Reception w/b 5th February
Date: 9th Feb 2024 @ 3:49pm
What an exciting day we have shared! On Saturday, it will be Lunar New Year and so this celebration has inspired much of our learning this week. We know that Lunar New Year is celebrated in many countries in different ways but we focused particularly on Chinese New Year traditions. It was interesting to learn that Lunar New Year is always in January or February, but the date changes each year because it follows a very old calendar which is linked to the phases of the Moon. We learnt about traditions such as: cleaning houses to sweep away bad luck; decorating with/wearing red as it is thought to be a lucky colour; having lucky fruits including mandarins, apples and bananas; children being given red envelopes full of money or sweets; dragon and lion dancing in the streets, often accompanied by fireworks. You may find these CBeebies links of interest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/chinese-new-year https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/chinese-lunar-new-year. We were then introduced to the story of the Chinese Zodiac Race and enjoyed acting it out with puppets. Monday’s literacy task was to label images of the animals from The Great Race, such as ‘rat’ and ‘rabbit’. On Tuesday, we were keen to find out the Zodiac animal for the year that we were born – those born in 2018 were born in the year of the dog, and those born in 2019 were born in the year of the pig. We drew pictures of our animal and captioned them with ‘the year of the dog/pig’. Throughout the week, we have also enjoyed making dancing dragons, writing Mandarin good luck messages with gold pens, making playdough dragons, retelling the story of The Great Race in the small world, and exploring Lunar New Year traditions in the home corner. Today, it was time for our much-anticipated Lunar New Year celebration. In the morning, we decorated our dragon head and tied lots of fabric together to make a body. Our afternoon began with some lion dancing. We then had the opportunity to taste some food. We tried dumplings, spring rolls and vegan ‘prawn’ crackers. It was wonderful to see so many children trying the foods, lots of children changing their minds and deciding to give something a try after seeing their friends enjoy the food. We were very proud of the children! We then each enjoyed a fortune cookie, kindly given by Louan and family. It was a very exciting tradition to explore! Finally, all of the children were given a red envelope containing a gold chocolate coin! To end our day, we headed to the hall to perform our dragon dance! We enjoyed this so much that we have requested that it forms part of next week’s PE lesson – we want to do it all over again! Thank you, Reception, for such a lovely day.
For Tuesday’s Forest School lesson, we were very excited to walk around our local area. We first looked at Google Maps to see both a bird’s eye view and a Google Maps Street View of our local area, pointing out areas we recognised, such as the park. We then discussed our road safety rules, signing, STOP, WAIT, LOOK, GO. We thought about why we were wearing hi-vis vests and why we should walk at a sensible speed across a road. The children were ever so sensible as we journeyed from school to the Bear’s Head. We paused at each recognisable landmark on our journey, including: the park, the post box, the bus stop, the archway over the road leading to St Oswald’s Church, Smithy Cottage and the Bear’s Head. We also stopped at the post box to post the thank you messages to PCSO Kim and PCSO Pam that we had written in last week’s literacy sessions. Upon our return to school, we spent time drawing our own maps of our local area, recalling the order in which we encountered each landmark on our walk. These early map making skills were a joy to observe. Later in the week, we then enjoyed making 3D maps, using large paper and blocks. Wednesday’s literacy challenge was then to write a sentence to recount our walk, such as ‘We went to the post box.’ This meant that we explored a new red word: we.
In maths, the focus was 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. 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.
In Spanish, we built on the language learnt so far (¡Buenos días! = Good morning!; ¡Hola! = Hi!; Me llamo… = My name is…; ¿Cómo estás? = How are you?; Estoy bien = I am well; Estoy mal = I am not great; Más o menos = So, so). Our new objective was to say ‘goodbye’ in Spanish = ¡Adiós!. We loved learning a new ‘goodbye’ song.
Our PE session was led by Mr McAulay, who completed our PE assessments. We completed three challenges. First, we had to run and touch cones, changing direction each time, assessing our speed and agility. Next, we had to jump from a standing position, taking off and landing with both feet at the same time. Mr McAulay measured our jumping distance. We were very bouncy! Finally, we bounced a ball on the floor and caught it. We challenged ourselves to catch the ball as many times as we could in 30 seconds. Mr McAulay was very impressed, not only with Reception’s sporting skills, but their listening, enthusiasm and determination. Well done, Reception!
On Thursday morning, we were delighted to welcome Charlotte, from Down Syndrome Cheshire. She delivered a very exciting and engaging music session, incorporating lots of Makaton and opportunities to use our senses. We recognised signs that we have learnt so far in Reception and were delighted to learn some more, such as the signs for the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. Charlotte will visit again soon for some small group music sessions.
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. Next week, we shall think more about this story, focusing on a whole class activity that helps others.
Safer internet activities focused on the Jessie and Friends film – episode 1: Watching Videos. The series begins with Jessie and her dog, as they watch videos online using a tablet. Together they learn that while the internet can be enjoyable and fun, there are sometimes things online that can be upsetting or scary. Jessie learns that she can always speak to a grown-up who will be able to help her and put down the tablet if there is anything she sees or hears online that makes her feel worried, scared or sad.
This year’s Children’s Mental Health Week theme is: My Voice Matters. We have focused on expressing yourself, having a voice and making yourself heard. We began with the Whisper Game, passing a positive message around the circle by whispering the message into the ear of the friend sat next to us. We didn’t always end up with the same message we started with so this was a great discussion point, asking ‘What do we need to do to listen to each other really well?’. Next, we had the opportunity to make our voices heard, sharing what we like and don’t like. We all like different things and that our ideas, thoughts and views matter. We watched Signing with Lucinda’s Makaton for ‘Favourite’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjD6xn9cgnY We used Makaton signing to share our favourite animals, colours and food. We were very grateful for our resident expert signers, Gabriel and Mrs Ball, for teaching us how to sign these animals, colours and foods. We had great fun sharing our favourite things with the class. We all have a right to be heard and at Brereton, a school built on respect, hope, wisdom and community, stopping and listening is an expectation.
Phonics and guided reading sessions continue to be an absolute joy and I am thoroughly looking forward to completing reading assessments next week. It is clear to see that the children have made superb progress after their hard work.
Wow, what a super week we have had! I hope that the children sleep well tonight and that you all enjoy a wonderful weekend. Reception, I wish you all a very Happy Lunar New Year!
With many thanks,
Miss Witham
