Reception 2024 - 2025

Reception Spring term 1

Happy New Year!

We hope that you have had a wonderful Christmas and made lots of special memories.  Thank you so much for such thoughtful Christmas presents.  We absolutely loved them!

We now look forward to another wonderful half-term together and can’t wait to see what the children can achieve after such a fantastic start!

In phonics lessons this half term, we will be introducing “digraphs” -2 letters one sound” - such as “ai” and “ee”. This half-term, we will be looking at:

ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ear, dd, mm, tt, bb, rr, gg, pp, ff

So far, we have covered:

s,a,t,p,i,n,m,d,g,o,c,k,ck,e,u,r,h,b,f,l,ff,ll,ss,j,v,w,x,y,z,zz,qu,ch,sh,th,ng,nk

(Please check reading diaries for any sounds that may need practising!)

Our new book from our literacy scheme will be “Naughty Bus” by Jan and Jerry Oke. This half term, we will be continuing to develop how we write our letters correctly by starting them in the correct place using little rhymes. We will be using our phonics to help us write captions and simple sentences by identifying sounds and then writing down these sounds using letters,

In Maths lessons, we will be counting backwards from 10, partitioning numbers up to 5, finding 1 less using a tens frame, investigating positional language and making patterns

We will have PE on Tuesdays this half term with Mr Gibbons, Mrs Hughes and Mrs Gardner. Our PE sessions will focus on gymnastics, in particular making shapes and sequences both on the floor and on low level benches.  For these gym lessons, which will be in the hall, the children will need to wear their PE kits (red hoodie/jumper, red T-shirt, black leggings or tracksuit bottoms) and change into black pumps or be barefoot. Please could you ensure that all uniform is labelled and checked regularly and be aware that for health and safety reasons, earrings must be removed or covered during PE lessons?  

In the afternoons, we will be learning about different types of transport and making junk models to tie in with our class book. We will learn about where we live and comparing this with London where King Charles III lives.

We will also be learning about celebrations such as Chinese New Year and how to keep ourselves healthy and safe by looking at how we wash our hands, brush our teeth, cross the road and play online safely.

R.E. will be taught by Mrs Walker on Thursday afternoons during Mrs Bradley’s PPA time and this half term will focus on the church and our ideas about Jesus.

Thank you for your support with reading at home. The children are so proud of their decodable phonics books that they share with you. As before, listening to stories and talking about them is also fantastic to develop a love of books when snuggling up together at the end of a busy day! Please could you try to read with your child each day whether it be them reading to you with their phonics book or you reading a story to them?  Please could we ask that you sign their reading diaries once you have done so and check that reading diaries are in bookbags every day as well as reading for pleasure books? We will be swapping and sharing reading for pleasure books with Year 6 reading buddies on Mondays.

We look forward to another wonderful half-term working with you!

Kind regards,

Mrs Hughes (Mondays and Tuesdays), Mrs Bradley (Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays) and our wonderful teaching assistant Mrs Gardner.

If you have any questions, no matter what they are, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do my best to help in any way we can.

Key Dates:

Tuesday 11th February – Safer Internet Day

Tuesday 11th February – FOHS non-uniform day – Valentine’s disco

Friday 16th February: Last day of half term

Monday 24th February: Inset Day

Tuesday 25th February: Start of Spring 2 half term