Reception w/b 6th February and w/b 13th February
Date: 17th Feb 2023 @ 4:48pm
What a wonderful end to a wonderful half term we all enjoyed today! We have all been working super hard as a team to look after our environment and keep it beautifully tidy. We have been amazing at this so have managed to fill our class jar with marbles! Therefore, we all visited the park this morning for a whole class treat. This was such a beautiful morning spent together in the sunshine and we were just delighted to see all of the children beaming with joy. They were an absolute pleasure to take out of school for this treat. Reception, you are all superstars!
Our wonderful work in phonics has continued and I was simply blown away when conducting phonics assessments. It is such a joy to observe the progress that the children are making and the excitement that this brings as it begins to unlock a whole world of things to read and write. We are thoroughly looking forward to learning/continuing to learn Set 2 sounds next half term. Happy Reading Time continues to be one of our favourite sessions of the day and the reading, handwriting, spelling and fine motor skills that are developed during this time is invaluable. Over the past two weeks, our fine motor activities were using the peg boards and exploring nuts, bolts and screws. Please keep up with all of the fabulous reading at home and watching the RWI videos each week – this is so very beneficial to the children. We are so grateful for your continued support with this.
In maths, our main focus has been addition. We are all using the language ‘add’, ‘equals’ and ‘altogether’. We have used physical objects to help create number stories (e.g. I have 3 apples and 4 pears. How many altogether? There were 5 cows in a field. 3 sheep joined them. How many animals are there altogether now?) We have then written number sentences, using Numicon to support us with the addition (3 + 4 = 7, 5 + 3 = 8). We noticed that, when we fit the Numicon shapes together, this made another shape – the total! E.g. the 3 Numicon shape slotted together with the 5 Numicon shape makes the 8 Numicon shape – they are equal! I am sure that the children would love to show off their addition work to you at home.
In addition to this adding work, we have continued with our NCETM Mastering Number sessions to develop of mathematical fluency. We have consolidated the ‘stable order principle’ – rehearsing the order of the first 10 numbers and understanding that the position that each number holds in our number sequence does not change. We recognised the staircase pattern of the Numberblocks – each number has a value of ‘1 more’ than the previous number. We also used images of the Numberblocks, alongside the children’s own fingers, to represent ‘5 and a bit’ quantities, which help to embed this key understanding. The Numberblocks have also helped us to compare quantities using the language of ‘more than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’ to describe the relationships between numbers. Over the past two weeks, we have found lots of opportunities to count beyond 20 – sometimes all the way to 100! We noticed the repeating pattern in the numbers to help develop our confidence in using the familiar sequence within 10 to count to bigger numbers.
In English, we have had a particular focus on sentence work. This has involved modelled and shared writing to write simple sentences which we can spell phonetically as well as including our red words (I, the, to, no, you, he). E.g. He can jump to the top. Please do continue to practise these red words to help the children to become fluent and ready for more red words. Last week, our literacy task had a drawing focus. We thought carefully about our drawings as we created a friend for Naughty Bus and labelled this picture. These were very creative! This week, our task allowed us to assess what the children could write completely independently. All of the children wrote about the same picture prompt. – a red London bus in the fog, driving past the Elizabeth Tower. We were very impressed with this writing. Well done Reception!
Last week, it was Children’s Mental Health Week and the theme was, ‘Let’s connect’. To introduce the theme, we looked at a single piece of Lego and agreed we needed more pieces to connect with it to build something wonderful. Next, we stood in a circle holding hands with a hula hoop over one of our arms. We had to work together to pass the hula hoop around the circle whilst still holding hands and keeping our connection – this needed lots of teamwork, encouragement and problem-solving skills! Listening to the song ‘We’re All In This Together’ from High School Musical as we completed this challenge reinforced the importance of connection and team work. Finally, we listened to ‘The Invisible String’ by Patrice Karst and explored our invisible strings that connect us to family, friends, pets and even people that have died or that we no longer have much contact with. We drew ourselves in the middle of coloured paper and drew strings to all those people in our lives that keep us connected and help us feel loved. We hope that you continue to enjoy our wellbeing challenges. We certainly enjoyed focusing on mindfulness in Forest School. It was so wonderful to observe the children finding peaceful moments to sit quietly and think, do some Happy Breathing, say a prayer, sing a song or chat to a friend. We all came together to talk about what we could see, hear, feel and smell in our natural environment. We then worked together to compose and say a beautiful prayer of gratitude.
Last week, we completed an additional PSED session all about medicine. This focused on the importance of children never taking our touching medicine without adult supervision. They must always ask a grown-up who will help them to take the right medicine and the correct dosage to help them to feel much better!
This week, it was Safer Internet Day. Our Brereton Safeguarding Council had recorded a video for us to watch which prompted lots of wonderful discussion. We talked about all of the exciting things that we can do online and suggestions included: ask Alexa to play music, FaceTime our families, play Mario on the PlayStation, play Just Dance on the Nintendo Switch, search for colouring pages to print off. We also talked about rules to keep us safe online. We know that if we ever see something that makes us feel scared, worried, sad or uncomfortable, we must tell a trusted grown-up (we identified who these grown-ups would be). Our grown-ups can put controls and restrictions in place to help us to stay safe online. We also know that too much screen time isn’t good for our eyes – after a little while, remember to turn the device off and find a toy to play with or enjoy some time outside!
The children have shown a wonderful understanding in our RE unit – Forgiveness. Last week, we thought about Jesus’ words from Luke 6:29-31 : If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too; if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. We discussed the idea of loving others, self-control and not hitting back, treating others as you want to be treated and avoiding further conflict. We asked: Is it hard to turn the other cheek? Why might it be important for Christians to do this? Who might help them? We role played two scenarios; one scenario showing what happens when a person hits back and one that shows what happens when someone offers the other cheek. This week, as an assessment, we have role played apologising and forgiving. This demonstrated that the children really understood the elements of a good apology and the importance of forgiveness, especially for Christians.
Last week, our Understanding the World focus was road safety. We accessed lots of useful resources from THINK! and referred to the safer journeys anthem (https://www.think.gov.uk/resource/safer-journeys-anthem/) to remind us to stop, look, listen and think. We then practised crossing the road safely on the playground, using the bikes to aid our demonstration. On this morning’s park visit, all of the children sang the safer journeys chorus as we safely crossed the road! For more information and resources please visit: https://www.think.gov.uk/education-resources/
This afternoon, our Understanding the World focus was floating and sinking. Working with our science lead, Mr Cotton, we predicted which objects would sink or float. We thought about how heavy they were and what they were made out of to inform our predictions. We then thoroughly enjoyed testing our hypotheses!
Over the past two weeks, our Expressive Arts and Design challenge has been a junk modelling activity – creating a Naughty Bus! We just have some finishing touches to add to these models – they are fabulous.
We continue to enjoy our Thursday PE sessions. This week, Miss Toft helped us all to learn how to perfect our forward rolls. What super gymnasts we have in Reception! Mrs Edwards has also been working through our Friendship Terrace PSED sessions which will continue after the half term break.
Finally, on Monday afternoon, we had a simply marvellous afternoon with Mrs Taylor. After some dancing in the hall, we explored Forest School in the sunshine. When we returned to the classroom, it had been transformed! Our favourite areas are now relocated/bigger so that our classroom continues to reflect the children’s interests and maturity. We can’t wait to see how these areas are enhanced after the half term break.
Phew, what a busy couple of weeks! The children have been such a pleasure to teach and we are delighting in observing their progress. I shall miss them next week but am hoping that you all enjoy a wonderful break together. I am already looking forward to welcoming the children back to launch our new topic.
With huge thanks and best wishes for a lovely break,
Miss Witham
