Reception Class
Welcome back to the first term of the summer! We hope you all had a lovely spring break and managed to spend some time as a family over the bank holiday. It's been wonderful to see all of the children again and some of them have really grown over the holidays!
This half term our topic is 'Growth' and we will be exploring the life cycles of humans, frogs, chickens and butterflies. We have an exciting egg delivery on Monday and we already have some frogspawn in our outdoor area which we will be observing over the next week! Exciting times ahead for us all! In Maths, we will be looking at numbers up to 20 in preparation for year 1 where will be learning about each number's representation, addition, subtraction as well as more and less. As a team, we will be having a big push on letter and number formation so any extra practice you can do at home would be amazing.
Our Christian Value this half term is 'Compassion' and we will be exploring this theme through books and circle time sessions. We have also started our new whole school collective worship called 'Circles' which will be happening every Wednesday morning. During this time, the whole school is split into small groups and each session is led by the same member of staff every week. We hope these sessions will allow all of the children to build relationships with other staff members as well as getting to know more of the children in school. Each week will have a specific focus as well as being a time to celebrate individual wins and share concerns or worries.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please come and speak to one of the team.
Thank you for your continued support as always.
The Reception Team.
Important dates for your diary this half term-
Monday 5th May- School closed due to Bank Holiday
Friday 16th May- Harlow Carr Trip
Thursday 22nd May- School closes for May half term break
Friday 23rd May- Training Day- School closed
Monday 2nd June- School reopens for the final summer term
Tuesday 17th June- Sports Day
Wednesday 9th July- 2:45pm- Reception Collective Worship- Parents invited
Wednesday 16th July- 2pm- Reception End of year celebration- Parents invited
Staff
Monday – Miss Griffin, Miss Mackenzie, Miss Appleton, Miss Battye
Tuesday- Miss Griffin, Miss Mackenzie, Miss Kane and Miss Appleton
Wednesday- Miss Griffin, Mrs Pape, Miss Mackenzie Miss Battye, Miss Rama, Miss Kane.
Thursday- Mrs Pape, Miss Mackenzie, Miss Battye and Miss Kane
Friday- Mrs Pape, Miss Mackenzie, Miss Battye and Miss Kane
Reading at home
Your child is now bringing home 2 books each week. One is based on their learning that they have completed in Phonics and the other is to read for pleasure with your child. This is usually selected by your child and it's a great way to model reading and discussing books. Please ensure your child reads their phonics book at least 3 x week as this helps build their fluency and recognition of words. We aim to listen to your child read at least once a week and books are changed on a Thursday.
Communication
3.15pm Pick-up
At 3.15pm, the children have been leaving the classroom via the same door they enter school, one at a time. If someone new to us is picking up your child, or there is a change to the usual routine, please let us know at morning drop-off, via the office or by email.
At home-time and after school, please do not allow your children to play on the climbing frame or other equipment in the ‘Garden’ area or on the school field. This is for health and safety and insurance reasons. Thank you.
Outdoor Learning
In Reception we love to be outside in our garden, exploring on the field or visiting our Conservation Area. We try to go outside in all weathers (and particularly enjoy the rain!) so, if you haven’t already, please provide your child with an all-in-one waterproof suit or a waterproof coat and trousers, along with wellies to avoid lovely new uniforms from becoming not-so-lovely. These would be best left in school if possible please. Please provide a named coat hanger on which we can hang the wet waterproofs! Thank you. For indoors, we ask that each child keeps their pair of pumps in school, we will send these home at the end of a term for you to check their fit. Please name everything that comes in to school.
PE
Reception’s PE days will be on MONDAYS and TUESDAYS this half term. Please ensure your child comes to school dressed in their PE kits on this day with a suitable pairs of trainers.
Milk and Water Bottles
The children have a snack (fruit or vegetable) each day and are always encouraged to try all new foods. They will also receive cow’s milk each day until they turn 5. This will begin at the start of the children’s first full week of school, Monday 16th September. If you would prefer your child not to have milk, please let the school know. Once children are 5, their milk will need to be paid for as outlined in previous information received. Please be aware that there is a delay between your payment happening and your child being added to our school milk order. Children have access to their water bottles throughout the day and are encouraged to drink regularly. Please ensure children have their names on their water bottle and bring fresh water to school each day. The children are able to re-fill their bottle throughout the school day as needed.
Book Bags
It is helpful if children can bring a book bag to school each day so they can bring home drawings and books etc. We would also appreciate a spare set of underwear and socks being kept in your child’s bag. This could be in a spare bag, left on your child’s peg, or inside their book bag.
Communication
An 'open door' policy is really important to us here at Adel St John so if there is anything you wish to discuss or mention, please let one of the Reception team know. Mornings tend to be our busiest time so after school is preferable, where possible. We are all here to ensure your child has a smooth transition into school life so please speak to us if you have any concerns and we will work together to support them.
You can also email us and our email addresses are given below. Please be aware that we may not be able to check these when we are teaching the children but we will aim to get back to you as soon as we can.
anna.griffin@adel-st-john.leeds.sch.uk
katie.pape@adel-st-john.leeds.sch.uk
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Here's to a wonderful half term!
Miss Griffin, Mrs Pape, Miss Kane, Mrs Appleton. Miss Mackenzie and Miss Battye
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Reception Class Blog
The tapoles are free!
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
The children are loving the growing topic. We have had a lovely week looking after our chicks. They have grown so much. Our peas have been doing very well in this glorious sunshine. We have also got some sunflowers on the go now. We decided it was time to release the tadpoles into our pond. We were very careful that they were all safely transported. We have been getting ready for sports day and learning all of the events including dribbling, skipping and javelin.
We cannot wait for our school trip next week.
It’s all about the chicks!
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
We were all very excited for the delivery of our chick eggs on Monday! We have been monitoring them closely and by Thursday they had all arrived. We decided to call the chicks Cheeky, Bunbuns, Saka, Jude, Poppy, Ballerina, Angel, Stitch and Chicky. Lots of the children have been drawing portraits of them, writing welcome cards and signs to keep them safe. Over the next week, we will be reflecting on the life cycle we have observed as well as seeing how our tadpoles are developing. In maths we have been learning about addition to 10 and during circle time we have been discussing the consequences of our actions.
Growing- Week 1
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
This week we began our new topic on growth and although this week has been shorter, we have been very busy! We have been learning all about dinosaurs this week where we have created fact files, made dinosaur skeletons and read the book ‘Never let a diplodocus draw’ as part of this week’s Drawing Club. We also celebrated St George’s Day on Wednesday where we designed and made castles, created our own flags and retold the story using puppets. We ended the week by exploring tadpoles in the school pond and we are looking forward to observing how they change over the next week. On Monday our chick eggs will be delivered! An exciting term ahead!
End of the spring term!
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
What a fantastic last half term we have had! We rounded off the term with an egg hunt challenge where the children had to answer different maths, reading and animal problems as a pair. They then received a special biscuit which we enjoyed in the sunshine!
Stay and Play
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
Thank you to everyone who was able to make our ‘Stay and Play’ session this week. It was a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed sharing our learning with you in our outdoor area. This week we have also been learning about Kenya and comparing with what we know about England. We have also been watching some animals live in Africa! They were very sleepy in the afternoons! Next week we will be learning all about the Easter story and we may some hidden eggs in the classroom! Have a great weekend.
Spring learning
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
We have had a very busy week of learning in Reception this week. We have been exploring signs of spring, finding number pairs of 10, observational drawing and painting of spring flowers, learning about capacity in our mud kitchen, responding to music in our movement play area and writing stories in the writing area. We also had some special visitors this week and the children were all exceptional! We are very proud of them!
Our First School Trip
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
What a fantastic first school trip we had at Stockeld Park this week. We has great time exploring the playhive, having a story-telling journey through the outdoor play areas and a workshop about the sea linking to our topic of Animal Mania. All children were incredibaly well behaved and it was delightful to have the park to ourselves. We knew they'd be fabulous!
World Book Day
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
This week we celebrated ‘World Book Day’ where we came to school dressed as our favourite book character. The children all looked amazing so thank you for all your efforts with the costumes. During the day we met with some of year 6 buddies and shared stories, we also discussed our favourite books and made our own mini books in the writing area. This week we have been reading the story ‘We all went on safari’ by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns and we enjoyed retelling the story through drama, music and the use of number. Next week we will explore different African traditions and culture. Have a lovely weekend!
Animal Mania!
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
What a fantastic first week back we have had! This week we started our new topic all about animals in the jungle and the desert. We have been reading the book ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ and describing the different animals using interesting adjectives. We have created fact files, made binoculars for safari week, planted peas, explored printing and ordered technology from the past. We also introduced our large water play outdoor area which all the children are enjoying using, exploring and learning. It was also particularly wonderful to have an alfresco snack time in the sunshine on Thursday!
We are looking forward to World Book Day next week and our animal handling session.
Love is in the air!
Reception (gquinn) on: Reception Class Blog
This week we had a visit from Evil Pea who caused carnage in the classroom! He wrote on tables, drew on the window, kidnapped vegetables and stole our snack. We hatched up a plan to capture him using different methods and wrote ‘Wanted’ posters to display around the school. We finally caught him on Friday with a shopping basket!
Today we celebrated Valentine’s Day where the children made cards for each other, discussed what love means and feels like and we made play dough cookies for one another.
What a fabulous half term! We wish everyone a restful half term and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday 24th February.
