Reception Weekly Newsletter

Term: Summer 2 Date 03.06.13

Welcome back. We hope you enjoyed the odd sunny day that we managed to get last week. Hopefully the sun will start shining and we can look forward to some better weather over the next few weeks.

The children thoroughly enjoyed their trip to Thorndon Country park to hunt for the Gruffalo, so will be continuing for one more week with this story.
Your child will be taking part in the following activities within the seven areas of development (activities are subject to change, depending on the children’s interests; however, the skills remain the same):

Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Reinforcing class rules. Organising new tidy up teams for this week.

Communication and Language
Continuing with the story ‘The Gruffalo’. We will be hot seating the children as if they are the characters from the story and asking them ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.

Physical
Exploring our outside area and how to use the equipment.
Ensuring children are using the correct pencil grip.

Literacy
The children need to be bringing in their reading books daily. We praise the children who regularly read at home to an adult and have a reward system in place.
Name writing using chalks, pens, paint brushes, foam etc…
We will be continuing our daily Read Write Inc sessions.
Writing about their hunt for ‘The Gruffalo’.

Maths
Prepositional language. In their play outside on the large equipment, encourage children to go over the mound, through the tunnel under the tree house, climb beside the slide.
Playing shape games to identify and discuss 2D and 3D shapes.
Continuing to assess children’s understanding of  more than/less than/ and  numbers to 20 and beyond.

Understanding of the World
Using purple mash on the computer, designing scenes from the story.

Expressive Arts and Design
Enjoying our daily dance warm up to the ‘5 a day’ fitness programme.
Role play – green grocers shop/Max’s bedroom/ The Gruffalo Café outdoors.
Creating a large collage outside.
Making Gruffalo masks using chosen art resources.
Making mud recipes in outside role play ‘Gruffalo's restaurant’
Acting out the story of ‘The Gruffalo’ using props available from enhancement box.

Messages:
Show and tell this week should be linked to the story of ‘The Gruffalo’.

Ways to help at home:
Sharing books to encourage story language and imagination.
Playing letters and sounds phase 2 and phase 3 games on the computer.
Encourage your children to use the correct pencil grip using ‘froggy fingers’.
Looking at shapes around the home: cereal boxes, tins of food, clocks, doors, windows etc…. try and discuss how many sides, corners, faces they have.

Homework this half term is ‘Summer Fun’. You might decide to make a poster about keeping safe in the sun, the importance of drinking water or the water cycle. You could make a poster about holidays you have been on or days out to the seaside or maybe a poster about now and then, comparing days out long ago to now. If you are feeling creative maybe you could do some sand art. As usual, you have until the end of term to complete your homework.

Well done to all the children who completed their homework last half term and many thanks to the adults who helped produce such lovely work.