Reception Class news 8/11/24

Welcome back, Reception Class, to an exciting new term!

We have started this term with lots of enthusiasm as we explore our new learning theme on festivals and celebrations.
Let's look at all the wonderful things we've been exploring this week.

Understanding the World
We began by learning about Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Together, we discovered that the word "Diwali" means a row of lighted lamps. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and learned why lighting lamps is such an important part of this celebration. Exploring a variety of Hindu artefacts helped us to deepen our understanding, and we completed our Questful RE map on Why Hindus light candles at Diwali.

As this Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, we explored why we wear poppies today and their significance of hope and new beginnings after the war. We will observe a two minutes silence at 11 o'clock on Monday as part of our remembrance of all those people who served and those serving now.

Expressive Arts and Design
We had lots of fun creating beautiful Rangoli patterns using paint, chalk, and pencils. These designs are often made to welcome good luck and happiness. We also crafted Diva lamps out of salt dough, painting them in bright colors and adding tea lights to bring warmth and light into our classroom, just as people do during Diwali. To add to the festive atmosphere, we created firework pictures by blowing paint across the paper and adding glitter – reflecting how fireworks light up the sky during Diwali celebrations.

In music, we started exploring songs that tell stories. We listened to Alabama by Bellowhead – it was new to us, but we loved its upbeat energy and the storytelling through the singer's powerful voice. We identified instruments like drums, violin, guitar, and voices. Afterward, we kept the beat by clapping and stamping our feet! We also enjoyed singing along to I'm a Little Teapot, adding fun actions.

Physical Development
With Coach Gabriel, we focused on throwing, catching, and passing while learning the basics of basketball. We ended our session by playing some exciting playground invasion games, developing our teamwork and movement skills.

Mathematical Development
This week, we began exploring 3D shapes through hands-on play and discovery. We examined how different shapes roll or stack, counting surfaces and corners as part of our exploration. Although learning the names of shapes wasn't the main focus, we challenged ourselves to recognize everyday objects in the classroom that looked like spheres, cubes, cylinders, and cuboids.

Literacy Development and Language & Communication
We immersed ourselves in our new story, Star in the Jar. We began by identifying different objects and predicting what the story might be about – some of us cleverly guessed it was about collecting objects! After listening to the story, we explored new vocabulary and compared it with a similar story, discussing similarities in characters and the plot. We practiced sentence accuracy by using capital letters, finger spaces, neat letter formation, and full stops. We're so proud of the fantastic, independent sentences we wrote!

Personal, Social, and Emotional Development
In our first well-being session of the term, we shared our favorite activities, such as drawing, playing with friends and family, crafting, and bike riding. We practiced being great listeners, making sure to look and listen as each person shared. For our well-being activity, we each chose a calming color – green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and gold were popular choices. We then practiced deep breathing while imagining our bodies filling with our calming color, helping us feel relaxed and peaceful.

What a wonderful start to the new term, Reception Class! You've all shown such curiosity and creativity in exploring our theme of festivals and celebrations. Keep shining your light as we continue learning together!
Mrs Ward