Year R's Weekly Checklist

                              Tuesday - Home reader book 'Swap Shop'

                              Tuesday - PE Day -  dress in PE kit today

                            Thursday   - Library day -library book change day 

Friday - Home reader book change 'Swap Shop'

Our theme for this term is ...

Amazing Tiny Worlds

Here are some texts we are reading together over this half term...

This half term the children will be  delving into the amazing TINY WORLDS of minibeasts and other enchanted garden dwellers such as elves and fairies. We will explore their habitats and become garden adventurers as we go on minibeast hunts in the local area. We heard a rumor that there is also a kingdom of tree dwelling fairies in forest school at the Junior site. We will explore to see if we can find any evidence of doors , windows, furniture and even messages!

Stories for Snories!

by the Year R Team

Snuggle up at home and listen to a story from your lovely year R team. This could be perfect for bedtime but it  could also be anytime you have 5 minutes to listen to a story! Remember the more time you hear it the better you will know it. This half term's stories are all about heroes. 

What's that Nursery Rhyme?

We have been busy learning all about rhyme in Early Years. Some familiar faces from around school have helped us by singing us their favourites. How many can you sing on your own. Practise together at home and then come in and surprise us! 

Our Homework Heroes!

Here are some of our little homework heroes (with the help of some big ones)!

We love to see all your efforts outside of school. Please keep them coming in on Tapestry.

Spring 2

Year R World Book Day

What a fantastic day! Thank you so much to all the families  who spent time creating, making and dressing up the costumes for World Book Day. Thank you for sharing the stories with your children and celebrating the amazing world of stories and imagination.

Reflections on Spring 1

Another wonderful half term. We started with a magical Cinderella Pantomime who performed in our school hall. The children loved joining in and watching a story acted out in person. 

We also learned all about some heroes very close to us who work in and around our school. We learned about their profession and how they look after us.

Then we learned about some other heroes in our local areas who keep our community safe. We found out about the police, fire service, paramedics, coast guards, doctors, nurses and dentist. We had a lot of fun dressing up in these too. You will see more of these photos on our Tapestry.

Then of course we couldn't miss out our favourite type of hero - the superheroes!

We had a daily video from some familiar adults who were using the superhero alter-ego. They asked for the children's help to capture the Evil Pea from our favourite story, 'Supertatoe'. The children all eagerly helped and were so good that after a day's superhero training,  they were all invited to become members of 'Superhero's United'!

In our final week, we all boarded 'Leesland Airways' to fly around the world and visit a different country each day. The children got on the plane with their passports and received a sticker for each country to say they had been. During the day we explored the music, language, traditions, food and costumes familiar to the country. We were also very privileged to have some expert speakers (our children) who shared a little knowledge with us about some of the countries they have visited, lived in or have family in.

Reflections Autumn 2 ...

Thank you all again for such an exciting half term. It was packed with fun and with such a special time of year we broke up for holiday on such a high.

We started by learning all about our bodies with a very familiar story called 'Funnybones'. There was a special visit from a very funny group of skeletons who spent they day dancing!

When the leaves started to fall in the Year R garden, we became more fascinated with all the amazing shape sticks we found. After reading Stanley's stick we realised all the wonderful things it could be. All the children decorated their own using their imagination and had a wonderful time role playing with them.

We also had a fantastic week learning how to ride a strider bike. We all developed greater balance and confidence and had so much fun too.

Many of the children also got to experience their first Leesland Disco arranged by our wonderful 'Leesland Angels PTA'.

We had more special days reflecting on 'Anti-bullying' day and 'Rememberance' day and 'Children in Need' day

Then we moved into Christmas and started quickly learning new songs ready for our Nativity performance. All the children were amazing and we are sure you were all as proud of them as we were. We had visitors from some very special people too and an exciting Christmas Lunch and little walk to our local church 'St Faith's'.

All the children made fantastic progress this half term especially in their phonics and maths skills and this can be seen in all their lovely work they have been producing and in their play. They are all working so hard on their reading and are now learning words with letters we describe as 'special friends'. These are digraphs such as 'ch' 'qu' 'ng'.

We must also mention our fabulous 'Nursery Rhyme Day'. Everybody got to visit each class where they delved into a nursery rhyme and fun activities for the whole day. The whole staff dressed in costume. Can you guess who they are?

Reflections Autumn 1 ...

Thank you all for a fantastic first half term of school! All the children have been so good at coming in, making new friends and showing eagerness in their learning and play. Last half term we enjoyed reading the 'Colour Monster' by Anna Llenas together and of course the wonderful 'Emer' by David McKee. Elmer made a surprise visit which the children loved and then we celebrated how special and unique we are with an 'Elmer' day.

We also learnt how to skip with 'Dan the Man' and finally got to use our new an exciting Trim Trail.         

Well done to all the families and children to who managed to do three reads a week to get their ticket stamped for an extra playtime on Fridays. We can see that lots of you have been using the apps 'Reading Eggs' and 'Maths Seeds' and we know that your children have said how much fun they are. Don't forget we celebrate progress on these with certificates to take home too. 

We also enjoyed a fantastic 'Phonics Learning in Action' with families too this half term. We really valued your feed back and hope that you got to try some of the activities at home too.

Parent Feedback Wordle Learning in Action Autumn 1

Thank you also for a lovely parents' evening. It was so good to be able to speak to you all again and tell you just how wonderful your children are!

Here a few reminders about your child's day in school:

We will keep you up to date with our learning each week on our Tapestry app so that you can join in too at home.

The school doors open at 8.35am and the registers close at 8.45am.

You can collect your little ones at 3pm at our green Early Years' doors.

We have a school water bottle for your child which they can access throughout the whole day. We also provide a fruit snack at around 10.15am to keep their energy up.

If your child is having a hot dinner with us, the lunch menu is on this website. We also have a copy on the door in the morning if you want to help your child choose each day.

Homework is all about spending special time together. You will receive a 'Homework' selector each half term to give you some ideas. These will range from art to craft activities to fun times together like splashing in muddy puddles! You will also recieve a half termly overview of your child's learning and some important language words to learn with your child to help them boost their talking skills for the next half term.

We also send home a school reading book which will be levelled at your child's current reading ability. If you read this with your child, please initial the 'Trim Trail Reading Ticket'. If your child has read three times, they can trade it in for an extra special playtime on Fridays!

You should now have your passwords so that you can access the 'Reading Eggs and Math Seeds' app. This is a fun, educational, engaging way to support learning at home. And of course, there are certificates and rewards for this too!

Celebration Assembly  happens on a Friday and as well as celebrating birthdays there are also certificates of recognition for our Christian Values of: Love, Grace and Respect and our Foundations of Learning; Independence and Resilience (Pogo Penguin), Self-Awareness (Oreo Owl) , Collaboration and Relationships (Bingo Bee) and Thinking Skills (Cosmo Cat).

FABB- First Attention to Best Behaviour

There is also another special reward for those children who are always on their 'best behaviour'. Once a week the Head of School has a special story time in her Octopus office. One child from each class is invited to share the story and have  a little treat of juice and a biscuit alongside their special gold sticker, certificate and special letter home.

For weekly pictures of our learning and experiences in year R, please remember to  look at TAPESTRY. You will see what the children have been learning about and all the progress they are making.

Fun with Phonics!

This half  term we will be continuing to learn all about sounds in the environment. Very quickly we have begun to learn to blend sounds to make real words which has started us on the path to becoming readers.

Magical Maths

This half term in maths, we will learning all about our numbers to 5. We will count beyond this but we will be learning the values and properties of each of these numbers. We will learn the composition of them using adding and subtractions as well as recognising the digits and the amount by 'subitising'.

Our Learning Landscape in Pictures

This year we have been able to welcome Early Years settings from Fareham and Gosport to our wonderful learning environment. It was lovely to get such positive feedback and being able to share ideas with our other Early Years colleagues. 

Here are some of our Teachers in Year R, reading their favourite book.

Can you guess who they are?

Mrs Rendall was wondering 'What does the fox say?' ...

Watch the video to find out!

Red Tricky Word Games

Click on to this fabulous web page full of ideas for playing games with those

'red tricky words' which don't follow the rules. We call them 'sight words' because you have to learn them by just looking at them...  

https://sightwords.com/sight-words/games/

Here are the words we learn in year R...

Getting Ready to Write

 The children are practising how to hold their pencil correctly.

This is how we practise holding our pencil here at Leesland...

Try this little trick at home to help with pencil grip. Place a pom pom in your child's hand and get them to grip it with their two fingers - whilst holding their pencil!

Useful website links you can use at home...