What a week in Reception, Oak Class!

We took our work on 3D shape to another level and lots of the children managed to construct their own 3D shapes with straws and connectors. Very impressive spatial skills and a deeper understanding of a 3D shape!

Of course, when the sun shines, we always take advantage of the weather and our outdoor areas – this week we headed off to the field – more practice for sports day in action!

The real fun began when we headed back to the classroom. In the middle of our whole class learning time on the carpet,  there was a loud knock at the door…

We all wondered who it could be …

In strode Mrs Morgan, she  was carrying an old bottle. She explained she’d found it whilst strolling along the beach… since she knew our class were learning about pirates she bought it to us to see what was inside!

Low and behold we found a message from a pirate! A real pirate named Red- Beard. The note explained he’d lost his treasure and hoped Oak Class could find it for him. The paper was old, damp from the sea  and smelt of musty old pirates – we all had a good sniff!  Always up for a challenge – pirate hats on,  telescopes ready – we headed out into the playground to hunt for old Red-Beards’s treasure.

We searched high and low through our telescopes,  that we we have been making over the past week,  and sure enough began to find treasure – gold and sparkly treasure!

Following our treasure hunt we returned to the classroom to count Captain Red-Beard’s treasure – we used a 100 square and discovered  we had found more than 100 pieces of treasure.

It was time to write a reply to Captain Red-Beard! We made pirate paper as best we could, dipping our card into tea,  and Mrs Bibby burnt the edges for us. We are going to send our reply messages back to Captain Red-Beard via a bottle and Mrs Morgan who will be heading back to the beach soon.

Meanwhile the children’s hand- made compasses and treasure maps have really enhanced our role play pirate ship. The pirate and mermaid games that the children are playing out are developing into wonderful stories.

All in all another fun week in Oak Class, although rather low on numbers!

We hope all the children feel better and are back at school at soon as possible!

Enjoy the sunshine!

Hello !

This week our classroom role play has transformed into a Pirate Ship! We’ve got plenty of treasure, eye- patches, telescopes, compasses, a crows nest, Polly the parrot, huge treasure chests and even a plank!  Of course you can’t have pirates without beautiful mermaids and many of the children have enjoyed donning the mermaid outfits and fanning themselves while ordering the gung-ho pirates of the class about!  The children of course have made it their own, inventing pirate adventure stories, learning how to share all that treasure as well as speaking like real pirates.

Our small world area has a pirate ship, a treasure island and a compass – the children are really enjoying directing the pirates to steer their ship towards the island and then to find the X marking the spot of the hidden treasure!

We have read a host of pirate and mermaid stories this week but one book in particular had all the children mesmerised. Do find it in the library or local bookshop if you fancy It:

Can You Catch a Mermaid?  Jane Ray.

The pirate theme has continued in our number work, halving various amounts of treasure… along with sorting some 3D shapes ( I think calling the school set of standard 3D shapes treasure, might be  a step too far!) Recognising, naming and sorting in various ways has been order of the week – a favourite sort has been 3D shapes that roll and those that don’t !

As a end of week treat and highlight, Mrs Shaffer, a lovely lady who has been volunteering in our Early Years for more than 10 years, bought Herbie her tortoise in to see the children. They were all fascinated especially by his ‘ old face’ and ‘ rough skin’. All the children were able to stroke Herbie if they wanted and give him a treat – Herbie was in his element with a feast of strawberries!

That’s all for this week but I’m sure another busy week in Reception Oak Class awaits!

A big thank you to all parents and carers who have gone out of your way to support our assembly. Thank you for dressing the children in all the right outfits, being so supportive of us and being a fantastic audience too!

As you can imagine we have spent sometime this week practising … mainly encouraging BIG voices ‘ … just like the ones we hear you use frequently throughout the day!‘  Despite our sometimes desperate encouragement of a loud, clear voice, we didn’t make much of an impact! We are unsure if any of you managed to hear any of what was going on today but thank you for being there and seeing a snapshot of what Oak Class have been up to over the last half term.

We celebrated making it through our assembly with an ice lolly…

We’ve fitted in lots more fun too with a focus on 3D shape. We are continuing this next week focusing on spotting 3D shapes in our environment, knowing the difference between 2D and 3D shapes, learning 3D shape names and counting sides and vertices. There are many shape games to play which reinforce all the language we need to use about shape and the properties of shapes.

In number,  our week has involved lots of doubling. Using mirrors, a fastest finger first game, match your partner and discover the double game along with jumping in and out of 2 hoops to find doubles! Math’s has never been so much fun!

From the first half of the summer term our PE lessons moved onto the field and we have learnt lots of games, enjoying the huge space,  running this way and that, learning and understanding rules of new games, taking part and managing not to get upset if not one of the ‘winners’!  This week rain stopped play, so we bought our PE lesson back into the hall and introduced some of the skills needed for our forthcoming sports day ( Wednesday 17th July am ).

We will be continuing our sports day practising for the next few weeks – hopefully back on the field in the sunshine.  Events include: balancing a bean bag on your head race, relay, bean-bag throw, dribbling the football around the cones, skipping, balancing tennis ball on the racquet, bench bunny hops and more. Oak class have also been lucky enough to secure the expertise from a LTA coach who will be coaching Oak Class once a week for this half term. With Wimbledon approaching  we are optimistic of  a wild card entry from our class!

I’m looking forward to seeing lots of you at the school summer fair tomorrow ( Saturday 15th June) and do enjoy a relaxing Father’s Day on Sunday.

The last stretch of Reception year for our little ones and we are slowly moving from farming to water and have begun with a splash!

Our classroom role play has transformed into a swimming pool! …  Oh what a lot reception know about swimming! From life guarding, swimming teaching to the why’s and wherefore’s of what is and isn’t allowed to happen at swimming pools! Mrs Mooney and I are obviously in safe hands!  The children have been creating ‘no running’ signs, measuring the depth of pool,  explaining how to check the cleanliness of the water , writing swimming certificates and lesson timetables, commenting on stroke technique and giving tips on how to improve! Our life guard’ s high chair quickly transformed to a diving board ( much to Mr Quinn’s delight at the children’s creativity and confidence to take a risk,  to of course the horrors of health and safety policies flashing before his eyes! ) … a few more swimming pool rules were quickly devised.

Take a look at a few of the delightful picture we captured this week:

In other news this week we have based our literacy, maths and creative work around the story Farmer Duck.

We’ve learned what a question is, question words – How, Who, What, Why, Where, When… and how to write a question mark.

We have done lots of hot seating and role playing the part of the lazy farmer and all thought of questions to ask him.

Of course we have then all written our questions for the lazy farmer.

We have used the last of our farming themes to help us with some number work – finding number bonds to 10.

With varying degrees of success and patience, we have started practising our class assembly… a warning to all : it’s rather long… far longer than I ever anticipated!! Have a good breakfast on Friday morning- your in for the long haul!

Due to weather conditions,  many Reception children used our junk modelling area to create kites this week, which again we had varying degrees of success with once put to the test outside! They have all enjoyed designing, choosing materials,  making and finally testing their finished product.

Another week has flashed by, see you all on Friday at the children’s assembly.

On Wednesday 12th June St Matthew’s is holding an open afternoon for Little Acorns, our new afternoon nursery session. Come and have a look at what they get up to, particularly if you have little ones coming up to nursery age. Please follow the link for more information:

 https://st-matthews-cofe-primary-school11.j2bloggy.com/Nursery/category/little-acorns/