1. Foundation Stage Sound books The children practise their 'Rainbow Letters' every morning for each new sound we learn. A copy of these is then put in their Sound book to take home, so that children can practise their sounds at home with the correct letter formations. Please encourage them as much as you can!

2. Reading Books I will be starting to send reading books home with the children at the start of next half-term. Initially the books will not contain any words, just pictures. Please talk about what is happening on each page and encourage your child to tell a story from the pictures. With each book there will be a list of questions that you can ask your child to encourage the story-telling process. Once your child is ready to progress I will then start to send home books with words in.

3. 'Big Talk' We have not completed our first 'Big Talk' yet but next half- term we will be doing our first one. In the spring term we will still be doing the big talk on a fortnightly basis in class. We will also be starting a new initiative for our Big Talk, which Mrs Andrew will be discussing at the end of the presentations.

4. KIRF's- (Key Instant Recall Facts) Every half-term we will have a new KIRF,which we will practise in class, but also need to practise at home. All the children have already taken home their red bookmarks with all the KIRFS on for Foundation year. In the classroom we have a 'Challenge Corner' with a task related to our KIRF. The children can go and try the challenge whenever they want to.

5. Practical Maths As an addition to the KIRF each half-term we will also have a focus on an area of practical maths. This half-term our focus is ‘Capacity'. In Reception we will be looking at the language associated with capacity, e.g full, half-full and empty and also comparing the capacity of different containers. At home you could encourage your child to look at different household/everyday containers and compare which hold more/less. On the Internet there is a website www.crickweb.co.uk, which has lots of games specifically for Foundation for all areas of Numeracy.

6. WOW sheets