New York Class 'Show and tell'

New York class are having a 'show and tell' spot on a Friday afternoon at the same time we celebrate our achievements in class. If your child has anything special they want to share or something they want to tell us about; or have achieved something they are particularly proud of they can share this with the class on a Friday. The children can bring their special items in on Friday morning to take home that evening. We will have a basket to keep them safe in class. We would appreciate it if the children do not bring in personal items on any other day, as it can cause arguments and sometimes things get lost or broken.

Thank-you Miss Skidmore and Mrs Rymer.

Dinner today 31/1/11

Dinner today was spaghetti, meatballs, peas and garlic bread followed by sponge pudding and custard. The menu follows a two week rota system so may start to see some meals that happen regularly each week!!

Weekly Overview commencing 31st January

Literacy
This week we will be continuing our theme on Traditional Tales and looking at an old style cartoon called the 'silly symphony' which brings back memories for me as its was a cartoon that I used to watch a lot when I was a child. I bet some of you will remember it, so take a look on the link below; come on guys admit it you have seen it too? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olo923T2HQ4 .
The children will be writing speech bubbles for the characters well known sayings such as "I will huff and puff and blow your house down" and " Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin"

Phonics
We have started looking at the long vowels this half term, two letters that make one sound. We have looked at 'ai' and this week we will be learning about 'ee' and 'or' through the story about a donkey that makes the sound ee/or. We will be reading, writing and sorting this sound all week.

Numeracy
This week we will be talking about subtraction and looking at the symbols associated with this and what they mean - and = signs. We will be using numicon covers to hide sections of numicon to show how the number is being broken off or removed (taken away). The children will have a go at writing the subtraction sentences and singing lots of subtraction songs (ten green bottles, monkeys bouncing on the bed) to help them relate subtraction to taking away.

Topic
The children have had some of their fabulous questions answered last week, "Why do dinosaurs have sharp teeth" and "Do they eat people" to mention but a few. The children will be directing this learning and have asked to become paleontologists and have a go at digging for fossils so who knows what we may find this week? The children will be concentrating on creating, designing and making their very own dinosaurs from clay. Modeling and manipulating this media to replicate 3D sculptures and interpretations of their favourite dinosaurs. Watch this space!!

I think the children will be in for yet another action packed week, lots of early nights needed, we look forward to seeing you all Monday morning.

The Reception Team.

Dinner Today 25/1/11

Today we had the Traditional Sunday roast, on a Tuesday. We had chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and green vegetables with gravy. Followed by Ginger sponge and custard!!!

Dinner today

Hi guys,

Dinner today was peperonni pizza, peas and mixed vegetables with garlic bread followed by semolina and jam.

Dinosaur Song

Here is a link to the Dinosaur Song that we listened to on Friday - ENJOY!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xGS_NiIuQE

Athens Class

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be on a course tomorrow so will not be in school. Mrs Smillie will be taking my class for the full day. Lots of other things happening this week too.....Miss Hulme, Mrs Ashby and I are taking choir to the Young Voices concert in Sheffield on Thursday afternoon so Mrs Rymer will be covering my class with Miss Fotopoulou. On Friday morning Miss Waddle and I are going to visit another school and look around their Foundation Stage. Miss Russell is on a trip that morning with Year 5, so my class will be covered by a supply teacher - I will obviously talk to the children about this before Friday!! So a busy week!!!

Long Long Ago

TOPIC

Our new topic for the rest of this half term is called Long, Long Ago and is all about Dinosaurs. On Friday we asked the children to answer the question "What do they already know about dinosaurs?". It was very interesting to listen to what the children were discussing and then they were asked "What they would like to find out about dinosaurs?". They came up with an array of questions and here are some of them:- "How do Dinosaurs talk and stomp?" "How big were they?" "Did they live in the 1900's?" "What colour were the eggs?".

Mrs Foster added in a good one too "Where are they now?"and Miss Skidmore wonders if they will visit your house any time soon?

We are now set on an adventure to answer our questions, paint, build and make clay dinosaurs; read facts about them and create our very own fact files.

We are setting up a small world role-play area, so if the children have any Dinosaurs they would like to bring in and share with the class and maybe have a 'Play for the day'. We would love to meet them. Of course they may have to share their Dinosaurs with other children in class, so do not bring in any precious or delicate items as accidents can happen!!

LITERACY

We are still concentrating on Traditional Tales as our literacy focus and this week we will be introducing the Three Little Pigs. We are changing our role-play area to become The three Little Pigs house to allow the children to role-play the story with masks and props. Outside we will be creating a construction site for the pigs to design and build their houses from sticks, straw and bricks. The children will be retelling the story into a recording device called a 'chatterbox' and listening back to their recounts.

PHONICS

In phonics we will be explaining that short vowels a-e-i-o-u can be found in the middle of a word (c-a-t, sh-o-p, s-u-ch) but in some words we will find Long vowels two letters that make one sound. We will be introducing Mr 'ai' this week and showing two ways of writing and reading the 'ai', 'ay' sound. The 'ai' sound is found in the middle of a word and the 'ay' sound is usually found at the end of a word (m-ai-d and p-ay). We will be sorting words into the correct families ay/ai and reading and writing the ai/ay sounds within words and as well as sentences.

NUMERACY

We will be continuing to use numicon as a visual prompt for the children to investigate different different ways of making a number within 10, concentrating on our number bonds to 10. We will use the numicon scales to balance the correct pieces that demonstrate how to make 10. The children will start to associate the number sentence that goes with the pieces that balance 3+7=10.

PHEW!! It all sounds like we are going to be having yet another full and exciting week... so get plenty of rest and we will see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday morning.

Thanks

The Reception Team

Let's reflect............. Christmas 2010!!!!

Well just downloaded these pictures how can I resist but post a few piccies on the blog!!

Dinner Today 20th Jan

Dinner today was chicken pie, green beans, sweetcorn and new potatoes.

Pudding was Fruit crumble and custard!

Dinner Today 19th January

Well we all went into the hall really well today and the children had burger, a range of seasonal vegetables (carrots, cabbage, suede) potatoes and gravy!! I hope Mrs Rymer can help with pudding as I was at the Post Office during my lunchtime.

Dinner Today 18/01/11

Today the children tucked into bolognese pasta, cheese, brocolli, cauliflower and/or salad. Followed by sponge pudding and custard.

Methley’s World Book Cup

Here goes the explanation of how you can earn points and rewards for your class in the World Book Cup! To earn points and qualify you must be reading at home and have your reading record signed by the person that you have read with.

If everybody (100% of the children) in the class has read to somebody at home then your class will be rewarded with a huge 10 points. If three quarters or more of the children (75% to 99%) have read then you will earn a great 5 points or if half of the children (50% 50 74%) of the children have read then your class will get 3 points BUT if less than half (49% or less) have read at home then your class will not earn any points that week!

So this means that you need to make sure that you are taking your books home as often as possible to read to somebody and earn those fabulous points!

Good luck!

Which Class?

We would like to get an idea of who is actually reading the blog! Please answer the question on the 'POLL' to indicate which class your child is in! We would eventually like the blog to take over from newsletters etc so it would be good to see who is actually reading it!

Thanks :)

Overview - Week Beginning 17th January

Another amazing week in Reception this week!! I would like to say a super well done to Athens class who managed a BINGO week this week (full attendance!) I would also like to say a BIG thank you to Marshalls extended family in China who have sent us some amazing things for Chinese New Year - it was very exciting opening the boxes and looking at the beautiful decorations-our classrooms will look amazing next week!!

So next week.....our Topic continues with Chinese New Year - so lots of exciting things happening! Last week we told the children the story about the animals and discussed what China is like - this week we will be looking more at the traditions and the dragon dance and will also be sampling some Chinese food!!

Literacy this week continues with The Gingerbread Man - we will be following instructions to make gingerbread men - yum! If anybody has a gingerbread man cutter it would be great if we could borrow it as we only have one!!

Numeracy this week will look at addition. We will be using numicon to make number bonds of any numbers up to 10 and looking at how to write a number sentence (3+2=5).

In phonics this week we will be continuing looking ch-th-sh and ng - we will be going on a word hunt looking for words that contain those digraphs!

Gymnastics went really well last week - the children really enjoyed the apparatus - especially the wall bars!! I did take lots of photos - which I will get round to posting on here along with the dinner pictures!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!! :)

Thanks

The Reception Team

dinner today - 13th Jan

Dinner today was meatballs and spaghetti with mixed veg and green beans.

Pudding was.....Fruit Crumble and custard! :)

Smart Working Wednesday (SWW)

Today was our first Smart Working Wednesday (SWW)! Just to explain.....SWW is where the whole school (from Rec to Year 6) split into groups across school and and take part in 'their' SMART activity. The children have chosen their SMART groups themselves as something they think they are good at and enjoy!! They range from number smart, body smart, music smart, 2d/3d smart, practical smart, word smart and nature smart!! The children are collected by Year 6 children who take them to their groups and then they brought back safely to our classroom at the end of the 50 minute session which runs from 2:30-3:20 every Wednesday!! This is a great opportunity for the children to mix with the older children and for them to get to know other teachers as well as the school itself!!

It seemed to go really well today and most of the children came back really excited about what they had been doing! There were a few children that were a little apprehensive about going - but I'm sure that over the next few weeks as they get used to routine they will all be fine!!

Please ask your children about it and find out what they thought and if you have time to leave us a comment that would be great!! :)

Dinner today 12th Jan

Dinner today was Roast Pork, Roast potatoes, sprouts and cabbage!

Pudding was ice-cream!

Dinner today 11th Jan

Dinner today was lasagne, jacket potato, salad and carrots.

Pudding was Bakewell Tart and custard!

Attendance for Autumn term

Dinner Today 10/01/11

Today the children had a lovely social time, eating creamy ham pasta, garlic bread along with broccoli and potatoes followed by chocolate rice krispie cakes!!

Numeracy websites

Hi,

I have been asked recently to recommend some good websites the children can access at home. These ones are easy to access independently; give them a try and let me know what you think and how the children get on!! They are Topmarks.co.uk and ICT Games.com. Links below:






www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx?cat=1

www.ictgames.com/resources

I hope this helps.........

Miss S

Weekly Overview week beginning 10th Jan 2011

Last week was a great first week back - the children all came back settled and ready for the new term - a fab start to Spring term!!

This week we will begin looking at Chinese New Year, we will be learning about the story of Chinese New Year and finding out which animals we all are. I believe that I am a goat and Miss Skidmore is a pig - sorry I mean a boar!! :) We will also be learning about Chinese New Year traditions, such as the red envelopes and the Chinese Dragon Dance!! We will also be looking at Chinese food - if anybody has any chopsticks we could borrow that would be great!

During literacy this week we will begin looking at our first Traditional Tale - The Gingerbread Man - we will be doing lots of role play and hot seating (This is where the children pretend to be one of the characters and they answer questions in role.) We will sequencing the story and taking part in lots of shared reading!!

Phonics this week sees the start of Phase 3!! We will be learning the consonant digraph ch-sh-th-ng and learning to read the Tricky Words 'said' and 'was'! We will also be continuing with caption writing and incorporating our new sounds and words!!

Numeracy this week will focus on time - we will be sequencing the school day and also introducing telling the time beginning with 'o' clock! We will be counting in 5's as we count around the clock and talking about how many minutes in a hour!!!

Our SEAL statement this week is 'I am patient and I persist with my work' so will be talking lots about keeping on going even when things get a little tough!

PE this week will see the start of Gymnastics - we will be thinking about how we can move our bodies to travel around equipment - we hope to get the apparatus out - which we think the children will love!!

Just a quick note on dinner times - After a few trails last week - we are now moving back to our normal dinnertime, in fact a little earlier at 11:30am - which in lots of ways is better as we have a more balanced morning and afternoon - rather that a super long morning followed by a very short afternoon! The children are enjoying eating at the new tables and are becoming very independent at serving their own food!! I will take some photo's this week and post on here!!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and we shall see you all tomorrow!!

Thanks

The Reception Team

P.S Mr Oulton - Alice bought H's PE bag home by mistake!! It's all washed and ironed and ready to go! :)

Dinner Today 7th Jan

I'm really sorry I'm not sure what dinner was today - as I was not there!! With it being Friday though, I suspect it was fish and chips with peas/beans - and maybe pudding was something with custard??? Maybe Mrs Rymer or Miss Fotopoulou could leave a comment and enlighten us all? :)

Dinner Today 6th Jan

Dinner Today was:

Pizza, wedges, cauliflower and sweetcorn

Pudding was Jam Sponge and Custard!

Dinner Today 4th Jan 2011

Dinner today was Chicken Curry with broccoli, carrots and cauliflower.

Pudding was Sponge and Custard!!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everybody we hope you've had a great holiday!! I'm sure you're all ready to get back to normal and back to the routine - I know we are!!!

So this week.....yet again lots to do so here goes with a brief overview!

We begin this term with a brief look at winter where we will be reading some winter stories, looking at the film 'March of the Penguins' and finding out some facts about penguins - we will be thinking about the weather, although we hope that the snow and ice does not return!! We will also be looking at 'Happy Feet', if anybody has a copy of the DVD - could we borrow it as we would like to show the children a couple of short extracts as a fascinator!

We are getting ready to start Phase 3 phonics - but before we do we are going to recap all the phase 2 work we did last term - so this week will involve lots of blending and segmenting using the phase 2 phonemes and we will be writing short captions using the 4 finger check - this is 4 points that they need to remember when writing:

1. Capital letter


2. Full Stop


3. Finger spaces


4. Does it make sense

Numeracy this week we will be singing our days of the week song and reading and writing numerals. Our main focus will be finding the missing number along a number line and using all our problem solving skills to do this - we will be encouraging the children to describe how they know what the missing number is e.g. 'I know it's 12 because 12 comes after 11 and before 13.'

This week also sees the beginning of our new dinnertime 'family service'. We will now be going for dinner at 12:30pm with Year 6. We will be using our new dining tables and chairs and Mrs Rymer and Miss Fotopoulou will continue to have dinner with the children. There is also a change to myself and Miss Skidmore's PPA time and this will now be on a Friday morning. Miss Russell will continue to cover Athens class and Miss Gott will be covering New York class. I will also be out of class on a Tuesday afternoon and Miss Russell will cover this time too.

We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow - early nights all round I think! :)

Thank you

The Reception Team