Reception Class News 20/09/24

Reception Class, we've had the most special end to a fabulous week!How lovely was it to see all our families gathered at St Chad's Church for our welcome service? It was heartwarming to share our school's Christian vision and remind everyone that we are shining lights in our community and the world.

Matthew 5:14-16 (The Message)
"Here's another way to put it: You are here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.
If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand.
Now that I've put you there on a light stand--shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.


We cannot believe we have only been in school for 14 days, and yet we were able to sing so confidently and passionately. It was a wonderful 'wow' moment that brought happy tears to many eyes. Reception Class, your lights shone so brightly for all to see!

A huge thank you to our amazing Year 6 buddies for leading the service.

Now, let's share a snapshot of some of the wonderful activities we completed this week...

Personal, Social, and Emotional Development:In our well-being session, we explored the question: What makes us smile? We began by talking about different emotions and how we feel when we smile--happy, excited, loved, and calm. We shared these thoughts with our talking partners before taking turns to share with the whole group, practicing good listening skills by looking at the person speaking and waiting for our turn.

Expressive Arts and Design:This week, we listened to a song that fit perfectly with our well-being learning: Happy by Pharrell Williams. We reminded ourselves of the things that make us happy--playing with friends, being with family, going on holiday, and coming to school. Lots of us had heard the song before--on the radio, at home, or even in the cinema, where it features in the film Despicable Me 2! We listened carefully and identified instruments such as drums, guitar, singing voices, and clapping. Then we practiced keeping the beat, clapping along with the song. We even took turns creating our own beats for the group to copy. It was so much fun!

Mathematical Development:Our mathematical focus this week was counting forwards and backwards to 3. We explored the concept of 3 by counting objects with 1:1 correspondence, using pictorial representations, and finally identifying abstract numerals. We showed off our understanding by recording this in our maths journals. Well done, Reception Class--you're doing great!

Literacy Development:This week, we dived into the enchanting story The Something by Rebecca Cobb. To our surprise, we discovered a small hole in our garden on Monday morning, just like the boy in the story! We discussed what could be inside the hole, and the story took us on a year-long journey, showing the changing seasons around the tree that held the hole. We've enjoyed practicing our sentence accuracy by writing about what we think might be hidden in the hole--who knew we had such wonderful writers in our class!

Physical Development:It was lovely to welcome back Coach James this week! We explored different types of invasion games, focusing on developing skills such as dodging, throwing, changing direction, and running with an awareness of others. We also worked on acceleration and deceleration. We demonstrated our kindness by playing fairly, tagging our friends with respect, and following the rules. We can't wait for our next session!

Understanding the World:In RE, we continued our I Am Special unit by exploring our unique thumb and fingerprints using magnifying glasses. We printed our handprints in paint, observing how each of us is special and different. We also reflected on the question: How do we know that God made each of us the same, but different?

We looked at Bible verses, such as Genesis 9:6 and Psalm 139:14, which remind us that we are all wonderfully made in the image of God. It was fascinating to learn that God knows us so well, even down to how many hairs are on our heads! We explored Matthew 10:29-31, which tells us that God knows this incredible detail about us. Finally, we linked this learning to our self-portrait art from earlier in the term, where we used mirrors to identify our unique features, such as skin, eye, and hair color.

We are so proud of all the achievements this week! Reception Class, you continue to amaze us with your enthusiasm, kindness, and passion for learning. Thank you for another wonderful week of school!

Mrs Ward