Firetips (Nursery and Reception)

Welcome to EYFS

Our class is called Firetips. 

Reception class are taught by Miss S (Monday-Wednesday) and Mrs Ralph (Wednesday-Friday).

Our early years practitioner is Miss Surridge and we are supported by Miss Rossiter (Wednesday-Friday).

PE Days

Firetips will have PE on a Tuesday and a Thursday.  Children will need to wear their PE kit to school on this day and will remain in them all day. As the weather changes, please ensure your child has the correct PE kit so they can participate successfully. 

Library Slot

Your child will get an opportunity to visit the school library on a Monday afternoon if your child is in Reception or on a Wednesday morning if they are in Nursery. Here they will have the chance to borrow a book that they are interested in: a book they will read for pleasure.  If they wish to take a book home, this will need to be returned on a Monday/Wednesday morning ready to change.

Give Me Ten 

Children are expected to read for at least ten minutes every day and this should be recorded in their reading record by a parent/carer. Children should bring their reading record to school every day. We hope to see lots of children becoming Reading Champions this year and celebrating them in our Friday celebration assemblies.

Important dates

Monday 6th January 2025- school closed Staff Inset

Tuesday 7th January 2025- Children start back 

Thursday 16th January 2025- EYFS Share a story morning 

Monday 3rd February 2025- Reception class trip to St Albans Library

Friday 7th February 2025- NSPCC number day

Thursday 13th February 2025- Internet safety day

Friday 14th February 2025- Half term begins at 3:30

Autumn 2

Welcome to our last blog of the autumn term…

We cannot believe how quickly this half term has flown by. What a lot of things we have done! 

Our topic focussed on celebrations that different people celebrate. Through a variety of texts, we have explored Bonfire night, Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas. The children have used their phonics to create; books, posters, cards, invitations, add speech to images and write descriptions. 

Through the continuation of our daily little wandle phonic sessions, the children have now learnt all phase 2 sounds and began phase 3 (ch, sh, th, nk, ng). After the break we continue with our phase 3 sounds and will begin to explore ‘ai,’ ‘ee,’ ‘oa’ and ‘igh.’

In maths, we have been using language to describe the properties of 2D shapes and finding real life 2D shapes. We have been adding and taking away from an amount. The children began to explore number bonds and which two numbers added together, make 5. Do continue to explore the above areas through games on topmarks.com or through the use of songs which can be found online. 

Our trip to the Cathedral was a success and the children LOVED catching the bus and learning all about our local town, St Albans. We are looking forward to heading back into town to visit the Library next term. 

This past two weeks have been the busiest, fullest final two weeks we have ever had had this point in the year. We would like to thank the children for bringing the calm in the chaos and filling our hearts with joy and pride. The nativity was out of the world and many visitors have been impressed by all of their learning powers. We celebrated by having so much fun at the Christmas party, with many treats, games and prizes.

Whatever your plans are over the next two weeks, enjoy every moment together. Time is flying as always.

See you for Spring term very soon.

Mrs Ralphs, Miss S and the EYFS team

Autumn 1

The first half term is complete - what a busy half term it has been. We have been building strong relationships, creating lifelong friendships and simply having a ball!

We kicked started our year with a visit from 'Little City.' This developed our communication and language skills as we took on different roles in the city. It developed our personal, social and emotional skills as we played alongside peers and took turns using the equipment. Finally, it helped to develop our understanding of the world.

We explored our families, homes and interests as we read 'Monkey Puzzle.' During our session all about pets, Toast the Tortoise came to visit us. We also had many visitors when we read the text 'A superhero like you’: we had a Q&A video call with Sergeant Rossiter (a firearms officer); a face-to-face session with PC Alex; and a session with our local dentist who brought goody bags in for each child. A huge thank you to all for giving up their time to provide these amazing sessions for our children.

We learned about harvest as we baked bread like the ‘Little Red Hen’ did in our weekly focus text. The children created hedgehog habitats as we learnt about autumn and hibernation in science.

In phonics, we have now explored all Phase 2 sounds and continued to work on our blending and segmenting to help us with reading and writing. Do keep working on recognising and blending words - remember, once confident, your child will bring home a reading book with words.

In maths, we have explored patterns with everyday objects and 2D shapes. We consolidated our knowledge of properties of 2D shapes. We have explored weight (heavy/light) and measure, identifying biggest/tallest and smallest/shortest. We have spent a lot of time gaining a stronger understanding of numbers 1-10. Numberblocks helped us visualise numbers and understand how two numbers added together can make a new number. Subitising skills have been developed as we played board games and used dice in lessons. Tens frames were introduced during a fantastic game called 'tens frame dash.'

Useful websites to help consolidate this half term’s learning:

BBC iPlayer- Numberblocks

Jolly phonic songs on Youtube

ICT games website

Phonics play website

Topmarks website