Reception - Elephants
Elephant Class 2023-2024
Our Class Teacher is Miss Williams
For additional information all about Reception, please see the attached information which was shared during our Meet the Teacher meeting. If there are any additional questions, feel free to come and speak to either Miss Slater or Miss Williams.
********************************************************
Dates for your Diary
Inspire Creative workshops – W.B. 20th May 2024
Half term - 27th May - 2nd June 2024
Summer Focus Day – 4th July 2024
EYFS Sports Day - 8th July 2024
Parents evening - 17th July 2024
********************************************************
Important Information
Uniform
The children in Elephant Class look so smart in their school uniform!
We know how expensive they can be, so we kindly ask you to label your child's uniform to eliminate the risk of any items being lost.
Children can also bring in a named water bottle for use throughout the day.
P.E
Children in Reception have P.E. every Friday.
Please bring the appropriate P.E kit into school in their school P.E. bag. This will stay in school and be sent home half termly to be washed. The children should wear a plain white/blue t-shirt, black jogging bottoms or leggings or black shorts in appropriate weather and black P.E pumps or plain black trainers.
Homework
Children will be sent home with a writing book and name card to practise forming their names correctly. These do not need to be handed in, your child can keep them at home or in their book bags.
We will also send letter cards for your child to practise saying the corresponding phoneme (letter sound). Please encourage your child to practise saying these phonemes as often as possible!
Homework Menu
In addition to this, a homework menu will be sent out each half term with a variety of learning activities for your child to choose from. The activities aim to compliment and consolidate learning that has taken place across the half term.
To showcase this, we would love for you as parents/carers to send us images or videos of the children's learning. The 'EvidenceMe' app on your mobile phone is the place for this. Simply take a photo or video and upload this to the app with a comment about your child's learning.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask the Reception staff.
Thank you for your support with this.
Reading at Home:
Your child will be sent home with a book and reading record. Children will begin with picture books and progress towards books with words, which match their phonics teaching and learning. Please share these books with your children at home as often as you can. You can comment on the book and ask your children questions about what is happening or what might happen next. Please record any comments in your child's reading record.
Remember! The more your child reads at home, the closer they will be to achieving their bronze, silver or gold reading awards and will be displayed on our trophy wall in class!
Bronze - 45 reads (45 comments in your child's reading record)
Silver - 90 reads (45 additional comments in your child's reading record)
Gold - 135 reads (45 additional comments in your child's reading record)
Remember! You can also achieve more read to succeed points when you read the books allocated to you on Bug Club!
Reading in School
We love to read together in Tiger Class and have lots of opportunities to read and share stories throughout the day.
We have a voting station in our classroom, where children are encouraged to vote for the book they would like to share at the end of the day. The children enjoy taking part in this and are getting much better at voting fairly!
*********************************************************
Eid ul-Fitr
On Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th April, we learn all about Eid ul-Fitr. This is a celebration of when Ramadan ends. Some children were able to speak about how they celebrate this festival at home and how other people celebrate.
During our EAD lesson on Friday 12th, the children created their own lanterns for Eid ul-Fitr. They were so pleased with what they created.
***********************************************************
Easter
On Friday 22nd March, we began our Easter celebrations. The children went into the EYFS garden to find all of the Easter eggs that had been hidden! They worked together as an amazing team and found the eggs so quickly! They were then rewarded with a chocolate bunny.
**********************************************************
Behaviour Champion
On Thursday 21st March, the children went on our Silver Behaviour Champion trip to Haden Hill Park. The children had a lovely time together as a reward for their fantastic behaviour during the first two terms.
********************************************************
Dudley Zoo
To end our topic on 'Amazing Animals', Reception visited Dudley Zoo on Friday 15th March.
The children had so much fun exploring the range of animals at the zoo, identifying familiar animals and learning the names of new animals too!
We even had a fun train ride to get to the top of the Zoo!
************************************************************
British Science Week
During British Science week, we learnt all about some amazing animal life cycles.
The children learnt about the life cycle of a butterfly, a kangaroo, a frog and a duck. We were also very lucky to meet and see the ducklings from Nursery, learning about how they had changed from the eggs when they arrived to the ducklings just before they left.
We also enjoyed a super science show, watching some amazing experiments!
***********************************************************
World Book Day
On Friday 8th March, we celebrated World Book Day!
We celebrated this day by dressing up as our favourite book characters or dressing down in comfy clothes. During different times in the day, we would stop what we were doing and listen to a story. We enjoyed many different activities during Discovery time including, role playing as the characters we were dressed up as and making our own book covers.
***********************************************************
Chinese New Year
This week, we learnt about Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated on Sunday 10th February. This year is the year of the Dragon!
We looked at some of the traditions that take place during Chinese New Year and explored how people celebrate. We then made our own dragon masks!
**********************************************************
A bus ride to Tesco
As part of our Spring Term topic 'A ticket to ride' we went on a bus ride to Tesco. We walked to the bus stop and got on the X10 bus, getting off the bus down Cradley Heath high street. We then split into our groups to find a piece of fruit we needed from the story Handa's Surprise. Once we had all found our pieces of fruit, we went to the till to pay, before getting the bus back to school. We loved seeing our local area and going shopping for our own resources. We then got to taste test the fruit when we got back to school.
**********************************************************
A walk around the local area
Our new topic for Spring 1 is 'A ticket to ride'. We began by learning about the local area and looking at special features on a map.
Then on Monday 22nd January we went for a walk around the local area. We walked from school along Old Hill high street and saw many different places. We found; shops, pharmacies, the post office, doctors, a church and other schools. We had so much fun exploring the local area.
********************************************************
Christmas Celebrations
As a class, we learnt all about Christmas and the different ways people celebrate it. We had a class Elf who got up to lots of mischief in the classroom and the children were eager to see what she had been up to each morning. We celebrated lots during school including; breakfast with Santa, creating our cards and calendars, Christmas parties and we performed an amazing Nativity to our parents and KS1 children.
********************************************************
Remembrance Day
We learnt about Armistice Day and what this means. The children learnt about poppies and how they are used as a symbol of remembrance and are worn each year to remember the soldiers that have died in wars.
In our EAD and fine motor lessons, the children created their own poppy pictures using finger painting.
********************************************************
Diwali
We learnt about Diwali, how it is celebrated and that it is often referred to as the Festival of Light. We found out how people create their own candles and where they display them. Then we created our own Mehndi patterns.
********************************************************
Bonfire Night
We learnt about and celebrated Bonfire Night by creating our own firework pictures. We also learnt about firework safety and how to stay safe when watching firework displays.
********************************************************
National Libraries Week and National Poetry Day
To celebrate National Libraries Week and National Poetry Day, we visited the school library and read a range of poems. We chose some stories to take back to our classroom to share during our class story time. We really enjoyed visiting the library and we cannot wait to go on a regular basis to take out a range of different books.
********************************************************
Story Hunt - Fresh Water Theatre
On Monday 9th October, the children took part in a wonderful story telling hunt around the hall. They used their senses to help them find all of the clues that were hidden with the help of Big Bird and Debra.
The children loved taking part and finding clues together as a team. They found clues that were all linked with our current topic 'Marvellous Me', learning about healthy food, people who help us, houses and homes and what makes us unique.
********************************************************
Roald Dahl Day
On Wednesday 13th September we celebrated Roald Dahl Day. We celebrated this day by learning a little bit about his life
The children then coloured pictures of characters from his famous books and collaging their own dream sweet or chocolate bar. We has so much fun!
