Reception w/b 3rd June
Date: 7th Jun 2024 @ 4:04pm
A warm welcome back for the final half term of our very first year of school. It has been such a wonderful week and we have had so much fun together. It is a joyful collection of photos indeed!
This half term, our learning is inspired by the story ‘The Extraordinary Gardener’ by Sam Boughton. The book itself hasn’t yet been revealed to the children (although we are very excited to discover our focus text on Monday) as this week has been an opportunity to spark excitement and curiosity about our focus. We have therefore spent much of our week in our garden, beginning Reception’s project for this half term. On Tuesday, we explored the garden, learning about the different areas and developing our plan for our planting. The children were ever so excited and very sensible, for example, one of the planters is awaiting removal as it is broken; the children listened so carefully to this information and have been very trustworthy as they avoid this planter. First, we transplanted our beans and peas which we have been growing in our Reception outdoor area from seeds. We hope that they will thrive and grow very tall up our pyramid of canes! We transplanted cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and four different varieties of tomato plants into the next planter, along with some canes. Some tomato plants are already flowering! Into the brick planter, we planted our carrots, radishes and strawberries. The strawberries have been covered with net as it won’t be long before the berries are ripe! We then had two different types of lettuce to plant into our triangular planter. Into a planter with some tricky to remove shrubs, we have sprinkled lots of wildflower seeds. We have also planted petunias in some pots to add decoration to our garden. Wow! We have all had a wonderful time planting and, over the next few weeks, a different group will visit the garden each day to check on our plants, ensuring that they are watered, growing up the canes, weeds are removed, slugs and snails are moved elsewhere etc. At the end of our Reception year, we hope to have lots of delicious fruits and vegetables to enjoy eating!
Year 4 have a ‘flourishing’ focus this half term and were keen to come and spend time in our garden with us. We therefore decided to ‘buddy up’ and will be spending some time every Friday afternoon together in our garden. It was a complete and utter delight to observe the interactions between the children this afternoon – a beautiful example of our value of ‘community’ as we flourish together.
In our English sessions, we have been writing sentences about our gardening and the gardening tools that we need.
In maths, we were most excited to be introduced to a key piece of equipment which is used lots in Year One: a rekenrek. This looks a little bit like an abacus – two rows of 10 beads. On each row, 5 of the beads are red and 5 of the beads are white. This links well with the subitising (speedy spotting) skills which we have established throughout the year. After discussing what we noticed about the rekenrek, we practised moving different quantities of beads. To aid our mathematical fluency, we encourage children to move beads with ‘one push’ i.e. moving 4 beads at once rather than individually sliding across 1, 2, 3, 4. We then spent time focusing on the top row of the rekenrek – 10 beads. This half term, we will use the rekenrek to help to review our knowledge and skills – making doubles, showing bonds of 10, adding and subtracting etc.
Phonics lessons continued like we have never been away – the children delighted their phonics teachers with their independence and focus. Guided reading sessions have also been such a pleasure. At this stage of the year, the world of reading is beginning to become ‘unlocked’ to the children and the joy that this inspires is a special thing to observe.
With Mrs McAree, we enjoyed our penultimate 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; El autobús = The bus; El autobús para = The bus stops; La motocicleta = The motorcycle; La motocicleta acelera = The motorcycle accelerates. This week, we learnt the phrases: El tren = The train and El tren silba = The train whistles. We then enjoyed our Forest School afternoon, where lots of creativity and teamwork was observed!
In our athletics lesson, we focused on our throwing skills. To warm up, we had great fun scoring points by throwing beanbags into as many hoops as possible. We then looked at two different throws – underarm and overarm. We experimented with the throws through a range of challenges to identify which throws would be most helpful for different objectives. We decided that we could aim more accurately with an underarm throw but could throw further with an underarm throw. We then tried to throw our beanbag as far as we possibly could, using a cone to mark where it had landed. We tried to beat our own record, hoping to keep moving the cone marker each time. Well done Reception, another super athletics lesson!
This week, we enjoyed our final No Outsiders session of the year. Our book was ‘The Perfect Fit’ by Naomi Jones and James Jones as we asked: How do I fit in? In this story, Triangle doesn’t feel like she fits with the other shapes e.g. she can’t roll like a circle or stack like a square. She eventually finds other triangles and enjoys playing games together. Whilst it is great fun to play with shapes who are exactly the same, she realises that she misses the games she played with the other shapes, such as balancing the seesaw for the rectangles. By the end of the story, all of the shapes have fun playing and working together. We followed this up with some role play – the children chose a shape and explained why they felt left out; Isaac gave a beautiful explanation. The other children then explained to the shape why they are important and the ways in which they fit in. By the end, Isaac’s octagon certainly no longer felt like an outsider! Finally, in provision time, children drew pictures using each of the different shapes and showing how each of the shapes can join in.
Our music lesson had an ‘understanding the world’ link this week. Tomorrow, it is World Oceans Day and so our lesson began with a story: ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ by Sarah Roberts. This thought-provoking picture book charts the eventful journey made by Stanley, a discarded plastic carrier bag, who is swept into the sea. As he drifts through the ocean waves, he is mistaken for a jellyfish and swallowed by a series of unsuspecting animals. At the end of the story, he is found by a little boy tangled around a turtle. Thankfully, the little boy rescues the turtle and recycles Stanley, turning him into a kite who has lots of fun blowing in the wind and, importantly, is no longer causing risk to sea creatures. We thought about our rubbish and the harm it can cause to wildlife. We talked about the importance of never littering, trying to reduce our use of packaging, for example, and reusing/recycling wherever possible. We used our water tray and snack wrappers to create an ‘ocean’ and fishing nets to remove the rubbish from the ocean. As we did so, we sang this song (to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down):
Get the rubbish out of here,
Out of here, out of here, out of here,
Get the rubbish out of here,
Work together.
Now the water’s clean and clear,
Clean and clear, clean and clear, clean and clear,
Now the water’s clean and clear,
We worked together.
The children have then been keen to reuse and recycle, especially by creating in the junk modelling area.
On Thursday, an extremely exciting parcel arrived. Inside, we found caterpillars and all of the equipment we will use as we watch them grow. There was also a non-fiction book about Painted Lady butterflies which we enjoyed reading as we found out more about the life cycle that we will observe over the next few weeks. We are very much looking forward to watching our Painted Lady butterflies emerge. Below are some links to find out more about how we will look after our butterflies.
- Setting up your Chrysalis Station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Prw99oojY0
- Caring for your Chrysalis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcwOzy72vcM
- Feeding your Butterflies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wup0WdPnDOc
- Releasing your Butterflies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ImYSNCqBs
Wow Reception, you have worked very hard this week! I can already tell that this is going to be such a super half term. I hope that you all have a lovely weekend and I shall look forward to seeing you all on Monday. I wonder how our caterpillars will have changed over the weekend?
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
