This week we have been reading the story ‘Aliens Love Underpants’. These aliens love stealing underpants from the washing line especially granny’s spotted bloomers so beware! Our learning took us on a very exciting adventure, we were very busy finding the most suitable materials for the aliens’ underpants. We tried and tested different materials such a paper, tissue, cardboard and fabric by dipping these materials into water to see which material was the strongest. We also had to create and design our own alien, they were very funky looking, some had 6 eyes, some had 2 hands with 6 fingers and long claws. Yuck! We then had to use our phonics knowledge to come up with strange names for our aliens. We came up with names such as Pim, Det and Cag. Can you come up with another strange alien names and have a go at writing them.

In Maths we have been learning about patterns. We have learnt that patterns are repeated designs. Did you know that patterns are everywhere around us? Some of us even noticed patterns on the soles of our shoes. We also designed some patterns on some alien’s underpants. We hung them up on the washing line in hope of an alien visit. Perhaps, this weekend you could go a pattern hunt around your house or in the park? What can you see? Can you draw the pattern?

We have been busy in phonics learning more sounds;

ck    e     u     r

To embed our phonics knowledge, we made some clocks, made marks on eggs and underpants and wrote under the table and used our robot arms to segment and blend words.

We used these sounds to make words:

 duck ten men  run  cup  mum  rock

Have a go at reading and writing these words.

Reminders

• All children need a spare bag of (old) clothes on their peg.
• All children need a book bag so they can take a story book home to share with their family. Please bring story books back to school the following day so the children can take a new one home. Or you can keep the same book for a few days if you are really enjoying it!
• Please make sure all uniform and clothing is labelled. Please be patient with us in locating the missing uniform. It is so important that you have written your child’s name on all items of clothing. It is quite difficult to locate uniforms when your child’s name is not on it.
• Please talk to your child about what they have been learning about in school. The slideshow of pictures below could help spark an interesting conversation. 
• We welcome donations of old recycled materials for the children to do ‘junk modelling’ with. This includes old (clean) cereal boxes, milk cartons, toilet roll tubes and any food packaging you may have. Please ensure none of these items have any traces of nuts. We have children in the setting who are allergic to nuts.
• We are a nut aware school. Please ensure there are no nuts in your child’s packed lunch. This includes peanut butter sandwiches and pesto sauce. 
• The children have P.E. with the coach every Thursday. The children learn how to change independently for P.E. in stages. Next week, we will be learning how to change our shoes, trousers/skirts and tops independently so please ensure you child has their kit in school. 
• Please ensure your child does not bring any toys from home to school.

Thank you

The Reception Team