Reception w/b 26th September
Date: 30th Sep 2022 @ 10:11pm
What a busy week we have had in Reception!
This week, we have immersed ourselves in our ‘Bears’ topic, focusing on the story ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. On Monday, we enjoyed reading the story and joining in with actions and repeated refrains. On Tuesday, our learning continued into Forest School where we went on our own bear hunt! We walked through the long wavy grass on the field, through the deep cold river (a water tray to splash through), through the thick oozy mud in the mud pit, through our own deep dark forest, acted out travelling through the swirling whirling snowstorm and finally inside the narrow gloomy cave. Luckily, our bear hunt didn’t end with us being chased by a bear! As the photos show, this was such a rich learning experience full of language opportunities and sensory fun. This has made the events of the story very memorable and will help us with our sequencing tasks next week. On Thursday, during our Forest School session, we made bears. We shaped clay to create the body which was wonderful for developing our fine motor skills. We then employed our creativity to use nature to add features to the bears.
Fred Frog returned once again to help us to learn three new sounds in our phonics sessions – s, d and t. When writing s, we needed to ‘slither down the snake’. S can be tricky as it is a commonly reversed letter and we have to work very carefully to follow the direction of the curves. When writing d, we remember our dinosaur and go ‘round his bottom, up his tall neck and down to his toes’. We thought this was very funny! We remembered to keep our pens on the page and to ensure the dinosaur’s neck was nice and tall. Finally, we all enjoyed writing t. Surprisingly, this is a letter where we are able to take our pen off the page as we go ‘down the tower, across the tower’. Now that we have learnt our first five sounds (m, a, s, d, t) we will be able to introduce a ‘word time’ element to our phonics sessions next week alongside continuing to learn new sounds. We will use magnetic tiles to spell some CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words using these sounds e.g. mad, sat, mat. It would be wonderful if the children could continue to practise their formation of these letters (m, a, s, d, t) at home. The Read Write Inc videos sent on Dojo should be a great help!
In maths, children have been encouraged to quantify sets of objects by subitising, rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by ‘just seeing’ and knowing straightaway without needing to count. The activities have provided opportunities for children to: represent the number in a given set using different objects (e.g. showing the same number on their fingers); name quantities with number words, (e.g. “I can see 3.”); match sets to numerals; make their own arrangements that can be subitised.
This week, we have started to explore harvest. The traditional tale ‘The Little Red Hen’ has been a wonderful hook for this theme; learning about the steps the Little Red Hen has to follow to ensure the journey from seed to bread has helped us to understand the concept of growing and harvesting food. We were introduced to our first story map of the year to help us to retell this story. The images on the story map and the actions we use help us to remember the story and to allow this learning to become embedded. We are looking forward to performing this retelling for you in our harvest service alongside some beautiful songs.
Mr Cotton led our My Happy Mind session on Tuesday as we revisited the story of Berty and Betty’s playdate. After recapping the learning points highlighted in the summary of last week’s discussion, the children were introduced to ‘Happy Breathing’, a superb technique to help us to feel calm. In the afternoon, Mr Cotton also led our RE lesson as he introduced us to the story of David and Goliath. After reading the Bible story, the children listened to the song ‘My God is so big, so strong and so mighty’. Reception then enjoyed acting out the story of David and Goliath before concluding that the good news in the story was that God helped David to win the battle – He is strong and so mighty!
As a result of today’s poor weather and the fact that the hall was in use for our Macmillan coffee morning, our PE lesson took place inside the classroom. Therefore, we decided to complete some Cosmic Yoga to help us to move our bodies. This week, we enjoyed the ‘Squish the Fish’ lesson. There were so many different ways to move our bodies and Miss Toft, Mrs North and I were very impressed with the balance and control shown by the children. We were especially astounded when the children needed to use their foot as an oar and then a phone, holding it to their ear! Next week, we shall look forward to returning to the hall.
Next week marks the start of our harvest preparations. This year we will be supporting the Brereton food pantry (based at Revd Sandi’s vicarage) and Chance Changing Lives which is a homeless charity supporting families in Crewe and Nantwich. If possible, we are asking for donations of non-perishable goods and hygiene items which can be sent into school from next week. The Year 6 Ethos Council will help us launch our harvest giving for 2022 in Monday’s Collective Worship.
We shall also be holding a short Harvest Service for Parents and Grandparents of children in EYFS and Years 1 and 2, next Friday 7th October at 10am, at St Oswald’s Church. The children will be singing some harvest songs and each class will present something to the service. If you would like to walk down to the Church with us, we shall be leaving about 9.30am from school (although EYFS will aim to leave slightly earlier – hopefully 9:15am!) so please wait just outside school and it will be lovely to see you. Once in Church, the children will sit at the front and parents are invited to sit towards the back. We expect the service to last no longer than 30 minutes.
I hope that you all enjoy a well-deserved restful and wonderful weekend.
With many thanks as always,
Miss Witham
