Reception w/b 19th June
Date: 23rd Jun 2023 @ 2:20pm
It has been a wonderful week full of sport at Brereton! During playtimes and lunchtimes, staff have been leading sports sessions, allowing children to practise known sports and skills in addition to being introduced to new sports. We must especially thank Mrs Warren for all of her playtime sporting efforts this week – she is a gifted sports teacher who always makes sessions such fun! A highlight of the week was our EYFS and KS1 morning of sports. All of the children worked their way through a carousel of sport: French cricket with Mrs Pulle and Mrs Sherliker-Hewitt, rounders with Miss Roxburgh, athletics with Miss Witham and netball with Mrs Warren and Miss Sowter. Reception really held their own in each session and showed impressive independence, confidence and enthusiasm throughout. We do so enjoy opportunities to work together as a key stage and it is always lovely to see collaboration between the older children and younger children. Luckily, the sun shone all morning on the field, with the first spot of rain falling almost exactly after we returned to the classroom. Perfect timing! Undoubtedly, most children would say that their favourite element of sports week was their fun swim session. How lucky we are to have had this opportunity in Reception! The children were so excited for their swim but remained very sensible as they changed and got into the pool, adhering to all of the ‘pool rules’ that they had generated as a class. It was a pleasure to take Reception to the pool and we were very proud of them. The swimming coaches were wonderful with the children and everybody had a marvellous time. Those beaming smiles on the photographs say it all!
Into our busy sports week, we have still managed to squeeze in phonics, guided reading and handwriting, all of which progress as beautifully as ever. No red words completed today, however, with all of the swimming fun! With our packed timetable, we have had an oracy focus in English, as we have started to learn our text map. We also continue to find regular opportunities to practise rhyme.
In maths, we started to dip into some Year One methods of adding – using a number line. We first practised ordering numbers to 10, talking about which number comes before/after and using language such as ‘between’. We then learnt our ‘jumping on’ strategy, starting with a physical number line comprised of number tiles. For example, if adding 5 and 3, we knew to start on the number 5 tile. We then physically jumped along the number line by 3 jumps to land on 8 – 5 + 3 = 8. As the week progressed, we moved to a paper number line, using the pen to draw the jumps. In this case, we would circle the starting number (e.g. 5), then jump carefully (e.g. 3 jumps), before circling the number we landed on (8). The children picked up this method wonderfully and have chosen to practise this further during provision time. Super mathematicians indeed!
This week was our double Forest School week. On Tuesday, the rain was constant, so Mr Simmons thought it best to complete an indoor session. We used clay to model the stages of the life cycle of a butterfly – egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. This was evidence of a wonderful understanding of life cycles and we could see such huge progress in modelling skills since the Autumn term! Thankfully, Thursday’s skies were clear and so we headed into our Forest School environment to explore and engage with Mr Simmons’ challenge for the week. He showed us how to weave bracelets – a super fine motor activity.
In our extra Monday maths session, we looked at some 3D shapes and started to learn their names: sphere, cone, cylinder, cube and cuboid. We shall continue to embed this knowledge throughout the half term and will enjoy some shape hunts! This was followed by an introduction to our art challenge for the week where our focus on Claude Monet continued. We used the oil pastel and watercolour technique we practised last week but, this time, created our own ‘extraordinary garden’.
Our RE and ‘understanding the world’ learning objectives were linked this week. We have been thinking about God’s world and how to look after it. We know that not everybody cares for God’s world and identified examples such as: littering, chopping down trees, killing animals, harming nature and adding pollution to the world. We have been thinking carefully about how we can make positive changes and have our own positive impact on our environment. We have compiled a list of suggestions and shall endeavour to begin our own projects, as well as speaking to Mrs McLean and the school council with our suggestions for the school. It was wonderful to see such a passion from the children for caring for our precious world. We finished with another song: He’s got the whole world in His hands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDBJNQiugnM
This week, we were most excited for the next stage in the process of caring for our butterflies. Over the weekend, chrysalises had formed – the downside of the warmer weather as the caterpillars had grown at an accelerated rate! The children were delighted to make this discovery on Monday morning. After three days, it is necessary to move the chrysalises from their original pot to the net butterfly garden. This move was eagerly anticipated by all, even with some nerves from Miss Witham, as I was feeling the pressure! I have no doubt that this is evident in the video links below. https://youtu.be/VMWJarW64-s
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7F6E4d-FoHU
Within the videos, I had removed the lid from the pot; the chrysalises were attached to the lid. I then used a cotton swab to remove any silk threads to prevent any damage to the wings of the butterflies as they emerge. We then popped the lid into the useful holder and added this to the net – no video of this as it was a two-person job! Within the next couple of weeks, our butterflies will have (hopefully!) emerged safely. How exciting!
Phew, a busy week indeed! I hope that you all enjoy some well-deserved rest and relaxation this weekend. I shall look forward to welcoming everybody back to school on Monday for a class photograph to commemorate their very first year of school!
With many thanks and best wishes,
Miss Witham
