Reception w/b 24th February
Date: 28th Feb 2025 @ 4:55pm
A warm welcome back! It has been an exciting first week of Spring 2 for Reception and we trust that you have all enjoyed a lovely half term. Parent consultations have been a wonderful way to begin a new half term, reflecting on the superb progress that each and every child has made and the fun and experiences we have shared together. It was an absolute delight to meet with you all to talk about your wonderful children who are such a credit to you.
We ‘hit the ground running’ in our phonics groups after last half term’s super reading assessments; we have all been focusing on consolidating sounds taught last half term, before introducing new vowel digraphs. We are all now experts at writing words in our phonics sessions and will start to write daily sentences in our phonics sessions, applying our knowledge of finger spaces, full stops and capital letters. What super writers we have in Reception! Mrs McAree, Mrs Griffiths, Mrs Mayson and I have also been thoroughly impressed as the children read their first text for their new reading level. Whilst the new text may have seemed more challenging at the beginning of the week, by Friday morning the children were reading with such confidence and fluency, reaping the benefits of a longer reading cycle. We were also amazed by the comprehension skills that we have observed. Superstars!
On Wednesday morning, we received a video message from Mr Simmons, informing us that he had found a small hole outside in Forest School. He asked us to investigate! We went outside to look at the deep, dark hole, looking for clues and discussing our predictions. We were brimming with ideas about this hole, wondering…How did it get here? Is it dangerous? Could something be down the hole? What kind of creatures live down holes? Will it get any bigger? The children had so many wonderful predictions to share with well-explained reasons. Some of the suggestions for what could be down the hole included: a mole, a baby rabbit, a badger, a fox, a snake, a dormouse, a stag beetle, Naughty Bus or Evil Pea. They then enthusiastically recorded their predictions, writing the stem sentence ‘I think it is a…’. On Thursday, we revealed our new focus text, entitled ‘The Something’. We looked at the front cover, noticing the small hole surrounded by all sorts of creatures, reminding us of the hole in Forest School. We read the first 3 pages of the story, finding out about a little boy called Dan who lost his ball down the hole and started to wonder about the ‘something’ that lived inside of the hole. We then met ‘Dan’, who entered our classroom looking ever so upset to have lost his red ball. We suggested that he may feel sad but Dan felt that ‘sad’ was simply not a strong enough word to describe how he was feeling. We therefore explored language including: distraught, heartbroken, glum, upset, worried, nervous and disappointed. We used this vocabulary to write the sentence ‘Dan feels…’. Our new story inspired us to use construction materials and the junk modelling station to create inventions to help Dan to retrieve his ball.
Within our maths lessons this week, we have been practising counting beyond 20, recognising the pattern embedded within most of our number names. We were very proud to have counted all the way to 100! While working with numbers to 10, we have been consolidating our understanding that each number has a value of ‘1 more’ than the previous number’ and ‘1 less’ than the next number. We have also used images of the Numberblocks’ and our fingers to help to ‘see the 5’ in numbers e.g. 9 is the same as 5 + 4. As we made our own ‘staircase pattern’ number lines to 10, we thought about the numbers in relation to 5 e.g. 8 is made of 5 and 3; to turn 5 into 4, take one away – 4 is one less than 5. At home, it would be helpful to practise representing the numbers to 10 on your fingers e.g. 7 is made of 5 and 2 so I will hold up 5 fingers on one hand and 2 on the other.
We have also enjoyed a ‘guess the number’ game, using a number line to 10 as a visual aid. One child thought of a number, and we asked questions phrased ‘Is your number more than…?’ and ‘Is your number less than…?’ to narrow down the options. Eventually, children will develop their own ‘mental number line’ and the ability to understand which number is more than or less than another.
On Tuesday morning, we also had some additional recap maths sessions with Mrs McAree, focusing on the comparison of quantities. We focused on comparing sets, without being diverted by differences in colour, shape or size. We then noticed when quantities were equal or unequal, and considered how we could manipulate the number of objects in 2 sets to make them equal. For example, Pat has 2 objects and Sam has 4 – Pat has fewer than Sam. To make the sets equal, Sam could give 1 object to Pat so that they both have 3 objects. Language has been a key focus, using ‘more than’, ‘fewer than’ and ‘an equal number’ to describe how many objects there are in each set. ‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’, as the focus is on countable things.
In our Forest School time, we had such fun building dens! Mr Simmons and Mrs McAree were delighted by the teamwork and creative thinking that they observed. Well done, Reception!
In our PSED No Outsiders lesson, we focused on The Family Book by Todd Par. We first asked, ‘What is a family?’ before reading the story. The children had beautiful answers, including: “It means being together.” “It’s all about love.” “Looking after a child and feeding them.” “Having chicken pie at Grandma’s house.” “Going for a walk with our dog because pets are part of a family.” We discussed the different families mentioned in the book and discussed whether there were any families in the book that were like our families. We recognised that all families are different and celebrated these differences.
This week’s PSED SCARF lesson was entitled, ‘Safe indoors and outdoors’. We explored a picture book about Harold the giraffe, who is being a safety detective. In this book we saw Harold looking at a lot of different, everyday things, inside and outside, to investigate whether they are safe or unsafe, and how to make sure we can keep safe around these things. For example: in the kitchen (kettle of boiling water, cookers and pans, sockets, matches); the bathroom (slippery surfaces, hot water taps); in the countryside (Foxgloves, stinging nettles, barbed wire, broken glass). Whilst we recognise these dangers, we know that they do not stop us from having a bath or going for a walk! We realised it is all about how we keep safe around dangers to minimise risks – doing things for ourselves to keep safe from harm as well as knowing which adults are responsible for keeping us safe.
Our PE lesson had a focus on football for the final time. Today, we focused on both scoring and saving goals. I was not only impressed by the children’s football skills, but also the sportsmanship, kindness, encouragement and determination that they showed. Well done, Reception!
In our RE lesson, we listened to another story that Jesus told before we shall move on to learning about Easter. Today, we focused on The Sower (Luke 8:4-15). We firstly thought about the things that plants need to grow and thrive and then we listened to the story. Jesus said that if we listen to the word of God and follow in His way we will grow strong. We need to be nourished by love, patience, kindness, joy and peace. We thought that we could be teachers like Jesus, planting the seed of God’s word by telling these stories and their messages to others. We then sowed some of our own seeds which we will nurture in the warmth of the classroom until they are ready to be transplanted. Later in the year, we shall be heading to the school garden to continue our Reception project of growing fruits and vegetables. This was a very popular project last year and we can’t wait to see this year’s cohort enjoy the satisfaction of planting seeds and watching them grow and helping them to flourish until there are delicious fruits and vegetables to harvest and enjoy.
We have also had some pockets of time to end our morning and afternoons sessions. In one session, we practised forming our numeral of the week (2) by saying, “Around and back on the railroad track, 2, 2, 2, 2!” We have also been reading our focus traditional tale ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, using puppets alongside the books. We have enjoyed listening to one of our favourite poems ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’ by Spike Milligan. Finally, we have been learning lots of facts about woodland animals and enjoying using this knowledge to play a game involving guessing the animals based on clues.
We really have ‘hit the ground running’ this week; our Reception class are simply amazing! Another wonderful week beckons, with highlights including World Book Day and Shrove Tuesday.
I that hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend, and we shall look forward to seeing you all next week.
Miss Witham
