EYFS – Newsletter – 22.05.25

What a whirlwind of a half-term it has been! After five full and fun-packed weeks, our Let It Grow topic has come to a close with a flurry of activity. We’ve been keeping a close eye on our class caterpillars which have grown considerably through the week and are now almost all inside their cocoons to begin their metamorphosis! This week we’ve talked a lot about how the children are growing up and how they have changed since they were babies. A lot of children chose to complete a picture sheet of what they want to do or be when they grow up – we had engineers, chefs, fashion designers and the obligatory unicorns! As part of our discussion on human life cycles and growth we discussed how it is important to keep active, to eat well and to look after our teeth. Many children took the time to write a promise to the tooth fairy, pledging to brush regularly to keep their teeth strong and healthy. We were astonished to find that the next day there was a delivery of special envelopes for each of these children addressed in fancy gold pen! 

On Thursday the children all planted some cress seeds as a little growing project to keep an eye on over the half term break. If kept watered and in a sunny spot, there should be sprouts within days and we would love to see how much the cress grows over the next ten days that we’re off school. If you want to share any photos of the seeds (or of anything interesting you might get up to in the next week) please feel free to add them to Tapestry and we will share them with the class when we return in June. We have also sent home the bean plants that the children planted themselves at the start of term along with a bean diary with the final page left to complete. This is not an obligation, but if children want to draw their plant and write about how much it has grown it would be lovely to see these on Tapestry too!

On very nice way we found to wrap up our Let It Grow topic was to make some soup with our very own produce! The children helped plant out leeks in our vegetable bed back in the Autumn term and ever since they have been keeping an eye and aiding in watering and weeding the leeks as needed. Today was finally the day to harvest the leeks, so we had a go at making some fresh leek and potato soup. In the school garden we grow potatoes and lots of herbs too, so the children helped to gather the ingredients ready to start cooking. We had some very careful chopping of the leeks, potatoes and herbs to add to some vegetable stock in a big pan. Then children helped to stir it as it simmered away until softened. When blitzed up and seasoned, the soup was served with some bread and we were proud to see that ALL children tasted some despite some being highly suspicious. Most gave the soup a thumbs up and quite a few came back for second and third helpings until it all was eaten up! After a lovely few weeks learning about how and why we grow food it was great to see so many children tucking into the freshest of produce grown on our own school grounds!

On Wednesday, we joined in a national Zoom call online to enjoy an interactive story session with the company NowPressPlay. Via webcam we all took part in retelling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk by following along with an audio track and acting out different roles within the traditional tale. Once over, many children enjoyed playing game whereby one child took the part of the sleeping giant and upon being awoken they had to guess which child had stolen his precious golden egg!

Phonics sessions this week have seen us revising digraphs and trigraphs in phase 3 – ‘or’ (horn) ‘ow’ (clown) ‘air’ (chair) and ‘ure’ (pure). The children have formulated and then written their own sentences with a really pleasing level of independence and to practice reading comprehension they have been finding matching pictures to fit with phrases and sentences they read. 

Our maths sessions this week have been a lot of fun as we’ve been exploring 3D shapes in a variety of ways. Closely looking at 3D shapes, they children have sorted the shaped by their characteristics and manipulated them to fit certain patterns as well as stamping the various faces with paint to help identify the 2D shapes that go into constructing the 3D shapes.

Have a lovely week off- we’ll see you back at school in June for the LAST half term in Reception (where has that year gone!).

The Reception Team

KEY DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Monday 2nd June – First day of Summer 2 term

Thursday 19th June – Sports day (EYFS/KS1 – 1:30pm-3pm)

Saturday 28th June – Summer Fair (12pm-4pm)

Friday 18th July – Last day of Summer 2 term