Year R - Owl Class
Welcome to Owl Class
Class Teacher: Mrs Peachey-Smith
Teaching Assistant: Miss Esson,
We also have a wonderful team of support staff who will be working with your children: Miss Oliver, Mrs Woods, Mrs Walsh and Miss Sharp.
🍂 Term 3 Learning Journey in Reception
Welcome to our exciting Term 3! The first term in our new building is very exciting! This term we’ll be exploring seasonal changes, wonderful stories, early phonics, and early number mastery. Our learning will be playful, hands-on and full of creativity as we build confidence, curiosity and kindness.
📚 Our Focus Stories
Each week we’ll dive into a different book to inspire our learning:
- The Jolly Postman
- Two Places to Call Home
- Iccy Piccy Artatiec
- The Dolls' House
- Three Little Wolves & The Big Bad Pig
- Coming to England / Hello Winter / The Snow Thief
Phonics – Twinkl Level 2
This term we’re following the Twinkl Phonics Level 2 scheme.
Children will learn new sounds (grapheme, phoneme correspondences) and practise blending sounds to read simple words.
You can support your child by spotting these letters in books, signs, or food packets and practising simple words like sat, pin and dog.
This short video is very helpful to watch as it will show you the sound and action for each of the Level 2 sounds your child is going to learn:
Click here for a video of the Level 2 sounds
🔢 Mastering Number – NCETM Weeks 11 - 17
We are following the Mastering Number programme to develop a strong sense of number, pattern, and comparison. Each week builds children’s understanding of counting, order, and how numbers are made up of parts and wholes.
Mastering Number Focus: Week-by-Week
- Week 1: The focus is on subitising numbers to 5, recognising die patterns, composing the number 5, and spatial reasoning through matching arrangements.
- Week 2: Your child will explore variations in composing 5, subitising mixed representations, comparing equal and not equal sets, and understanding ordinality within 5.
- Week 3: The focus moves to composition of 6, subitising to 6, recognising staircase patterns (1 more), and matching representations to numerals.
- Week 4: Your child will work on composition of 7, subitising to 7, missing part reasoning, and spatial arrangements to develop number understanding.
- Week 5: This week consolidates number skills through matching numerals to quantities up to 5, comparing sets, making sets equal, and reviewing subitising to 5.
- Week 6:The final week is for assessment and consolidation, including ordinality practice, staircase patterns, subitising review, and spatial recall activities.
You can help at home by:
- Counting everyday items (stairs, toys, apples)
- Talking about “more than” and “fewer than”
- Playing number games or matching objects to numerals
Communication and Language
In communication and language, we will develop their listening and attention skills by following engaging stories such as The Jolly Postman and Iccy Piccy Artatiec. We will practice understanding story sequences and retelling events, which helps with comprehension and memory. Speaking skills will be nurtured as children describe environments from Two Places to Call Home and settings from the dollhouse role-play. We will also deepen their understanding by responding to music and seasonal themes like winter vocabulary. At home, you can support this development by reading stories together and encouraging your child to retell or predict what might happen next. Talking about the world around you and discussing seasons using descriptive words will also help build their language skills.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
We will be strengthened through active play that promotes agility and coordination, including skipping, hopping, and jumping games inspired by stories like Three Little Wolves & The Big Bad Pig and The Jolly Postman. Role-play activities such as acting out scenes in the dollhouse or the post office help build confidence, cooperation, and imagination. To support your child at home, try playing active games together that encourage movement and create simple role-play scenarios to foster creativity and social interaction.
Physical Development (PD)
We will focus on both gross and fine motor skills. We will practice gross motor skills through various agility activities that involve moving at different speeds, hopping, skipping, and jumping. Fine motor skills will be honed through handwriting practice and drawing activities, especially when working on stories like The Dolls' House and The Jolly Postman. You can support this at home by encouraging your child to write or draw with pencils and crayons and setting up simple obstacle courses or physical challenges that promote movement and coordination.
🎨 Expressive Arts and Design
We will be encouraged to express ourselves through a variety of art, music and dance activities inspired by stories such as Iggy Peck, Architect and The Dolls’ House. We will explore mixing colours, drawing story settings, painting using our hands, and taking part in imaginative role-play. These activities help to develop creativity, fine motor skills and confidence.
You can support learning at home by providing simple art materials, listening to music together and encouraging movement or dance, and creating role-play opportunities that inspire imagination and storytelling.
Understanding the World
We will explore the world around us by learning about different environments and communities, as seen in the Two Places to Call Home story and through small-world play. We will also observe and discuss seasonal changes, focusing on winter themes in Coming to England, Hello Winter, and The Snow Thief. This helps them build an understanding of the natural world and the people around them. To support this learning at home, talk about different places and communities you visit, and take nature walks to observe changes in the seasons together.
🧺 Tuff Tray Play
Tuff Tray Ideas Linked to Learning
Tuff trays provide hands-on learning opportunities connected to our stories and themes. This term, your child will enjoy activities such as:
- Post Office Tray: Explore letters, stamps, and number matching inspired by The Jolly Postman.
- Small-world Communities: Build and compare communities related to Two Places to Call Home.
- Colour Mixing Tray: Experiment with colours linked to Iccy Piccy Artatiec.
- Dollhouse Role Play: Use figures and furniture to retell stories and practice tricky words from The Dolls' House.
- Build Houses Tray: Construct houses to inspire descriptive writing based on Three Little Wolves & The Big Bad Pig.
- Winter Sensory Tray: Explore textures and objects related to winter stories like The Snow Thief.
Forest School - Tuesday
Your child will need to come to school in their Forest School kit for these sessions, with their school uniform in their bag to change into. Please provide them with old clothes, water proofs and some wellington boots or snow boots. With the weather changing, please ensure your child has clothes that are warm and waterproof, because the weather is always unpredictable.
P.E. - Friday
Please make sure that your child wears their P.E. kit to school Friday mornings. This should include shorts, a t-shirt and plimsolls/trainers. They are able to wear their P.E. kits for the rest of the day.
How you can help at home
- Read with your child at least three times a week. Every week on Friday, your child's books will be changed. Please sign the reading record so that you can let us know how they are getting on with their reading at home and so that we can keep track of what books have been read.
- Practise the phonic sounds we have been learning in class.
- Talk to them about school routines, such as putting their things in their lockers, lunch times, eating, register and tidying up.
- Use the curriculum newsletter to discuss their current learning and encourage them to incorporate what they have been learning into their everyday routines.
- Explore their interests through play.
Thank you for your support. If you ever have any concerns or questions then please don't hesitate to contact me. I am at the classroom door before and after school or alternatively, you can email me on ClassDojo.
Please click here to access extra phonics, reading and spelling resources.
Please click here to access links to other useful home learning resources published online.
If you are unsure of any log in details please contact the teacher through Class Dojo or email office@pilgrims-way.kent.sch.uk