Dear Parents, AutumnTerm 1999.

Welcome to Reception and our Autumn Term. The adults in the Reception base are Sally Kellett, Donna Irving, Jane Flood, Tina Durning, Liz Norris and Susan Martin.

In the Reception base the children work as individuals which enables us to cater for a variety of ages and needs. Please try not to compare your child with others as our method of working allows each child to work to the best of their ability.

We will be inviting you to an Open Evening where you will be able to see how we work in more detail.

Do come in and see us and your child’s work, if there is anything you want to specifically discuss make an appointment after school – no worry is too small, we need to know so we can help.

Our work this term is about Nursery Rhymes. Within this topic we hope to cover such things as:

Literacy

Lots of language, discussion, poetry, stories and nursery rhymes.

Sharing Big books with an adult

Introducing letter sounds and names

Continuing development on their alphabet knowledge

Cooking – following picture recipes

Making their own book

Handwriting

Maths

Working with numbers to 10

Solving problems in our heads

Counting forwards and backwards

Sorting and matching

Making patterns

Building with shapes

Learning number rhymes

Talk about time; day, night, today, yesterday

Mathematical language relating to Capacity, Weight and Length

Playing with money – recognising 1p coins

Science

Naming parts of the body

Looking at similarities and differences between materials; metal objects

Sorting and classifying

Looking at plants and how they grow

Cooking

Talking about the weather

We will also be doing activities for other subjects; music, geography, history, P.E.

Information.communication.technology (ICT), art, design technology, R.E , sand and water and of course lots of learning through structured play.

During this first half term we will be concentrating on the baseline assessment, most of this is practical, reflecting our general infant practice. Positive learning for the children starts from the identification of what they can do and their learning needs. The baseline provides an accurate assessment to identify and meet individuals needs. A meeting will be arranged to discuss your child’s achievements before half term where learning targets will be set.

All children will be bringing a book home to enjoy with you. It is helpful if the children in Mrs.Irving/MissFlood’s class changed their books on Monday and Thursday and Miss Kellett’s class on Tuesday and Friday. If your child would like to change their book on a different day please date and write in your child’s message book. Please can the message book stay in the book bag. We consider sharing a book and supporting your child.

Please make sure your child brings their P.E. bag ( T-shirt, shorts and plimsoles) on a Monday and that it stays at school all week. P.E. days are on a Tuesday and a Thursday afternoons for either class. Please ensure all jewellery including earrings are removed and long hair should be tied back for these sessions and the dance session on Tuesday morning. All children will need named plimsoles at school if they are going to use the activity trail on Monday mornings.

When you bring your child into school in the morning please look at their work or share a book in the classroom or library. It would be greatly appreciated if all children, including younger siblings, do not play with the equipment in the base as it is set up for the days activities. At 8.50am please help your child settle quickly on the carpet for the start of the day.