Reception w/b 27th February
Date: 3rd Mar 2023 @ 4:15pm
A warm welcome back! It has been an exciting first week of half term, with the particular highlights being the exploration of our new focus book, The Something, and, of course, World Book Day!
We have used our two phonics sessions this week to both introduce and recap sounds. This recap is an essential accompaniment to the introduction of new sounds to ensure that children can both retain and apply the sounds that they are learning. We are all now experts at writing words in our phonics sessions and are now beginning to enjoy writing daily sentences in our phonics sessions, applying our knowledge of finger spaces, full stops and capital letters. What super writers we have in Reception! We have also still managed to squeeze in our guided reading sessions as we all absolutely love this time. It has been a joy to observe the children reading with such confidence and fluency in their partners. We are also working on our comprehension of what we read. We therefore need to reread the sentence after decoding all of the words to ensure fluency. Hearing the whole sentence then helps us to comprehend what we have read and answer questions about the text. Mrs North continues to be impressed with the children’s handwriting and we are amazed by how many children can now write both their first and surname from memory.
In maths this week, we have consolidated our understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the numbers within 7. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 7 can be made of 5 and 2. This has also helped to consolidate our understanding of addition number sentences (e.g. 5 + 2 = 7). We have deepened our understanding of a whole being made up of smaller parts through games and practical experiences, such as investigating the number of ducks on a pond. A key focus has been partitioning 7 (splitting it into parts) and thinking about the missing part.
On Monday morning, we discovered a small hole beside a tree on the school grounds. We discussed the hole, asking questions such as: How did it get here? Is it dangerous? Could something be down the hole? What kind of creatures live down holes? Will it get any bigger? We then practised speaking in full sentences to predict what was down the hall, challenging ourselves to add adjectives to our sentence. E.g. In the hole is a slippery snake. In the hole is a burrowing rabbit. We used our sentence skills to record the sentence: In the hole is a rat. Reception made sure to remind Miss Witham to use finger spaces, a capital letter, a full stop, neat letters and Fred Fingers to spell the words. We have all then written our own prediction sentences. On Wednesday, we looked a variety of illustrations from our class book and discussed the information we could retrieve/infer from them. They were images of a variety of creatures that could be down the hole…many of which we had predicted! On Thursday, as a World Book Day treat, we were AT LAST able to read our class book! We also explored some of the vocabulary used in the text (underneath, peered, doorway, disappeared, guarding, otherwise, cherry tree, bounce back, dragon’s den, different ideas, more likely, just in case) and practised orally using them in sentences. Finally, on Friday, we were introduced to the story map for the text and began to put actions to the map.
On Monday afternoon, we enjoyed our half-termly No Outsiders session. First, we shared our favourite things to do at home, which included: baking with Mummy, having dinner with Grandma and all of the family and sleeping! We then listened to the story ‘Mommy, Mama and me’ by Leslea Newman and Carol Thompson. We asked: Who is the book about? What do they like doing together? Is there anything in the book you like doing together? Which activities are your favourite? Does your family do any of the activities shown in the book? Then, some volunteers acted out some of the activities so other children could guess what they were doing. Finally, we looked at the child’s facial expression on each page and asked: How are they feeling and how do we know? We recognised that the child feels happy because Mommy and Mama love them. This prompted us to think about who loves us in our families. Our follow-up activity therefore involved painting a picture of an activity we like doing at home with someone in our family.
Towards the end of the afternoon, we were also joined by Mrs Tice, our music lead and Year 4 teacher, to share some songs together. To end the day, Mrs McLean brought the worship table down to Reception to lead a class worship time. This was a beautiful way to end our Monday. Music with Mrs Tice and worship with Mrs McLean will continue throughout the half term.
To begin Wednesday’s RE session, we explored our Chatterbox and the items it contained. Inside, we discovered: a Palm Cross, an angel, a wooden cross, eggs decorated with palm leaves, books containing Easter stories. This prompted conversation and questions which led us to the conclusion that we will be learning about Easter this half-term. Next, we used the Lion Storyteller Bible to help tell the stories of Palm Sunday (The Great Parade), the Last Supper (An Important Meal), the crucifixion (A Dreadful Day) and the resurrection (A Happy Day). This helped us to sequence pictures of the events of Holy Week and link the pictures with the objects in the Chatterbox. This week, our particular focus was Palm Sunday. We watched the following video: https://youtu.be/lTmbTuutBgg . We then made our own palm leaves and enjoyed waving them as we sang along to We Have a King who Rides a Donkey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJqFuiafDf8. We will continue to explore Palm Sunday and the events of Holy Week across the half term.
A particular highlight this week was, of course, World Book Day. To start the day, Mrs Wood visited us with an exciting selection of puppets. Inspired by the puppets, Reception were lucky enough to decide the characters and setting for our whole-school story; you can find the whole story on our Facebook page. After happy reading time, we then enjoyed a circle time as a chance to share our costumes and talk about our favourite book with the class. After break, it was time for paired reading. The children had a simply wonderful time sharing stories with their Year 3 and Year 6 friends. This was followed by the big reveal of our class text, The Something, before our final activity of the morning, creating our own bookmarks. After lunch, we joined in with the EYFS World Book Day video session with Joe Wicks and Bedtime for Burpee Bears: https://www.worldbookday.com/events/everyday-routine-with-joe-wicks-and-bedtime-for-the-burpee-bears/ . Miss Toft then helped us to create a dance inspired by Matilda which we thoroughly enjoyed performing. Wow, what a wonderful World Book Day we all enjoyed!
Today, we have been creating seasonal artwork inspired by the cherry tree in our story, The Something. First, we spent some time talking about the seasons: their order, changes that happen, what the weather is like, the clothes we may wear, the activities we may do, how seasonal changes affect animals and plants. We watched a time lapse of a cherry tree which you can watch here: https://www.zeitraffer.tv/en/nature-time-lapse/seasons/time-lapse-cherry-tree-4-seasons-cherry-blossoming-flowering/ . This then inspired some teamwork to create seasonal art. Working in 4 teams, we created collage paintings of the cherry tree in each season. When they are dry, we will attach them together to create a final group piece. In Reception, we are all artists!
Today, we were also most excited to eat our lunch in the hall for the very first time. Reception were wonderful role models for the rest of the school at lunchtime with their impeccable manners, super cutting skills and beautiful sitting as they engaged in conversation. We look forward to now eating our lunch everyday in the hall.
The children have absolutely hit the ground running this week and we can’t wait for another half-term full of stories, teamwork, learning and adventures!
I hope that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend.
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
