Reception w/b 18th November
Date: 19th Nov 2024 @ 10:58am
It was lovely to see all children ending the week with big smiles and feeling proud of all they have achieved – yet another busy week draws to a close. The festive season always arrives early in Reception, due to our approaching Nativity. We are aware that this wonderful time also brings changes to routines so, to reduce change for the children, we will try to mimic our usual timetable as closely as possible. At the moment, this means singing and practising our lines in some of our usual carpet times, keeping the ‘flow’ of our day the same and ensuring that the children have plenty of quality provision time. This does mean a slightly reduced frequency of literacy and maths carpet sessions for the next couple of weeks but please rest assured that we are planning for plenty of purposeful, targeted literacy and maths activities, opportunities and interactions in the provision. We know how very important it is that our wonderfully creative, inquisitive Reception children have lots of time for joyful play!
Our phonics sessions shall continue without timetable changes, and the children continue to enjoy working in groups. We now know almost all of our single letter sounds and all phonics teachers are pleased with the retention of sounds that we are seeing and the progress with blending. Thank you so much for your support with this at home; we enjoy reading all of your comments in the diaries about practising sounds and reading. In addition to the importance of sound recognition and blending, we continue to spend lots of time focusing on handwriting as it is so important that children learn to form letters correctly from the start. The children have applied this beautiful letter formation as they continue to practise writing their names – Mrs Mitchell, Mrs McAree and I have been very impressed!
Much of our learning this week has been inspired by Diwali, ‘the festival of light’. This year, Diwali was observed from the 31st October to the 1st November, which was during the half term. As we have been thinking about Bonfire Night in Week 1, and Remembrance Day in Week 2, we wanted to ensure that we dedicated a whole week to Diwali, so have waited until Week 3! The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. As part of the celebrations, people around the world retell the Diwali legends, one of which tells how Rama rescues Sita from the evil demon king Ravana. We have read and listened to several retellings of this legend. We learnt that Diwali is celebrated in lots of different ways, including: cleaning and tidying the home, wearing new clothes, lighting lamps called diyas (or divas), creating rangoli patterns, visiting the temple, having a festive family feast, exchanging gifts (often sweets and dried fruits), and huge firework displays. In the provision, we have created our own rangoli patterns with: chalk outside the Reception area, coloured rice in trays, paint, playdough and loose parts, Numicon and 2D shapes. We have also explored Mehndi, detailed patterns that are sometimes painted onto a person's hands or feet using henna during festivals and celebrations. We used black pen to design our patterns and have also used brown paint in piping bags as part of our exploration of how henna is applied. In Forest School, we used nature to create rangoli patterns. Throughout the week, we have listened to Hindu legends, read stories (such as ‘Dipal’s Diwali), listened to Diwali music, explored non-fiction books and looked carefully at photographs. The children have been so engaged with this learning and have asked wonderful questions. You may enjoy sharing some of these links at home:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-diwali
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/my-first-festivals-diwali
On Tuesday, we were thrilled to arrive at school to find it covered in snow! After phonics, we wrapped up warm and headed straight outside to enjoy the snow whilst it was still fresh and plentiful. The children enjoyed building snowmen and snow castles, mark making in the snow, and throwing snowballs! I was so proud of how sensible and respectful they all were, ensuring that snowballs were only thrown below shoulder level and making sure to ask their friends if it was ok to throw a snowball at each other before doing so. We had lots of fun! Throughout the week, we have also enjoyed discovering ice in our outdoor area and talking about freezing and melting. This inspired lots of investigations into reversible changes.
Another significant element of our week has been our continuing Nativity preparations. We have just loved learning all of these songs and have been excited to get onto the stage towards the end of the week! Mrs McAree and I were amazed by how quickly the children are picking up their lines, and how loudly and proudly they are able to say them. We ask that you please continue to support your child with learning their lines at home – it is really giving them a confidence boost which is lovely to see. If you have any concerns about this, please do not hesitate to get in touch. We have learnt so very many new signs as we sing and sign our way through our Nativity. Alongside Nativity specific signs, we are picking up several signs that we can use often, such as ‘look’, ‘sit down’, ‘listen’, ‘don’t know’, ‘hungry’, ‘night’. The children really are amazing us – superb signers! A particular sign to note this week is ‘light’ – important in a Nativity context but especially as part of our Diwali celebrations, the festival of light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LqtNswoys
A week filled with joy! I have no doubt that another wonderful week beckons and I hope that your weekend is restful and pleasant.
With huge thanks for your continued support,
Miss Witham
