Pixie Class (Reception)
Hello, my name is Miss Acott and I am the Class Teacher in Pixie Class. Mrs Bird is the Teaching Assistant in the classroom. We hope everyone had a lovely half term and is excited to be back for term 2.
Pixie Class Newsletters:
This is where you will find our class newsletters. They will be uploaded every week to keep you updated on what we have been up to.
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A warm welcome back to the Pixies and Parents. I hope everyone is looking forward to a fun-filled second term of the year. This term we will be continuing our topic of 'All about me' as well as covering 'Celebrations' within that. In response to children's interests and questions we will be exploring 'where we live' and our local area. Please have a look at our topic map below to see what we will be up to!
During the run-up to Christmas, the Pixies will be practicing for the nativity to be performed just before the holidays. As more details are finalised we will let you know more.
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The Reception class follows the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which is the curriculum until they enter the Primary National Curriculum in Year 1. There are seven areas of development which the children will be assessed against throughout the year. Children are expected to achieve a ‘Good Level of Development’ by the end of the year. This is achieved by meeting the Early Learning Goals which can be found on the curriculum link below. We work closely with families and other professionals to ensure that all children are given the best opportunities to achieve their potential.
If you would like to have a look at the curriculum please click on the attachments below:
Term 2’s topic will be ‘All about me- where we live’ and 'Celebrations'. Attached below is the topic plan which outlines what we will be focusing on in each area of development and some activities we may be engaging with throughout the term:
What have we been up to?
Here, we will post some pictures of the exciting things we have been up to in Pixie class.
Monday 18/11/19
Today we went to the woods. This is our first winter session. Once we got over being cold, we enjoyed a range of activities including making fat balls, stick men, hot chocolate and collages. Of course we also climbed trees and made dens!
Tuesday 5/11/19
Today we went on a sponsored wellie walk with Stepping Stones Nursery. We are raising some money to continue to develop our outdoor area and maybe even a early years pet! When we have collated all of the money, we will let you know how much we have raised.
Thursday 31/10/19
BOO! In Pixie Class, we have had great fun at Halloween! We has a festive afternoon where we enjoyed dressing up. We had some great costumes (have a look at our lovely photographs below!). We looked at what was inside pumpkins and decided that it was quite slimy and gooey! EWWWWW!
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Tuesday 1/10/19
We had some of the children from Stepping Stones nursery come to play with us this morning! It was nice to see our old friends as well as make some new ones. We look forward to seeing them again soon! Blossom the guinea-pig also came for a visit to the classroom and we got to have a cuddle with her too.
Monday 30/9/19
Today, the Pixies had the chance to go and visit some guinea-pigs! Stepping Stones nursery had some that were visiting. We found out that their names are Blossom and Giraffe. They were very cute and we had lots of fun.
Thursday 19/9/19
The Pixies have had lots of fun in our Outdoor Learning Day! We made magic wands with sticks and glitter (of course there was glitter!), going on a colour hunt, and making a den for fairies! We also put our knowledge of shapes to the test and had a go at making our shapes using things we found in the woods.
Monday 16/9/19
On Monday, the pixies enjoyed making lanterns ready for the Sittingbourne Festival of Light. We had to spread glue on the table and tissue paper using sponges before wrapping it around our lantern frame. We chose different shapes to decorate it to give it the finishing touches. We had great fun, although a little messy and sticky!
We will be taking our lanterns over to the nursery to show the other children soon too.
Our Classroom
Here are some pictures of Pixie Class:
Writing Area Computer / Listening Area
Creative corner Role Play Area
Maths Area Reading Area
Outside Area
Construction Area Mud Kitchen
Role-play house
Reading
At the beginning of the year the children we be sent home with reading books. These may look a little different from usual as they will not have any words in them to begin with. This is normal. Our aim is to develop children’s comprehension of a sequence of events told through pictures before then progressing to words. Children will be moved on to books with words once they have learned enough sounds and graphemes within their phonics sessions.
Please try to read with your children each evening for 10 minutes and record this in the purple reading log. If we can see all the pages in the book have been read, we will change the book. We will ask you to read the story several times with your child, this is to encourage them to use their comprehension skills to understand the story that they are reading rather than simply decoding the words with their sounds.
In addition to this if your child goes up a reading band, look out for a sticker to congratulate them! We will provide you with their next steps in reading so you can fully support them at home.
For more information on how to help your children read at home and the positive comments you can write in their reading log as their reading progresses, please refer to the ' 50 ways to say well done' document attached.
Phonics
As a school, we follow the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme outlined by the DfE. However, we also use aspects from other programmes such as ‘Jolly Phonics’ to support our teaching.
In Term 1 there will be a workshop that parents will be invited to. The date and time of the workshop will be later confirmed, and you will be given more details of this closer to the time.
Phase 1 is taught throughout Nursery and school through the use of listening games. This phase is aimed at developing children’s ability to distinguish between different sounds as well as being able to form sounds.
In Phase 2, letters and their sounds are introduced one at a time. A set of letters is taught each week, in the following sequence:
Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
As soon as each set of letters is introduced, children will be encouraged to use their knowledge of the letter sounds to blend and sound out words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds s-a-t to make the word sat. They will also start learning to segment words. For example, they might be asked to find the letter sounds that make the word tap from a small selection of magnetic letters
For further support on how to aid your child with phonics please refer to ‘Phonics Matters’
When teaching phonics we teach children the pure sounds. For example, instead of saying the letter name like ‘em’ for M or ‘muh’ we teach the sound /m/. This then supports the children when reading as they will be able to correctly sound out the word to blend the sounds together to read the word.
If you would like to hear the pronunciation of each sound please see the video link below:
When your child has completed the end of their phase they will be sent home with a certificate, sound mat and tricky word bookmark for their new phase.
Maths
This term children will focus on:
There will also be a workshop for maths, and the date for this will be later confirmed. We look forward to seeing you there.
Workshops
Parents will be invited to attend these workshops which will be spread out throughout the year;
- Tapestry Training
- Phase 2 Phonics Workshop
- Phonics 'in action' sessions
- Maths workshop
- Maths 'in action' sessions
- 'Love of Reading' Workshop
- Phase 3 Phonics Workshop
- Phonics 'in action' sessions
- Early Writing Workshop
If you cannot attend a workshop for any reason, please just let me know and I can give you some information sheets about what was shared in the workshop and any useful resources that you may need.
If there are any other topics/areas you would like some more information about, please feel free to ask me and I can set up another workshop to support parents.
We also value your feedback on these workshops to please tell us how you found them and if you think we could do anything else to support you and your children.
Child initiated
In Reception, we value the impact of play and how this supports a child’s development. We have child initiated time in the afternoon for children to develop their knowledge and understanding of the world, technological skills, communication and language, speaking and listening, building and developing relationships, expressive arts and imagination. This time consolidates a child’s understanding and allows them to put their skills in to practice and develop them independently.
Tapestry
In Pixie Class, we use Tapestry to document children’s learning and development. I am aware that some parents may be familiar with this programme as the Nursery also uses it. We would still like to invite parents/carers to our Tapestry Workshop which will take place in Term 1 as we would like to go over how the school uses the programme to support your child.
Homework
Lynsted and Norton Primary School Curriculum Promise for Creative Curriculum.
We expect:
- All children are expected to read 5 times a week in order to meet the Pixie Class reading challenge.
- To practice sounds using a sound book, sound mat or tricky word bookmark.
- Watch out for the Tapestry challenges!!
- Upload any significant new learning on to Tapestry you see at home.
Open Afternoon
Each term the children are very busy and produce some wonderful things both in their books and around the classroom. We would like to give you the opportunity to be shown these by your children in a parent ‘Stay and Play’ session. This will be held on the final week of each term from @ 2.30 – 3.15pm in Pixie Class.
Your children will have the opportunity to show you all of their fabulous work they produce each term, read a story with you and show you around their classroom!
PE
Our PE Day is Wednesday. Please make sure your children have their kit in school on this day so they can fully participate in all our PE activities. This is also the day that items of our school uniform go missing as the children get changed for PE independently. To avoid this please make sure all items of clothing are labelled.
For children to participate in PE they are not allowed to wear earrings. Please remove these before children come to school.
Our PE topic this term explores different ways of moving and balancing using different parts of their body.
As the weather in September can be unpredictable please make sure your child has track suit bottoms and a jumper as well as trainers in their PE bag. Children will continue to do PE outside and it is essential they have the appropriate clothing.
Uniform
All children are to wear;
- White polo top / white shirt.
- Black Trousers / Black Skirt / Black Shorts
- Summer Dress
- Black Shoes
- School Jumper / School Cardigan / School Fleece
Please make sure all these items are labeled with the child’s name clearly visible.
Water Bottles
We provide a water bottle for each child. These are filled up and cleaned out daily. These water bottles are not to be taken home and will remain in school. Children do not need an additional water bottle bought in from home unless they are packed lunch.
Fruit and Milk
All children will be provided with a snack at 10.15 daily. Children will be provided with a piece of fruit and carton of milk. Free milk is available for all children under the age of five in school, funded by the UK government. Once your child turns five you will be asked to pay a subsidised rate for your child to continue to receive milk. If you would like to register your child with milk once your child turns five please visit www.coolmilk.com
Lunch Times
All children will be supervised in the dinner hall by a member of the reception team. They are there to aid the children to carry their trays, support them to use a knife and fork and encourage them to try a variety of different foods offered. All children up in EYFS and KS1 are entitled to a free school meal. Menus can be found at www.principals-catering.com and are available from the school office.
If children prefer, they can also bring in a packed lunch. We are proud to say that we are a ‘healthy school’ and therefore no crisps or chocolate are to be bought into school.
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If you have any additional questions, worries or concerns please feel free to drop in and speak to your class teacher who will be on the playground at 8.40am each morning, at the end of the school day or by writing in your in the home contact book. Alternatively, you can ring the school office and the class teacher will ring you back at a convenient time.
Miss Acott
For further support on how to aid your child with maths please click here; ‘Maths Matters’