Reception Class News 20/ 10/23

And just like that, we have completed our first half term together as a class family.
Happy Half Term Reception Class, you have earned it!

In our learning this week...
We have focused on the properties of 3D shapes through exploration and play as part of our mathematical development. To begin we looked at 3D shapes and tried to identify the 2D shapes in the faces / sides of them using mathematical language to describe them. Then we learnt their 3D names: sphere, cube, cuboid, cylinder and cone. As we learnt their properties we looked for everyday objects in our classroom that were similar to our 3D shapes and tested to see which shapes stacked and which shapes rolled and explained why.

In our afternoon mastery sessions we explored how numbers can be composed of 1's, investigating the composition of 3 and 4. Through practical activities we learnt that a 'whole number' is made up of smaller parts and is therefore bigger than it's parts. Super maths work Reception Class.

This week in our literacy development, we completed our story writing in four parts using our story planner from last week . Using our 'Wise Owl' writing tips we tried our best to ensure that our sentences began with a capital letter, used finger spaces between each new word, sounded out words, formed our letters as neatly as we could and completed our sentence with a full stop.
Reception Class I am amazed by how well you have embraced writing each day, showing perseverance by not giving up when you found it difficult.

In our understanding the world development, we completed our harvest assessment maps this week in RE, concluding our exploration of why people of faith like to say thank you to God at harvest time. We have loved thinking about the foods we enjoy eating, how food is grown locally and globally and how people of faith celebrate and say thank you. A huge thank you to Alice, our class expert who has shared all her farming knowledge with us, about harvest time on her family farm.

Black History Month, which is celebrated in October, is a special time of the year when the amazing achievements and important contributions of black people are celebrated. Linked with our learning on harvest and food, we learnt about Marcus Rashford and his support for foodbanks, ensuring children get much needed food during school holidays. Amazingly, he was the same age as us when he joined his first football team and then signed up at age 11 at Manchester United academy. That's the same age as our year 6 buddies! We understand that he has made a huge difference to the lives of many others.

We really enjoyed a great yoga session in our physical development this week, lots of great stretching, balancing and development of our core strength as we embarked on a bear hunt with 'Cosmic Kids' yoga. In our other session with coach James we played some great invasion games in small teams on the field.

In our wellbeing time this week we got to spend some quality time with our year 6 buddies, reading some of our favourite story books from our reading challenge basket. We really value this time spent with them as part of our personal, social, and emotional development, it is our favourite time of the week. Friday has been renamed 'Buddy day!'

In music we loved playing the instruments again! This week we used the glockenspiels, we learnt that they are a little bit like a xylophone, but that they have metal keys instead of wooden keys. Listening carefully to the different sounds the keys made, we noticed that one end of the glockenspiel played higher sounds and the other side made lower sounds. We chose some nursery rhymes and practiced the words to them before playing them with our glockenspiels, trying to keep the beat. I was great fun.

Have a great half term
See you all again on Monday 30th October
Mrs Ward and Mrs Wainwright