Reception class news

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This week has been very exciting, as our countdown to Christmas has begun. Didn't we all look fabulous in our festive outfits to help fundraise for school funds?
We have also made some beautiful baubles with our families to decorate our orchard and colourful Christmas decorations for our classroom tree.

In our Communication and Language Development we have recapped the Nativity story and sequenced it into scenes, in preparation for retelling it for our families. We have recorded all the narration parts to overlay onto our acting. Sadly the weather has thwarted our efforts to record some of our scenes outdoors this week, so hopefully it is more kinder next week and we can complete our mini movie!

For our Literacy Development we have enjoyed the story 'A Christmas Story.' The main character Sam, writes a letter to Father Christmas and asks for a present for his mum as well as something for himself. Father Christmas writes back and explains that his letter shines with 'love' and 'kindness' as he is thinking of others.

We used this to think about if we send a letter to Father Christmas, who would we ask him to give a gift to? We are a very kind and thoughtful class, who love our families very much and this showed in the simple choices of gifts for our family members. After completeting a draft copy of a letter, using words and pictures, we then wrote out our posh copy to send. I hope he receives shortly.

A big thank you to our mystery reader this week, we have really enjoyed listening to you stories during the week. We even had a mystery reader from France, which was so lovely for a member of the class who hadn't seen his grandma for a long time. Such a magical moment.

In our Mathematics Development we have completed our unit of work on time and assessed our understanding as part of a mastery checkpoint. We have also practiced forming our numbers correctly. Number 5 is proving a little tricky, but I'm sure we will master it soon.

In PE as part of our Physical Development we began a short unit, updating our yoga skills. We built on previous learning studying poses such as Butterfly, Mountain and Tree.... We practised balancing and included some calming meditation at the end. Despite the poor weather, we have wrapped up warm and continued to attempt the daily mile.

In our Heartsmart lesson as part of our Personal, Social and Emotional Development, we explored our interests and shared with each other in class. We chose three items in class that we thought represented our interests. After sharing with our group we then put them into a collective pile and discussed how we are different and it is okay to be different and have different interests. Our interests are like gifts, that we can share with others, linked to our bible quote: Every good and perfect gift is from above. James1:17

For our wellbeing and Spiritual Development we have used our action advent calendar to think about ourselves and how our good deeds can bring joy to others. We have challenged ourselves to do a good deed each day of advent and to see their positive effects on others. So far this week we have smiled to bring a smile to a friends face, we have played with a different person in class and we have been helpful and kind.

As part of the Woodland Trust Green Award we have decorated pine cones with glittery tips and ribbons to add to our trees in the orchard area to show an appreciation of the trees in our environment, to say thankyou to the trees. As you pass on the way out of school, please have a look and share in the beauty of our trees and the local landscape that we hope to shape by their planting in our grounds a few years ago.

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Taylor