Reception class news 30 / 04 / 21

Another busy week in the reception class and garden. We have loved letting our green fingers get to work, nurturing the plants, planting new seeds and cuttings, and encouraging the wildlife back into the garden.

Find out what else we have been up to in our learning...

In our Communication and Language Development we listen to the story 'The forgotten garden' by Caroline Repchuk and discussed some of the meanings of the words to help us understand the story. Using images of the garden from the beginning of the story to the end, we thought about the changes that had occurred and used this to support our literacy tasks.

In our Literacy development we introduced the term 'adjectives' as another way of saying describing words. We thought about the many 'adjectives' we could use to label the images of the garden from the story. Interestingly, we often found the adjectives we wrote for each picture were word opposites which helped.

In our Mathematical Development we have checked our understanding of patterns in terms of which element repeats, making simple colour print patterns and patterns with natural objects. Then we looked at similarities and differences in patterns, guessing what would come next and continuing simple patterns that had been started. Once confident in understanding the core of patterns, we explored and identified mistakes in patterns, where one of the repeats was incorrect. To consolidate our week's learning, we represented patterns using different objects.

In our Physical Development with Mrs Swan, we practised throwing a large ball to a partner and back again, then throwing the ball up in the air and then catching it.
For our fine motor development, we threaded hooped cereal onto pipe cleaners to make bird feeders for the garden. We must have very hungry birds in Wybunbury as they certainly enjoyed feasting on them! Luckily, we have been able to unfasten the loops and top them up again!

In our Creative Arts and Design Development we listened to more 'funky' music with Mrs Swan and appraised James Brown as well as learning to put 'dynamics' into our singing.
In our Personal, Social and Emotional Development and wellbeing, we have continued this week to work on our friendship groups and independent play on the playground during break and lunchtime in preparation for our transition to year 1.

In Heartsmart, we revisited our Boris story and thought about how Boris might be feeling in the scrap yard. As a class we decided on words that we could write that would fill his heart with love. Boris is a much-loved character in Reception, as the postcards you wrote to him were very thoughtful and encouraging just as the bible says, 'And so encourage one another and help one another, just as you are now.' 1 Thessalonians 5:11

We began our new unit of RE in our Understanding the World Development. Our enquiry question that we have begun to explore was 'What do Christians say holy spirit is like?' After listening to the story of how the disciples encountered the Holy Spirit, we ventured out onto the field on a very windy day and felt the power of the wind moving the sails on our garden windmill. We tried to imagine how it must have felt to have been a disciple and encountered the Holy Spirit as a powerful wind. We look forward to finding out more next week.

Mrs Ward