Firetips (Nursery and Reception)

Welcome to EYFS

Our class is called Firetips and we are taught by Mrs Ralph with support from Miss Palmer in class.

Firetips are supported by Miss Cherrie with SEN support from Mrs Djafari and Miss Rossiter.

Things to remember:

LIBRARY - Your child's library session will be on a Friday morning. Your child will be able to bring a new book home every week, if their previous book has been returned. Please read and share this book with your child to continue to develop the love of reading at home. Books must then be returned on a FRIDAY MORNING for your child to re-take a new one.

P.E- Your childs' physical development session will be on a THURSDAY. Please ensure your child comes already dressed in the appropriate clothing and footwear, for these sessions. Your child will then stay in their P.E kit for the remainder of the day, so please think carefully about the weather. Clothing includes; black shorts, white T-shirt for spring and summer and red trousers and a red jumper for the colder months and for any outdoor sessions. 
 

key dates:

Friday 28th May 2021- Break up for half term.

Monday 7th June 2021- INSET DAY

Tuesday 8th June 2021- Children return to school for Summer 2 term

Friday 2nd July 2021

July already, WOW! Only three weeks to go until the summer holidays and the move to year 1.

So over the last two weeks in Literacy, we have been busy exploring non-fiction by creating fact files about the seaside and this week exploring fiction with a lovely story where Max & Lemon travel the world. This has linked brilliantly with this weeks theme ‘International week.’ From the story, the children were able to identify the different places on our Earth and what type of clothing you would need in various locations. The children wrote about where they would like to go and why. I really hope one day they make their dreams come true and go and see the animals in the jungle and swim with the dolphins in the sea. 
 

We have continued with international week in EAD by making our own versions of the globe and creating flags that represent many countries. The boy’s and girl’s also did an amazing job helping Miss Cherrie, to create pieces of art for our ‘whole school classroom door challenge’ and guess what… WE WON! A massive well done to Miss Cherrie and the boy’s and girl’s, thoroughly deserved if you ask me! 
 

Yesterday the children focused on Italy in the afternoon where they made their very own pizzas! They were simple and easy, but extremely yummy. All you need is some wraps, some passata and some cheese (extra toppings if you wish). Pop the passata and cheese on top of the wrap, place in the oven for 5-7 minutes and hey presto!

In maths we have been exploring odd and even numbers. Now this concept can be extremely tricky but by making it practical with the children, using numicon to see which pieces have an ‘odd’ one sticking out (3,5,7,9) and playing musical chairs to identify if there were an ‘odd’ amount of chairs, or an ‘even’ amount made the concept a little easier to understand. So to continue to consolidate this knowledge at home you could:

- Listen to songs on YouTube

- When walking down the street, identify which side of the road the houses with odd numbers are on and which side has even numbers on

- Play in top marks, accessing an ‘odd or even’ game https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/coconut-odd-or-even 

Next week we explore all things ‘Pirates’ and are finishing the week with our sports day. We are heartbroken that parents are not allowed on site to cheer on the children but rest assured we will take lots of photos and will video the races. We will then pop them on tapestry so that you can still share this special day with your child at home.

Have a lovely weekend, COME ON ENGLAND!

Mrs Ralph & the EYFS team x

Summer 2 term- Friday 18th June 2021

Wow! These first two weeks back have been so busy, I cannot believe it's Friday again. It has been a fun-filled two weeks as we've enjoyed lots of learning out in the lovely sunshine, had our first Gardening session with Mrs Wheelbarrow and took part in a skipping workshop.

Firetips are continuing to impress all the adults as they have been super resilient learners in the heat, trying to conquer all tasks given. Online I see how hot and sweaty they are, but they sit, trying to focus and are always so happy to see me, they are a real highlight of my day.

Our topic is currently 'Under the sea,' which the children are thoroughly enjoying. During child initiated play the children have created rockpools with various resources and modelling clay, some lovely under the sea aquariums, selecting the correct creatures to go in and role played in our ice cream shop, developing their Communication & Language and Personal, Social & Emotional skills.

So, aswell as all the Understanding of the world activites, Physical development sessions and other areas of learning mentioned above, what else have we been upto?

In Literacy we have explored clips from the movie 'Finding Nemo.' From this we have created missing posters, emotion maps about how Nemo felt when he was taken from his Dad and thank you cards for Dory, for being a good friend. This week we have moved onto rhyme by exploring the book 'Commotion in the ocean.' Rhyme isn't something that the children find particularly easy and this could be due to missing a huge stint within their nursery life, where rhyme is addressed through phase 1 phonics. To help develop your child's confidence within this area you could identify rhyming words in books at home, give your child a word and see if they can write down some words that sound like that word, watch some rhyme videos  on Youtube here https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rhyming+eyfs or play one of the following games:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=rhyming%20games

https://www.roythezebra.com/reading-games-words-that-rhyme.html

https://www.famly.co/blog/eyfs-rhyming-games-children

In Maths we have been exploring teen numbers. We have been ordering number spots, creating teen numbers with various counting rescources and starting to understand what makes a teen number, for example 'ten and some more.' This week has been a huge empathsis on showing a teen number by identifying how many is added onto ten. '12' for exmaple, is ten and two more, one ten and two ones. If you could continue to develop this understanding at home that would be great. A wonderful game to explore this is shark numbers where it shows you how many tens and ones before you have to identify the number:

https://ictgames.com/sharkNumbers/mobile/index.html

In Phonics we have been busy continuing to embed our Phase 3 phonics by labelling and reading captions. We are also starting to show our understanding of what we are reading through drawing images to match sentences. It is vital that your child is now recognising all Phase 2, 3 and some of Phase 4 tricky words, this is to develop fluency in reading and the quality of your child's writing. Videos to help with this are below:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tricky+words

This week the children took part in a scavenger hunt, where we hid tricky words all around the room and they had to go and find them and mark them off their sheet. This is soemthing that could easily be re-created at home too.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday for week 3 of our final term together.

Mrs Ralph & the EYFS team

Friday 28th May 2021

During the past two weeks we have been busy wrapping up our dinosaur topic, which the children have become fully immersed in. We have created dinosaur fossils out of salt dough, continued to build resilience in P.E and continue to become aware of others needs by listening and developing our consideration. 

In maths we have explored time by using clocks to recognise and create ‘o’clock’ times, made our own watches and playing ‘what’s the time Mr Wolf.’ The children have become very confident with this, please continue this at home by asking what o’clock it nearly is and allowing them conversations about the time they do things in the day. We then moved onto 2D and 3D shapes. We created pizzas using 2D shapes as toppings, completed shape hunts, played shape splat, compared shapes to real life objects and used language to describe properties.

We explored rhyme and opposites in literacy by using ‘Dinosaur roar’ (a wonderful book) as our focus. In phonics we have been reading cvcc and ccvcc words as well as recognising more phase 3 tricky words. 

This week we have noticed that lots of the children seem tired. Please allow them to relax this week and have fun, ready to come back to have one last amazing term before heading to Year 1. We have a very exciting topic, that I know the children are going to love!

The sun is supposed to shine, enjoy every minute and we shall see you in just over a week.

Wednesday 12th May 2021

Firetips have settled in really well to their live lessons with myself and having Miss Palmer in class with them. During live lessons they are keen to talk and share things with me, which makes this time really special as well as seeing them try and impress me. They are continuing to develop their 'ready to learn' skills by sittng up staright and listening well during carpet times. Two more weeks to go and then we will be in the last half term before year 1, how time flies!

In phonics we have continued to explore phase 3 sounds including 'ur' and 'ow' and this week we are starting to explore syllables. When taling to your child about objects (nouns), see if they can break the word down using claps to identify how mnay syllables are in that word.

This week in literacy the children are exploring the story 'Dear Dinosaur.' Such a fabulous, engaging story which follows a little boy called 'Max,' on a visit to a museum, who is enthused to write letters. Fingers crossed Firetips create some great letters just like Max does in the story.

Last Friday we celebrated 'Number day.' This day addressed Understanding of the world, as we thought about a special charity, 'NSPCC' and a very special person 'Captain Tom Moore.' Lots of us dressed in numbers to take part in the fun day. The childen loved finding the 100 duplo bricks that were hidden around the room.

See you in two weeks for our final update of Summer term 1, before a well deserved half term break.

Monday 26th April 2021

Firetips have come back 'roaring' to go, just like our new topic 'DINOSAURS.' The children have come back with a wonderful attitude towards their learning, eager to explore and demonstrating their newly taught skills in their independent time. Duing phonic time in Reception, we are diving further into our phase 3 sounds; reading, recognising and applying the sounds in in our writing. Please do continue to practice identifying these sounds with your child, you can find these in the front of your child's reading record or you can encourage useful 'tablet time' by accessing Nessy or Phonics play. In Nursery, we are now starting to become confident in phase 1 before exploring some sounds in Summer term 2, ready for the transition into the Reception year. 

In maths we are enjoying being practical explorers, as we continue to work through the Herts for learning essential maths scheme. The past couple of weeks have seen us gaining a thorough understanding of the order of number and exploring 'one more and one less.' You can continue to develop this at home by asking your child to identify door numbers and then ask what is one more or less, than that given number. You could also count objects around the house (toys/cutlery) and ask what is one more or less than the given amount. The more confident your child is with mental recall of this, the more it will aid in mental subtraction and addition. Topmarks.co.uk is a great website for maths games and securing your child's learning at home. In nursery we have been focussing on identify the odd one out and exploring quantities.  

In P.E we have now moved onto cricket, which is new to lots of the children and although a challenge they face it head on every week, showing just what they can achieve when they put their minds to it.

In literacy we have focussed on fiction and non-fiction so far. We used 'Tyrannosaurus drip' as a focus story, to explore feelings, speech and thoughts of a charcater. Last week we headed to forest school and found a nest with Dinosaur eggs in. We also discovered a letter with the eggs. This was from Mummysaurus, setting us the challnege of taking care of the eggs. The children were eager to accept the challenge and did some wonderful instruction writing on how they thought you should take care of a dinosaur egg. The children then got to take an egg home each, to explore change by growing their own dinosaur.

The children have loved accessing all things 'dinosaur' in the room, especially our excavation site with dinosaur eggs and bones. The children have discovered bones with tricky words on, used the binoculars to seek out dinosaurs and used the base camp to cook food for each other.

We are enjoying seeing Personal, social and emotional grow across early years, as we are becoming more considerate of others. This is allowing our play to be more positive and productive enhaving communcation and language as we go.

Check back in, in two weeks to see how we got on writing our own versions of the story, 'Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs.' 

Friday 11th December 2020

One week to go! Another term full of fun and memories to last a lifetime, has flown by.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been busy becoming the next Tom Cruise and Judi Dench, as we prepare for the show of the year... 'The Nativity.' Please return your slip including your email address as soon as possible so that we get a teams invite for the Nativity, sent to you.

In Literacy we created a non- fiction book about Polar Bears and Penguins which enabled the children to really think about the facts they had learnt about each animal. We wrote predictions about our 'The little polar bear' story we started to read and then finished to check if the children's predictions were correct. The children also changed a section o this story by adding in their own character. The week after brought lots of excitement about Christmas as we explored the story 'The Jolly Christmas postman,' an absolute favourite of mine. During this week we wrote our letter to Santa which we then posted at our local post box, we are eagerly awaiting our replies to see if we are on the nice list. We also drew and wrote about a meal that we would give the Jolly postman as the characters that he visits, give him a drink and a snack. This week we completed some describing work on snowmen and sequenced the animation 'The Snowman.' The children really enjoyed watching this but were a little sad when the snowman melted at the end. The animation created lots of language between the children about what they had watched which was brilliant.

We completed an understanding of the world session based on animal habitats. We spoke about what a habitat was and what the children thought their habitat was. The children then sorted the animals into the correct habitat given reasons for their choices.

In Maths we have explored more and less in a variety of practical ways before exploring one more and one less of a given number. You can do this at home by calling a number or if you pass a number out and about get your child to think about what number comes before and what number comes after that number. We then moved onto time. We sequenced our daily events, ordered the days of the week, created season images to explore changes throughout the seasons before exploring o'clock.

Next week we have an exciting, activity filled week. Kick starting with our Christmas jumper and Christmas dinner day on Monday, Pantomime on Tuesday, dress rehearsal on the stage on Wednesday and our famous Nativity on Thursday along with our EYFS Christmas party. 

Thank you for all your co-operation and support this term.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas Break and a healthy, happy new year.

Mrs Ralph and the EYFS team.

Friday 13th November 2020

We are 'all things go' in Firetips class at the moment, as we become actors and actresses daily to practice our 'Nativity' (more information to come regarding this), as we move on to phase 3 phonics, explore our new topic 'Brrr it's cold' and build on all our skills we developed in Autumn term 1.

In our Physical development sessions (P.E) we are exploring Tennis and ball skills. The children enjoy Mr A coming in and teaching them for these sessions, developing their motor and listening skills.

In Literacy over the past few weeks, we have been describing fireworks using special words (adjectives), labelling images and writing our half term news. This week we pulled on the children's interest and did everything around 'Frozen.' The boys have enjoyed it just as much as the girls but I know they can't wait for a superhero week. So Frozen focused writing, we have chose our favourite character and described them, sequenced a story, used drama to re-tell a story and created invitations to Anna's coronation.

We have been developing our Communication & Language and Expressive art and design skills through our new polar regions role play. The children have loved dressing warm and heading to the 'North pole' and have even been on the look out for Santa.

In Maths this week we have not only explored the names and recognition of 2D shapes but also described and learnt about the properties of each one. We have completed printing activities, games outside, musical shapes (this was a favourite-play music and when it stops they have to find the shape called around the room, easily played at home). We also played shape bingo and took part in a shape hunt outside on our school grounds. All these activities have helped consolidate naming and recognising many 2D shapes. When on a walk or in the house ask your children if they can see any real life objects that represent 2D shapes? Outside we found a clock that represented a circle, a window that represented a rectangle, a bird house that represented a pentagon and many more.

Next week we move on to Polar animals where we will look and explore animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctic, looking at similarities and differences of these areas, create a non-fiction book and head to forest school to see if we can find any penguins, who knows if it's a chilly day, we may just see a few.

Please continue to read at home, I cannot express how much it develops their phonics and you can really see their abilities shining through now, which is a delight to see. 

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe.

Mrs Ralph & the EYFS team

Wednesday 21st October 2020

The final week of Autumn term 1, I can't quite believe it, time certainly flies when you're having fun. The children are now really embedding routines, understanding what happens during our school day and are even a little less messier at lunchtime. Each individual has made great progress over the past 7 weeks and I am very much looking forward to what next term brings.

So, the past few weeks have seen us exploring phase 2 phonics further, looking at e, u, r, h, b, f and l. The children are becoming more confident with their sounds, recognising and writing them and showing off their new knowledge during independent learning. Some of us are now writing CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) such as, pig, dog, rat, cat. Whilst on reading and writing, I am really pleased to see several children reaching their 'Give me ten' 25 milestone before half term, I really believe this pays off and assists with our phonic knowledge. 

In maths we continue to explore number as we looked deeper into 1-10, properties of shapes linked to number, subitising (see our fluency page for more information on this and youtube have lots of information in what this is) and measure. We have measured our height, weighed various items from around our classroom and placed them in order ‘heaviest to lightest’ and we will have explored capacity by the end of the week. These are all things that can be done at home, in the bath with cups and jugs or simply through general chat, discussing who is the biggest/smallest in your household.

We have explored 'People who help us,' where we explored many occupations and what special number we should call if we need help, (999) ask your child if they can tell you about this number and who it gets us to. We drew a fireman/lady in literacy and labelled them, we sorted out who helps us with what and who keeps us safe. Last week we enjoyed a favourite of mine, 'The little red hen.' The children absolutely loved this story and asked if they could act it out daily using our masks and stage area. As the hen baked bread in our story we made this real life for our children and allowed them each to bake a bread roll. Again an activity they thoroughly enjoyed and took lots of learning from. This week we explored 'The little acorn,' story. We each created a zig zag book and sequenced the events from the story, before adding key vocabulary. The rest of the week will see us exploring Autumn, the changes that occur and on Friday we will explore Halloween through a range of activities and our class party. We have decided to host a class party to promote not going trick or treating to our children so that they remain safe during these uncertain times. There will be lots of games and treats involved and the children can come dressed up in a Halloween costume or as their favourite character.

All that's left to say is have a lovely half term, keep reading, stay safe and if you need any help with Tapestry please do let us know.

Mrs Ralph and Miss Cherrie

Thursday 24th September 2020

Week 3 done and dusted! We have really started to settle into our new routines now and are showing great independence, especially when coming in on a morning. We have now started to upload lots of our learning onto Tapestry, so do look on there to see what we have been up to in class and ideas on how to help your child at home with their learning. If you still do not have access to Tapestry, please see me in a morning or after school and I'll try my best to resolve any issues.

So some of us have stayed for lunch now which tends to be a calm and quiet time, reflecting on the morning  (hopefully this is what they show at home too). We are ever so responsible with our hygiene and showing a great sense of self care, keeping every one safe during these times.

Over the past two weeks in Literacy we have collectively created class rules, labelled our body parts, decided what makes a good friend and what being a bad friend means. We have been incorporating our physical development skills with Literacy when writing our names, holding our pens with a tri-pod grip.

We have explored our senses through a variety of exercises including a smell experiment. Ask your child if they can remember any of the items.

In maths we have been playing lots of games to embed Maths in a fun and engaging way. We have also explored time by speaking about daily routines and what happens when in a day. I have just added a Youtube link from 'Herts for learning' on our maths fluency page. On here you will find a range of games to play at home to consolidate your child learning.

We have now started phonics- Phase 2 set 1. This week we have explored 's' 'a' 't' and 'p.' Jolly phonics on youtube is a great source for you to use at home for the children to practise the songs and the action for the sound. Giving each sound a physical action, really helps the children remember the sound for when we come to write. Alphablocks are great to use as a time filler for before dinner or bath time. Although our usual phonic parent workshop could not happen, there will be something available for you virtually to help with the delivery of phonics at home. This will be really beneficial now your child has started to bring home reading books and has begun their reading and writing journey.

Thank you to all our families who have brought in photos of for our family gallery it is a highlight of our room, where the children often stand and chat about who they are with and what they are doing in the photo.

Friday 11th September 2020

Friday already, wow! This week has flown by, getting to know each other and making new friends for life. We have had so much fun in and outside our classroom. This week saw us take part in our first P.E session together, where this term we will explore movement and travel. This was a very exciting session outside on our field, where we all listened so well and tried to get involved as much as we could. Outside, we have been making mud pies in our mud kitchen, gave each other a ride on the back of our bikes, took turns on scooters and created first class performances on our stage. Inside we have engaged in role play in our 'Firetips house,' built amazing models and creations in our construction area, played games on our interactive board and explored our cosy reading area.

This week I would describe Firetips as 'brave.' Brave for being so grown up and coming into the classroom without any grown ups, brave for talking to new adults and children, brave for trying new fruit at snack time and brave for simply having a go at everything this week. I cannot wait to see what the rest of this term brings and how we grow as a class.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Ralph