Spring Term 2017

W/C 20th March 2017

Another busy week in Reception!

We have continued our work on 'Spring' and the children have shown a particular interest in Chicks. The children have created their own egg nests using a wide range of materials. This activity was lovely to watch and to listen to. The children all had their own ideas of what materials they wanted to use and could explain why. I overheard one little boy say, " I need to use this large curved basket and fill it with lots of soft things".  I asked why and he replied, "Because if it is curved, the eggs and chicks won't fall out and the soft things will keep them nice and warm." What a wonderful explanation.

We then watched a time-lapse video of chicks hatching from their eggs. The children were fascinated and wanted to keep watching. They asked questions and shared their thoughts along the way. We then pretended we were chicks hatching from an egg. We had wobbling bottoms as the eggs began to crack and lots of chirping sounds were heard.  The children used their knowledge from the video to support and inspire their acting.

Next week, to continue our work on eggs, we will be carrying out a Science activity to discover how we can prevent our boiled eggs from cracking when dropped from the tree.

In Maths, we have been learning about money. The children have done some amazing work. We have looked closely at different coins and compared. We have enjoyed listening to the children talk and compare about the coins... "This coin has one curved edge and this coin is different because it had lots of edges and it is silver."

We then created our own shop and practiced buying Easter treats with pennies. It got a little bit tricky when the children bought more than one treat, as they had to find out how much altogether!

W/C 13th March 2017

Superheroes have landed in our classroom this week following on from some of the children's interests. Superheroes have inspired us to read and write this week. The children have created some fantastic independent stories all about the adventures of a Superhero. The children were also keen to use their water guns to spray the Superhereo words. 

Now it is Spring, we have been learning about how the environment changes and the signs to look out for that tells us it is Spring. We have changed the outside wooden house into a gardening hut. The children can use the equipment to search for Mini-Beasts and to plant seeds and flowers to develop our garden.

To support our work on Spring, we would love it if you could bring some photos of anything Spring related that you can find around your local area.

Have a look to see if you can spy the following:

• Birds nesting
• Blossom on the trees
• Daffodils
• Lambs
• Ducklings
• Sunshine!!

We hope you enjoyed the Art Gallery on Friday. The children worked very hard to create their masterpieces. 

W/C 6th March 2017

Trolls and Fairies continue to be of interest this week. This week the children have worked really hard to design their own Fairy. They drew their Fairy and then wrote a short description. The children then decorated their Fairy with fresh cut flowers. 

In Maths, we have been working on our addition skills and number bonds to 10. The children are beginning to choose their own method on how to solve the problem e.g. fingers, objects or number lines.

In Literacy, we have read the story of the 'Gingerbread Man'. The children really enjoyed chanting the repeated phrases to help read the story. We will continue with our 'Gingerbread Man' work next week. The children are going to be faced with the problem of the Gingerbread Man escaping the classroom. How will they find him? 

In Phonics, one of our stories was all about Egg and Cress Sandwiches. To bring the book alive we had lots of fun planting cress seeds. We hope yours are growing nicely and that you enjoy the cress in your Egg sandwiches! We would love to see some photos of your yummy sandwiches :)

Thank you for attending Parents Evening. It was a lovely opportunity to share your child's progress with you. Remember that your child's learning journey is always kept in the cloakroom for you to look at and for you to add any special moments. 

W/C 27th February 2017

In our environment, Trolls and Fairies have been a big interest to the children. The children have fully engaged in our 'Troll' Small World Area that Hayley kindly created for us. We heard lots of the children create some fantastic stories, especially about the Bergens eating the happy Trolls. Next week we will be looking at how can we keep the Trolls safe. What can we create to make sure the Bergens do not find the Trolls? 

In Art, we have been learning how to create observational paintings of Daffodils. The children found this quite tricky at first but with some tips shared the children began to get the idea that they have to try and paint what they see in front of them. We now have a beautiful display in our classroom displaying their amazing Daffodil paintings.

In Maths, we have been exploring weight. The children have excelled with their understanding of weight- heavy, light and balance. We used balancing scales to explore heavy and light.

We had a super day on Thursday celebrating World Book Day. Thank you for the brilliant costumes, the children looked great!

World Book Day 2017

Please don't forget Parents Evening on Tuesday 7th March. If you can not make this date, please speak to Kelly or Anne to arrange a convenient time. Thank you :)

W/C 20th February 2017

Welcome back...

Wow! The children have come back ready to learn and they have all really excited staff this week with their interests and enthusiasm.

We have introduced a new way to encourage children to share and write their own magical stories. It is a shared process with both adult and child. The child asks the adult if they can write their story. The adult listens to the wonderful story and begins to write it down. As the story continues, the adult asks the child to have a go at writing the next couple of sentences in their own story.  At the end of our day, each child's story is celebrated and the children work together to bring the story alive by acting it out. 

We have had the most wonderful stories being told, written and then acted out. We have had stories about Knights, Dragons, Trolls and even 'cute Bumble Bees.' What a super week :)

Come into the classroom and have a look at some of our stories.

This Termlet we will be learning the following:

Phonics/Literacy-

•  Developing  our reading skills by reading short story books. 
•  Continue learning our High Frequency words.
• Reading a variety of Traditional Tales e.g. The Gingerbread Man, Three Little Pigs and acting them out. Talking about the characters, setting and plot.
• Continue to develop our independent writing with finger spaces, full stops and capital letters.
• Letter formation- writing our letters the correct way.

Maths-

•   Secure number recognition to 20 and beyond
•   Secure careful counting to 20 and beyond
•   Addition 
•   Weight
•   One more/one less to 20 
•   Money- recognise coins and solving problems
•   Time - months, days and key times

Please remember that reading books will be changed on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Dates for your diary- Parents Evening Tuesday 7th March. Letters will be going out this week.  We hope to see you all there!

W/C  6th February 2017

Yuk... we have been reading the story of the 'Disgusting Sandwich.' Our Literacy has focused on this story. We have had lots of discussions about what we would put in a sandwich to make it really disgusting. We had lots of ideas- smelly socks, slimy slugs and hairy spiders. Once we had wrote our list of ingredients, we then made our disgusting sandwiches. They were DISGUSTING!!

This then lead onto the children wanting to bake cakes. They did a super job. Next week, we are going to write a list of ingredients to make Rock Buns with Hayley and then write about how they taste and feel.

We also had a super week in the Art workshop. Following on from the Chinese Dragon puppets, the children asked to make sock puppets. They wanted to create their own puppet show. The show area is ready for the children to begin telling their wonderful stories using their fantastic sock puppets.

 W/C 23rd January 2017

Happy Chinese New Year!

We have been busy celebrating this wonderful festival. We have been very lucky to have been given lots of Chinese Artefacts all the way from China. We have a Grandad who lives there. We looked at Chinese Lanterns, Clothes and Jewlery worn in China and Photos of different places in China.

In the Art area we created our own large puppet Chinese Dragon. We painted it in red and gold. Ask your child to tell you the significance of these vibrant colours. We then used the Dragon to create our own Dragon dance in the hall. The children loved this.

We also tried Chinese food. Some of the children loved it and some were not keen but we all had a good go! 

Alongside Chinese New Year, we have been exploring Electricity. We have made circuits using batteries, wires and bulbs. We then added buzzers. The sound kept on making Kelly jump! We now have a good understanding of what we need Electricity for. 

W/C 16th January 2017

Aliens have take over our classroom this week to follow on from our interest in Space. Our Art workshop has been very busy this week. We have created our own Space Rockets using different junk modeling materials and we used the technique of Papier Mache to create our favourite Planet. 

We have learnt all about the Planets in our Solar System. Ask your child what their favourite Planet is and why. This new information has linked into our Literacy. We have created our own Planet fact file. The children produced some fantastic pieces of writing, which are now on display for you to look at!

Sorting, counting and ordering Aliens have made our Maths very fun and interactive this week. We used 2D shapes to create Space pictures. The children then used their shape language to talk about their picture.

What a busy week...

W/C 9th January 2017

This week we have been learning about Space. We have designed our own Astronaut outfits using different materials. We then linked this to our Literacy and used our Phonic Knowledge to label the different parts of the Astronauts outfit. The children did some super writing, especially with some of the more complex words. Come and have a look in the classroom where some of our writing is on our Space display.

We then used the Ipads to explore the 'Google Earth App.' We discussed the different properties of Earth and compared where we live to places like Africa. We talked about the differences and similarities. Next week we will be using the Laptops to find out more about the different Planets in our Solar System. 

The children are really enjoying learning about Space. Spaceships and Rockets have also been created using different resources. As part of our Science we will be carrying out our very own Rocket Launch. 5,4,3,2,1.... Blast Off! 

Happy New Year! We hope you have had a lovely Christmas break and that your child is full of beans and ready to learn.

This term we will be focusing on:

Phonics/Literacy-

•   Developing the our reading skills by reading short story books. 
•   Introduce High Frequency words that the children will learn to read by sight.
•   Developing our understanding of the books we read and talk about the beginning, middle      and end of the story.
•  Continue to develop our independent writing. We will focus on writing an independent sentence with finger spaces and a full stop. 
• Letter formation- writing our letters the correct way.

Maths-

•   Secure number recognition to 20
•   Secure careful counting to 20 and beyond
•   Addition 
•   Repeating patterns
•   One more/one less to 20 
• 3D shape names and properties

Reading Books will be changed on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please remind your child to put their book in our reading box ready to be changed on the above days. 

Please feel free to talk to Kelly or Anne about your child's progress at at any time :)