Elf Owls Reception

IMPORTANT MESSAGE!

SCHOOL IS CLOSED TOMORROW UNLESS YOU BELIEVE YOUR CHILD IS ELIGIBLE AS YOU ARE A KEYWORKER OR THEY ARE A VUNERABLE PUPIL. WE WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOU IN MORE DETAIL TOMMORROW. MANY THANKS

Good Morning Elf Owls and Parents,

Happy New Year to you all.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.  Please look below for some activities you can complete today at home.  We will send out further information later today on how we can stay in touch and continue with your brilliant learning over the next few weeks.

Best wishes

Mrs Bennett

Hello Everyone,

We just wanted to update you with some things we have been enjoying at school during the last few weeks.  The children are enjoying forest school and it is lovely to see how creative they are.  They have made a bear trap, giant webs, nests, making Rangoli chalk patterns, fairy houses, ploughing the fields, making dens, making nests and recently enjoyed using the flints to make sparks in preparation for our end of term "Smores" treat!

In Maths we have been taking part in activities around money including recognising different coins and finding different ways of making an amount. We have also been practising counting groups of objects accurately, counting in groups of 2's, 5's and 10's and recognising numbers to 20. We have enjoyed “exploring the 100 square grid” too finding the biggest numbers and smallest numbers.  We have also been looking at patterns when counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. Below is a link for you to enjoy with your child.

https://www.primaryapps.co.uk/WebGL/SplatSquares_WebGL/index.html

In Literacy we are learning to apply our phonic knowledge to blend for writing and reading.  In our daily phonics lessons, we are reading and writing each day. We have also been writing shopping lists, letters to Hootie owl, writing Diwali Cards and we will be writing our Christmas wishes and cards soon. We are enjoying “Funky Fingers “activities every afternoon and our teachers are really proud of how well we are working independently.

We are also working hard to show acts of kindness towards others and recognising different feelings.  We have seen children offering to tidy things up for others, check if they are ok, help each other with the zips on their coats, collect water bottles for their friends and play with new friends.  We have been very impressed!

This week we have started learning about the Nativity story from the Bible.  We will be exploring and sharing different Christmas traditions and starting some Christmas crafts too along with learning some new Christmas songs to support our year 2 children with their Nativity.

The children are particularly taken with a story that we enjoy online called, “Pete the cat, I love my white shoes”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj_z6zGQVyM

Below are some links to stories and songs that are particular favourites for the children at the moment.

Welcome Back to Term 2!

Well done to all the Elf owls for completing their first term at “Big School”.  We are immensely proud of how well they have done and the progress they have made settling into school after such a long break. You all certainly deserve a rest and I hope you have enjoyed some lovely quality time together as a family.

There will be some changes for the Elf Owls next term.  P.E sessions will be with our P.E specialist Tom Sykes on a Thursday afternoon. Children should still come to school in their P.E kits. The children will continue to be supported during the P.E lessons by our wonderful teaching assistants too.  Forest school sessions will remain on a Friday and again the children should come to school in clothing for forest school. I will have my non-contact time on a Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon. One of our wonderful teachers (Mrs Pinto) will cover Elf Owls on a Wednesday morning again supported by our fantastic teaching assistants.

We are also making changes to the start of the school day for Elf Owls and they should be in school by 9am.  The gates open at 8.45am-9.00am to allow for a slightly staggered start.

We would also like to inform you that we are very lucky to bring in an additional teaching assistant to our Early Years Team.  We welcome  Mrs Fairfax working  from Monday to Friday she has already been in to class and getting to know the children and it is brilliant to have her on board!. 

This term we are excited to be looking at festivals and celebrations across several cultures and religions.  We are also starting "Funky Fingers" activities which will happen after lunch each day, this is aimed at improving the children's fine motor skills and supporting their handwriting skills too.

We will also be sending home a fun weekly learning challenge to complete with your child each Friday to be returned the following Thursday. Full instructions for this will be sent home.

 If you have any questions as always please do get in touch.

Best Wishes

Nicola Bennett and the Team

Teaching Staff

Teacher – Mrs Nicola Bennett

Teaching Assistants – Mrs Nikki Howlett, Mrs Hayley Cox and Mrs Alison Wheeler

Hello To all of Our Lovely Families,

We are the Elf Owls and we are the Reception class at Great Milton C of E Primary School.  

We enjoy an airy spacious classroom with the addition of two outdoor areas: one under shelter and one offering a larger space to explore which features a range of climbing equipment and role-play areas, mud kitchen, reading tent, a water wall, bikes, trikes and scooters, a large sandpit and areas for growing plants and vegetables. Please take a look at the recent photos of our fabulous learning environment.

We enjoy exploring at school and spending our time learning. We become independent and active learners by exploring and learning from our environment and each other. Our teacher plans our lessons, activities and resources and topics mostly around our interests. Our teachers record some of our learning on tablets which are shared along with our books and observations at parents evening. Our activities are based and planned around the three prime areas of learning and the four specific areas of learning from the 'Development Matters Curriculum'.

Our parents and carers are encouraged to bring us to our classroom door each day and help us start our daily school routines. They can also speak to the adults about any concerns or share messages.  

We have some daily sessions including our “Funky Fingers”, "Dough Disco" and group led phonic lessons as well as some adult- directed tasks. We have the opportunity each day to spend time planning what we would like to discover and take part in and then we are encouraged to review how successful we have been. The adults in our classroom support our investigations by asking us questions or observing how we problem solve and learn.

We are provided with a reading book that can be changed daily if required, along with an individual sound and word books.  Each Elf Owl is allocated reading books suited to our individual ability and is updated as required - we also encourage the grown ups who read with us to ask us questions that can be found on the inside cover of our book that support our comprehension skills.

We are very lucky to have lovely teaching assistants who works with us full time and are very much part of the Early years team.

We join the whole school for lunchtimes in our hall and sometimes enjoy lunchtime activities, for example Book Club, Art Club and spending time with our kind and caring Year Six buddies and other friends.  We join in with some whole school events, assemblies and worship when our teacher feels we are ready.  We are part of the whole school and have two children from Elf Owls that are part of the School Council and an additional two that are our Eco Councillors. We are asked our opinions and have our voices heard and are part of a variety of school projects.