Week 4 – The Magic Paintbrush
Happy New Year!
This week in Reception we have been learning more about the Lunar New Year. We discovered how people across the world will be having new year celebrations and that 2023 is the year of the Rabbit! We were particularly interested in how dragons featured not only in our focus book but in lots of the celebrations. We created our own dragons and even learnt to dance like a dragon in our own parade.
We wrote good luck messages for the year ahead and build great walls to show our representations of the Great wall of China!
Bex Rayner
Thank you to everyone for all of the amazing sponsorships which allowed this great visit to take place. we were so excited to meet Bex and to learn more about what it is like to be a football player. We loved taking part in the circuit training and even our very own Mrs Walton showed her football skills in the assembly.
As you all know we love reading in Reception and love sharing stories with others. On Wednesday Yr 5& 6 came down to share some special stories with us. It was so nice to hear other people read and we even showed off our new reading skills to them!
Ways to help at home:
- Phase 3 phonics flashcards have been sent home. Please keep reading together to gain confidence
- Writing words together
- Daily reading using e-books. If anyone is having any problems logging in please let me know.
Mrs Payne
Week 2 – animal fact books
We have had great fun exploring ice and learning more about different animals this week. We used different cutting tools to create ice sculptures and discovered that the more we held the ice pieces the smaller they became.
We created igloos in our construction area using different building materials and snowflake designs on pegboards. “It is tricky to make the band go around the peg. My fingers are working hard” Aurelia.
We love reading in Reception. We enjoy exploring different books. This week we learnt more about fiction and non-fiction books. We sorted books from our reading corner into two piles and then used the contents page to help us find specific information.
We can’t wait to see everyone in our classroom for our phonics lesson on Monday 16 January. Please come to the office for 9am and then we can start learning together.
Welcome back!
Hello!
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break and are looking forward to an amazing 2023. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all of our lovely Christmas cards and gifts.
This week our focus book has been Lost and Found. We have used this to think about the weather in different places around the world and how different animals live in different places. Whilst outside we discovered some signs of Winter. We discussed how we thought the ice got there and what would need to happen for it to change into water.
As we read through our story we decided that we would like to make some of our own penguins. We used a range of different materials to create different parts of the penguins.
The more we read about the penguin in the story the more we wanted to learn. Harry asked “how tall is a penguin in real life?” we decided to find out and create our own real life sized penguins. We created an Emperor, Rockhopper and Macaroni penguin. Can you believe an Emperor penguin can be 115cm tall! We then used our real life sized penguins to find out if we were taller or shorter than the different penguins.
On Monday 16 January 9- 9:30 we will be holding our next stay and play session. This time we will be focusing on phase 3 phonics.
Things you could do to help with learning at home:
- letter formation
- blending sounds
- talking about things in the local environment.
Mrs Payne
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
What a busy final week of 2022 we have had in reception. We have loved all of the Christmas activities that linked in with our Nativity and the Christmas story.
We made our very own Christmas lunches at the creation table. Using our hands we created different food items and thought carefully about shapes and sizes. Our real Christmas lunch was amazing! we designed table coverings and crowns to make the lunch extra special.
In reception we love our daily poetry sessions. Here is our poem from this week. We hope you enjoy it.
I would like to say huge thank you for all of your support this term. The children are working so hard both in school and at home. It is lovely to see and hear all about home learning.
We hope you all have an amazing Christmas break and enjoy lots of family time together. Thank you to everyone for our lovely Christmas things.
Mrs Payne
Week 6 – The Jolly Christmas Postman
It has been a busy week in Reception! Our book this week was all about the jolly postman taking special Christmas gifts to everyone. We decided to write our own postcards to send to people we care about.
As part of our creative time we made our own stamps. We thought about why stamps are important and looked at lots of different designs.
We have used our printing skills to make our own pieces of wrapping paper. We used different items to print with including potatoes! We enjoyed counting how many of each shape we had included and also recognising different colours.
On
On Monday we learnt more about Christingles. We discovered what the different parts of the Christingle represent. We made our own Christingles ready for our church service later in the week.
On Wednesday we had our first visit to church. We had a lovely walk looking for signs of Winter on the way. When we arrived at church we had a look at the building and found a special stable in the corner which reminded us of the Christmas Nativity Story. We all felt that it was a very special service.
We hope that you all enjoyed our Christmas Nativity production “It’s a Party” We have loved learning the songs and working with year 1 and 2 to create a super show. Thank you to everyone for all of your help and support.
Things to remember:
On the 12 December everyone is welcome to come into Reception to see what learning we have been doing this term. Learning Journeys and floor books will be out for everyone to have a look through. We hope you can join us from 3:30.
Week 5 – Owl Babies
We have seen lots of signs of Winter this week in Reception. We were very excited to find ice in our outdoor area and wondered how it got there.
Our focus story this week has been Owl Babies. We have sequenced the story remembering the repeated phrases. We have enjoyed learning more about nocturnal animals and when and where we might see them. We used different drawing pencils to draw them and even used our phonics to try writing their names.
A big thank you to everyone for working hard at home with phonics. The children are working so hard with their segmenting and blending skills. I am sure you will agree we are all fantastic readers! We have been using these skills outside with our phonics balls. Can you read the word and then send it down the tunnel?
We love outdoor learning in Reception. We enjoy exploring all the different activities and creating our own challenges. In our outside construction we decided to create a roller coaster for the cars! We had to think about how the cars would travel through the tubes.
We are very excited to show everyone our Nativity play next week. Thank you to everyone who has brought in costumes and helped us to learn songs and lines. It is going to be amazing!
Week 4 – How to catch a star
In our maths sessions this week we have been investigating the number 5. We have been using part whole models to explore different parts that come together to make a whole. We enjoyed creating 5 in different ways with linking cubes.
Following on from our learning around the Houses of Parliament we looked at some pieces of artwork by Monet. Monet created images of the Houses of Parliament at different points during the day. We really liked how all the colours blended together. We decided to use oil pastels to create our own pieces of inspired artwork.
Thank you to everyone who has brought their outfits in for the FS/KS1 Nativity. Please can all outfits be in school by Monday 28 November.
Mrs Payne
Week 3 – Nursery rhyme week
We love nursery rhymes in Reception. This week our learning has linked to lots of different nursery rhymes. We used our measuring skills to make cups of tea for Polly. We built Humpty a new wall that was a little safer than his old one! We then compared the heights of our walls to see which one was the tallest and shortest. We sizzled sausages on our camp fire and even had wriggly teddy beds jumping out of the bed!
Have you ever drawn using charcoal? This week we used charcoal to create our observational drawings of an old suitcase. The suitcase didn’t look like any of our cases we have at home. We looked carefully at the different features and how we might include them in our drawings. We used smudging to add extra effects.
Thank you to everyone who helped us raise awareness of anti bullying week and Children in Need. We had lots of discussions around what bullying is and why it is so important to respect each other and celebrate our differences.
A big thank you to everyone who joined us for our Marvellous Maths session on Thursday. It was fantastic to share our learning with you all. We will be holding more stay and play sessions throughout the year and looking forward to welcoming everyone into Reception.
Christmas is coming!
Our Christmas performance is fast approaching and we are so excited to perform for everyone! This is a reminder that children, if they have them, need to bring their scripts into school each day. Also, any costumes in named bags need to be in school by Thursday 24th November 2022 and letters for tickets to be returned as soon as possible. These were sent out last week in children’s bags.
Thank you! From the Early Years and Key Stage 1 team.
T2 Week 2
What a fantastic week we have had in Reception. This week we have been continuing our learning around Guy Fawkes. We used junk modelling to create our own buildings that you might find in London. We discovered that masking tape is a good resource for ripping and sticking objects together. We strengthened our finger muscles creating firework patterns in our coloured water tray.
We made a new friend this week. At lunchtime Mrs Payne and Miss Ward noticed a hedgehog walking around the school playground. We know that hedgehogs are nocturnal creatures and so it should have been sleeping. We carefully put the hedgehog in a box with a water bottle to keep it nice and warm. Miss Ward took the hedgehog to the hedgehog rescue centre. They told us the hedgehog was a girl and needed some medication to get better.
Year 6 came to see us on Monday and had with them lots of different things with poppies on. We were keen to find out more about why people wear poppies at this time of year. We discovered that poppies are a way that some people remember others. We decided that we would like to create our own poppies using different materials.
We are looking forward to welcoming everyone to our marvellous maths session on Thursday. If you haven’t returned your slip yet please bring it into school on Monday.
Thank you to everyone who is reading their e-books everyday. We love reading in Reception so please keep up the great home learning. If you are having any problems logging in etc please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Mrs Payne