Hello!

This week in Reception we have been ‘ taking a peek’ at the wonderful story Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. It’s an old favourite and many of the children were familiar with the story which enables our learning to extend far and wide!

We joined in with the rhyming, spotted all the fairy tale/ nursery rhyme characters as we read. Recalled the nursery rhymes or stories the characters derived from as well as deciding on which character we would like to be in the story and acting / role-playing our favourite parts! Some of our already keen writers took to making name labels for the various characters in our  Each Peach Pear Plum small world play.

The children have been enjoying their new playground doing lots of chalking, climbing, sliding and cycling.

As the children are now mostly settled at school we are assessing them for a starting point for the prime areas of  the Early Years Curriculum – these include: Health and Self Care, Making Relationships, Managing Feelings and Behaviour, Fine and Gross Motor Skills , Speaking , Listening and Understanding, along with awareness of reading/ writing/ number and shape. We do this through observations during choosing time – setting up activities that will encourage and stimulate play covering each of those areas. As well as through teaching / questioning and directed tasks.

This week we have covered lots of number work and fine motor work – finding the right number of pegs to fit the holes in the wooden numbers, threading a certain number of buttons/ beads onto various strings/ pipe cleaners/ ribbons, playing snakes and ladders – a fab game for number recognition/ counting/ turn taking/ making relationships and  managing your feelings! Using tweezers to place the right number of tiny beads into each pot and playing noughts and crosses with a friend

We continue to assess during learning time on the carpet through directed questions such as counting altogether and then finding out 1 more or 1 less than a given number. All the children took part in a directed activity of writing their name and counting how many letters were in their name. We looked at which children had the longest and shortest names and how many people had 4 letters in their name and which number of letters in a name was the most popular in our class.

We started our new number and writing books. All the children took part in a directed writing and two directed number activities.

During circle time we looked at the letter I … we used it to talk about what we liked, what we could do and who we are.

I am …

I like…

I can …

after everyone had had a go at speaking and most importantly listening to our friends, we coloured in our own I.

We started our RE and PE curriculum this week – many apologies for any swopped clothing – it was a stressful afternoon – I hope you have all managed to reunite each others clothes via the WhatsApp group…. particularly the boys and their socks – they were all adamant that although they couldn’t find their socks that none of the left over pairs were theirs!

We learnt our class prayer and had some quiet time as well as some children volunteering to come to the front and lead the class in their own prayer.

Our class prayer  :

Thank you for the world so sweet,

Thank you for the food we eat,

Thank you for the birds that sing,

Thank you God for everything.

Amen

Our book bag system is up and running – as a reminder at the moment, the children will be bringing 4 books home, of their choice,  each week on their book bag day. Please remember to only bring your book bag on the day you change your books.( The day written on the cover of your yellow book.)  Our peg area is very small and we are unable to cope with extra bags or belongings. Please bring the minimum to school each day. A named water bottle and  a named coat appropriate for that days weather,  as best you can determine!

The children  have done lots of looking and peeking this week finding out new things, as well as role play and the usual building both big and small.

Thank you to all who have replenished our junk modelling stocks. We are quarantining each delivery for 72 hours and soon you will be seeing amazing creations coming home from your children!  We now have enough recycling to last us up until about half term 🙂 Thank you.

Next week we will be ‘ taking a peek’ at The Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, hopefully another familiar tales for the children that we can use to stimulate some lovely work.  

Have a lovely weekend. See you all on Monday!

We are all here! Everyone has now started in Reception and we are really proud of each and every one of them.  They have come in willing and ready and tackled each day with gusto and enthusiasm!

It’s been a second busy week settling in and getting started on our reading, writing and numbers!

This term’s topic is called ‘ TAKE A PEEK ‘ We are starting by taking a good look at ourselves…

We have made a birthday wall – showing when our birthdays are in the year…

All the children have managed circle times with our soft toys – Monday Monkey, Tuesday Ted, Wednesday Womble, Thursday Thread Bear and Friday Frog.

 This week has seen the children have a close look at their eyes in a mirror and have a go at drawing them and finding the correct colour for their eyes. The children managed to ask and answer questions regarding their eye drawings:  ‘ What is the most popular eye colour in our class? ‘ ‘ How many children have green eyes?’ and so on.

We have practised name writing everyday and would ask you to practice this at home too if your child is developing name writing skills.

Our portrait wall is complete now this week’s starters have arrived. Everyone painted themselves in their new uniform, chatted about what they liked best about it and all wrote their name for our display.

While one of us is busy working one to one on directed tasks with the children, the rest are busying themselves with the continuous provision activities in the classroom. These times allow the children to play, explore, try something out that we’ve talked about, build, make, paint, cut and best of all learn to share and play with each other. Here are a few photos of some of the children working independently.

Some of the activities on offer this week were:

During the Reception year we are looking for a set of characteristics that enable effective learning. It is true to say they are effective throughout life! They include: Keep on trying, having a go, joining in and concentrating, playing well, having your own ideas, choosing ways to do things, making good links, exploring new ideas, and being proud of your achievements.

I’m looking forward to the fun that will be had next week in Oak Class Reception already,  see you then!

Hello and welcome to Oak Class, our Reception class at St  Matthew’s.

Each week I will post a few photos of the children learning and playing. I will focus on the weekly themes, sounds, letters, numbers and stories.

This week we have all been settling in to the new school routine, as well as getting to know our friends.

All the children have managed to paint a self portrait of themselves, have a go at writing their name independently, admired and spoken about their new uniform, and managed to tell us a little about their summer’s.

Snack time

Lunch time …

Our theme this term is Take a Peek…  can you spot your child’s eyes? !

Or you child’s baby picture?

The children have been painting their portraits – looking closely in the mirror to get their faces and of course new school uniform just right … I’m in the midst of putting them up!

Our role play area in the classroom is a baby clinic and the children have been busy changing, weighing, feeding and looking after all the babies. Through this interactive role play the children are collaborating and getting to know each other.

Our stories this week have all been starting school stories: 

The children have been busy in the classroom, building with lego, creating stories with wild animals, colouring, painting,designing and creating tracks,  playing trains and finding quiet reading corners when things get too much! In our outdoor classroom we have had lots of writing, number work and building with the big community blocks outside. During break- time – sliding, climbing, running, chasing, riding the school bicycles playing with hoops   and investigating all the activities on offer in the classroom.

Look out for an overview of our work Reception coming to you via a PowerPoint on email. Thank you very much for bringing in the wellies, PE kits  and baby pictures. Very much appreciated.

General class logistics:

• Please bring any CLEAN recycling to school –  we fly through cereal boxes and the like for our amazing junk modelling creations!
• Book bags will go home next week – on your child’s book bag day. Please return it the next week on the same day. No need for the book bag to come in everyday.
• The children will be bringing 4 books of their choice home a week. As term progresses we will add ‘ reading books‘ into the bag for them to read to you.
• Please contribute crackers/ breadsticks/ biscuits/ chedders etc to our class snack scheme every so often. This means there is NO NEED TO BRING A SEPARATE SNACK EACH DAY. 

Sorry for all these logistics – once in place – the year runs very smoothly!

Thanks so much for your support – please pass on the details of this blog to all the parents/ carers in the class.

Enjoy the weekend!

Looking forward to next week already!

Mrs Bibby 🙂