Nursery rhyme week
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.
Of course, the chilli challenges were all linked to nursery rhymes…
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.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 once we caught a fish alive!
Helping Old Mcdonald on his farm.
The children noticed the dolls were sick, sick, sick. So, they phoned for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick!
Drawing part-whole models using 5 Little Speckled Frogs.
How many frogs are sat on the logs?
How many are swimming in the pond?
Reminders!
– Please return your child’s sound book on Monday 22 November.
– Christmas production clothing needs to be in school by Friday 26 November. Please make sure it’s in a labelled carrier bag.
Home-Link Challenge
Fun, fun, fun!
The Reception and Nursery children have had a fantastic day celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week and Children in Need.
PE
This week, I got the pleasure of teaching PE, and what a fabulous lesson we had. The children were so excited when they saw the big apparatus!
Before the lesson started, we had a discussion about keeping safe when on the apparatus. The children had to remember 3 key safety tips:
- When landing, always bend your knees.
- Do not climb past the blue bibs.
- Only jump-off where there’s a mat.
To finish the lesson and to help us with our upper body strength, we had some fun swinging on the ropes.
We like to move and groove!
Reception love to dance! They always ask, “Can we do the Superheroes and Monster Moves videos?”
Check out our amazing dance moves!
Monster Moves
Superheroes Unite
You could click on the links and join in the fun at home.
Odd Socks Day!
Today, we kicked off Anti-Bullying week by coming to school wearing odd socks. This morning, we had a long discussion about bullying and what is it.
I asked the children, “What is Bullying?”
We had some fantastic answers…
“When you hurt someone.”
“When you are unkind.”
“When you hit or kick someone.”
We then talked about kindness and what that is.
Many children said…
“Being helpful.”
“Sharing your toys.”
“Letting friends join in.”
For the rest of the week, we’ll be reflecting on how we can be kind and helpful to our friends.
Friday reading
The year 5 and 6 children came to read with the Reception children last Friday afternoon. It was a huge success and all the children were really engaged and listening to their year 5 or 6 reading partner. It was lovely to see some of the Reception children showing off their reading skills!
This week’s bible story
Persevering in life: Hebrews 12:1-2
Click the link and read the story all about Patrician St John.
Reflection:
Think about what you want to do this year, what you want to achieve. I’m not talking about impossible things, but maybe learning a new skill, or doing better at something, reaching the next level. What if it isn’t so easy, what if it doesn’t seem to be working out straight away – will you give up? Are you willing to fail before you succeed? If you believe in God, what difference will that make?
Just a moment of silence while we think about these things.
Bible Bits:
Listen to what the Bible says about persevering:
“Be determined and confident! Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
“Let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus….He did not give up…” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Prayer:
Thank you, Father, that you have given me the ability to succeed, not in everything, but in many things. Help me to play my part by working hard and not giving up. And thank you that you will give me extra help if I ask for it and trust in you. May what I learn not just help me but others too.
Amen
Remembrance, Chilli Challenges and more
This week, the Chilli Challenges have been a big hit! Many children had a go at some of the challenges and many completed all of the challenges – a big well done to those children!
Here are some of the Chilli Challenges in action:
Using our cutting skills to make a paper plate Poppy.
Making the correct amount of playdough poppies. We enjoyed subitising and talking about how we arranged the poppies onto the playdough mats.
“Two poppies here and one over here… three poppies altogether”
“Four poppies and one more equals five poppies.”
“A group of two and another group of two… four poppies.”
“One and another one makes two.”
Using cubes and rulers to measure our feet. They particularly enjoyed comparing the size of each other’s feet.
Using a drawing app on the iPad to draw pictures of the poppies growing in Flanders Fields.
Phonics
We’re almost at the end of phase 2. Next week, the children will be taught the final 3 phonemes: l, ll, and ss. This week, we’ve noticed lots of children using their phonics skills when doing independent learning activities.
Using our segmenting skills when writing a sentence about Remembrance Day.
Using our blending skills to read captions.
Reading cvc words on a word hunt.
PE
On Wednesday, Mrs Palmer taught four animal gymnastic positions: cat, seal, frog, and butterfly. To end the lesson, the children moved across the mats like animals. Mrs Palmer told me about how fabulous they were at stretching their arms and pointing their toes.
Notices
- Please return your child’s yellow sound book on Monday 22 November so we can stick in the phase 3 sounds.
- It’s Anti-Bullying week next week. To kick off the week, we are taking part in Odd Socks Day. Children can come to school on Monday wearing odd socks!
- It’s also Nursery Rhyme week. All week we’ll be learning about different nursery rhymes. To finish the week, we ask children to come to school dressed as their favorite nursery rhyme character. (This is also a non-uniform day for Children in Need – they’ve clashed!)
- Please make sure your child’s Christmas production clothes are in a named carrier bag.
Home-Link Challenge
Finally…
Thank you to all the parents that came to the Reception drop-in session. It was lovely to see lots of proud children sharing their amazing learning with you.
This week’s bible story
How much can we remember?
Let’s start by asking ourselves some questions about today.
– What did you do as soon as you got out of bed?
– What did you eat for breakfast?
– How did you feel when you got to school this morning?
Next, let’s think about last weekend.
– What did you do on Saturday afternoon?
– What did you eat on Sunday?
How about last week?
Have you noticed how it becomes more difficult to remember events the further back in time they are?
These events may have happened quite a long time ago, but they are remembered because they were fun. Happy times tend to stay in our memories for a long time.
Sad times can stay in our memories for a long time, too.
Click the link to read all about Remembrance day and why we remember.
Reflection:
Have a look at the pictures of the poppy. Think about why wearing a poppy is important to people. Wearing a red poppy means, ‘We are remembering together.’
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you for the many happy memories that we have.
We are sorry that some people have sad memories at this time of year
As they remember those who have died for our country.
May we wear our red poppies with love and compassion,
And may we remember and be thankful.
Amen.
Celebrations
This week, the children have been learning about celebrations: Diwali and Bonfire Night. Here are some snapshots of what activities we did to support our learning…
We used chalk to create fireworks.
We designed and made rockets.
We decided to change the writing area into a fire station. The children enjoyed role-playing fire officers. They pretended to answer 999 calls and made a note of any emergencies on incident forms. Each time we looked up there were fire officers putting out fires in different areas of the classroom. I think we must have had about 10 fires a day in our classroom!
We made Diva Lamps at the playdough table.
We made Rangoli patterns on pegboards.
In PE, we continued the theme and moved around the hall like fireworks.
Maths
Number 4 is our new focus number. After watching the Numberblock Four video, we noticed that the number 4 is a square number. We talked about the different shapes the Numberblock made and had a go at making our own shapes using the cubes. We made different arrangements using conkers and talked about our arrangements, for example,
“I’ve made a triangle with one conker in the middle.”
“One, one, one, one. One in each corner.”
“I’ve got one conker at the bottom and three at the top.”
“I’ve made a square like Numberblock 4.”
We’ve decided to change the Reception timetable for maths. Instead of trying to squeeze maths in every afternoon, we are doing two maths focus days at the end of the week and three shorter maths inputs at the beginning of the week. By doing longer sessions at the end of the week, we can spend more time deepening the children’s understanding. They will now learn a new focus number every two weeks.
Phonics
We jumped straight back into our phase 2 phonics sessions. The children learnt three more phonemes (e, u, r) They also learnt two more tricky words (no, go) These words can’t be blended.
Please keep using your sound book to practise recognising the phonemes and your word passport for blending words.
Pen disco!
On Thursday, we started pen disco. They enjoyed making large and small marks when dancing with their pens to the music. This activity supports fine motor skills and helps to improve pencil control.
News!
I finally got married in the October half-term!
My new teacher name is Mrs Wood.
The children have been a lot better than me at remembering my new name.
Reminders
- Don’t forget to come along to the Reception drop-in session on Thursday 11 November.
- Please make sure your child’s reading book is in their book bag every day.
- The winter weather is creeping in! Please make sure your child comes to school in a suitable winter coat.
- Don’t forget to join the Maths Zoom session on Tuesday 09 November at 6 pm.
Home-Link Challenge
