Recption Year 1 Pine
Teacher: Mrs Bohan
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Ingoglia and Ms Conyard
Mrs Bohan, Ms Conyard and Mrs Ingoglia would like to wish you a warm welcome to Reception/Year 1 Pine Class! The children have already settled in well and made a fantastic start to the year. We are looking forward to seeing them make even more progress. Year One begins the children’s journey into Key Stage One, so it’s a very important year! We do lots of hands on leaning through our inspiring and creative curriculum.
Please see below for important information and how you can work together with us to help your child make progress.
Start time: 8:50am
Finish time: 3:20pm
PE Day: Monday with LFC, Wednesday Dance and Thursday St Helens Rugby
Please send your child to school in the school PE kit and trainers on both days.
We award children Dojos for following school rules of being Ready, Respectful and Safe. Children are also awarded points for perseverance and amazing work. Have a chat to your child about why they have been awarded their points. Please visit our Reception/Year 1 Pine
ClassDojo Page
Class Story is the easiest way to share classroom moments, photos, and updates with parents. Here you will be able to see the children’s amazing work.
What to expect in Reception
A typical day at Millbrook Reception your child will do Read Write Inc which is reading, sounds, blending. This helps to become a fluent reader and to write sentences independently. We then follow this with planned and practical activities to develop their developmental needs as well as their own interests. . We listen to our children to understand their current likes and interests and plan accordingly to them. The indoor and outdoor classroom is divided into areas i.e. construction, water, mud kitchen, small world, music, physical, reading, home corner, writing area, malleable area, Maths/construction, Exploring and investigating and creative and these have resources that are there permanently but are also enhanced with resources each week to cover specific themes.
Parent video: What is Read Write Inc Phonics
How to say their sounds
Parent Video: Sound Blending
Pencil Grip
As with all areas of development, each child will develop the skills needed to hold a pencil at a different time, however they will work through a number of stages. This includes strengthening their hand, shoulder and arm muscles, and mobility. Below is a guide to the different pencil grip stages. Doing the different activities above will support your child to strengthen their gross motor skills and fine motor skills.
Early years pencil grip development guide for parents
The White Rose Maths ‘schemes of learning’
A scheme of learning is a clear, time-linked plan for learning.
Our schemes are written for year groups and cover the whole school year of learning. You can view and download our schemes of learning and learning videos completely free of charge on the
Home learning section of our website.
Development Matters
We use the document ‘Development Matters’ to assess each child. ‘Development Matters’ helps adults in the setting to support children’s learning and development, by closely matching what they provide to a child’s current needs. We plan to the child’s interests and learning needs, covering these statements throughout the year through a variety of themes and activities
- Read at home on a regular basis. We aim to change reading books as often as possible.
Ways to help your child at home
- Listen to your child read regularly, reading stories to your child, creating your own story using yours and your child imagination.
- Speaking to your child about interesting things to extend their vocabulary.
- Sing nursery rhymes
- Promote independence within your daily routine eg. Dressing themselves, putting on coat and fastening it up, cutting own food and using the toilet independently
- Practice counting to 20 and beyond, count objects, match items to the amount, recognise the number, order numbers.
- Encourage writing when you can. Example shopping lists, writing birthday cards, writing CVC words like c a t.
- Engage with class dojo, talk about what your child has been doing in school. Share any achievements or special days through dojo.
Useful links
What to expect in Year 1:
Year 1 at primary school (age 5–6) – Oxford Owl
Reading:
We are learning to read using Read Write Inc Phonics. We are learning lots of new sounds and how to blend sounds to read words. We are also working on our fluency by making our reading speedy.
Please listen to your child read for 5-10 minutes every night where possible. Children will bring home 2 reading books, one of which is the Read Write Inc. book they are reading in class that week.
There are some tips for listening to your child read below.
Talk, talk, talk!
You can help you child by encouraging them to listen and speak in full sentences.
Discover the joy of reading with your child.
Please visit: Free eBook library | Oxford Owl from Oxford University Press
If you have a child in Year 1 this is a great place to find out about how they are learning to read and what you can do to help at home.
Get some fresh ideas for encouraging your child’s reading at home, check out our online eBook library with access to over 130 free books and find out more about how reading is taught in school.
There’s also a handy guide to understanding phonics and information on the reading schemes used in schools.
Writing:
Please encourage your child to start all letters on the line.
Children are working hard on writing “Golden Sentences”. These are sentences which:
- Make sense;
- Begin with a capital letter;
- Have finger spaces between words;
- Have been written using pre-cursive handwriting.
- Read Write Inc. Phonics: Reading at Home Booklet
- Handwriting phrases for helping your child to form letters
Maths:
Children count daily and are working on addition, subtraction, shape, money, time and measure. We are also learning to write our numbers correctly.
Below are some links to maths songs/websites which will help your child with maths:
Choose number bonds for the game below.
- Hit the Button – Quick fire maths practise for 6-11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)
- Caterpillar Ordering – An Ordering and Sequencing Game (topmarks.co.uk)
Please see the curriculum pages for more information on the topics we learn in the afternoon.
- Read Write Inc. Phonics: Reading at Home Booklet
- Handwriting phrases for helping your child to form letters
The Y1 Maths curriculum for this year for your child is below:
Here are some activities to support your child’s learning:
As part of our continuous aim to support children and development we have listed some websites that might be of benefit to their learning:
Useful Websites
