Author: Reception team

This week, we’ve been Walking Through The Jungle with our story, written by Julie Lacome.

We looked closely at repeated parts of the text and used it to frame our own innovated piece of writing. First, we planned our writing; new animals, movements and endings to our story. After this, we created our very own story books. The children came up with some fantastic new vocabulary for movements through the jungle:

“Gliding”-Sofia

“Hopping”- Tristan

“Jumping”- Leo B

“Swimming”- Adriana

At this point in the school year, we’re encouraging children to extend their writing and independently start to plan and edit their work. The children are becoming enthusiastic authors!

Does your child enjoy writing stories at home?

More animal explorations…

In our classroom Curiosity Corner, we’ve continued to compare animal habitats, look at maps showing which parts of the world animals come from, read animal stories and explore animal fur or skin prints.

Our provision areas have been animal-tastic too! Making repeating patterns with animal stamps, using small world animals, building habitats, naming baby animals and more!

Jungle Dancing and Music…

This week’s story book is also a catchy song! We used the song in PE to imitate animal movements. We love expressing ourselves through dance.

Click here to have a jungle dance at home!

We’ve also been using the instruments outside, to create a jungle sound game.

Maths…

In maths, we’ve been creating number tracks. We explained how we’re able to identify which number is next in a sequence. We used our knowledge of number and our subitising skills to identify missing numbers on the number track.

New life…

Over the past few weeks we’ve been closely observing our caterpillars grow, then form their chrysalis. Our butterflies are finally starting to emerge! Next week we’ll release them to start their new life in the wild.

Take a peek at more learning from this week…

Home-link challenge…

Next week, we’ll be thinking about human life on Earth. We’ll be learning about our bodies and how we keep them clean, healthy and safe.  The children will also be looking at the ways humans change over time; What were they like as babies? What can they do now that they are 4/5? What might they do in the future?

To help with our learning, please start to have these conversations at home. We’d also like you to send in a baby photo of your child, that can be used in their learning this week. You can send these in person or email them to the Reception email address. Thank you.

Jubilee Celebrations…

We’ll also be celebrating The Queen’s Jubilee next week! We’ll learn about The Royal Family, be making crowns, having our Jubilee Picnic (keeping all fingers and toes crossed for sunshine) and we’ll be having our very own royal dance. We can’t wait to celebrate!

This week, we’ve been reading The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle.

We spotted lots of new features the author had used in the book,  when comparing it to another of Eric Carle’s books we have recently read. We used the book to practise our reading skills and came up with alternative words for parts of the story. It sparked a discussion of time (clocks on each page) and size comparison, as the animals (and text) got increasingly larger throughout the story.

Clay sculptures…

We have started a minibeast art project. This week we’ve been creating minibeasts out of clay and collage materials. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be painting our sculptures and creating habitats for them to live in!

Doubles…

This week, our maths saw us return to doubling. We are becoming experts at adding “the same amount” and recalling our doubles number facts! We’ve also been spotting patterns of six, to support our number composition.

Writing…

We are developing independence in our writing, with additional morning challenges. We’re ensuring that our sentences feature capital letters, a full stop and finger spaces. We have special actions to remind us of these.

Skipping…

In PE, along with the rest of our school, we’ve been developing our skipping rope skills. We look forward to seeing how the children progress over the next few weeks.

More photos of our learning this week…

Home link…

Continue your minibeast hunts in the garden, or out on a walk. This week, have a go at writing a list of any that you find, to share with your class. You might want to extend your writing by adding a description to make a sentence, for example:

I see a black ant with six short legs. 

The worm is long and thin.

Don’t forget those sentence features shown in the ‘Writing’ section of this post!

May Bank Holiday…

School will be closed on Monday 2 May 2022, for the early May Bank Holiday. We look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday. Enjoy your long weekend together!

Our brilliant ‘bubble’…

This week has been a little bit different for our children. A few members of our usual teaching team have been absent and we’ve stayed within our Early Years bubble. Here at Scholes, we pride ourselves on being a Happy and healthy place to learn. This week was another example of how resilient and happy our children really are. They have been FAN-TAS-TIC! Here are some ways we’ve been Happy and Healthy this week:

• Happy to meet some new adults, who have taken great care of us alongside our teachers. We love sharing our learning with visitors and showing them what we can do!
• Healthy continued discussions around handwashing, hygiene routines and taking extra care.
• Happy classroom lunchtimes with carpet picnics, music and stories.
• Healthy continued time spent outside, in our shared garden area and during playtimes.

Learning this week…

This week we’ve been Going on a Bear Hunt! We’ve had a great time re-telling this week’s very popular story.

The glorious sunshine has been very welcome. We’ve been potting and planting in addition to our usual outdoor explorations.

In art, we’ve been creating observational paintings of flowers. We were inspired by the artist Pandora Sellars.

In Maths, we’ve been learning about doubles!

Ask your child what we need to do, to double a number!

Here are some more photos of learning this week.

We’ve also been busy organising and recording a very special class assembly, that you’ll be able to watch next week. We’re keeping some of our learning as a special surprise!

Comic Relief…

Thank you to everyone who joined in with our Comic Relief, Non-Uniform Day today and for your donations to this very important cause.

Reading at home…

You will have received a new reading record today, with a letter about reading at home. If you would like to watch the short video we have made, talking through some of the eBook features and how we use the reading practise books in class, you can scan the QR code on the letter or click here.

Home-link challenge…

We’ve been working hard on our handwriting. This week we’d like you to focus on handwriting with your child at home. Please continue to use the Little Wandle formation sheets/ phrases.

Welcome Back!

We were so excited to welcome Reception back this week, after a very wet and windy half term break. Our outdoor area definitely felt the effects of storm Eunice but was soon back in action!

Let’s Go! is the name of our theme this term. We’ll be looking at the season of Spring and growing. We’ll also be looking at different journeys and the vehicles we might use to make them. At the end of the term, we will be learning about Easter.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week, our focus story was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We hope you enjoyed seeing the story come to life through the Reception Team’s World Book Day costumes!

This book has so many great learning aspects; we discussed days of the week, the life cycle of a butterfly, the ‘one more’ aspect of what the caterpillar eats at the start of the story and of course, we enjoyed re-telling the story.

Each morning the children wrote down their breakfast, to create a food diary.

We’ve also enjoyed creating symmetrical butterflies, sorting fruit and vegetables into where they grow, exploring our sensory tray, making dough characters from the story and more!

Maths

This week was all about meeting number eight and comparing numbers, especially identifying ‘more’ and using ‘one more’ to re-visit the ‘staircase pattern’

Can your child tell you how we make a staircase pattern?

World Book Day 2022

Wowee! What amazing costumes we saw on Thursday. Thank you for participating and for sharing your favourite books from home. Both the children and staff had a great day. World Book Day is one of our absolute favourite days in the school year, because reading and encouraging a love of books is so very important.

Home-link challenges

Next week, as part of our Let’s Go! theme, we will be reading a story about a journey into space. Please help your child find a fact about space that they can share in class. This could be specific to the vehicle used to travel to space or a general fact about astronauts/ space.

We’d really like to display some pictures of the first signs of Spring. If you go on a day out or a walk outside, please send in photos of anything you spy that is beginning to grow!

Reminders and messages

-Wellies: If your child does not currently have wellies in school, please bring them in. Due to the weather, our outdoor areas continue to be super soggy and muddy!

-PE: This half term, PE days will continue to be on a Wednesday and a Friday. Swimming for your class will be on the following dates:

Sunshine: 2 March, 16 March

Rainbow: 9 March, 23 March

-Shoe boxes: To support with our learning next week, please send in an empty shoe box.

-Potting and planting: At this time of year, we really appreciate any donations of spare compost, plastic pots and seeds. If you have any you would like to donate to our Early Years classes, please hand them to your class teacher. Thank you.

This week, Reception have been learning about the features of a comic book and having a go at creating a comic page of their own. They have also enjoyed using technology to create their own Superheroes!

Click here to have a go at home too!

We gave our Superheroes a name and wrote labels or sentences describing them:

We have also been continuing to learn about people who help us:

In maths this week, we have been learning about “five and a bit” when composing numbers to eight: “five and two more makes seven”, for example. We have also been creating a “staircase pattern” when exploring one more. We made staircase patterns using multilink cubes.

In phonics, we have learnt the phonemes; ur, ow, oi, ear and tricky words; my, by, all

We have been exploring floating and sinking in the water tray, Numicon and number composition in the sand tray, practising our turn taking skills through multi-player board games, balancing in PE and much more! Take a look:

Parent-Teacher Consultations

Thank you to all of our parents/ carers who attended our parent-teacher consultations this week. We’ve loved having the opportunity to share your children’s successes and next steps with you. We are so proud of all the progress each and every child has made since September and that we know they will continue to make. Spring 1 term has seen such a boost in their confidence and we look forward to seeing what the next few months will bring, as they continue their learning journey with us.

Home-link challenges

It’s the half term break! We want you to relax, recharge and enjoy family time together.

If you do wish to keep practising skills at home next week, here are some suggestions:

-Write a list of fruit and vegetables (this links to our book that we will be reading on our first week back!)

-Explore ways to make the number eight.

-Practise letter formation, using the Little Wandle phrases.

-If you go out for a walk, see if you can spot some first signs of Spring.

Don’t forget to enjoy your library and eBook reading together!

Diary Dates…

Monday 28 February- Training Day; School closed to pupils

Thursday 3 March- World Book Day; Dress up as your favourite book character. You can also bring in your favourite book. Please ensure this is named. Thank you.

It has been fabulously festive this week!

Show time!…

We’ve recorded our Very First Christmas Play! The children all looked amazing in their costumes. Thank you to parents/carers for providing costumes and to those who helped their child/ren to learn their lines. We really hope you enjoy it!

The journey of a letter…

This week, we read The Jolly Christmas Postman by Allan and Janet Ahlberg. We’ve been learning what happens to our post after we put it in the letterbox and what we need to do to our letters, to make sure they get to their destination. We may have even created our own special post to be delivered to our homes (shhh!) Let us know if you receive anything special in the post!

Would your child like to watch The Journey of a Letter again? Click here to be taken to the video.

Christmas dinner…

On Thursday, Reception had their special Christmas dinner and got to visit a very magical Christmas wonderland in our school hall:

Maths…

In maths this week, we’ve been learning about the parts that make a whole. We started by thinking about the parts that go together to make a whole toy and the parts of us that make our whole body. Later in the week, we thought about the parts that make a whole number (the numbers within numbers) We will continue this learning into next week.

More festive fun…

Here are some more snapshots of our learning this week:

Next week, we will be learning why Christians celebrate Christmas, through the story of The Nativity.

Home-Link Challenge…

We’ve been learning about how some other countries around the world celebrate Christmas. See what your child can remember from our learning, by asking the following questions:

-Which country that we looked at, use paper lanterns as decorations at Christmas time?

-In Denmark, why is it so great if you find the almond in the rice pudding dessert? What does it mean?

-Which country have the legend of ‘La Befana’, the old, kind witch who helped the Three Wise Men on the way to find the baby Jesus?

-In Australia, what does Santa wear and what pulls his sleigh instead of the Reindeers?

Diary dates…

Monday 13 December- Links to Nursery & Reception’s production emailed.

Friday 17 December-  Non-uniform and Reception Christmas party day.

Remembrance…

This week we’ve been learning about Remembrance Day. Our focus story was Flo of the Somme by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey.

The story, which has repeating lines in poetry verse,  follows a rescue dog during a WWI. It features child-friendly depictions of events in which animals were needed. For example, Flo finds injured pilots and carries a medical kit, a donkey walks alongside a soldier carrying equipment and a messenger pigeon gets hurt on duty. The children learnt about why we wear both red and purple poppies- purple to remember the animals that served during wars.

The children used their phonics skills to write words or captions about the story.

On 11.11 at 11am we held a two minute silence. The children were asked what they thought about during the silence:

The soliders in the war- Eti

Flo and the animals- Mahli

We’ve been making our own poppies in different ways. Our beautiful poppy wreath is now on display in the classroom.

Light and Dark…

The dark tent has been out in Rainbow room this week. We’ve been exploring shadows using our light frame and models we have made.

Marvellous Maths…

We’ve been revisiting our subitising skills (when you are able to look at a group of objects and know how many there are, without counting) and representing numbers 3 and 4.

Our Magnificent Marching Band!…

In music sessions this week, Reception became marching bands. They used the skills they had learnt over the past few weeks when playing percussion instruments, to put on a magnificent march!

What else have we been up to?…

Home-link challenges…

1. Next week, we will be celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week 2021 Have fun singing nursery rhymes with your child at home. Ask them what their favourite nursery rhyme is- they may be lucky enough to see it around the classroom next week!
2. On Friday 19 November, we will be taking part in Children in Need. Talk to your child about charities and the work Children in Need do. You could visit the Children in Need website. We will of course be doing this in class too but it is lovely for the children to be able to share what they already know with their friends.

Diary Dates… 

Monday 15 November- Odd Socks Day 2021

Children can come to school wearing odd socks with their PE kit, in support of Anti-Bullying week.

Friday 19 November – Children in Need Non-Uniform Day (Donations welcome)

Friday 19 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Sunshine Class.

Friday 26 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Rainbow Class. (rescheduled from 12 November)

Tuesday 30 November- Toys from the past day…

On Friday 30 November, Reception Classes will take part in a virtual workshop with Abbey House Museum on Christmas Toys and Games. We will be comparing toys and games from the past, with those we enjoy now. 

On this day, children are welcome to bring in a toy from home that does not require any electricity or batteries. Please ensure the toy has your child’s name clearly labelled, so that they can be safely returned at the end of the day.

Thank you. 

We’ve been celebrating Diwali! The Festival of Light was a joyful and perfect start to our topic- Light and Dark.

We listened to stories of children who were celebrating Diwali at home with their families, including one of our friends in Sunshine class!

We made our own Diya lamps and fireworks using playdough…

We worked together to make colourful Rangoli patterns on the floor. We used rice, powder paints and flowers…

We designed and then carefully painted Mehndi patterns. We used brown face paint to represent the henna dye. Mrs Myers was so lucky to have many beautiful designs painted onto her hands!

In PE, we followed a YouTube tutorial for a special Diwali dance. Each movement in the dance represented a decoration or activity that happens during Diwali.

Click here to try the Diwali dance at home!

We noticed that Diwali shares some traditions with other celebrations we know. We made links to our experiences …

My Nanna decorates the house but at Christmas time- William

We light a candle at a birthday party, on the cake- Sophia

We see fireworks on Bonfire Night- Penelope

At the end of the week, we learnt about Bonfire Night and why it is celebrated. We discussed ways to keep safe at bonfire parties and made posters to remind us of some important rules.

Home-Link Challenge…

Will you be celebrating at a Diwali or Bonfire Night event this weekend?

We’d love to see your pictures and hear the children talk about their experience. To support them with this, please help them to focus on their senses in discussions at home. What can they see, hear, smell, feel and taste? Can they remember those safety rules?

This type of discussion supports children to develop their descriptive language. ‘In the moment’ discussions also develop children’s understanding of the world around them, nature and their environment.

Thank you to the parents who have already been sending in lots of fantastic learning from home.

Diary Dates…

 Tuesday 9 November- Maths in Early Years (Zoom)

Friday 12 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Rainbow Class.

Friday 19 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Sunshine Class.