Reception w/b 10th October

Date: 16th Oct 2022 @ 4:14pm

It has been another wonderful week in Reception but, as I am sure many of the children would agree, the highlight was Wednesday’s Bear Day! Our day began with a circle time where we all had the opportunity to share our costumes and our favourite bears. It was a joy to see the children speak with such confidence and pride. Thank you ever so much to all parents and carers for going to such trouble to make sure that all of the children had outfits and/or bears to share. We then began a carousel of activities based on a different bear book:

• ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy was the inspiration for our junk modelling station where we used newspaper and masking tape to create rockets. This was a great opportunity for children to employ creativity and independence to bring their vision to life!
• Inspired by ‘Paddington’, Miss Toft worked with the children to make some delicious marmalade sandwiches. The children were each able to spread the marmalade and cut their sandwiches independently. Well done everybody!
• Thinking about the patterns shown in ‘Bumblebear’ we used coloured pencils to fill the bear templates and pre-writing sheets with our very own patterns. This was an opportunity to develop pencil control.
• Inspired by ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, we decided to make bear masks to scare the bear away! We used paper plates and paint to create our masks with Miss Witham. We hope that the children have enjoyed playing with these at home!
• At our final station, Mrs North first read ‘Goldilocks’. We then used our counting skills to set the table for the three bears, before enjoying acting out the story.

In the afternoon, after singing some bear songs and rhymes, we enjoyed a ‘Teddy Bears’ picnic’ with our milk. We were very keen to try our marmalade sandwiches which the children tell me were delicious! As no picnic is complete without a treat, we also each enjoyed a cake. We had such fun and the play and language which emerged throughout the day was a joy to observe.

In phonics we have learnt three new sounds – o (all around the orange), c (curl around the caterpillar) and k (down the kangaroo’s body, around his tail and down his leg). K was especially tricky as, at Brereton, we form our ‘k’ differently than shown in the Read Write Inc. scheme – k rather than k. We have continued to enjoy our ‘word time’ sessions. It would be wonderful if you could continue to support children in developing their blending skills at home by using some ‘Fred Talk’ e.g. “It’s time for b-e-d.”

In maths this week, we have been exploring how numbers can be composed of 1s and, from this, have begun to investigate the composition of 3 and 4. Numberblocks has been a really useful tool alongside our whole-class/small group sessions to further embed this knowledge. From the early episodes, we were able to see that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2 and also “1 and 1 and 1 makes 3”. Through practical experiences, the children will continue to learn that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts. We each enjoyed a small group activity to develop our counting skills, whether this be counting and sorting coloured bears or counting and sorting Reception’s favourite colours/breakfasts. Our Tuesday Forest School session supported our maths learning as we went on a 3 and 4 hunt! We made collections of 3 and 4 natural objects, such as 3 pinecones or 4 leaves.

In our Thursday Forest School, after being inspired by new ways to make marks after last week’s harvest vegetable printing, we completed some leaf rubbings. We were just delighted to see how the shape and textures of the leaves could appear as we covered them with paper and rubbed over the top with a crayon. Finally, on Friday afternoon, we were lucky enough to be offered the opportunity for an extra Forest School session with Mr Simmons! During this session, we enjoyed time to explore our own interests; a particularly popular activity was creating an obstacle course.  

In English, we have continued to explore the story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. This week, we have been introduced to a story map for this text. Now familiar with the concept of a story map following our ‘Little Red Hen’ success, the children were excited to be involved with the process. We therefore decided on the actions together as a class before beginning to learn the story map. The images acted as a useful visual reminder, particularly for all the steps to remember once the family arrive at their front door! Later in the week, we then began to innovate the story. To understand this concept, we first enjoyed listening to the story, ‘We’re Going on a Lion Hunt’. In this story, we were able to identify how the character had changed (from a bear to a lion) as well as the settings (e.g. a swamp). We then enjoyed becoming authors to think of our own animals and settings (e.g. an octopus and the ocean, a camel and the desert, a jaguar and the jungle). We then worked on identifying the initial sound for our animal/setting.

In RE this week, we were introduced to another Bible story – the Parable of the Lost Sheep. After reading the story, we acted it out. First, together as a class before the costumes were placed in the provision to allow everybody the chance to retell the story. We also each created a sheep used cotton wool and black paper. These look very effective together and are a wonderful reminder of what we can learn from this story. We recognised that God is like the shepherd in the story and we are like the sheep. He loves each of us very much and looks after us like a shepherd.

This week, we also had our first No Outsiders lesson of the year. No Outsiders is one of the elements of our PSHE curriculum which uses picture books to encourage children to celebrate their identities and to accept and value others. To find out more, visit our school website: http://www.breretonprimaryschool.org.uk/page/no-outsiders/116740 . This week, we looked at ‘Blue Chameleon’ by Emily Gravett. This story helped us to celebrate that everyone is different in our class and we can make friends with anyone. We can absolutely be friends with someone who is different from us. We then enjoyed an activity where we were given two chameleons, colouring each one differently and thinking carefully about what they may say to each other. The children suggested some really beautiful and very kind words. Well done Reception!

With Mrs Edwards, we have continued to explore themes of Autumn and Harvest and, this week, learnt the story of ‘The Enormous Turnip’.

In PE this week, we were very excited to be using balloons! After warming up with the bean game, we first thought about moving the balloons. Could we pass it around our body? Could we roll it from our head to our toes? Could we roll it up again? At last, we were then able to pat the balloon! We enjoyed patting the balloon to our partner, seeing how many pats we could count before the balloon landed on the floor. To make it trickier, we then tried this challenge only using one hand! This was so much fun! To finish, we slowed down our heart rates by completing some ‘five finger breathing’.

It has been a week once again filled with learning through fun, books and new experiences. Next week marks the final week of our very first half term of school. The children have done ever so well and we are very proud of them. We are looking forward to a fabulous final week! I am also looking forward to speaking with you during our parent consultations this week; there shall be so much to celebrate.

With many thanks,

Miss Witham