Reception Weekly news

'Once there was a pencil, a lonely little pencil and nothing else.
Then one day it moved, it shivered somewhat and then it began to write...'

Our pencils have well and truly sharpened and up for our writing tasks in our literacy based activities this week as we have focused on an effective pencil grip to: write our name using correct letter formation and orientation; writing labels for pictures; writing short caption, handwriting learnt letters from phonics and then sequencing 'The pencil' story in picture form and then adding sentence openers , first, then, next and finally to verbally retell the story.

We have continued with our daily phonics sessions, adding c, k u, b and f sounds 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. Adding to our phonics sessions we have now introduced word time where we are beginning to distinguish how many sounds we can hear in a spoken word, using our 'Fred fingers' to identify each sound and then use this knowledge to make words in our writing and reading activities across the week.

As part of our physical development we have continued to make healthy choices at snack time, choosing fruit and water or milk, understanding that these choices are good for our bodies and teeth and help us to grow. As part of our communication and language development we have used this time during snack, to listen to a variety of stories as stimuli for discussing how we can help others and the importance of kindness.

In our PE session with Mrs Swan we have learnt about balance and that by putting our arms out helps us to balance on one leg! We also balanced different objects, like beanbags on different parts of our bodies. The daily mile track is becoming an exciting part of our week and we managed half a mile today of running / fast walking. I think we definitely earned our snack today!

In our Heartsmart PHSE lesson, as part of our personal, social and emotional development, we looked at the importance of teamwork and worked together in pairs to help Boris the robot fill his toolkit with nuts and bolts. This required us to take turns, offer advice and support our partner during the game. I was told afterwards that 'team work makes the dream work!' It certainly does!

In our mathematical activities this week we have focused on counting to 5, using the counting principles we have learnt over the past few weeks. We represented numbers in concrete and pictorial ways focusing on: stable order of counting; 1: correspondence; order irrelevance; representation of 5 and counting using abstraction. Being '5' is a an exciting prospect in our class and it was great to finish our maths learning this week by drawing a '5' party. I think we will have some fantastic party planning going on in the weeks and months ahead: 5 candles on the cake; 5 party balloons; 5 party hats; 5 guests; 5 plates; 5 cups and 5 presents!

In our understanding of the world, we have observed in our garden and a change in the weather, that the season of summer is ending and we are entering autumn. We have introduced the term harvest and explored that historically it was a time when people gathered in all their crops and stored them to sustain themselves through the winter months when fresh produce was limited. This was usually as autumn began at the end of September. Then we considered why schools and churches celebrate harvest and who they are saying thank you to. As summed up beautifully by Barnaby; 'If people believe that God made the world and the plants that make the food we eat, they are saying thank you to God for helping the plants that grow food for us.' In considering what we are thankful for, we made picture prayers of fruit and vegetables that we enjoy as part of the harvest. we look forward to sharing our harvest celebration with you next week via Tapestry.

In expressive art and design development, we sang number songs with Mrs Swan and talked about songs with names in them. As part of our work on harvest we also selected specific colours to create realistic images of fruit and vegetables to make a class harvest ring. Great discussions were had on whether our chosen produce was grown under the soil or on a tree or fruiting bush and whether it was harvested by a machine or hand picked!

Have a restful weekend Reception, you have earned it after such a busy week of learning.
Mrs Taylor, Alex and Rachael