Cygnus - Reflect and Review

Dear Reception and Nursery families

Welcome to our joint classroom for Summer term!

It has been wonderful to welcome the Nursery class to Cygnus classroom. 

This week the two groups of children have been helping each other to settle in and we have seen some great interaction between the children.

Our topic this term is Journeys. We started this week with journeys through stories and heard Mrs P and Michael Rosen tell the story of ‘We’re going on a bearhunt.’ Drawing club explored the story and the vocabulary we learned this week was: adventure, journey, together, challenge, support, panic, race and safe.

The Reception children have been subitising this week using a new piece of equipment called a Rekenrek (a 2 tier abacus with 20 beads in 2 colours). They have been able to use the Rekenreks to visualise numbers within 10 really easily and this has let us practice our number bonds to 10. 

Nursery have been focused on the concept of one more this week and have been using some of our maths loose parts and blocks to count. We have also been doing some pattern play with tangram puzzles.

Big 3 and Me this week focused on caring about our class. The children learned the British sign language signs for excited, empty and surprised. The Big 3 and Me challenge this week was to try to work together  with others in a group. 

Nursery children had their first Spirals circle time session. The short, intentional group routines build skills and confidence in communication and language, social and emotional skills and cognitive development.  

We have started our Helicopter story sessions again this week which involve all the children in personal story telling and participatory enactment of these stories as a group. They joined in with great enthusiasm and we are looking forward to next week's stories. 

We thought together about Eid this week after the Eid Ul-Adha celebrations last week. The children decorated and ate a shortbread sheep biscuit together for an extra snack. Eid Mubarak!

On Friday we heard the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff and sang and danced along to the BBC musical storyland telling of the tale with the BBC philharmonic. Link here: Musical Storyland - BBC iPlayer

We are planning a buddy system (with one Reception child and one Nursery child) for the Thought of the day rota from next week so please keep an eye out for an updated rota.

Thought of the day encourages class community and social and language development. Each day a child will share their ‘thought of the day’ with the class. This might be a piece of calming, quiet music, a photo or picture from nature that fills them with awe and wonder or something from home that they love and is special to them. An example might be sharing a nature photo and the child saying ‘This is a picture of a sunrise I saw on holiday. I love how the sky changes colour and how the sun slowly rises.’

Next week at a glance

Next week we will be thinking about holiday journeys and train journeys. 

Dates for your diary: 

Outdoor learning dates this term: 19th June (Father’s Day forest school), 26th June, 3rd July (Reception children only). Nursery children will be having outdoor learning on Wednesday afternoons. 

10th May - Didcot Railway Museum Visit (Reception children only).

26th June - Rescheduled Zoolab visit to the school.

8th July - Sports day and family picnic (details to follow)

10th July - Last day with current teachers.

13th-17th July - Transition week.

17th July - Last day of term 1pm finish. 

Notices:

Didcot Railway centre visit: Please bring the children to school by 8.15am. The visit will involve outdoor walking, so please ensure the children wear suitable clothing and appropriate shoes. Children will need a packed lunch and a water bottle, a waterproof coat, a sunhat and suncream. The children will not need any spending money. We will be back at school for a collection time of 3.30pm. If there are any delays the school office will inform you. 

Friday 19th February will be a special Father’s day forest school session. All dads are welcome to join us (Reception children only). 

Nursery children will be having outdoor learning on Wednesday afternoons.

The Reception children are now all reading books in phonics and will be bringing new books home every week. Please make sure they always have their reading books in their books bags and bring the bags to school every day. The day we change books will change depending on the timetable. 

Children need a pair of indoor shoes/plimsoles to change into to come into the classroom and a spare set of clothes, including pants and socks, for any accidents. These should be brought to school every day please. 

Please make sure the children have a waterproof coat every day. We have outdoor play as often as possible and we need to be ready for changes in the weather. 

Please make sure the children have a sunhat/cap at school and their own sunscreen to use at school. 

If your child is going home with someone else, please make sure you email the school office to advise us of the change: office@nhps.org.uk 

Best wishes

The Reception Team