Whitehouse Common Primary -

Key Information Reminders and Easter Wishes

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Hello!

It has been really lovely to speak to many of you over the last couple of days and find out about all that you have been doing; the learning, the activities, your family time, and it has been reassuring to know that you are all keeping safe and well. There are still a few more of you that Mrs Slassor will be calling tomorrow and she is looking forward to hearing your news too!

A few parents have asked about both phonics and additional activities so, to help you out, here are a couple of reminders.

There is a link below for the daily RML phonics practise which links with the scheme that we use in school and which will allow the children to refresh their knowledge and recognition of all of the sounds (Sets 1, 2 and 3) - it also means that, if you are unsure how to pronounce some of the sounds, you can learn along with your child. It'd be great to know that you are sharing in their learning - maybe they could teach you some of our phonics celebrations too - ask them to show you some!

Click on the picture for the link:

There is also a link below to the free Twinkl parent account which offers a whole range of activities that you can use to support home learning with your child. Some require a printer but many are online activities or just ideas and suggestions of things that you could be doing to help your child learn through play.

Click on the picture for the link:

Please also be reminded that I have added some more activity suggestions to the 'closure homework' section of the website so, if you visit the Reception section (or use the linnk below) and click on the chalkboard image, you will be taken to the guidance documents which includes a new set of ideas linked specifically to the Early Learning Goals.

Click on the picture for the link:

Many of these activities are practical tasks and easy family activities which promote learning without the need for worksheets.

Take care.

Have a great Easter break and keep spending lots of valuable time together having fun.

Best wishes from The Reception Team

Out of school but never out of mind!

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Hello everyone!

We hope that you are keeping safe and well and are taking lots of time to enjoy spending time with your family and explore learning in fun and creative ways at home.

It is very strange not seeing your smiley faces everyday and watching you learn and grow but we are looking forward to chatting to you all over the coming weeks to find out how you are all doing and to hear about all of the exciting things that you have been doing to keep busy!

We, your teachers, are keeping busy in lots of ways; we are trying to keep active with daily walks and exercise, we are valuing our family time by playing games together and watching films, we are busy doing jobs at home and getting chores done and, of course, we are working in school and at home too (planning, doing lots of paperwork and taking turns to go into school and look after the children whose parents have to go to work in hospitals and other key places at the moment) and we are making sure that we stay in touch with our friends and family using FaceTime and other social media. It is all a bit strange but we are making sure that we keep things fun!

Don't forget to keep up your learning but through lots of play and having fun with the rest of your family; baking and cooking, watching films together, reading books, playing outside and building things, keeping active with plenty of running, jumping, rolling, skipping etc. and getting creative with arts and craft activities.

Remember that you can also learn by helping around the house with the chores (cleaning, tidying, gardening, washing the car) and by practising doing things with greater independence (such as getting dressed and tying shoelaces etc.)

We are uploading a document with guidance for extra activities linked to the Early Learning Goals as was mentioned in the letter published earlier this week - parents, please feel free to choose from these activities to continue to support your child in learning through play and daily activities at home.

Above all, we want you to all stay safe and well and to keep smiling! Maybe put a rainbow in your window to help others stay cheerful too - look at the one that Mrs Slassor has in her window at home...

Best wishes to all of you and we look forward to catching up with you and seeing you soon!

Your Reception Team :)

Mother's Day, Macbeth, Shakespeare and Spells

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This week we have been enjoying work linked to the theme of Macbeth as part of Shakespeare Week. We have been performing the original spell from the play with actions and expression, writing our own spooky spells, making wands and participating in witch themed games and activities. In our PE lesson, we explored movement through work around the story of Room on a Broom and we experimented with moving at different levels and speeds, in different directions and using different gestures to represent characters from the story.

We had great fun flying around the hall on our ‘brooms’ and tumbling to the ground like the witch’s hat and wand!

In our creative curriculum work, we linked our learning to Mother’s Day. We talked about why our mummies are so special and learned about the origins and traditions of Mothering Sunday. All of our activities led to treats for our mums including decorated biscuits, jewellery made with natural materials and special mother’s day cards for which we explored printing techniques.

It has been another busy week but we have had great fun too!

Going Cultural

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Last week, went cultural in lots of different ways and we had a great time learning about the diverse world in which we live and celebrating the exciting things that it brings!

Not only were we visited by our partner schools as part of the Erasmus+ project which brought with it both the honour of both proudly showing how and what we learn here in England but we also had the chance to meet and work with visitors from both Spain and Austria to leanr more about their countries, cultures and education. It was fantastic!

To make sure that they felt very welcome, we made flags to wave at a special assembly and we also made cards which could be taken back to the schools around the world to help us link further with the children there. We loved learning about other places and asking questions to help us find out even more!

Our creative curriculum work also had cultural links this week as we learnt about Holi; the Hindu festival of colour. We found out the traditions and history of this festival and then had great fun exploring and using colour in blow painting, decorating Idian elephants with brightly coloured shapes and patterns and also learning and performing simple Indian dance using coloured ribbons and streamers.

Daffodils for St David

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This week, our creative curriculum activities were linked to the theme of daffodils as a reference to St David's Day which was celebrated on Sunday. We explored the origins and traditions of this special day for the welsh and also learnt about the significance of the daffodil to both this event and Spring.

We painted daffodil pictures, made our own craft daffodils and learnt some traditional welsh dancing. It was great fun and made lots of links to our physical development, art and design skills and also helped to develop our knowledge and understanding of the world both scientifically and in relation to people and communities.

Our English work this week had seen us begin to explore the book Dear Zoo through the talk for writing approach and we are able to recite the book confidently and accurately using our class story map to help us. Next week we will be using and applying our reading and spelling skills to write the story before innovating it to create our own version! We are becoming budding authors alongside our increasing phonics knowlegde and we are showing that we have super imaginations!

In maths, we have been exploring shapes. We have especially enjoyed hunting for and building shapes in our outdoor area and incorporating the shapes that we have found or made into our play and through developing our own narratives in role play. We have alos investigated shapes to learn more and talk about their properties...

A busy week... poems, pancakes and PE!

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We have had a busy first week back filled with lots of fun activities and lots of learning!

In our English lessons, we have explored our class poem, Each Peach Pear Plum and have had an opportunity to use the story sack linked to the poem to help us understand it more and to immerse ourselves in learning all about the characters, the words and the events that happen. It has been great fun and we have worked well with our friends to share the resources and play together.

In our creative work this week, we have been celebrating Pancake Day and learning more about the significance of Shrove Tuesday as part of Lent. Our activities have included; pancake making, pancake racing and making pancake puppets. We have particularly enjoyed eating the end results and have had lots of laughs attempting to 'flip' our pancakes in the race!

We have linked our PE to our maths work this week. We have been learning about positional language and explored travelling on, over, under and through the bars and benches in different ways...

Feeling the Love!

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In Reception this week, there has been even more love and care than usual as we have been thinking about all things Valentine and learning about being charitable too!

Our creative curriculum work and continous provision activities have linked to Valentine's Day and its traditions and, having talked about the giving of gifts, we made our own very special clay heart tiles to give to someone we love as a token of our affection.

We thought about 'giving' in lots of different ways and considered whether very expensive gifts are always the best. Sometimes something handmade or given with thought can have just as much (if not more) value and we thought about gifts which cost nothing at all; kindness, a hug, a smile...

This linked really well to our participation in Purple Pinkie Day on Thursday when we supported The Rotary Club in their efforts to stop Polio across the world. By making a small donation, we have raised money that will help children like us to have the medicine they need to avoid become poorly. We had fun wearing our splashes of purple and felt proud of the big difference that our little gesture would make.

We are looking forward to ending the half term with a celebration Valentines disco and spending time with our friends whi mean a lot to us.

Happy Valentine's Day to all - may you all feel loved!

Safer Internet Day

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This week we have learnt skills linked to computing and, as February 11th is Safer Internet Day, we have also thought about the importance of staying safe when using the internet and ways in which we can do this.

We know all about Hector the Protector who is on all of our computers in school and about the importance of having an adult with us whenever we are online.

Our computing skills and use of technology has developed through both our continuous provision activities; using the touchscreen, IPads and Beebots and also through our creative curriculum tasks. These included a QR Code treasure hunt outside, designing an online game and listening to stories and songs linked to the theme of internet safety.

We have also been thinking about pairs of numbers that add together to make 10.

Watch the video that we saw about playing games safely online [click here].

Please [click here] to view this week's homework.

Bird Watch 2020

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This week the whole school have taken part in the RSPB Bird Watch. In Reception we enjoyed lots of different bird themed activities.

We thought about why it is important to ensure birds have enough food during the winter months. We made our own bird feeders to hang in our forest schools area.

We thought about what birds look like and made our own bird puppets.

We looked at different bird songs and added actions and instruments.

Please [click here] for more information about the 'Big Bird Watch'.

Please [click here] to view this week's homework.

Chinese New Year 2020

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This week Reception have been learning about Chinese New Year. 2020 is the year of the rat. Do you know the animal for the year that you were born?

Children are traditionally given red money envelopes. Red is considered to be a lucky colour. We made our own red evnelopes and we even had a chocolate coin inside.

We also made red lanterns which are used to decorate people's houses.

As part of our 'forest schools' work we enjoyed creating our own dragon dance!

Please [click here] to see this week's homework.

Reception Reading

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All children are now bringing home 'Ditty' books or sheets as their home readers. Please try to read a few pages of these books with your child everyday. Whenever you read, practise the 'speed sounds' from the chart, at the front of the book. Touch each letter and quickly say the sounds. It’s important that we use 'pure talk' to say the sounds, adding 'uh' to the end confuses children.

Green Words These can be spoken in “pure talk” because they sound like they are spelt.

Red Words These are our 45 Reception keywords that cannot be sounded out. The children have to learn them by sight.

Encourage your child to read the text themselves. Children should touch the letters and say the sounds and then blend them together to read the words. Practise reading daily to give children more confidence. Ask your child questions about what they have read to ensure they understand the text.

Please [click here] to view the Parent Ditty Reading Booklet.