Cube Cuboid Cylinder Sphere Cone

Friday 15 th June 2012
Dear Parents,
The children have returned back to school after their week off, refreshed and ready to learn! Can you believe that this is the
children’s last half term of their reception year? This year really has flown by!
Literacy
This week we have been looking at the story ‘The Little Red Hen’. We have been retelling the story, using actions and story maps
to help us remember the order of the events in the story. We have written letters to the characters in the story and hot
seated the little red hen, using question words when we interviewed her (who, what, when, where, why, how etc). We have also
thought about retelling the story, using a different setting, different characters and different problems. Next week the
children will do some assessed writing, retelling the story in a different setting. What different settings can they think of?
Maths
Thank you so much for everyone who helped their child to carry out surveys in the holidays. We were very impressed with the
hard work that went into presenting the results. We had bar charts, tallies, tick boxes, line graphs and pie charts to show the
findings from the surveys. We are making a display of these in the piazza. This week we have been looking at addition stories
and the thinking about the difference between amounts. Can your child tell you an addition story? We have also started to look
at 3D shapes this week. Over the weekend can you find some 3D shapes? Ask your child to go on a shape hunt, see if they can
find a cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone and sphere (there are some examples of these at the bottom of the newsletter). Then use
them to play the feely bag game! Put the items in a bag and then feel through the fabric, describe the shape to someone else
without saying its name. Just describe its features and try to guess what shape it is. Have fun with it!
Duck Eggs
Our duck eggs have arrived! They are currently in the incubator and will be for the next 12 sleeps! The children have all been
really busy this week, drawing and painting pictures of ducks which are up on the walls around the incubator. We have also been
drawing pictures of scenery that we think the ducks will like to look at once they hatch. Others have made homes for the ducks
that they can sleep in when they have hatched. We have had lots of discussions about ducks- it was very interesting that the
children all thought that ducks only ever ate bread!
Reading Eggs and Bug Club
It has been great to hear that lots of children are really enjoying using these fantastic literacy resources. Reading Eggs is a
great resource and very motivating as the children earn points doing lessons and activities which they can use to buy things for
their avatar which they can customise. Have fun with it all.
Memory Boxes
Thank you to those people who have already sent a box to school. The box needs to be named and preferably backed in parcel
paper. You don’t need to bring it in already decorated; we are going to be doing this in school. Have you spoken with your child
about their memories from their first year in school? They have done so much, when you start thinking about it you realise what
a busy year they have had! We will start to work on the memory boxes next week.
Wow Moments
You must have tonnes recently. Please can you write these down for us to read and inform us of your child’s progress outside of
school? Thanks.
Kind Regards
The Reception Team
Cube Cuboid Cylinder Sphere Cone