Welcome to Pinocchio Class – Reception Year.
Named after Pinocchio (and exploring the value of TRUTH)– a wooden puppet/ boy from the 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the 1883 Italian children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The plot involves an old Italian woodcarver named Geppetto who carves a wooden puppet named Pinocchio. The puppet is brought to life by a blue fairy, who informs him that he can become a real boy if he proves himself to be “brave, truthful, and unselfish”
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In phonics the children will be learning the phonemes j and v. They will be learning to read the tricky words he and she. They will be learning to spell the tricky words- the, I, go, no, and to in sentences.
In maths, the children will be sorting and hunting shapes. They will be sorting and sequencing day and nighttime activities.
We regularly make play dough and the children have been making and eating repeat patterned fruit kebabs. A voluntary donation of £1 would be greatly appreciated to help cover the cost of cooking materials and resources to help keep our curriculum varied and exciting for the children. We will put a voluntary donation pot outside the Reception class door.
Thank you.
Stikins name labels
Easy to apply labels, no sewing or ironing. Just stick them on clothing labels, shoes, lunch boxes, water bottles, books, the list is endless!
Every order will generate funds of 30% commission directly to FONS!
To place an order, visit – www.stikins.co.uk or call 01270 668076
Please remember to quote School fundraising number 14399 when ordering.
Welcome to Reception: Pinocchio Class
Autumn Term 2021
Dear parents and carers,
Congratulations for a fantastic start to school! The children have amazed us already and we are very excited about the year ahead. We are delighted with how well prepared the children are.
Thank you for your support with all the home and transition visits and the timetable of half days. We feel it has been very beneficial.
This year the class is named after Pinocchio, reflecting our school value of truth. Pinocchio was a wooden puppet/ boy from the 1940 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the 1883 Italian children’s novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The plot involves an old Italian woodcarver named Geppetto who carves a wooden puppet named Pinocchio. The puppet is brought to life by a blue fairy, who informs him that he can become a real boy if he proves himself to be “brave, truthful, and unselfish”
We appreciate that the start of school has meant an awful lot of information for you as parents and thought it beneficial to share this information with you in a letter for your reference should you need it later in the term.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS): Children in Reception continue the learning journey that they began in Pre-School and at home with you. They follow the EYFS Curriculum, which is designed to help children develop from birth until they go into Year One at School.
What do the children do during a school day: Just as in Pre-School, the day at school is broken into different parts. During some of the day, your child can choose what they would like to do and some of the day will require your child to work with an adult. At lunchtimes, the children get the chance to play with children from other year groups.
What do the adults do in Reception Class: Staff at school play alongside your child and help to teach them the next steps in their learning. They also demonstrate and model things to small groups or the whole class and set up games or activities to practise the key skills they need to learn.
Staff at school observe your children daily in lots of different activities – some chosen by themselves and some which are taught or guided by adults. The information that the observations tell us enable us to plan for the next steps in your child’s learning.
NEW Reception Baseline: In this first half term we will be assessing the children using the new Reception Baseline Assessment for the Department for Education (DfE). The assessment is an age-appropriate, activity-based assessment of a pupil’s attainment in early literacy, communication and language and early mathematics skills. Further information regarding the Reception Baseline Assessment has been emailed to you.
What does your child need every day?
⦁ Water bottle
⦁ Fruit (1 piece of named fruit provided by you if you wish your child to have two portions of fruit a day)
⦁ Weather appropriate clothing (sun hat/warm hat/raincoat – bear in mind the changeable weather that we have in England and that your child may spend up to half the day outside)
⦁ Welly boots and wet weather gear
⦁ Reading folder
Autumn Term Topics: This term is all about settling into school and joining in with the routines of the school day. The children will begin to learn the key sounds that letters make and how to write them and how to recognise, count and write numbers to 10. If your child already knows these, we will adapt what they need to be taught to help them learn the next steps in their learning journey. The Reception Curriculum is focussed on individual learning through play and challenge and we aim to provide opportunities to ensure that all children make great progress.
The topic for this term in Reception is ‘Into the Woods’. We will be looking at lots of Traditional Tales and songs, including: Little Red Riding Hood, The Enormous Turnip, Ten Green Bottles, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs. We will also do topics about the festivals of Divali and Christmas and learn about the Seasons of the Year. Learning in Reception is very much led by your child’s interests, so we might deviate from this list if we need to!
School Uniform and clothing: Please ensure all your child’s belongings are clearly labelled so we can return them to you quickly if they get lost!
Health and Physical Education, HPE lessons will be on Fridays; your child needs to come into school wearing their labelled kit.
Spare Clothes: Occasionally children have the odd ‘wetting’ accident in school. If you think your child is likely to have frequent accidents, please put a spare set of ‘bottoms’ (including socks or tights) in their bag. If your child borrows some spare clothes from school, please return them to us nice and clean as soon as possible please.
Messy Play: Learning through play can be a messy experience – please be prepared for this!
Reading Books: Your child has been given a book bag so they can choose a new book each morning from the book box. When we feel they are ready, we will start giving them a book to practise their reading skills with a reading diary. They may also receive games or activities to support their learning in school. Please support them as much as you can.
Book Bag: Please check your child’s book bag each day for letters. If your child has had an ‘accident’, there may also be some wet clothing in their bag. Please wash and return as soon as possible.
School Toys: Sometimes children like to bring small toys from school home in their pockets – if this happens please could you return them to us and talk to your child about who they belong to. To help with this we ask that children keep their own toys at home unless you are informed that it is okay for your child to do so.
Mrs. Lingard-Lane, Mrs Wickens and Mrs. Stubbings
Teachers are given time for planning, preparation and assessment each week, Mrs Stubbings covers the class during this time.
As you may be aware, Mrs Tapper is out of class on Friday. In order to cause the least disruption to the children each Friday Mrs. Lingard -Lane will be teaching the class. When Mrs. Nugent is unavailable on Wednesday Mrs. Wickens will be the class learning support assistant.
Tapestry
Children often do things at home that they wouldn’t perhaps do at school, (and vice versa). We need you to share with us the special things that they are able to do, so that we can build up a really accurate picture of your child. We use Tapestry to share evidence of your child’s learning at school with you – we love it when you share their learning at home with us. Please have a go at logging in so that we can sort out any issues for you.
Helpers
In Reception we appreciate any offer of help, no matter how small. You could help us by:
⦁ Sharpening pencils
⦁ Taking some dressing up clothes home for a wash
⦁ Sharing stories/hearing children read
⦁ Playing games/cooking
⦁ Helping with woodwork
⦁ Cleaning/sorting out indoor and outdoor Play equipment.
⦁ Coming in to school to talk to the children about something that you do
⦁ Coming with us for trips out of school
Your junk is our treasure!
Small children are like magpies…everything shiny or new to them is exciting. If you have any unwanted wallpaper/ribbons/envelopes/stickers/glitter/flower petals/nuts and bolts/guttering/wrapping paper rolls/small cardboard boxes/enormous boxes/carpet rolls/treated and sanded planks/ropes/shells/stones…….etc your children would love to play with it! We are always extremely happy to receive donations of the above.
Spare or out of date lentils?
If you are going through your kitchen cupboards and find any spare or out of date:
⦁ Flour
⦁ Bicarb of soda/baking powder/cream of tartar
⦁ Oil
⦁ Lentils/dried beans
⦁ Cake decorations
⦁ Vinegar
⦁ Cornflour
⦁ Washing up liquid/shampoo/conditioner
⦁ Baby bubble bath
⦁ Clear pickling vinegar
⦁ Salt
If you wish to donate any of the above items to school, they will be very gratefully received. We make playdough and potions regularly and need lots of ingredients! It doesn’t matter if they are not edible.
Key Children
Each week, we will be focusing our observations on 5 or 6 particular children. We will use this as an opportunity to find out as much about the child and their development and plan for their next steps. If you have any questions, concerns or just want to have a chat about your child- please come and chat with Mrs. Tapper any time after school or contact the school office by phone or email. We also have termly Parents Evenings to discuss your child’s development.
Thank you for your support and for taking the time to read this lengthy letter, we hope you find it useful!
Best wishes
Louise Tapper
On behalf of the Reception Team.
What’s been going on in Reception this half term?
different activities- role playing the different parts of the story, working together to build different
types of houses, making masks, retelling the story, they have used their funky fingers to create
different pieces of art related to the story. In Marvellous maths they have worked on recognising
different amounts on dice and matching numbers on the little pigs hiding in the sand.
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