Our Weekly Overview 

Week Beginning 16th December

Wow, its the last week of term in 2019! This week we have some lovely activities and creative ideas within provision around the Christmas theme.

For literacy, our focus is to write in the Christmas cards we have designed.

For Numeracy, we are looking at adding one and taking one away and writing this as a number sentence.

On Friday is our Christmas Jumper or Pyjama dress up day as the children will deservingly have a party in the afternoon. 

We are very proud of the progress the children have made this year and the Reception Team would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Week Beginning 9th December

Thank you to the volunteers on our school trip last week. The children were well behaved and set a good example for our school. Da iawn ti!

 We start this week with our Christmas Concert. The children and staff are very excited and given the time, they have worked hard on their lines and the songs. Please see the Teacher2Parent app regarding times and numbers allowed.

This week, our Literacy tasks will involve recognising and matching rhyming words based on the story 'The Stick Man'. The children will also be writing a list to Father Christmas.

Within Numeracy, we will be exploring money by recognising different coins and setting up a Christmas shop to pay for items.

There will be lots of opportunities within our enhanced provision for handwriting, Christmas crafts and exploring cross curriculum. 

Week Beginning 2nd December

It's December! There will lots going on in the last 3 teaching weeks of this year.

This week and next, we will be basing our activities and learning on the story; 'The Stick Man' by Julia Donaldson. 

For our literacy sessions, we will be listening to the children practice their lines and other oracy with clarity, expression and volume. Our other group task and big write will be looking at re-telling and sequencing the Nativity story.

Within Numeracy, we will be ordering the days of the week and the children will be making their own season wheel. 

There will also be lots of creative opportunities cross curriculum leading up to Christmas and we will continue with GGR sessions and handwriting daily. 

This Tuesday is also our class trip, the weather is set to be dry but cold so please can the children be prepared with school uniform, a warm coat, hats, gloves etc. Also, please bring a packed lunch in a bag or rucksack and those who normally stay for school dinner will be provided with sandwiches, a piece of fruit, snack and a bottle of water. 

This Thursday we are lucky for the children to watch a Pantomine by Hobgoblin Theatre within school time and welcome the children to wear a Christmas Jumper.

Week Beginning 25th November

*Please note, this will be the last week this term we update our weekly overview as there will be updates on the website to make it more uniform across the years.*

This week we are basing our activities on the story; 'The Gingerbread Man'. The children were so excited during pupil voice that we have some lovely ideas planned. 

Within Literacy, we will be sequencing the story and acting out the story using T4W )Talk for writing) and in Numeracy, we will go on a shape hunt.

Within provision, there will be lots of creative opportunities, we will also transform our role play and outdoor house into our own Gingerbread house.

During the afternoon, the children will have the opportunity to practice their lines for the upcoming Christmas play and they will be baking some Gingerbread Men in our DT room- yummy!

Week Beginning 18th November

Firstly, a huge thank you to the parents who came to the Pori Stori Rhyme event, it was lovely to see so many of you supporting the children. They did an amazing job and it was great practice for the Christmas play! 

This week we are focussing our activities on the story "The Nutty Nut Chase" by Kathryn White and Vanessa Cabban. Through pupil voice, the children have some fantastic ideas within our continuous provision, including; exploring things you find in the woods, looking at different Autumn materials, making medals, flags and certificates and then having a nut race!

From this, we decided, within the week, as part of our Science and Technology, to have a BIG NUT RACE where the children will prepare, predict and experiment using scientific language. *We will not be using any real nuts, due to allergies*

Our literacy tasks this week will include writing onomatopoeic sounds and a phrase/sentence using adjectives from the story.

Our Maths tasks will focus on identifying, matching, ordering and writing numbers up to 10.

 Week Beginning 11th November

For our literacy this week, we will be using the story 'Tidy' by Emily Gravett as a hook to engage the children in their writing. Children will start by sorting images of objects that either belong or do not belong in a forest and after this write a short list about the objects they have sorted.
We are very excited to be receiving a visit from the RSPB this week. They will be coming in to talk to the children about our British woodlands, the creatures that inhabit them and why it is important to look after them. The children will use what they have learnt and go on scavenger hunt around our school to find and talk about things that could be harmful to the forest environment. 

Our maths learning this week is around measure and capacity. The children will be learning to measure, compare and order objects in terms of length and height and use language such as, 'short', 'long', 'shortest' and 'longest' to make comparisons. Children will also begin to explore non-standard and standard units of measurements. Within the provision the children will also begin to understand capacity and talk about whether a container is either, 'full' or 'empty'. 
 
During Welsh this week, the children will be learning vocabulary for 'anifeiliaid' (animals) and 'bwyta' (food) as well as exposure to phrases, 'Ga i...?', 'Ble mae.?', 'Beth sy'n yn y bag/bocs?' & 'Beth wyt ti eisiau?'.

For our topic tasks this week, the children will be learning about Remembrance Day and will create their own poppy, using craft materials. As it is also Anti-bullying week this week, the children will also take part a variety of activities to develop their understanding of why bullying is wrong.

Guided Group Reading (GGR) will take place each day. This is a time where we will read with the children in a group, develop handwriting and pen control, practise book handling skills and develop fine motor skills through our 'funky fingers' provision. 

Some children may also bring home an individual reading book within their reading record. You can support your child at home by encouraging them to read this book to you, with your help, where needed. This could be done in the evenings for as little as 5 minutes. Little and often is good approach when it comes to reading and the Reception team thank you greatly for this time spent reading with your child. If your child does not currently have a reading book being sent home, please do not worry. A child's readiness to read is individual. Please trust us to understand that when your child is ready, we will send home a reading book for them. 

PE & Library will take place every Thursday. Please ensure your children has their PE bags in school, that your child brings their book bag and reading record each day and brings their library book on a Thursday so that Mrs Powell & Mrs Thomas can change it for a new one. 

This Friday afternoon is 'Stay & Play'. The children have worked very hard to learn a variety of English and Welsh rhymes from the Pori Stori activity pack. We appreciate that work commitments may make it difficult for you to attend but we will be grateful to have you attend if possible. The children will be excited to perform for you and have you within their learning environment to learn and play together.

Week Beginning 4th November

Welcome back!
This week the children have enjoyed lots of activities for our new topic 'Where Do Squirrels Hide Their Food?' 

Our discovery area turned into a forest with lots of Autumn collections (leaves, conkers etc). If you are out for a walk on the weekend, it would be lovely to increase our collection. The children have also enjoyed leaf rubbings and creating pictures of trees and fireworks in the creative area. 

Within Literacy, we've been asking the questions, what we might already know about the new topic and what we would like to find out and from this creating a knowledge grid to display on our topic board.

Also in Literacy, the children have created mind maps of squirrels and then for our 'Big Write' in our books, wrote what they wanted to learn/find about this half term. 

For Maths, the children are being assessed this week for Verbal and Non-verbal reasoning.

For out topic task, the children have been learning Firework Safety and we have been re-creating a Bonfire night in role play then writing our own poster.

We have been practising our selected rhymes for the Pori Stori event next Friday and hope you can make it. We have also introduced the idea for our Christmas Play this week, sorry if they have started singing Christmas songs already!!!!! The parts for this should go out by the end of next week.

We will be focussing our activities next week around the story 'Tidy' by Emily Gravett and the children have already come up with some lovely ideas. We will also be welcoming our RSPB friends to the school on Wednesday (13th) and they will be carrying out their own fun topic related activities/tasks. 

For any upcoming dates, please see the Teachers2Parents App.