Reception Class News 21:05:21

Walking through the jungle, what do I see?
I can hear a noise , what can it be?

Reception class we have focused our learning on rainforests this week as part of our learning on Our Diverse World. We have learnt that rainforests used to be called jungles as well as the different types of animals that live there. We identified where rainforests are on the globe and how the trees and plants grow. Let's share in our learning...

In our Communication and Language Development we read 'Walking in the jungle' by Julia Lancome and created a story map to help with our retelling. Using the story map we then added Makaton actions to help act out the story as part of our talk for writing.

In our Literacy Development we started with our cold task of writing up the first part of the story, using our Makaton actions to help us remember sentence order and structure. We will build upon this next week as we start to introduce adjectives and alliteration and create our own story settings and characters.

In our Understanding the World Development we created a whole rainforest of trees as we learnt more about rainforests as habitats. We listened to the sounds within a rainforest, and recapped the main features which included using our bodies to show where the equator is. Using the story Tidy, we learnt more about what a habitat provides us and we compared our habitat to others around the world. It was interesting to hear the talk related to the Antarctica where the penguins live, and the deserts in Tanzania where camels live.

Continuing with RE and our understanding of the Holy Spirit, as part of The Trinity, God in three forms, we looked to the bible and recalled that there was just God at the beginning, we represented this by one person standing alone. We then recalled the Nativity story we told to our families at Christmas, how God sent his son as a gift to everyone. We represented this by two people standing side by side. And finally, we recalled that after Jesus's resurrection and ascension into heaven, God sent the Holy Spirit to be with us here on earth. We represented this by three people standing side by side. To represent this in art form, we chose three different colours and coloured our three forms and presented them as The Trinity: God , Son and Holy Spirit.

In our Mathematical Development we explored taking away by counting back from any given number. We used the first, then and now story structures in order to identify what number we were counting back from and how many we were counting back to find the total number.

In our Physical Development we practised our bouncing and catching skills. We know we need to keep our heads up while bouncing and that we are in control of the force needed to bounce different balls. We are showing increasing control on the playground during PE.

In our Creative Arts and Design Development, linked to music, we listened to and discussed a song by Stevie Wonder. This links into our current unit on 'funky music' We were astounded that he made fantastic music but couldn't see! We then got the instruments out to learn how to respectfully play soft and loud sounds. Playing and stopping and adjusting the volume by watching the conductor.

In our Personal Social and Emotional Development and Wellbeing, Boris helped us to list the things we are thankful for during our Heartsmart lesson.
We felt very lucky to receive a message from Boris. It said:
Dear Children , thank you for being my friends and for my lovely postcards. I am thankful for each and everyone of you. you all make me very happy. I wonder what makes you are thankful for. Using a little red heart ❤️ we passed around our circle, observing the good listening rule and only talking when we held the heart, we shared our thoughts.

Boris told us ' A thankful heart is a strong heart'

This was linked to our Bible quote ' Be thankful in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

As we love being outdoors and enjoying the fresh air, we took time to enjoy a story out in the forest school area for our well-being time, as our story was all about a tree. We could hear the wind rustling the through the branches and leaves and some of us were convinced the Holy Spirit had come to join us! How exciting!

Mrs Ward