Reception w/b 10th June
Date: 14th Jun 2024 @ 9:52pm
Whilst the weather definitely does not feel like it is mid-June, I can most certainly tell that we are in Summer 2 from the wonderful attitudes to learning and the excellent standard of work that the children are producing. They are rising to the challenge of each structured input and activity and are accessing the provision with such purpose and creativity. A joy to observe!
Phonics and guided reading continues to progress beautifully; thank you for all of your support with practising red words and listening to your child read their Read Write Inc. book.
In maths, we have been consolidating our knowledge and assessing the following Early Learning Goal: Automatically recall number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10 (including doubles facts). We have particularly focused on our number bonds of 5, using our 5 Little Speckled Frogs as a teaching tool. The children have expertly demonstrated their recall of bonds of 5 and have been writing addition facts (e.g. 3 + 2 = 5, 0 + 5 = 5) and subtraction facts (e.g. 5 – 4 = 1, 5 – 3 = 2). The children especially enjoy making two number sentences from one e.g. writing 2 + 3 = 5 and then doing a ‘switcharoo’ of the parts to write 3 + 2 = 5. Towards the end of the week, we also recapped our doubles facts. Marvellous mathematicians indeed!
This week, we finally revealed our literacy text for this half term: ‘The Extraordinary Gardner’ by Sam Boughton. On Monday, we wrote sentences to describe Joe’s garden, using the sentence starter ‘I can see…’. On Tuesday, we wrote sentences to describe the main character, Joe; the children used some lovely language. On Wednesday, we hot seated ‘Joe’, with some children volunteering to act as this character. We asked him some questions, ending with how he was feeling when he had planted the seed but nothing happened. We therefore decided to write cards to cheer him up and encourage him.
With Mrs McAree, we enjoyed our final Spanish lesson in our ‘Transport’ unit. We know the following phrases: El barco = The boat; El barco flota = The boat floats; El coche = The car; El aeroplano = The plane; El coche circula = The car drives; El aeroplano vuela = The plane flies; El autobús = The bus; El autobús para = The bus stops; La motocicleta = The motorcycle; La motocicleta acelera = The motorcycle accelerates; El tren = The train and El tren silba = The train whistles. This week, we learnt the phrases: El camión = The lorry; El camión pita = The lorry beeps. For the next few weeks, we will recap Spanish learning and enjoy some additional challenge lessons!
In Forest School, Mr Simmons helped us to dissect an apple to study the parts of the fruit. This helped us to think about plant life cycles and how apple seeds can be planted to start the cycle of growth again. We then had lots of fun exploring in Forest School! Mr Simmons showed us his new plant watering invention…a great example of recycling!
Our focus in athletics this week was jumping. We practised our hopping skills, jumping skills, kangaroo hops, high jumps and long jumps. We especially enjoyed jumping as far as we could, using cones to measure (and try to beat) our own records. We also had great fun learning the best technique for tackling the hurdles! Super work, Reception.
In our music lesson, we continued to think about looking after our world. To begin, we looked at some pieces of ‘rubbish’, thinking about what they were and why they might have been thrown away. We thought about where the rubbish goes after it is removed by refuse collectors. We then read a story all about recycling. Looking at the rubbish again, we asked: How could we recycle/reuse some of the items from the bin ourselves? The children had super ideas, ranging from junk modelling creations, to reusing yoghurt pots as water pots for painting, to creating a ‘scrap paper pile’ for drawings. We sang the song:
We recycle (We recycle)
Yes we do! (Yes we do!)
We recycled plastic. (We recycled plastic)
You can too (You can too)
In RE, we have been thinking about special times. We thought about times such as breakfast time, school time, playtime, bedtime and storytime. Why are these special times? We then asked: What does the Bible say?, thinking about Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. In the Old Testament, there is a very old list telling us that God has a time for everything. There is a time for playing, sleeping, going to school, eating pizza, going to the park etc. – the children had lots of ideas! We thought about family times – Do you have a special time with your family each week? Do you go and visit a special person to spend time with them each week? Is there a time when you have a special meal? In our circle time discussion, the children had lots of special times to talk about, recalling lots of things that we have celebrated this year, such as: harvest, Christmas, Easter, Bear Day, World Book Day, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Space Day, Ramadan and Eid. It was wonderful to hear the information that they could recall from these celebrations, such as the fact that Diwali is the festival of light, and people often decorate with rangoli patterns. Lunar New Year may be celebrated with dragon dances and people may wear red as it is a lucky colour. At Easter, people eat hot cross buns and the cross reminds us that Jesus died for us on the cross. We also thought about similarities across some of these special times, such as celebrating with family, sharing a meal, decorating homes. Wow Reception, you can remember such a lot! Finally, we thought about birthdays, and all shared something about how we like to celebrate our birthdays. Next week, we shall think about Pentecost, the birthday of the church.
In our PSED lessons, we have been thinking about cycles – how things go round and round. We thought about the cycle of the seasons, and the changes that each season brings. Seasons create a cycle throughout the year and this happens because sometimes the earth tips towards the sun, so we're a bit nearer to the sun. This means we get warmer weather and things grow better. Gradually the earth tips the other way, so it's a bit further away from the sun. Then the weather gets colder and things like plants die or don’t grow very much, if at all. That's why we have different seasons. We discussed that things that live - like plants, animals and people - also have cycles; these are called life cycles. We watched clips of life cycles that we have experienced/are experiencing – frog life cycles, butterfly life cycles and plant life cycles.
In the afternoon, it was once again time to visit the garden with our Year 4 friends. We tied plants to canes, deadheaded flowering plants, relocated slugs and snails, weeded, sketched, chatted, raked over the soil and (with enthusiasm!) watered the plants. They are growing beautifully – well done Reception gardeners.
Today, we also enjoyed visiting the summer gift room. Thank you to our wonderful PTA who were running the room; they helped us all to choose and wrap our gifts and the gift room ran so smoothly – Reception were very impressed! In the classroom, children were keen to learn the Makaton signs for ‘Happy Father’s Day’ and many children chose to independently make cards during provision time.
I hope that you all have a lovely weekend. I shall look forward to next week as I predict that we may have chrysalises by the end of the week! As you will have seen in the newsletter, it is also National Sports Week so the children will be taking part in lots of different sporting activities. PE sessions will remain as normal (PE kit on Thursday as usual) but, in addition, children should wear PE kits on Tuesday, ready for a EYFS and KS1 carousel of sporting activities. We can’t wait!
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
