Welcome back, we hope that you had an enjoyable and restful holiday.
This term we have lots of exciting learning opportunities for the children. We will be continuing with our ‘Letters and sounds’ and you will be hearing about lots of new letters, their sounds and actions soon. We are encouraging the children to use their known phonemes to blend simple words that they meet e.g.
a + t = at a +n +d =and
Soon we will be introducing consonant digraphs which have 2 letters that represent 1 sound e.g. ch, sh, th- all good fun!
Reading 
Please keep reading with your child at home and write a comment in their reading diary so that we know that you have read the book with them. The children have a daily phonics lesson which involves reading skills and practice; additionally we have shared reading activities, individual reading and promote reading for enjoyment and information at school. The 1:1 reading with your child at home is really beneficial- it gives your child a chance to practice what they have learnt, build up their reading knowledge and learn about how books work- it is an essential part of their learning. Thank you for your support.
Reading Books
These will start to contain simple words which the children will meet regularly – we call them ‘tricky words’ and the children will build up their sight vocabulary of them e.g. the, go, to. The books also have words that they can blend with their letter sound knowledge
e.g. c-a-t.
Please try to find a quiet time (without distractions) when you can share this book with your children. Talk to them about the pictures, help them if they are finding it tricky, discuss with them if they liked the book or their favourite part, the illustrations etc.
When they have finished the book please write a comment in their green reading diary (see suggestions at the end), return them to school and we will change it for a new one when possible.
If your child wishes to keep the book and read it again or if there has not been time to read that evening that is fine, just write a note in the reading diary for us.
Please keep on reading other books to your child as it helps them build up vocabulary, story patterns and a knowledge of how books work. Efford and Laira libraries have a good selection of children’s books available for free loans.
We will also be continuing with our numeracy sessions with lots of learning linked to our topic of……Superheroes and princesses! We have followed the children’s interests for this topic and we have developed an exciting range of activities linked with this.
We will continue to send home short phonics/ numeracy activities on a Friday to support learning.
Please remember that all children need to come to school with a warm coat please as they will continue with outdoor learning and play during this term.
Your help is needed:
As all of the children have been with us for at least a term we are encouraging them to be more independent with their personal organisation. Please can we ask that parents say goodbye to their child at bell time in the playground and move back beside the fence to let the children come into school independently. This will really help with the rather limited space in our upper playground and cloakrooms which can get quite congested with extra adults, siblings and buggies and with safeguarding issues if children are using the toilets etc.
Lastly one more request of help- please name ALL of your child’s clothing. If things get misplaced it helps us to match the item to the child quickly before things get lost or muddled with another child’s clothing.
Thank you for your continued support.
Happy New Year,
The Foundation team.
Reading book comments (these are just suggestions)
_______ enjoyed this book.
Sorry we had swimming tonight please can we read this book tomorrow.
________ found this story funny.
Sorry ____ was really tired we will read this tomorrow.
_______ liked the (character e.g clown) he found him very funny.
_______ thought that the (character) might……… next.
_______ used the pictures well to help him.
________ remembered the new word_____ in this story.
________ has a (dog/ cat etc) too so liked the story.
________ thought the (character e.g. witch) was nasty/ silly/ mean etc.
______ liked this book and read it twice!
_______ read this story to his Gran/ Auntie/ dog! etc….
