Reception w/b 13th May
Date: 17th May 2024 @ 4:56pm
Did you know that astronauts on board the ISS wee in a tube?! Did you know that the craters on the moon were created by asteroids colliding with its surface? Did you know that ‘el autobús’ means ‘the bus’ in Spanish? Do you know how to long jump like an Olympic athlete? Did you know that mandirs are holy places for Hindus? Well, Reception most certainly do after their very busy week of learning! They have shown such a thirst for knowledge this week and have spent each day demonstrating a love of learning and embarking on quests of curiosity to find the answers to their many questions.
It has also been a busy week for our Year 6 friends this week and so our lovely phonics teachers have been involved in administering the tests in the mornings. Therefore, phonics has been a little different this week…whole class lessons! We have been reviewing the first 6 Set 2 sounds together: ay, ee, igh, ow, oo (zoo) and oo (look). We have written these sounds in words and played a game of ‘Buried Treasure’ to read them in real and alien words. A new challenge this week involved looking at a simple picture on the board. Based on the picture, the children were challenged to generate, remember and record their sentence completely independently. They were simply amazing at this challenge! We are looking forward to learning some new sounds in our groups with our phonics teachers next week. Next week, I shall also carry out this half term’s reading assessments…I can’t wait!
It has been a non-fiction week in our literacy sessions and we have been so excited to write all about space. We spent time learning more about our solar system and writing factual sentences, such as: ‘Saturn has 7 rings.’ ‘Venus is the hottest planet.’ ‘The sun is a star.’ ‘Jupiter is the biggest planet.’ ‘Mars is the red planet.’ We also learnt more about astronauts and the International Space Station (ISS). Perhaps the most popular fact to write on this day was ‘astronauts wee in a tube’ which we learnt from Tim Peake! Wonderful work Reception; it is a delight to see your enthusiasm and curiosity when learning about space.
In our maths lessons, we have consolidated our understanding of adding by counting on, using a number line. The children are now experts at this. We have practised some more by jumping along a physical number line, as well as demonstrating our understanding with paper number lines, using a pencil to draw the jumps. We know that we need to circle the starting number, then jump carefully, before circling the number we landed on. As we have explored this strategy, we have also thought about the number line itself, developing a deeper understanding of the magnitude of numbers and where numbers to 10 are in relation to each other. We have thought about more and less, considered numbers that are far apart, near and next to each other (e.g. 10 is a lot more than 2 but 5 is only 1 more than 4), as well as using language such as before, after and between to describe the position of numbers in relation to others. Marvellous mathematicians, indeed!
On Monday, we conducted an experiment to understand more about the moon. After reading one of our non-fiction books about the moon, we were especially interested in the craters on the surface of the moon and how they had been created by rocks, such as asteroids, colliding with the surface of the moon. In our experiment, we started with a surface of smooth sand to represent the surface of the moon. We dropped marbles into the sand to represent the asteroids hitting the surface. We explored how we could change the size and depth of the ‘craters’ depending on the size of marble used and how speedily it was travelling (by adjusting the height from which it was dropped). We were very enthused by this investigation and so it continued into the provision, using our sand tray as the surface of the moon.
With Mrs McAree, we enjoyed our third Spanish lesson in our ‘Transport’ unit. So far, we have focused on 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. This week, we added new phrases: El autobús = The bus; El autobús para = The bus stops.
In Forest School, Mr Simmons showed us how to carefully shape clay to create space models, such as a model of Saturn with its rings or the moon covered with craters.
Our focus on the artist Kandinsky has continued. This week, we focused on another piece of Kandinsky artwork, ‘Several Circles’. We used circular objects in a range of sizes to print, overlapping some circles just like Kandinsky. We were only given red, yellow and blue paint so needed to use our knowledge of colour mixing to create secondary colours.
In our PE lesson, this week’s athletics focus was jumping. We have been practising our long jump technique, imagining that we are Olympic athletes! Through experimenting, we realised that the best long jumps involve: bending our knees, swinging our arms, landing with ‘sticky feet’ and taking off with two feet at the same time then landing with two feet at the same time. By the end of the lesson, we were jumping so far that Miss Witham thought we had springs in our feet! We then applied our jumping skills in an obstacle course style game, as we get used to using the track in teams. Finally, we ended the lesson with a running race, as requested by the children.
Our focus on rhythms in music continues. This week, we began with a name game. We worked together to create a steady pulse, tapping our hands on our knees and then our upturned hands on our knees to create a ‘tap, tap, silent, silent’ pulse. We then worked around the circle, saying the name of the friend next to us in the silent beats e.g. ‘tap, tap, Or-la’. We then practised saying the names in both high and low pitched voices. To conclude, we listened to the following clip, practising identifying tempo and pitch, as well as commenting on the kinds of emotions the music evokes in us. https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/eyfs-listening-skills-music/zrthqp3
In RE, we continue to explore special and holy places. The children could recall that churches are holy places for Christians and mosques are holy places for Muslims, as well as sharing lots of information that they had remembered about churches and mosques. Today, we learnt about mandirs, holy places for Hindus. We learnt that, at a mandir, there are shrines for different Hindu gods and goddesses, also known as deities. Murtis (statues of a deity or goddess) are kept in a shrine, a holy place. Different deities can be worshipped depending on the mandir. In Hindu services, a lit arti lamp is waved before a murti and a bell is used to awaken the deities. Hindu services are led by a Brahmin priest. People sing songs or say prayers called mantras and passages are read from Hindu religious books. We watched a video of Nikhil showing us around his mandir. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z8c22v4 People take off their shoes and wash their hands when they enter a mandir, which the children realised also happens when people enter a mosque.
Today, we enjoyed using a new technique to create space artwork. We added shaving foam to a tray and swirled paint into the shaving foam, creating a marbled effect. We even mixed some colours, for example, adding yellow to our red swirls to create orange, adding dimension to look more like the surface of Mars. We then lay a piece of card on top of the shaving foam and gently pressed down, so that our paint swirls transferred to the paper. Once they are dry, we shall cut these pieces of card into circle shapes so that they look like planets!
Wow Reception, you have worked incredibly hard this week! I simply can’t wait for next week’s Space Day, to celebrate and enrich our knowledge of all things space.
I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and I shall look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
