The Circus Is Coming To Town!

Tiger and Zebra Class visited Circomedia in Portland Square to start off our topic on Circus Skills.

We had a great time learning how to do the tight wire with Maya, Juggling with Simon and Tumbling with D. We can't wait to practice our circus skills at school!

Olympics at Cabot!

We were lucky today to have a special visit from Tom Parsons who is a High Jump champion who will hopefully represent Team GB in the London Olympics this summer!

We all took part in some exercise in the hall to see what it is like to be a real athlete.

Afterwards, Tom joined us in an assembly and talked about what it is like to be a High Jump athlete. We put our school name on the GB flag that will be taken to the Olympics in London!

Here is a video of an interview with Tom Parsons:

Click here

Book Week

We enjoyed World Book Week!

First of all there was 'Bedtime Stories' and some of Reception Class came back to school in their pyjamas to have hot chocolate and listen to a story read by Miss Pearce and Miss Codling.

The next day was World Book Day, and what better way to spend it than dressing up as our favourite book characters and going to Foyles bookshop in Cabot Circus. We all chose a book with our book token and then we had a story read to us.

If that wasn't enough, then we came back to school to see what all the teachers and other children were dressed up as! Can you spot the different characters?

Bedtime Stories

Brush Your Teeth!

We had a visit from the Dentist the other day to talk about looking after our teeth.

She told us we need to brush twice a day and when we brush we have to brush for two minutes.

Have you brushed your teeth enough today?

Numicon!

The children have loved using Numicon to learn how to count and add. Numicon is a set  a of shapes that give children a tactile and visual representation of number ideas. Children learn by doing, learn by seeing, and have a strong sense of pattern.The Numicon shapes are designed so that children see connections between numbers and the shapes. A key understanding for children is that numbers are not just randomly occuring things, but that they form a highly organised system which is full of many kinds of patterns.

Here are some pictures of tigers and zebras exploring Numicon ideas!

Welcome to 2012!

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year 2012! Tiger and Zebra Classes have made a good start to the new year and we would like to share with you some of the areas of learning that the children will be concentrating on over the next few weeks.

Reading

The children are making good progress in their reading and have begun to join the reading scheme and bring home Level 1 books. Please be aware that it is out expectation that children get to Level 6 by the end of Reception. Your children change their books every day and it is important that you read with them on a daily basis.

Phonics

The children are secure with their knowledge of Phase 2 phonics and we have already made a start with Phase 3:

j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu

ch, sh, th, ng

ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Please can you help them sound out and read these sounds?

Maths

We are now concentrating on recognising and writing numbers to 20. We have also started using the symbols ‘+’ and ‘=’ and have been doing a lot of practical addition. This term we introduce the symbol ‘-’ and will be doing practical subtraction games and activities.

We also need children to recognise and talk about the following 2D and 3D shapes:

square, circle, rectangle, triangle, pentagon, hexagon

cube, cuboid, sphere, cone

Topic

Our topic for this term is ‘Up, Up and Away’ and we will be looking at everything that flies, including planes, helicopters, birds and butterflies. Our role play area is Cabot Airport and if your child has a labelled suitcase or a bag to take on ‘holiday’, then we would love it if they brought it in!

Forestry Friday

We continue to learn skills and knowledge by going out into our outside area every Friday. Please make sure that your children are warm and dry and have a pair of wellies with them on a Friday.

Many Thanks

The Reception Team