Reception Class News 14:05:21

Reception class, another busy week of fantastic learning! Continuing with our learning theme of Diverse World and growing, we have focused our attention to trees and their importance for the wellbeing of our planet as well as looking at the effects of nature and trees on our own wellbeing as part of National wellbeing week.

Let's share what we have been learning...

For our Understanding the World Development this week we watched an educational video about the role that trees play on our planet. We learnt that there are about 3 trillion trees on the planet. They provide shelter, food and homes for insects, birds and animals and importantly they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air.

Getting quickly booted and suited in our all weather gear and wellingtons, we completed planting a selection of Rowan, Cherry and Silver Birch trees that we had received from the Woodland Trust. We are so proud to have planted them and can't wait to see them grow over the coming years.

In our RE learning, on the concept of the Holy Spirit, we have explored that every year Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to Jesus disciples and how they used the gift of the spirit to talk about Jesus to everyone. This event was considered the birth of the Christians church. So like all good birthday's, we made a party hat, lit the birthday candles on the cake and sang happy birthday to the church and best of all we got to eat cake!

Sammy the squirrel made a very special appearance this week to take part in our unplugged coding activity. Setting out a grid on the carpet, we gave him specific instructions (algorithms) so he could collect as many as possible on his route. I think Sammy has quickly become a very popular member of our classroom!

In continuous provision, we have pursued our own interests in this development area by observing the changes in our garden as the seeds we planted in earlier weeks are beginning to grow and fill our garden with new life.

In our Communication and Language Development we have enjoyed sharing some of our favourite reading challenge books and in particular a traditional tales compilation book as the stories are told in an unfamiliar format to the traditional tales we are so familiar with. This gave us the opportunity to compare and contrast the stories and say whether we liked the newer version of the story or not.

For our Literacy Development we looked at the difference between fact and fiction, understanding that facts are information about a subject that is true. Linking to our newly acquired knowledge of trees, we listed as many facts about them as we could, practiced saying our facts and then used 'Fred talk' and Fred Fingers' to help write as independently as we could.

In continuous provision we have followed our interests in this development area by making our own story books, making and writing cards to family and friends and making postcards to Peter Rabbit!

As this week in National Wellbeing week, linked to nature, for our Personal, Social and Emotional and wellbeing Development we spent some quiet time lying under the large trees on the field and and listened to the leaves rustling in the breeze. taking the time to talk about how it made us feel. Here are a small selection of our thoughts: "I could hear birds tweeting and it helped me to feel calm." "It felt brilliant as I heard the leaves rustling." "It felt calm because I could feel the fresh air around the tree." "it made me feel happy to be outside."
It was also lovely to give each of our trees a really good hug. We think they liked it!

This week in our Heartsmart, we learnt that 'being yourself is the best you can be.'
Using a selection of different hats, we imagined ourselves as different characters in circle time.
After taking turns, we put the hats to one side and discussed that whilst pretending to be someone else is a lot of fun, being yourself is the most fun because that is who you are meant to be. There never has and will never be another one of you!

This was linked to Colossians 3:12 'God has chosen you and made you his holy people. he loves you.'

Thank you Boris for reminding us that being ourselves is the best we can be.

In our Mathematical Development we explored the concept of adding by counting on from a given number. we used the first, then and now structure to identify what number we were counting on from and how many we were counting on to find the total number. To help us with this concept we used a number track, identifying our starting point and marking it and then making the required number of jumps for the number we were adding on, to find our total number.

In continuous provision we have followed our interests in this development area by playing hopscotch in the garden, ordering large number tiles and forming numbers correctly.

For our Creative Arts and Design Development we explored the natural art of Andy Goldsworthy and tried to design our own natural art using natural resources from around the field.

In music we carried on with our funky music unit, listening to some 'Earth Wind and fire' songs and compared them to Big Bear funk. We thought about putting some moves to our singing in preparation for performing it.

In continuous provision we have followed our interests in this area of development by painting picture of flowers with watercolour paints and exploring sounds and making music with our class instruments.

For our Physical Development we looked at some pictures of people playing volleyball and made our hands in the shape we needed to 'volley the ball.'
We then took our learning outside where we recapped on our throwing and catching from last week and then with a partner, tried to volley the ball back to a partner when they threw it to us.

In continuous provision we have followed our interests in this development area by enjoying balancing and jumping across the tyre trail and building bridges in the outdoor construction area and using balance to walk across.

Enjoy the weekend Reception Class and I will see you next week for another fantastic week of learning.

Mrs Ward