Reception class news

How is it possibly Friday so quickly again?
Here is a little snapshot of our busy week...

In our Heartsmart PHSE session, as part of our personal, social and emotional development, we went on a heart hunt around the garden to find everyone's heart with their face on. We worked together with our friends to make sure that everyone's heart was found and returned to them, as we know that everyone is important to us and we need to make sure we all work together to keep each other happy and feel loved. Families were at the forefront of our minds as we engaged with our mindful activity this week, listening to a piece of uplifting music with our eyes closed to see what picture we created in our minds. Once our eyes were opened we drew our thoughts.

In our Language and communication development this week we used a well known story 'The pencil' and changed the story middle and ending using a story board to illustrate our story. We then retold our stories verbally using story language. There were some very interesting stories about rainbows and unicorn princesses being chased by rubbers trying to rub them out, but thankfully everyone managed to live happily ever after in a castle! You have great imaginations Reception class!

In our daily phonics sessions this week, as part of our literacy development, we have added special friend sounds th, qu, ch, and z to our known sounds. We have practiced saying the sounds in different words, reading sounds, writing sounds, and blending sounds to say the words that Fred (our phonics frog) has sounded out to us. In word time we distinguished how many sounds we can hear in a spoken word, used our 'Fred fingers' to identify each sound and then used this knowledge to make words in our writing and reading activities across the week.

For our Mathematical development we have been comparing two groups of non-identical objects, identifying which group had more, fewer or the same. Building on last weeks learning we matched objects to compare qualities, but matched non identical objects to draw out the misconception that objects must be the same to compare them.

Heavy rain on Monday made it difficult to have our outdoor PE session, so we had a fantastic time going on a cosmic yoga adventure with Mrs Swan. Thankfully we have been able to get out each day for our daily mile around the track. Our front runners this week managed their mile in 12 minutes: impressive! Though I have a sneaky suspicion the increased speed and quicker times may be linked to the joy of overtaking me several times over during the run!

We continued our exploration of the concept of God in our RE lesson, as part of our Understanding the world. We listened to the story of the lost sheep and explored why Jesus might have told this story and what would people learn from this story.

It has also been lovely to follow some our interests this week in the home corner. We have a fantastic selection of cookbooks to look through and the cake one is a particular favourite. Each day we have been making fresh playdough with additional colourings or flavourings to create some masterpieces. Watch out Mary Berry, we are getting very creative!

During music time, as part of our creative arts and design development we looked at the percussion instruments in more detail and learnt how to hold them correctly and play with control. We also sang teddy bear rock n roll song.

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Taylor, Alex and Rachael