Reception Class News 20:01:2023

Wow Reception class, we have had a very exciting week due to the weather!
Lets' share in our learning...

Language and Communication Development
This week we have enjoyed sharing the poem 'Cold' by Shirley Hughes and thinking of different words to describe winter weather.

'Cold fingers, Cold toes, Pink sky, Pink nose
Hard ground, Bare trees, Branches crack, Puddles freeze
Frost white, Sun red, Warm room, Warm bed.'

This poem certainly sums up the weather this week and how we are feeling when we are out enjoying it, especially the snow!

Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Wellbeing
This week in our happy mind activity we practiced different ways to be thankful. First we recapped on last weeks suggestions of ways to be thankful and then we thought about something we were thankful for today in school. We then expressed our thanks using one of the suggestions. Dancing and hugging were very popular choices.

This week in heart smart we learnt ways that people show how they are feeling. To notice when others are upset or need help. We had two hoops on the floor one with a smiley face and the other a sad face. We looked at pictures of the different facial expressions and sorted the pictures into the two hoops. When looking at the pictures we thought about; how is the person feeling? Some were angry, grumpy, excited and proud. We talked about why they might be feeling that way? Next we discussed how we could show a person that we care about them? We came up with lots of ideas including, ask them if they are ok, tell an adult, invite them to play and encourage them.
Boris says, 'Noticing how others feel is a great way to show you care.'
Bible link – Do for others just what you want them to do for you. Luke 6:31

Expressive Arts and Design development
This week to start our music session we listened to ABC by The Jackson 5. We had fun finding the pulse together. After we listened we talked about the song together. Next we found the pulse in different ways when listening to some nursery rhymes. We also explored high and low pitch with our voices. We sang different songs and made our voices higher and lower.
Finally we practiced singing Wind The Bobbin Up, Rock-A-Bye Baby, and Five Little Monkeys while using the actions to help us.

We have continued to use junk modelling materials this week to make different types of homes and buildings. We are very pleased with our lighthouse which has its own working light and are hoping to complete our construction of a school and church next week.

Mathematical Development
Our mathematical focus this week was counting to 9 and 10, ensuring good one-to-one correspondence, understanding the stable order of counting and cardinality, the last number we counted being the total number. in our reflective journal work we practiced counting ten out from a larger amount and used the crossing out method to accurately record our counting, using counters and then lining them up to count count without missing any or counting items more than once.

Physical Development
We have continued this week with our rocking and rolling gymnastics unit of work. In our warm up we pretended to be an electric car, moving faster or slower as we changed gears, running in circles for going around a roundabout and pulling a face when we heard speed camera.
In our main session, we practiced forward rolls, starting with a squat, hands to the mat shoulder width apart, chins tucked in and our eyes looking back to our legs. The trickiest bit was raising our hips and relaxing our elbows to roll ! In our apparatus work we performed a sequence using a roll, balance and jump showing good posture. We learnt a new skill called scissor kicks and introduced this to our performance.

Literacy Development
In our daily Read Write Ink sessions, we have continued to increase our letter sound knowledge and apply this in our reading and writing activities. We have also continued with daily handwriting activities this week and we are definitely forming our down letters; l, t, b, k and i more accurately.
For our writing task, we have used our story maps and knowledge of the speech from the Gingerbread man character to write: 'run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man.' Fantastic 'Fred fingers' Reception class, sounding out words and writing down what you could hear. I am super proud.

Understanding The World Development
In forest schools we joined Mr. Hadfield and our Year 6 buddies for a very exciting session in the snow. Suitable wrapped up and weatherproofed in our all weather outfits and wellingtons we headed out into the snow. Our activity this week was to create a quinzee snow shelter by hollowing out a big pile of snow, build a snow person and a snow animal. The apricity from the sun kept us warm as we set about our tasks. Finishing off our afternoon we made glorious snow angels, practiced making dragon sneezes with the fire steels and then enjoyed a toasted marshmallow by the fire. Perfect end to the day!

Have a wonderful weekend
Mrs. Ward and the reception Team, Mrs. Wainwright and Louise