The excitement of fireworks

Another busy week as the children learnt some new skills and practised the old.

The week started with retelling our half term holiday news which made exciting listening!

With Bonfire night on Thursday the children looked at the life of Guy Fawkes and listened to firework poems. They tried to think of words that described the sound of the fireworks and on Friday made rockets out of 3-D shapes for our celebrations display.

Letters about spellings went home yesterday, plus the letter or word lists to practise reading and writing. Your child’s spellings have been based on what they could do last Tuesday in terms of writing the letter sounds and using their phonics to spell the reception key words. There seemed little point in practising what they could already do. Please make time to practise with them as your child will really want to do well to earn stickers and house points next Friday.

The children have learnt one diagraph this week which is ‘sh’. They have been practising reading words with the sound in and listening for sounds to spell words containing the diagraph. We will not be having a sound table to support our future phonic work. The Jolly Phonics sheets will continue to come home to inform both adults and children of the actions of new diagraphs. These sheets can be completed at the weekend and put straight into your child’s phonic book that you should be keeping at home.

Next week is ‘National Nursery Rhyme’ week. We will be learning a new rhyme every day which the children will bring home. Say or sing the rhyme with them each day and talk about the rhyming words.

Our adding machines have worked well this week and we will continue this work next week before they are sent home.

With Christmas fast approaching, we have allocated the children a speaking part for the play. This was a quick one-off practice to see if they could articulate their words. They will be coming home soon for them to practise saying in a loud voice! They will also get some songs to learn. These are all set to well-known tunes which can be ‘Googled’ if you are unsure. I’m sure your child will soon have you singing along!

Next week apart from learning nursery rhymes, we will be learning about Remembrance Day and Diwali which both happen on the 11th. There will be no more Show and Tell until January as our speaking and listening sessions will be given over to Christmas Show practices.

I know that this is a busy time of year and the children get excited and tired especially if they are a bit off colour. Try and do as much as you are able and together we will support your children through these early days of learning.

Thank you so much to everyone who filled a family or elderly person shoe box. The children were really excited to see them built up as a wall and I was really pleased that so many children in reception were part of this worthwhile project.

Just to remind you that Thursday is the ‘Children in Need’ cake sale. If you would like to bake some cakes they will be gratefully received on Thursday morning. If your child would like to buy a cake on Thursday, a 50p donation can be sent into school in a named envelope. The cake will be eaten with their early morning snack or they can bring it home if they are not hungry.

Have a good weekend and hopefully we’ll see you all on Monday.