Reception Class- Pluto 2019-2020

At St Mary’s we offer a secure foundation through learning and development opportunities which are planned around the needs and interest of each individual child. We work in collaboration with parents and carers to ensure that every child is at the center of the working partnership.

How do we plan and teach in the Early Years?

It is our intent to ensure all children in the Early Years have an exciting, motivating and challenging curriculum. This will offer them opportunity to explore and investigate their own interests. In the Early Years we implement this by having a rich, stimulating environment, allowing children to select their own resources and follow their path of learning. The children have continuous and enhanced provision which is carefully planned for from observing and assessing their learning through play. The impact of this approach allows children to thrive, be happy and learn at a rapid pace, making excellent progress. Below are a few of our enhanced activities the children have enjoyed recently. All have been linked to their interests and next steps.

What does Enhanced and Continuous Provision look like in Pluto Class?

Autumn 2nd Half

We hope you all had a wonderful half term. We have enjoyed looking at your Tapestry posts and the children always enjoy sharing their memories and pictures with the class. The children are now very settled into the classroom routines are ready to start this new half term.

To begin our half term we will be looking at Fireworks and the history behind why we celebrate bonfire night. We will also look closely at the Hindu festival of Diwali.

The children love to explore and play with small world and animals, so we will next head into the depths of the Arctic and become Polar explorers. The children will learn about the animals that live their and the environment they live in. Themes and topics may change each week depending on how they children are engaged that week.

Phonics

Phonics happens every day in the Early Years. This term we will earn a few of the ‘single grapheme phase 3 sounds’ and then move on to recapping the phase 2 sounds taught so far. This term our emphasis will be on letter formation and segmenting for spelling.

Our phase 2 sounds are :

Set 1: s,a , t, p

Set 2: i, n, m, d

Set 3: g, o, c, k

Set 4: ck, e, o, r

Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Children won’t come home with any new phase 2 sound flash cards, instead they will come home with a letter formation sheet to help support them at home with their writing!

Maths

This half term we will continue to focus on our numbers of the week, looking at 7, 8, 9 and 10. The children will also learn about 2D and 3D shape, measuring; deciding which is longer and shorter? Then later on in the term the children will be comparing weights; deciding which items is heavier, lighter? The children will begin to be introduced to the terms one more and one less than and begin to look at adding and subtracting single digit numbers from single digit numbers.

Come and see what we have been up to recently.

We loved making our dream Potions for the Fairy who had misplaced all her special dreams.

Communication

Please use Tapestry to share your adventures at home and share positive comments about your child’s learning. If you have any concerns or queries please pop in and see us or make an appointment.

Many Thanks

Pluto Team.

Mrs H Bettiss, Mrs E Board and Mrs L Clark

Useful Websites for Phonics

http://www.ictgames.com/phonemePopLS_v2.html

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-2-games.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/welcome/home/reading-owl/fun-ideas

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/popup.shtml

Useful Websites for Reading

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/find-a-book/storyteller-videos/

Useful Websites for Maths