Reception w/b 3rd February
Date: 7th Feb 2025 @ 5:49pm
There have been so many things to enjoy in Reception this week, but our highlight was most certainly our Learning Exhibition on Thursday. It was a joy and a pleasure to welcome you all into our classroom to share in our fun and learning. We hope that each time you come into school, you will be able to see their amazing progress – we are so very proud of each and every one of them! Thank you so very much for coming, and we hope that you will be practising Fredding in your head!
The children, on the other hand, are proving to be absolute experts at Fredding in their heads, as phonics and guided reading sessions continue with success and confidence. I am thoroughly looking forward to completing reading assessments next Tuesday. It is clear to see that the children have made superb progress after their hard work.
We have been such busy bees in our literacy lessons. At the beginning of the week, we turned our attention to our working wall and could not believe our eyes…Naughty Bus had disappeared! As we know the mischief that this little bus can cause, we were keen to find him as soon as possible. We created ‘Wanted’ posters for Naughty Bus, drawing careful pictures and writing sentences to describe him using the red word ‘he’ (e.g. He is red and fast.’). These are now up all over school and our whole school community are helping us to look out for the escaped bus! Although we are yet to find Naughty Bus, we have discovered some clues. On Wednesday, we could not believe our eyes…the school CCTV cameras had captured footage of Naughty Bus travelling around school! We labelled stills from this CCTV footage to send to the police.
We had a new focus song to inspire our maths learning: 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer. We have been developing our understanding of composition, or the numbers within numbers. A key focus has been exploring ways to represent numbers using the Hungarian number pattern (die pattern). We began by using this representation to consolidate our understanding of the composition of 5 e.g. seeing 5 as 4 + 1. We then progressed to exploring the relationship of 5 with other numbers, using double dice frames. For example, 6 is the same as 1 full die frame + 1 more ( 6 = 5 + 1). This has helped us to explore 6 and 7 as numbers that are composed of ‘5 and a bit’. Numicon has been a particularly useful resource, creating 5, 6 and 7 ‘jigsaws’. We started with a 5, 6 or 7 shape and explored which number shapes could be combined on top to make the same shape. For example, we noticed that combining the 3 shape and the 4 shape made the 7 shape: 3 + 4 = 7.
In Forest School this week, we were inspired by the RSPB Big Schools' Birdwatch. Miss Hinett showed us how to build a nest, just like a bird. This was also a super fine motor activity…we can’t believe how difficult this must be for birds who don’t have hands to build with and instead need to use their beaks!
After learning stories that Jesus heard, we are now moving on to learning stories that Jesus told. This week’s story was the story of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). After listening to the story and watching a video retelling, we acted it out. We also looked at paintings of the story from different cultures. The children clearly understood that Jesus was teaching that God wants us to treat everybody with kindness and help those in need, not just people who are our friends.
Today, our morning with Mrs Taylor began with a music session from our ‘Weather’ unit, this time with a focus on rain. We watched the marimba recital https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/melody-marimba-recital which shows Melody imagining jumping in puddles to the music. We thought about the ways in which the music matches the rain, and splashing in puddles, thinking about if the sounds were fast or slow, short or long sounds, loud or quiet? Together, the class then wrote lyrics to their own song about rain. They looked at a selection of percussion instruments and the children suggested which could be used for the rain sounds. The children used the instruments to compose music which matched the lyrics. Mrs Taylor and the Reception children a superstar musicians!
We were also very excited to show Mrs Taylor our football skills in PE. The children are experts at dribbling and are now continuing to practising shooting with the ball. On Tuesday morning, Mrs Taylor will be with us again. We can’t wait!
This week has been Children’s Mental Health Week and our theme has been ‘Know yourself, grow yourself’. Each day this week, we have completed a new challenge to work on knowing ourselves and growing ourselves.
Monday – Think about something you are good at
Tuesday – Think about something you want to get better at
Wednesday – Think about someone who is special to you
Thursday – Think about something that makes you smile
Friday – Think about something that makes you special
We also enjoyed thinking about aspects of our personality and interests when completing our ‘Personality Islands’ challenge, inspired by Riley’s Personality Islands in the film ‘Inside Out’. Each day this week, we have also made sure to have time for mindful moments, Happy Breathing, and time to move our bodies. For Children’s Mental Health Week, we have especially enjoyed using videos from the Supermovers and Moodboosters to move our bodies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/moodboosters
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/topics/c878zmv50rdt
Wow, what a super week we have had! I hope that the children sleep well tonight and that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend. Next week, we have lots of Valentine’s enhancements to look forward to, a visit to St Oswald’s Church, a disco and our half-termly baking time. I already can’t wait!
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
