Author: Mrs Wood

Every Monday afternoon, the children have lots of fun exploring music with Miss Gaunt. Last week, they continued learning about the pulse through movement. They listened carefully to the song When the cold wind blows and responded appropriately by using coordinated movements with the parachute.

They crouched down small like hibernating hedgehogs.
They wriggled the parachute like they were shivering.
They warmed their hands by the fire.

Last week, our Living and Learning was ‘I can asses my own risks’. We looked at different activities and placed them on a ‘risk ladder’. We talked about high and low risks.

This week, we’ve been learning all about the Lunar New Year.

On Monday, they had lots of fun moving in different ways to create a dragon parade. Click here to watch it at home.
In literacy, we found out that the Lunar New Year is traditionally celebrated in Asian countries. We used a globe to locate some of these countries.

On Wednesday, we watched a video about special traditions and thought about the differences between the Lunar New Year and the New Year celebrations held on 31st December.

AP – It goes on for 15 days.
AM – They do a dragon dance.
EC – They have a big parade.
LN – They eat Chinese food.
SSK – They make lanterns.
FM – They have a lantern festival.
AT – We clean our house.

We had a go at making our own Chinese lanterns and dragons.
We also read the story about how the Chinese Zodiac started. We looked at the Zodiac wheel to find out which animal we are.
Our focus story was The Magic Paintbrush by Julia Donaldson. We closed our eyes and imagined what we would paint if someone gave us a magic paintbrush.

EZ – I would paint a tree because I want some gold coins.
SBL – I would paint a cat because I like cats.
SB – I would paint a rainbow.
FM – I would paint a heart.#

One of this week’s chilli challenges was to have a go at writing Chinese numerals- we found some of them really tricky!

Literacy
Our focus story was The Secrets of Winter by Carron Brown and Georgina Tee. We had a lots of fun shining a torch onto the pages to find the hidden winter surprises.
On Wednesday, we talked about the difference between non-fiction and fiction books and why they are both important. We then sorted a selection of non-fiction and fiction books into two groups.
We’ve also learnt lots of interesting facts about penguins! We watched various videos, talked about the life cycle and had a go at writing our favourite facts. Ask your child if they can remember one fact about penguins.

Maths
This week, we continued to engage with counting activities. A key focus this week has been the stable order principle – understanding that the position each number holds in our number sequence does not change. To help us understand the stable order principle, we used cubes, blocks and other resources to make staircase patterns.
When making our staircase patterns, we discovered that each number has a value of 1 more than the previous number.

Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem is a short poem called I can build a snowman. We used our imaginations and pretended to build snowmen.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the challenges this week…

Reminders

• Please make sure you write in your child’s reading record when you’ve read at home. It is important we see how your child is doing with their reading at home.
• Don’t forget our Phase 3 Funky Phonics Stay & Learn session! Thank you to everyone who has returned their slip. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday and Tuesday.
• E-books are assigned every Thursday. Please make sure your child reads this daily at home.

Home-Link Challenge

Happy New Year! We hope you all had a fantastic break. It was lovely to see lots of happy smiling faces on Tuesday morning. This week, we’ve  enjoyed sharing our wonderful Christmas memories and being back with our friends.

Literacy
Our focus story was Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. Throughout the week, we’ve learnt lots of interesting facts about Antarctica. We located it on a map, talked about the equator and found out what animals live there.
Our word of the week was iceberg. Ask your child if they can remember what an iceberg is.
For our writing challenges, we created missing posters and drew pictures of some of the things we would pack if we went on a journey to the South Pole. We used our phonics skills when labelling our pictures.
Yesterday, we worked together to sequence the story and talked about some of the key events.

Maths
This week, we’ve been using our ‘fast eyes’ to subitise (seeing the quantity without counting) more complex arrangements of dots. We took a picture of the arrangements with our eyes, closed our eyes and then explained what we saw. We used spatial language to describe the arrangements. For example, There are 3 dots on the top and 2 dots on the bottom.
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called Let’s put on our mittens. We hope you enjoy watching it.

Take a look at some of this week’s winter challenges…
Reminders

• PE is every Monday and Friday. Please make sure your child comes to school wearing the correct clothes. If you are unsure and need a reminder, please see our uniform policy.
• Funky Phonics Stay & Learn – Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 January
  A letter will be sent out next week. Due to limited space, only one adult per child can attend this session. 

Home-Link Challenge

What a busy week we’ve had in Reception! We’re so proud of all the Reception children for their FANTASTIC singing and dancing. Thank you to everyone who came to watch Wriggly Nativity.  We hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed learning the songs.
Literacy 
This week, we’ve been learning about The Christmas Story. We used actions to help us remember the story. Click here to us in action.
On Wednesday, we played a true or false game. Read the statements to your child. Can they remember which ones are true?

We also wrote a sentence about a picture from The Christmas Story.
Poetry Picnic 
We love learning new poems in Reception! This week, has got to be one of our favourites. Before watching this week’s poem, put the kettle on and make a cup of tea – cheers!

Christmas party
This morning, it was PARTY time! We had lots of fun playing party games and showing off our best dance moves. After all that dancing, we sat down and enjoyed eating some party food with our friends.
PE
Next half-term, PE will be on Monday and Friday.  Please make sure your child comes to school wearing their PE kit. If you child has their ears pierced, earrings must be removed before school.

Finally, thank you for your generosity. We hope you have a happy and healthy break. Enjoy spending some quality time with friends and family. Merry Christmas and a happy new year from all of the Reception Team!

It’s felt very Christmassy in Reception this week.
Take a look at what we’ve been up to…

On Monday, we made a bag of reindeer food in case the Santa’s reindeers are hungry on Christmas Eve.
The children have been very busy wrapping presents in Santa’s workshop.
Writing letters to Santa.
Looking at Christmas books with our friends.

Making paper chains in the finger gym area.

Playing Christmas maths games.

On Wednesday, the children decided to start a conga line. Why not? It’s Christmas after all!
After our final gymnastic session, it was time to sit down for our Christmas dinner. We had lots of fun dancing away to the Christmas songs.

Poetry Picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.

Phonics
This, we recapped all of the phase 2 graphemes and tricky words.
Next half term, we’ll be starting phase 3. In this phase, the children will continue to learn more digraphs (two letters making one sound) and they’ll be introduced to some trigraphs (three letters making one sound).

Maths
In maths, we’ve been learning about 3D shapes. We’ve looked at some common 3D shapes such as cylinder, sphere, cuboid, cube, square based pyramid and cone. We looked carefully at the shapes and talked about the properties of the 3d shapes.

Ask your child if they can find any 3d shapes around the house. Can they remember the name of them?

Finally, looking forward to seeing you all at the learning journey drop ins next week.

Reminders
Christmas production – Tuesday and Wednesday at 2.15pm
Christmas party – Friday
Your child can come to school in non-uniform. 

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

This morning, we had a very important job to do. Mrs Weekes asked us to decorate the Christmas tree in the hall. We worked as a team and used our fine motor skills when hanging the baubles. We can’t wait for you to see it at our Christmas Fair.

The Cheeky Elf has arrived!
Yesterday, we noticed a plain Christmas tree in the home corner. When we looked closer, the Elf was swinging on it.
This morning, we noticed tape across our classroom door. After ducking under the tape, we saw the Cheeky Elf holding a roll of tape!

I wonder what he’ll get up to next week…

We’re definitely getting into the Christmas spirit in Reception. Yesterday, we had lots of fun listening to Christmas songs and decorating our Christmas tree.
We’ve also been busy making and writing our Christmas cards. We hope you like them!
Maths
This week, we continued to explore the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of 1:1 correspondence by making sure that we match collections of objects to the correct representations. We developed our understanding of the concept of cardinality – that the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether. We also applied this concept when counting more abstract things, such as claps and jumps.

Phonics
We’ve come to the end of phase 2. Next week, we’ll be revisiting and consolidating all of phase 2 graphemes and tricky words. There’ll be no phonics home learning sheet next week. However, it would be great if you continued revisit these graphemes and tricky words at home.

Stamps
Next week, we’ll be your child will be learning all about what happens to our post when reading the story ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’. We sent a letter home about bringing in a stamp. If you would like your child’s postcard to be posted by Royal Mail, please provide a stamp in a named envelope by Thursday 8th December.

PE
Yesterday, the children made safe risks when climbing and travelling on the big apparatus. The gymnastic coaches were very impressed! They showed great determination and perseverance especially when climbing up the ladders.
Poetry picnic
Click here to watch this week’s poem.
Christmas reminders
Monday 05 December – Non-uniform day
To help us get ready for our Christmas fair, please bring a prize to school on Monday.
Thursday 08 December – Christmas dinner day
Friday 09 December – Christmas fair
Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 December – Christmas production
Friday 16 December – Christmas party day
Your child can wear non-uniform.

Home-Link Challenge

Literacy
This week, we’ve been reading the book How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers. We worked together to sequence the story and talked about what happened at the beginning, middle and end.
We also had a go at writing how we would catch a star.
On Wednesday, we talked about star constellations. We researched our star sign constellations and had a go at drawing and painting our own.
Art
On Thursday and Friday, we explored impressionism by looking at Claude Monet’s series of impressionist oil paintings of the Houses of Parliament. We used short, thin marks when using the soft pastels to create the background. When we were happy with our background, we used acrylic paint for the House of Parliament.
Maths
This week, we developed our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2.

Through practical experiences, we explored combining parts in different ways to find out the whole.
We had lots of fun playing the ‘Hats’ game.
How many children are wearing a hat? (part)
How many children are not wearing a hat? (part)
How many are there altogether? (whole)
“1 is wearing a hat. 2 are not wearing a hat. There are 3 children altogether.”

“3 children are wearing a hat. No children are not wearing a hat. There are 3 children altogether.”
“2 are wearing a hat. 2 are not wearing a hat. There are 4 children altogether.”

We watched the Numberblocks Stampoline video and had a go at printing our own Stampoline patterns of 4 and 5.

Poetry Picnic
This week’s is called Mice by Rose Fyleman.
We talked about how poems can sometimes have rhyming words in them. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem?
Christmas is coming!
We’ve been practising our Christmas songs for our Christmas performance. We just love to sing and dance in Reception! We can’t wait to for you to come and watch us on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 December.

Reminders
– PTA Christmas fair – Friday 09 December
– Learning journey drop in’s – Monday 12, Tuesday 13 and Thursday 15 December at 8.50 – 9.30am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
– The cold weather is here! Please make sure your child comes to school wearing a suitable coat.
– Please label hats, scarves and gloves!

Home-Link Challenge

 

 

 

This week, we celebrated Nursery Rhyme Week. In Literacy, we read Each Peach, Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg. When reading the story, we played ‘I Spy’. The children were encouraged to describe where the characters are using prepositional language, for example, Cinderella is hiding behind the cupboard.
After reading the book, they had to find a nursery rhyme character hiding in the classroom. The children had a go at writing the character’s name or a sentence describing where the character is hiding.

This week’s chilli challenges were all linked to nursery rhymes. Take a look at some in action…

Building a wall for Humpty Dumpty.
Playing Busy Bus with our friends in the maths area.
Baking a cake as fast as we can in the playdough area.

Catching fish in the water area.

Naming Old Macdonald’s farm animals and drawing our favourite.

Drawing number stories using 5 Little Speckled Frogs.
How many frogs are sat on the logs?
How many are in the pond?
Painting ‘Starry Night’ pictures.
On Wednesday, we looked at some past and present household artefacts and compared them. Some children had a go at drawing them using charcoal.
Living & Learning
This week is also Anti-Bullying week and yesterday we talked about the definition of bullying and what we can do to stop it. Which led onto us talking about kindness.
We made a kindness heart and talked about how we can be kind.

Florence – Including someone.
Avraj – By loving someone.
Lily – By looking after them.
Ryan – You can give them a hi-five.
Awais – Give to charity.
Seerat – Help someone who’s hurt.

Poetry Picnic
This week, we decided to learn a nursery rhyme. Check out our amazing actions!

Marvellous Maths
Thank you to all of the parents and carers who came to the maths stay & learn sessions this week. It was lovely to see so many of you! We hope you all thoroughly enjoyed it. The next stay & learn is a Funky Phonics Phase 3 session in January.

Reminders
– Library books must be returned every Friday.
– Learning Journey Drop In’s
Monday 12, Tuesday 13 & Thursday 15 December 8.50 – 9.30am or 3.15 – 3.45pm
A sign-up letter will be sent out shortly.
–  PE is on Monday and Wednesday next week.

Home-Link Challenge