Reception
Welcome to our Reception Class Page.
Reception Curriculum Information for Parents and Carers – Summer Term 2024
The Summer Term is here and we would like to share with you a summary of what your child is learning in class. We would also like to share some ways that you can support your child at home.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
We will be continuing using the Zones of Regulation to examine how we feel and how to move ourselves into the ‘green zone’, which means we are ready for learning. We will be reading stories such as Ruby’s Worry and books which explore friendships. Using the stories, we will think about how we can be a good friend, how we can be kind towards others and what to do to solve conflict.
Our class targets for the summer term are:
- I can wash my hands with soap.
- I can take off my own jumper.
- I can use a knife and fork.
- I can pour myself a cup of water.
Physical Development
We will be enjoying our outside area in the sunshine to climb, play, balance and play games which develop our core strength. We will continue to practise using one handed tools such as scissors and to develop our fine motor skills and ensure our pencil grip is comfortable and ready for writing. We will continue to practise letter formation and ensure we can form each letter correctly before we move to Year 1.
In PE lessons, the children will be preparing for the Sports Day carousel of activities.
Communication and Language
We will have lots of opportunities to speak about what we are learning. We will be sharing our half term projects with our friends and talking about them in front of the class. This term, Reception will lead the school in our first class assembly, which will give us the chance to practise speaking clearly in front of the whole school!
In the classroom, we will try to answer in full sentences which will help us prepare for writing.
We know how important vocabulary is and we will learn new words to help us talk about our topics as well as visiting the farm and watching ducklings hatch in school.
Literacy – Reading
In phonics, we will be revising our Phase 2 and 3 sounds. These can be found in the sound books that we sent home in the Autumn. We will be reading words with adjacent consonants, longer words and compound words. As we move to the end of term, we will read words ending in suffixes such as -ing, -ed, -est. Our decodable reading books will give us chances to practise our decoding and comprehension skills.
We love reading in Reception and we have lots of opportunities each day to share stories related to our topics, non-fiction texts and revisit old favourites. The children love to answer (and ask) questions about what we are reading. We will continue to visit the library each Friday to choose our own book to share at home.
Literacy - Writing
We have lots to write about in class! As we learn about growing, we will write about how to plant a seed as well as a caption to match our favourite part of ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’. The arrival of the ducklings in June will also give us lots of opportunities to record and share observations in addition to our class wormery, which we will be looking after.
Mathematics
This term, we will continue to practise our counting skills with lots of opportunities to count forwards and backwards from 10, finding one more and one less than and matching numbers to various representations. This term, we will also start to explore numbers beyond 10 and think about what the ‘teen’ numbers look like. We will use bead strings, Numicon and number fan to take part in Mathematics sessions.
In our learning environment, we will measure our plants, weigh fruit and vegetables as well as use money in our ‘fruit and vegetable shop’ role play area. We will explore capacity using our water and sand areas and develop our Mathematical vocabulary.
Understanding the World
This term, we will have lots of opportunities to explore the natural world around us. Through our class topic of ‘Growing’ as well as visits to Bocketts Farm and the arrival of the ducklings, we will make observations and draw pictures of plants and animals. We will share books about the seasons to help us understand the important changes around us. Through activities such as making ice-lollies, we will start to think about other important changes such as changing states of matter.
Expressive Arts and Design
Our classroom provides endless opportunities for the children to express themselves. We will use our role play areas and small world to enable the children to play characters and create and narrate their own stories. The children are encouraged to invent, adapt and narrate stories with their peers including some of our key texts such as ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’.
The children are encouraged to create using a variety of tools and experiment using a variety of techniques and materials. The children love to share their creations and we encourage them to take photographs of their work as well as using our classroom to display and celebrate our work.
Music
Summer Half Term 1: We will be exploring different dynamics in music this half term. How can we sing loudly? How can we sing quietly? We will also be learning through song, tuned percussion instruments and listening to different kinds of music, about the musical words forte and piano.
Summer Half Term 2: We will be recapping everything the children have learnt so far this year to get them ready for Year 1; pulse, rhythmic notation, pitch and dynamics will all be explored through a variety of songs, games, and instrument work.
RE
In our topic of Gathering, we will learn about coming together to celebrate the Mass.
In our Pentecost topic, we will begin to understand the stories of Easter and Pentecost, and that during Pentecost Jesus sends his friend the Holy Spirit.
In our World topic, we will learn how everyone shares the world. Through the example of CAFOD, we will explore ways we can help to make a fairer world with a particular focus on water usage.
In our other Faith topic, we will be learning that Diwali is an important festival for Hindu people.
Educational Visits
Arrival of the ducklings in week beginning 5th June 2024.
Bocketts Farm on 21st May 2024 - explore what happens in Spring/ Summer.
Butterfly hatching kit in June 2024.
How you can help your child at home
Reading
Phonics - review and recap taught sounds.
Tricky words - use as flash cards to encourage instant recall.
Read to your children (anything they enjoy). This not only promotes reading for pleasure but is invaluable in developing vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Mathematics
Making 5 - can the children say which numbers make 5? e.g. 1 and 4, 2 and 3 (using practical resources).
Subitising - lots of games using dice! Can the children say how many objects there are without counting (numbers to 5).
Accurate counting - through play, find opportunities to count out using 1–1 correspondence and know that the final number is the total.
Speaking
Find any opportunity to talk to your child! Ask them questions and give them time to talk. Encourage them to answer in full sentence, where appropriate. Narrate what you are doing (cooking, going for a walk etc) to provide your children with lots of exposure to high quality talk! This makes a huge difference to their own speaking skills as well as their understanding of sentence structure and syntax, which will aid their writing.