EYFS – Newsletter – 10.05.24

A lovely warm and sunny week had us outdoors a lot this week, smelling the flowers! As part of our Let It Grow topic we talked a lot about the role of bees and other insects in helping plants to pollinate and reproduce. To help bring this process alive, the children were invited to become bees and visit a flower to gorge on nectar (in this case Cheesy Wotsits) and see how the pollen (cheesy dust!) clung to their fingers and was transported with them as they visited other flowers! We talked about how we can help bee and insect populations in our garden and some children chose to have a go at building their own bee hotels (or AirBnBees). Now knowing that bees are attracted to visit flowers to by their bright coloured petals, some children chose to draw some dazzling chalk flowers on the playground. 

Following on from last week where children hand-sewed some flower decorations for our scarecrow Maizie (who returned to Cookridge this week and found a home in the Kitchen Garden) we saw that the children really enjoyed having a go at using a needle and thread.  This week. we have the children their initials on a sqaure of hessian cloth for them to sew along the lines using a basic running stitch. We were very impressed by how much effort and perseverance the children showed when working on their sewing and it was lovely to see how proud they were of their work.

In Phonics, we have revisited the vowel sounds ai, ee, igh and oa and rehearsed how to hear, read and write these sounds in words and sentences. The focus as we go forth is to encourage more independence as the children grow in confidence to show off all they have learned. We have been very happy to hear of and see some fantastic writing practise going on at home too!

Maths sessions this week had us exploring flat 2D shapes. The children had opportunities to handle and discuss the properties of shapes and explore how to manipulate shapes for different effects. Many were perplexed by tangram puzzles, where they were challenged to fit shapes within a larger shape exactly. We were very impressed by the perseverance of the children in taking the time to finish their tangrams!

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

The Reception Team

Dates for the diary:

Friday 17th May – Reception visit to None-Go-Bye Farm – please fill in the online permission form if you have not done so already. A contribution of £1.50 has been requested on ParentPay.

Thursday 23rd May – Power of Pattern Day! – whole school non-uniform day (pattern-inspired!)

Thursday 23rd May – Last day of the half term. 

Friday 24th May – School closed – Training Day.