while the rest of the school enjoyed their Move Up Morning, our Nursery children had the exciting opportunity to become Reception children for the morning! We went on a little adventure to collect some of the friends who will be joining our class next year, before bringing them back to explore our classroom and outdoor learning environment. It was wonderful to see the children proudly showing their new friends around and helping them feel welcome. Everyone had a fantastic time, and it was a lovely way to begin looking forward to the new school year.

A Super Busy Week-Sports Day and Transition Morning

Wow! What a busy and exciting week we’ve had!

It all started on Tuesday morning with our Early Years Sports Day. Every single child was absolutely amazing! It was so lovely to see their enthusiasm, determination, and fantastic participation throughout the morning. They tackled every race and activity with big smiles and lots of energy – they really did us proud!

A huge thank you to all the families who came along to cheer the children on. Your support made the morning even more special, and it was wonderful to see everyone enjoying the event together.

On Thursday, our Reception children had a fantastic time visiting their new Year 1 classroom. They were excited to meet their new teacher, Mr Nash, and explore their new learning environment. They loved getting a taste of what life in Year 1 will be like – in fact, some of them enjoyed it so much they didn’t want to come back!

Tidy week 2

This was our second week using the book Tidy by Emily Gravett. This week we practised orally retelling the story using actions to help us remember.

Art
This half-term, our featured artist is Alexander Calder. Calder was most well known for his sculptures and mobiles.  We explored photographs of his artwork, discussing the different shapes, colours and how his creations made us feel. Inspired by Calder’s moving mobiles, we designed and made our own using plastic bottles, paint and glitter. They are now hanging from the classroom ceiling for the wind to catch and make them move.

Sports day reminder
Sports Day is on Tuesday at 9.30am. Please ensure your child comes to school wearing PE kit. They should also wear a t-shirt in their team colour. As the weather is expected to be warm, please make sure your child brings a named sun hat and has sun cream applied before they come to school.

Meet your new teacher
On Wednesday morning, the Reception children will spend some time getting to know their new teacher and exploring their new classroom. This is an exciting part of the transition process and helps the children feel more confident and familiar with their new learning environment.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who joined the transition Zoom meeting. We hope you found the session useful. As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don’t hesitate to speak to me.

Commotion in the Ocean

“There’s a curious commotion

At the bottom of the ocean

I think we ought to go and take a look…….”

So we did!

We thoroughly enjoyed continuing to read this rhyming story this week. We retold the story using props, helping to develop our language and storytelling skills.

We also created our own sea creatures using a large sheet of paper we had to use our observational skills to draw a range of different sea creatures.

In our maths work, we have been exploring the language of capacity in the sand and water areas. We have been learning to describe containers as full, empty, or half full.

‘My water bottle is full. It’s at the top!’

‘My bucket is empty, it’s all gone on the flowers!’

Help at home: Why not encourage your child to practise this at home by filling different containers with water during bath time or helping in the kitchen?