EYFS – Newsletter – 14/11/2025

Despite the abysmal weather this week we’ve had another lovely week in Reception. The children have enjoyed sharing all about their favourite toys with the class and asking and answering questions about them. Children have also took on the challenges of making robot pictures using just 4-sided shapes and painting Elmer elephants with a pattern of their choosing. Miss Bostock also encouraged some fantastic oracy in a topic session that called for the children to debate which of two toys was better, stating reasons in full sentences. 

At the start of the week we had a very exciting delivery. Mrs Turpie brought through to a mysterious envelope that had flown by ‘air mail’ through the office window (accompanied by the clatter of hooves and jingle of bells) and it was addressed to ‘Reception Class, Cookridge Primary School’. Upon opening it, we were amazed to see that it was a letter from Father Christmas himself! It seems that the elves at the North Pole are finding it hard to keep up demand for robot toys this year so he has tasked the children of Reception with helping out. Of course, we’ve already had many willing volunteers to work in our hastily assembled outpost of Santa’s Workshop and there are some amazing robot toys flying off the production line already! As we hurtle towards Christmas, the children will be kept busy in the workshop to help out Santa in his our of need and surely secure themselves a spot on the nice list this year!

Our Phonics sessions this week have introduced the sounds ‘ck’ (duck) ‘e’ (egg) and ‘u’ (umbrella). The ‘ck’ sound is the first of the ‘digraph’ sounds – a digraph is two letters that together make one sound. So in this case the ‘ck’ digraph makes the same sound as the individual ‘c’ and ‘k’ sounds, but is found in the middle or at the end of words (such as duck). This week, the children have enjoyed activities that help rehearse recognising and sorting these sounds, and how to blend them together to read simple words as well as practising how to form them correctly when starting to write words. 

In Maths this week, we have been investigating the numbers 4 and 5. By exploring many different representations of these numbers the children become more confident in the quantitative meaning of these numbers and how are used in a range of contexts. We’ve also practised numeral recognition and careful counting by buying and selling toys using counters to represent 1p coins. 

This Friday the children should all be coming home with a small piece of paper containing log-in details for the Twinkl website so that you may access home-learning resources. There are games to help rehearse Phase 2 phonics skills as well as Rhino Reader books that link to our in-school Phonics scheme and printable resources should you want to offer further practice at home. This is purely optional ‘homework’ that we want to offer for you to use at home – we shall not be monitoring work. 

Have a lovely weekend!

The Reception Team

DATES FOR THE DIARY: 

Tuesday 2nd December: Christmas fair (3:30-5:00pm)

Tuesday 18th and Tuesday 25th November: Parent Consultations (3:30pm-6:30pm) – Follow the link on the school website to book an appointment with either Mrs Andrews or Mr Verdi

Thursday 18th December: EYFS and UKS2 Christmas Carol Concert (10am) – To book places (2 spaces per child maximum) please complete the form on the calendar event to secure places.

Friday 19th December: Last day of Autumn 2 Term

Monday 5th January: First day of Spring 1 Term