Week beginning 08.02.21

Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope the children have enjoyed working on a new book this week as part of our Chinese New Year mini topic. This week we will be reading the book The Great Race by Christopher Corr.

Phonics

The new graphemes that will be introduced this week are:

Maths

This week the children will be learning the composition of numbers 9 and 10 and ordering numbers.

Handwriting

For handwriting, we are beginning with the ‘long ladder’ letter family. For these letters, the children need to start at the top, go down and then off in another direction.

i l t

It is really important that children follow the arrows to form these letters in the correct way and establish good habits.

This week it has been Children’s Mental Health Week. We have attached some activities to the end of this letter to help you think and talk about emotions with your child. Feel free to use them as and when you feel they will be useful, including during half-term.

Home Learning

The Teams group meetings will be at the same times we had them last week. We will be playing a number bingo game. Bingo cards will be put into Reading Books for collection on Monday morning. These will also be available on Tapestry.

Communication via Teams

If your child needs support with their home learning, please give us a call at these times: 9.30am to 10.30am and 2.00pm and 3.00pm. We will be happy to support their learning or give parental support on how to approach an activity. Unfortunately, due to staff training there will not be a teacher available on Teams on Tuesday and Wednesday. Teams groups call will still take place.

If you want to reach us via Teams, please use the Reception group, rather than contacting the teachers directly. This will ensure that one member of the team will be able to answer your query promptly.

Online Phonics lessons

We understand that the online Phonics can be repetitive. At this stage of the children’s development repetition is essential to ensure learning is consolidated.

If you are finding that your child is becoming less engaged in these lessons please feel free to use alternatives.

Some options might be:

• Doing the recap section of the lessons yourself using flashcards or other resources you have at home, or are available on the website, in the folder ‘Resources to Help at Home’.
• Break the video into two sessions.
• Using Mr Thorne’s Phonics on Youtube. You’ll need to find the sound for the day and remember that there is less repetition in these videos so some extra reinforcement of new sounds may be needed.
• Espresso Username: student22947 Password: acps1842
• Alphablocks  The yellow level episodes cover the digraphs we are currently working on.

Reading Books

Reading book drop off and collection arrangements remain the same.

Drop off - Fridays 9.00am - 9.30am

Collection : Mondays 9.00am - 9.30am

Next week, please continue to work through the Home Learning Ideas – Week 6.

The links to the DfE Phonics lessons will be uploaded daily on the timetable once they become available.

Thank you for your continued support,

Reception Team