Reception Newsletter

We've had a lovely week back at school and the children have really enjoyed being introduced to their topic of minibeasts. We've had snails in class and the children have tried their hand at some impressive sketching! The children also made their own minibeasts out of playdough and made their own fascinating books about their favourite tiny creature.

 

For our Worldviews lesson this half term, we asked ourselves about our favourite weather and why. To really throw ourselves into the question, we took the children into the immersion room and they imagined they were in the desert! We turned the temperature up high and surrounded the children with pictures of the Sahara and then a completely different, cold scene, with lots of snow ice and put the air conditioning on high! The children spent ages talking about their favourite weathers and then went on to make some beautiful collage suns, researched weather by looking at non-fiction books and wrote about their favourite weather and why.  

 In Reception we have been making the most of the beautiful Spring weather. Many children chose to go outside during free play. Lots of exploring took place in the water area, investigating the bubbles and sponges. Some children have been making up their own physical games using hoops and balls, helping to develop their turn taking skills and build relationships. 

We also went on a Spring walk to help us learn about the world around us. We saw lots of buds blossoming and some newly sprung flowers. Unfortunately we couldn't see any birds nests yet, but we will keep our eyes peeled!

In Maths we have been learning to use the mathematical language 'more', 'fewer' and 'equal' to compare quantities. We has lots of fun playing a game called 'Fill Your Basket'. The children had one minute to fill their basket with as many items as they could find. We then recorded how many we had on a whiteboard and compared the amounts. 

Reception Newsletter

 We have had fun continuing our Transport themed topic! We have been reading the story 'You Can't take an Elephant on the Bus' by Patricia Cleveland-Peck, and wrote our own sentence about what animals you can't take on transport, for example 'You can't take a tiger on a train'. 

Mr McIntosh made a fantastic car wash for us outside. Alongside our hand car wash we enjoyed washing the cars and pretending to be customers. Some of the teachers might bring their cars in next week as they were so good at getting the dirt off the bikes and cars! This helped us with our turn taking skills, communication and language and use of imagination.  

 We also painted pictures and made models of vehicles. When painting we carefully chose appropriate colours and formed realistic shapes. Great job Reception!

Finally, a big thank you to all the parents who came to our Reception Exhibition of Work! It was lovely to see so many of you. We hope you enjoyed seeing their achievements as much as we do. 

Reception Newsletter

We have had a busy, fun packed week in Reception! We have been learning about the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We enjoyed making porridge and tasting it. Some of us added a little sugar to make it sweet just like mummy bears porridge in the story. Ask your Reception child if they can remember how to make porridge.          

This linked well into our Maths where we are learning about the words 'part' and 'whole'. We made fruit kebabs for the three bears, learning that the fruits are the parts and the kebab is the whole. We carefully counted how many fruits we had on our kebab stick.

We also made chairs and tables for the three bears using boxes, foam cuboids, sticky tape, glue and scissors. it was hard work but we persevered. Some of us created fabulous pieces which we then went onto incorporate into our role play!

Reception Newsletter

This week, the Reception children sang their hearts out for their Nativity performance! They have been working really hard to prepare for the show and have even been singing the songs to themselves during choosing time and lining up in the lunch queue! Thank you all for coming to watch our performance and for supporting us with costumes and learning lines. If you would like to buy a photo from the show, please contact Mrs Witney.

We have also been telling alternative stories about Stickman, where the children chose different settings for Stickman to get lost and come across trouble. 

"Stickman, oh Stickman, beware of the... whale!"

The children worked together on a story on the carpet, deciding that Stickman might come across a grumpy whale who could not be cheered up, even with a bit of tickling! In the end, the children decided that the whale needed a cuddle before helping him find his way home to his family submarine!

 

Reception - Newsletter

The children in Reception have noticed that there is definitely a chill in the air lately! They have even had a message from Olaf the Snowman! Olaf spoke about how he didn't want it to be cold anymore, and he really wanted it to be sunny and warm... uh oh! The children tried to explain to Olaf why this wasn't a very good idea, using the new words they have been learning...

"Olaf you will melt!"
Emily

"Olaf you will defrost!"

Anthony

Olaf you will thaw out!"
Aidan

Unfortunately, Olaf just wouldn't listen! So the children got to work trying to show Olaf what happens to ice and snow when it gets warm. We found some ice from the freezer and tried to think of some warm places. Rocco thought that if we sent the ice to Australia, that would be a sure way to get it to melt! However, we didn't have any access to a plane so we tried to think of the warmest places in the classroom. We predicted that underneath the light in the teacher's cupboard and underneath the cushions in the cosy corner would cause the ice to melt most quickly. After observing the ice carefully, the children found that...

"The cupboard is warmer"

...because it caused the ice to melt most quickly!

The children also really enjoyed using their warm hands to melt the ice and make marks using the melting ice as their 'paint' or 'ink'.

 

Reception Newsletter

 In Reception, we have been noticing the autumnal changes in our outdoor spaces at school. We went on a mindfulness nature walk, where we used our senses of sight, touch, smell and hearing to explore.

The children were challenged to find as many different colours as possible whilst on our nature walk. They quickly got to work finding leaves of red, yellow, green and even purple. We found that there were the most yellow and orange leaves and the fewest purple leaves. After noticing that there were almost all the colours of the rainbow on our walk, we wondered if there was such a thing as a blue leaf! We took this brilliant question back to the classroom with us and did some research on the computer to find that blue leaves are actually real but very rare! The children decided to record this information on our leaf collection sheets with a written label.

As well as applying our knowledge of number and phonics to our leaf investigation, we also felt inspired to get creative with the leaves, mixing colours to match the autumnal tones, singing autumn songs and making music with the crunching sounds under our feet.

Reception Newsletter: BIG questions!

 This week in Reception, we have been thinking about how to ask BIG questions! We first thought about what a question was, and how a question is asked when you want to find the answer to something. BIG questions are always very tricky to answer and take lots of thinking. This represents the beginning of our P4C (Philosophy for Children) journey at school!

Today, our enquiry followed a fun story all about animals
travelling on human transportation!

Following this story, Austin came up with our question to start our discussions, asking "Would an elephant be a good pet?"

"Well you would need a special elephant bed!" responded Nellie. 

Ralph quickly added "but that might break!"

Aidan added to Ralph's point by suggesting "if it's a grown up elephant, it might smash through the roof!"

After some suggestions that maybe a baby elephant might be a good pet instead, Zoe had another thought, saying "but babies grow to full size, to big children! Maybe a good pet would be a snake, or a dog! That would fit in your house!"

The children loved discussing this question and we all found that we had different ideas to contribute and could offer lots of different opinions and thoughts. 

Reception Newsletter

Reception have had a lovely couple of weeks. We had our first visit to the forest, where the children got to wear their own forest overalls. They listened to the forest rules and we sat around the log circle discussing whether we thought 'big school' was scary. After our grown up conversation, the children went and explored the forest and made a safe home for an animal, in case they felt scared. We had so much fun!

In Maths, we have been looking at understanding the value of 1, 2 and 3. The children enjoyed playing noughts and crosses outside, where they counted out 1, 2, 3 of each mark! They also did some lovely printing with unifix cubes, showing the different amounts. We have been working on the children's one-to-one correspondence, which means they can point to an object whilst counting correctly, one at a time. They've been super Mathematicians!

Digging for Potatoes!

The Reception children have been doing a wonderful job at learning new routines and settling in this week. We have been learning all about our changemakers, Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison, and have been experimenting with lots of different art techniques whilst creating portraits of our astronaut. We have also been busy in the garden! The children noticed that there were some potatoes ready for harvesting in our planters!

Some looked good enough to eat, though the children weren't quite so sure about the green ones!

"This one is green! You shouldn't eat this one!"

The children decided to give the potatoes to the school cooks so that they 

can make them into chips for us next Friday!

How does your garden grow?

Thanks to all of your wonderful donations of seeds and plants, the children in Early Years have been working their green fingers this term! Through careful watering and monitoring, we have been able to gather our very first harvest!

We have picked the ripe strawberries, pulled up some rather unusual looking carrots (!) and even cut some lettuce and two huge heads of broccoli. We are excited to see our tomato and bean plants beginning to flower and are wondering what might be happening to our potatoes beneath the soil.

So that we were able to all benefit from the delicious fruits (and vegetables!) of our labour, we passed some of what we had picked to the school cooks to include in our dinners this week! The children are particularly excited to taste the broccoli.

Thank you all again to all the parents and carers for providing the seeds and plants for the Early Years planters. Your donations have provided us with rich, first hand learning and has given the EYFS garden a well loved patch of nature.

 

Cassatt's Poetry Performance

  Please enjoy Cassatt's Rendition of 'Don't Feed the Animals' by Robert Hull.

Please click the link below:

https://vimeo.com/568330504

A password for the video will be sent out via school comms.

Miss Lawrence, Mrs Williams and Mrs Erdogan were so proud of all the children for learning such a tricky poem. We were particularly impressed with their use of voice and understanding of new vocabulary. You were our winners Cassatt!!

Degas' Poetry Fest Performance!

 Please enjoy Degas' Rendition of 'Oh Dear!' By Michael Rosen

Please click the link below:

https://vimeo.com/568330074

A password for the video will be sent out via school comms.

It was so good we won 2nd place! Well done Degas you were superb and it really was the best performance you have ever done of this fantastic poem!

Odd and Even!- Reception Newsletter

 

This week in Maths we have been learning about Odd and Even numbers. We started by looking at groups of objects and splitting them in half, this helped us to see if a number could be split equally. We found out that if a number is split equally it is an even number but if the number cannot be split equally and there is some left over, this is an odd number!

We played a game of musical chairs to help us practise our odd and even numbers! We knew that there was either an odd number of children or chairs or an even number of children or chairs.

If there were an odd number of chairs then there was an even number of children which meant that one child was going to be out of the game! If there were an even number of chairs then there must be an odd number of children! Either way a child was always going to be out of the game as the teacher kept taking away one chair!

Playing this game helped us to remember what numbers were odd and even numbers.

We absolutely loved playing this game!

Reception: Degas on the Farm!

On Thursday, the children in Degas class came into class with an extra spring in their step as they were going to spend some time with the animals from Gemma's Farm!

Gemma and Mason introduced us to lots of different animals, including lambs, goats, ducks, ponies, rabbits, chickens, guinea pigs and even a rather smelly ferret! The children loved meeting the animals and were very brave to even hold some of them. Take a look at just some of the photos from the day:

"I like stroking the horses and the goats the best."

"We also met some baby chicks! They were so soft but very fast!"

 

"The guinea pigs had funny hair!"

"I loved feeding the lambs, they were so strong!"

"The bunny rabbits were so soft!"

"The chickens were so fluffy!"

"I loved all of it!"