18th September 2015Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to a new school year in Ahlberg Class. It will be a funand exciting year for your child with lots of new experiences. This half term our topic is called ‘All About Me’. Our learning will focus on settling into Reception, learning to share and co-operate, following and understanding school rules and making new friendships.

Part of our learning will include:• Playing with bricks, blocks, sand and water and role-play areas.• Painting pictures of ourselves• Listening to stories• Singing songs• Counting • Learning everyone’s name and comparing our likes and dislikes.

As part of building relationships between the children, I am sending home an ‘All About Me’ page for you to complete. Please send this back to school by Monday 28th September. We will also hold a dress-up day on Friday 23rd October where we would like to invite the children to dress up under the title ‘When I grow up I want to be …?’ to end our topic. During the afternoon of that day, we would like to invite you to join us as we find out who we are. More details to follow closer to the date.

WoW CardsAll learning in the Early Years is centred around the Early Learning Goals and as a part of your child’s profile, parental input is needed. We will be sending home ‘WoW’ cards to be filled in for your child with a focus, for example, Maths. An example of how to complete them will be included in the pack. Look out for these special cards in your child’s book bag.

Junk ModellingWe like to make lots of things with our imagination and need empty bottles, yoghurt pots, kitchen roll tubes, cereal boxes, etc. Please send some in when you can.

AHLBERG CLASS NEWSLETTER

Home LearningPhonics – Very soon, your child will begin to bring home learning for phonics on a Monday-Thursday. Please complete the simple sheet to reinforce the learning in school. For every piece of home learning completed, your child will receive a sticker. 10 stickers and they will get a reward! Word Cards – After half term, your child will also begin to bring home some word cards to learn. They will be learning the words in school and will need extra practice at home. These will be added to periodically when they are secure in reading the words already in their wallet. Reading Book – Your child will bring home a reading book. Please see inside the front cover for a more detailed explanation about the books we send home.Topic Related Learning – Periodically, your child will be sent home learning related to our topic. This will could be a project or a model. PEReception children will not be swimming this term due to the depth of the pool and health and safety reasons. They will be swimming later in the year. Our PE days are Wednesdays and Fridays. Jewellery and earrings should be removed for health and safety reasons and all hair must be tied back. Micropore tape should be provided if your child has just had their ears pierced and their earrings cannot be removed. For girls, please remember to include socks in their PE kit for days when they wear tights. When the colder weather comes, please send in sweatshirts and tracksuit bottoms for outdoor PE. During this half term, please help your child to dress independently. This includes putting on and taking off their jumpers and doing buttons. CookingWe would like to do some cooking with your child over the year term. However, ingredients can be expensive and we would like to request a donation of £3 towards the cost of ingredients for this term.

Mrs Clarke and I look forward to working with you over the next year. If you have any questions, I am available most mornings from 8.40am until the bell, or after school. Alternatively, you can write a message in the Reading Record book and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Kind Regards,

Mrs Chihab and Mrs Clarke