Reception – Page 28 – Pope Paul Primary

Reception Weeks 6 and 7

October 19, 2018/in Reception /by Margaret Joyce

We have had a very busy past couple of weeks!
Last week we were visited by Father Shaun who taught us all about Baptism through role play. The children also took it in turns to talk about their own Baptism ceremony.

This week we have been very busy creating our own Catholic church in the outside role play area. The children have greatly impressed us with their own knowledge of what happens during a mass. They have enjoyed pretending that they are Father Shaun and altar servers, singing hymns and praying. They have also enjoyed performing Baptism ceremonies.

We also got together with Year Four this week. They helped us to make religious objects to put into our church.

Today we have been celebrating the canonization of Pope Paul VI. We started the day with a special assembly, where we were presented with St Paul VI prayer cards, to use at home with our families. Afterwards, we joined the rest of the school in the large playground, where we had some juice and chocolate.

Back in class, we continued to think about the life and work of St Paul VI and how he worked so hard, continually striving for peace. The children then created art work and celebratory flags based on this theme.

We finished the day by joining the rest of the school in the playground, where Mrs Heymoz and the Liturgy Group let off some beautiful doves, to symbolize peace.

What a moving and very special moment we all shared!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

The Reception Team

Reception Week 5

October 6, 2018/in Archives, Reception /by Margaret Joyce

What a busy week! We can’t believe how much we have managed to fit in!

We continued to take advantage of the dry weather by taking our PE lesson outside on the field, where we had lots of fun exploring the different sports equipment.

We also used the field for a very special turn taking session with the parachute. We learnt lots of different games and once again showed off our excellent listening skills!

In class, we have been thinking about our families and growing older. In particular, we have focussed on birthday celebrations. The children have been very busy making named wrist bands, writing birthday guest lists, writing out party invitations, creating birthday cards and banners, making party hats and using clay and junk modelling materials to make party food. They also enjoyed using the playdough to make cakes with real candles on.

The most exciting part of the week was when we had the ‘Birthday Party’ role play reveal. The children couldn’t believe that the outside role play had disco music and flashing lights inside. Lots of fun was had recreating party games such as pass-the-parcel and musical ,as well as using the area for a good old sing-a-long and dance.

On Friday morning, we had a visit from two photographers. One came to take our individual photographs and the other came from the local paper, who are doing a special feature soon about all of the local Reception classes. She couldn’t believe how well behaved the class were and how well they listened to instructions. In fact, she told us that we were actually the best class she had ever photographed! This was of course a very proud teacher moment!

The week finished with a visit from our lovely Year 6 learning partners.

Reception Week 4

September 28, 2018/in Reception /by Margaret Joyce

We have been blessed with beautiful weather this week and so we have spent most of the time learning outdoors.

The children were very excited to begin learning letter sounds and have had lots of fun doing so.

Thank you for supporting your child by completing the phonics home learning and sharing their reading book every night. It really does make a huge difference to the progress they make. You will notice that we do not send home any letter sound on a Friday. Instead, we ask that you find a little time over the weekend to revise any previously learnt sounds.

In RE this week, we have been focussing on being unique and celebrating differences. The children drew self portraits after using mirrors to look at their own physical features.

We also spent some time learning about St Vincent de Paul and enjoyed watching the Year 4 tell his story in assembly this morning.

It was lovely to have a visit from Amelia this afternoon and to give her the card that the children had made for her. Everyone was so pleased to see her!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

The Reception Team

Year 6 – 21/09/18

September 21, 2018/in Reception, Year 6, Year 6 Archive /by Margaret Joyce

(Please find Home Learning instructions at the end of this post).

There was great excitement this afternoon as Y6 met their Reception Learning Partners for the first time! They spent their time getting to know each other by reading and playing together in the Reception outdoor learning area. It was wonderful to see the Y6s acting so kindly and maturely with their partners; it is clear that they are going to be excellent role models to them for the year. Here they all are!

In other Y6 news this week, the class were given their badges in assembly for their new leadership roles. Well done also to the Y6s who led the reading in our whole school mass. They also had their first taste of SATs papers, with which they coped very well. In PE, we carried on honing our dodging skills as part of our Invasion Games unit.

I am looking forward to seeing your evacuee costumes on Tuesday for our WW2 trip! Have a great weekend.

Miss Donatantonio

This week’s home learning (due Tuesday 25^th September) is as follows:

English	Schofield & Sims English Skills : Section 1 Test 1 – to be completed in pink Home Learning book
Spellings	Words from the Y3/Y4 and Y5/Y6 Statutory Spelling word lists – spelling sentences to be written in pink Home Learning book. See below for this week’s spellings. The children also have 2 envelopes – one containing this week’s words and one empty one. Once they feel they are secure with a word from Envelope 1 (short-term memory), they put it into Envelope 2 (long-term memory). I could test them on their long-term memory words at any time, and they will be revisiting them in class. If they misspell a word that they’ve put into Envelope 2, it goes back into Envelope 1.
Maths Times tables	Mathletics tasks: · Nearest Whole Number · Nearest 100 · Nearest 1000 · Rounding Numbers · Multiplying by 10, 100, 1000 · Dividing by 10, 100, 1000
Reading	Spend at least half an hour on readtheory.org Daily reading. Reading Records are on order.

Spelling list (to be tested Friday 28^th September) Words from the Y3/Y4 and Y5/Y6 Spelling Lists
especially	frequently
immediately	sincerely
accidentally	actually
occasionally	probably
therefore	though
thought	thorough
through	rhyme
rhythm	temperature

Reception Week 3

September 21, 2018/in Reception /by Margaret Joyce

Reception started the week with the much anticipated, first ever PE lesson! After getting themselves dressed into their PE kits, the class went into the hall for their lesson and they loved it!

On Tuesday the class attended the school’s very special Welcome Mass. The children impressed everyone with their reverence and excellent behaviour and the staff were very proud of them.

As the class story focus has been ‘Stick Man’ by Julia Donaldson this week, Reception decided to go on their very own nature hunt around the school grounds to find materials to use in class. As well as sticks and leaves and other natural objects, they uncovered a fantastic mini-beast world under a large piece of wood on the field. The children were excited to find snail and slug eggs, huge worms, beetles, centipedes, snails, slugs and spiders. The children put the wood back where they found it, to encourage the insects to stay and allow them to look at them again.

In RE, Reception have been learning about the Eucharist and the story of The Last Supper. They role-played receiving Holy Communion and enjoyed pretending that they were Father Shaun.

Today,the children had a very exciting afternoon as they found out who our Year 6 Learning Partners were. Look out for the photos on the Year 6/ Reception joint blog!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

The Reception Team

Reception Week 2

September 14, 2018/in Archives, Reception /by Margaret Joyce

What a busy week the children have had! There are definitely some very tired children and teachers this afternoon!

The children have continued getting to know their new learning environment and each other. We started the week off focussing on the story, ‘Owl Babies’ and related it to times in our lives when we have really missed members of our own families. The children have really enjoyed learning about owls and other nocturnal animals too.

The children also opened up their very own grocery shop this week. It is proving to be a very popular role play area and the shop keepers are struggling to keep up with the consumer demands!

The children also spent some time in the International Garden this week, reading books from the outdoor library. They then explored the field and had lots of fun rolling down the hill on the way back to class!

On Wednesday, the children participated in their first class Act of Worship. We were so impressed with the reverence and respect that they demonstrated.

On Thursday, the children participated in Roald Dahl Day by reading ‘The Enormous Crocodile’. They then made junk model crocodiles, drew pictures about the story and created crocodile puppets.

Wishing you all a wonderful, restful weekend,

The Reception Team.

Welcome to Reception

September 7, 2018/in Reception /by Margaret Joyce

Welcome to Reception!

It was lovely to see so many of you at the Parent Information Meeting earlier today. If you missed it, please don’t worry as we will be sending home follow up notes (with correct dates!) on Monday.

The children have had a fantastic first week at Pope Paul and we are astonished at how quickly they have settled into school life! Today was the first morning that we welcomed all 30 children in together. They came in excitedly and confidently with no tears! They are already showing encouraging signs of being great learners; demonstrating fantastic listening skills and following instructions from the class adults.

The children have really enjoyed getting to know one another and exploring the inside and outside learning areas.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

The Reception Team

Happy Holidays

July 20, 2018/in General News, Reception, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6 /by Margaret Joyce

Sports Day and Pirates

July 13, 2018/in Archives, Reception /by Margaret Joyce

We have had a very busy couple of weeks in Reception. Thank you for supporting Sports Day- they did so well in the heat!

We hope you enjoyed the family picnic after. Some of those spreads were very impressive!

This week, Mrs Theo and Mrs Gymer have been very busy doing home visits. The children have been enjoying the theme ‘Pirates’ inspired by the book ‘The Night Pirates’, and have had fun participating in role play, creating pirate ships, treasure chests and maps, telescopes and flags.

Have a wonderful weekend,

The Reception Team

Slugs, Snails and All Things Slimy!

July 1, 2018/in Reception /by Margaret Joyce

The children have had a wonderful week getting to know the local slugs and snails in the outside area. They discovered that the slimy creatures tend to hide out in dark and damp places such as under flowerpots, dead leaves and the bug hotel!

Reception also enjoyed reading ‘The Snail and the Whale’ as part of their Literacy learning and experimenting with lots of different ways of making trails and spiral patterns.

The children had some very special visitors this week- some African snails and their eggs. The class were fascinated by them and most of the children were keen to take an even closer look by holding them!

The adults preferred to view from a distance!