Home » EYFS – Newsletter – 12/12/25

EYFS – Newsletter – 12/12/25

It’s been another Christmassy week in Reception, with lots of fun goings on to keep us all busy! Our cheeky visiting elf has been up to mischief at times, but the children are doing very well at modelling to him the right way to behave in Reception. On Monday Rudolph had made a snow angel in the middle of class and written his name in the ‘snow’ and then we invited the children to have a go at writing their names too (in case you were wondering why your child came home covered in flour!). On Tuesday he had visited our role-play toy shop and leafed through the catalogues to help write out a list of presents he would like – which in turn spurred some children to have a try at writing their own lists for Santa.

Many children chose this week to make a colourful elf cut-out toy with split pins to move the legs and arms, whilst others got creative with the paints, pom-poms and sparkles to create some gorgeous Christmas tree pictures. There has also been a snowball throwing challenge this week, with children challenged to read a numeral and throw the correct number of ‘snowballs’ into the different snowman’s bowls. Perhaps most excitingly, we received on Wednesday a tantalisingly big and strong cardboard box from a delivery to school, which we quickly set to work transforming into Santa’s sleigh. With lots of willing workers armed with red paint and brushes the box soon disappeared and in it’s place was a most magical play accessory! Once laden with shiny presents in the back of the sleigh, the children loved taking turns to be Santa, whilst others took the important job of the reindeer pulling him along.

Of course, rehearsals are in full swing for our upcoming Christmas concert too. We have been practising the songs in class and refining our dance moves – and so have the Year 5 and 6 classes. Having got together a few times in the hall, with the stage now up, we are getting much more confident, with some superstar singers knocking it out of the park and we can’t wait to do for an audience on Thursday morning – we hope to see you there!

In the lead up to Christmas, we have spent some time learning about the Nativity story and the Christian roots of the story behind why we celebrate Christmas today. The children loved acting out the story using masks and props and helping to put in order the different parts of the story to retell it accurately.

In our Maths sessions we have been recapping skills of counting accurately and reliably up to 5 using cubes and tens frames. We have also been investigating the number zero (0) and thinking about different ways we recognise and use the number for nothing. The children sorted number representations and were able to describe which pictures showed zero and which did not, whilst the vocabulary of zero as none was further embedded in a game of hide and seek with the children narrating as they looked around for their friends (“I can see zero children under the table”).

Phonics sessions this week introduced the ‘ss’ digraph (as in kiss) – this long s sound is found in the middle or end of words. The children had opportunity to practise reading and writing words containing this sound. We also spent time recapping the tricky words we have learned so far.