St Mellons Church in Wales Primary School
Welcome to Reception!
Croeso i Dosbarth Derbyn!
Teacher: Mrs Church
Teaching Assistants: Miss Baker and Mrs Mendonca
Communication
Communication
Contact us on Reception@stmellonsprm.cardiff.sch.uk
Google Classroom pxvvgdb
Twitter @stmellonsprm
The 'Teacher to Parent' text messaging service will be used when required.
Overview of the day
8.55 Children arrive and settle down to complete their Morning Activity / Register
9.15 – 9.30 Collective Worship
9.30-10.00-GGR
10.00 – 10.30 Literacy, Languages & Communication
10.30 – 10.45 Snack / Break Time
10.45 - Milk
10.55-11.45 Mathematics & Numeracy
11.55 – 1.00 Lunch
1.00 – 1.25 RWI
1.30-2.45-- Context
(Topic/Science/RVE/ICT)
2.45-3.05 Daily Welsh Activities/Helpwr Heddiw
3.15 Home Time
Important dates for the half term
Christian Value - Friendship
28th April – Return to School
Christian Value Celebration Day Trust
5th May – Bank Holiday
11 th - 17th May – Christian Aid Week
19th – 23rd May – Welsh Government National Tests Block
21st May -Visit to Roath Park conservatory and Gardens
22nd May – Nursery and Reception Family Worship 9.15am & coffee morning
23rd May – End of term
26th May – 30th May – Half Term
2nd June – Return to School
10th June - Class Photographs
11th June – Sports Day
18th June – Reserve Sports Day
26th June – year 1 and 2 Family Worship 9.30am
TBC - Residential Year 6
4th July – Reports out to parents
10th July – New PS1 intake meeting (Nursery and Reception) 2pm
14th July - Transition week
Wednesday 16th July – Year 6 Leavers Assembly 9.30am & coffee morning
18th July - Last day of term
21st July – INSET day school closed for pupils
Snack
Families may choose to provide your child with their own healthy snack, however, there are also a range of fruit options that can be purchased from our schools healthy snack shop. Please can all orders be purchased on either a weekly, or termly basis. The cost of fruit per week is £2 per week or £14 per term and can be paid for on Parent pay. Payments should be made via parent pay. If you wish to purchase snack on a weekly basis, please can all orders be paid for in advance, no later than 12 noon on the Friday before snack is required.
If your child is bringing their own healthy snack could you please put it in a container clearly labelled with their name, which is not part of their lunchbox.
PE
PE will take place on a Tuesday morning and a Friday afternoon. Pupils can come to school in their PE kit. They can remain in their kit for the day. Please send your child in their house colour T-shirt and joggers.
Pupils should come to school in uniform when they do not have PE.
- Grey skirts ,dresses or trousers
- White shirts
- School tie
- Navy cardigan or sweatshirt with the school logo
Current Learning
Current Learning
This term we will look at the context, Down at the Bottom of the Garden.
In this context we will investigate what lives in the garden and what it needs to stay alive and remain healthy. We will be investigating minibeasts and their habitats. We will find out about life cycles and observe the life cycle of a butterfly. We will also look at plants and their growth. We will grow seeds and sell some of our plants for enterprise week. We will attempt to recycle old plant pots and plastic bottles and talk about the importance of recycling for the environment and exactly what we can do to help. This context covers Science and Design Technology ,RVE and Expressive Arts.
Pupil Voice Questions
Why do worms live at the bottom of the garden?
Where do butterflies live?
Where do caterpillars live?
What do ladybirds eat?
Do bees and butterflies drink?
Where do spiders live?
How do plants grow?
How do plants have flowers?
How do worms make soil from leaves?
Why do slugs live under rocks?
Planning
inquiry planning down at the bottom of the garden.pdf
Homework
Reading is an extremely important part of your child's learning. We will take every opportunity to immerse your child in books and stories and we also take part in a guided reading session twice a week.
Reading books will come home weekly.
Please could book bags be sent in on a Monday so that books can be changed and sent home by Tuesday.
Please comment in the little yellow book each week and ask any questions in there and we will try to respond as quickly as possible.
Down at the Bottom of the Garden
Homework Grid
down at the bottom of the garden homework 3 .pdf
The Four Purposes
The four purposes are that all children and young people will be:
Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.
Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.
Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world.
Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
Value
Value
We follow the ‘Values for life’ scheme this term and our value is ‘Friendship’. Please discuss our termly value with your child at home and encourage them to share how they have been ‘living out’ the value in their daily life.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up."
LLC
In Reception, we will focus on letter recognition and letter formation using Read Write Inc . This is a popular phonics scheme. Like all phonics schemes, it teaches children the sounds in English, the letters that represent them, and how to form the letters when writing.
We will also begin to look at our high frequency words and play games to help us recall some of these words. Lots of these games will take place outside to enable us to make the most of our learning environment.
We will also be using games on the iPad and on Active Learn to support this.
Games can also be played at home and relevant games will be made available each week.
We will learn a story by heart, story map it and then learn actions to help us retell it. We have a role play corner and puppet theatre in our enhanced provision to support us with our story telling and oracy skills.
We will be learning to label pictures using initial sounds to identify the correct vocabulary.
The children will also be continuing to develop their Welsh language skills through daily Helpwr Heddiw sessions . They will be asking and answering simple questions based on feelings and likes and dislikes and using greetings throughout the day. Counting in Welsh and use of colour vocabulary will form part of their daily routine.
Reading is an extremely important part of your child's learning. We will take every opportunity to immerse your child in books and stories and we also take part in a guided reading session at least once per week. Reading books will be set up online to share with your child at home .Please use the online Oxford Owls books to support your child. Reading books will come home weekly. Please could book bags be sent in on a Monday so that books can be changed and sent home by Tuesday. Please comment in the little yellow book each week and ask any questions in there and we will try to respond as quickly as possible.
Numeracy
In Numeracy this term, we will continue to look at and developing our number skills. We will be looking at place value and counting to 20 and then beyond according to the stage appropriate for your child. We will begin to count in tens and twos and investigate the patterns that we see. We will look at the formation of numbers and use rhymes to help us remember. We will use the outdoor environment to find and form numbers and begin to count amounts in games and using natural objects We will sing number songs on a daily basis counting both backwards and forwards and use shapes in our play. We will continue a repeating pattern with toys and will sort toys according to materials they are made from and old and new. As part of our context we will be comparing height and weight of different toys and use vocabulary relating to this. We will collect data about our favourite old toys represent this in picture form. We will begin to look at time and what we do during different parts of the day.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns Patterns with shapes
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/todays-number-up-to-20 Number activities
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers Counting and reading numbers
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering Ordering numbers
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/todays-number-up-to-20
Numbers to 20
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/helicopter-rescue
Numbers to 100 activity
https://pbskids.org/peg/games/happy-camel/
Weighing activity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0dJWfQHF8Y
Counting to one hundred song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=941e6RnP4EQ
Days of the week song
Welsh
Welsh language will be an integral part of our everyday routine. As we talk about colours, shapes and numbers the children will be hearing Welsh vocabulary alongside English. We will be starting with simple greetings at different times of the day around school with staff and pupils. These can also be used with you at home. We will also be looking at vocabulary relating to toys.
Bore da Good morning
Prynhawn da Good afternoon
Sut wyt ti? How are you?
Pwy wyt ti? Who are you?
Sawl? How many?
Beth wyt ti eisiau? What do you want?
Sut mae'r tywydd heddiw? What is the weather like today?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lingo-show-welsh-counting-song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjZzVQOEj4 Sut Mae'r Tywydd Heddiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6hQDMBrJn4 Bore da Ffrindiau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Cn-qQzA3c Beth sy yn y Bocs?
MFL
Jigsaw and PSHE
Starting Reception is an opportunity for children to gain independence and self-confidence. It allows them to learn basic tasks by themselves and discover more about life outside of their family unit. Encouraging children to start with something easy and small can help them to avoid over-reliance on adults, parents or even their more confident peers. Practicing key skills such as putting on their shoes and doing up their coats are very important.
The pupils will be starting with a unit of work ’Dreams and Goals’ which comes from our PHSE Jigsaw scheme.
Jigsaw is the mindful approach to PSHE/HWB, brings together Personal, Social, Health Education, emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual development in a comprehensive scheme of learning. A lesson a week with the teaching resources included, helps us to focus on tailoring lessons to the children’s needs and to enjoy building the relationship with the class, getting to know them better as unique human beings.
Teaching strategies are varied and are mindful of preferred learning styles and the need for differentiation. Jigsaw is designed as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (Puzzle) at the same time. This enables each Puzzle to start with an introductory assembly, generating a whole school focus for adults and children alike.
Active Travel & news
The WOW Activity Tracker is a web-based tool which makes use of the class whiteboard to offer schools a digital alternative to WOW wallcharts. It offers all the usual benefits of tracking the pupils’ journeys, plus a whole lot more. Combined with the monthly badges, the Activity Tracker forms a complete monitoring and rewards system for schools running WOW.
Picture News is a pack full of teaching resources, emailed to each class every week!
The resources are designed to provide opportunities for children to learn from our world and develop respect for other’s beliefs, feelings and faiths. They encourage exploration, discussion, challenge and inspire children to learn!
Would you like to play an instrument?
Which one would you choose?
Have you ever been given a gift?
Who gave you the gift ?
How did it make you feel?
Internet safety
At St Mellon's, we promote the use of 'SMART' rules daily, as we know how important it is to stay safe online.
Please encourage your children to use these 'SMART' rules at home too.
As part of the Curriculum for Wales your child will discuss and learn how we can all stay safe online and about the dangers we may face on the internet. We get involved with national Internet Safety Day, which is held on the second Tuesday every February each year.
Online Learning
https://ictgames.com/phonicsPop/ Letter sound recognition
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/phonics/balloon-phonics-cvc-game Building sounds in cvc words in different positions
https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/dinosaurEggsHF/index.html High frequency sight words
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns Patterns with shapes
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns Patterns with shapes
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/todays-number-up-to-20 Number activities
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers Counting and reading numbers
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering Ordering numbers
https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/nuttyNumbers/index.html multiples of ten game
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/subtraction/subtraction-to-10 subtraction game
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/phonics/balloon-phonics-cvc-game Cvc word spelling activity
https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/dinosaurEggs_phonics/index.html phonics game