It has been a busy couple of weeks in Reception with rehearsals for the Christmas show now in full swing! We are very much looking forward to performing for you and we hope everyone has now received their tickets. Despite being busy with rehearsals, we have still found plenty of time for lots of wonderful learning through play both indoors and outside. In particular, there has been lots of work on our construction sites resulting in some rather impressive creations – you might even recognise one or two of these!
We have especially loved playing with the marble run this week and it has encouraged us all to work together and listen carefully to each other’s ideas. Listening to each other is not always easy but, thankfully, we are all so kind and friendly in Reception, that we understand how important it is to do this. We now have a kindness tree in our prayer corner and whenever someone is kind to us, we can add a leaf onto the tree for them. We already have several leaves on our tree of course!
Our kindness tree isn’t the only place in the classroom where green leaves have been appearing! It has been with great excitement that we have watched our beanstalks start to grow, with tiny shoots peeping up through the soil at first, followed by long green stalks and lots of leaves. We used a ruler to measure them and some of them are already 15cm tall! More photos to follow…
Our growing beanstalks inspired some of our maths work: we ordered numbered beanstalks and then added the correct number of leaves to each. We had to do lots of careful counting and checking, being sure to stop at the ‘stopping number’ each time. Peeling the sticker leaves off the sheet was also great practise for our fine motor skills!
We also worked with our carpet partners to match numerals to quantities on our fingers and asked questions such as, what is the quickest way to show 5? Show me 4 – can you show me another way to show me 4? Use your fingers to show me 2! Remember, do not count, show me the amount!
We have also been developing our understanding of the concepts of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ with a little help from Stanley and Gruffy (our class puppets) who can often be found arguing over the sweetie jar!
In our phonics lessons, we have been busy learning more of the set 1 sounds. We now know all of these sounds:
https://studylib.net/
The sounds g, o, c, k, u and b are all bouncy sounds. The picture prompts help us to remember both the sounds that these letters make and how to write them.
https://victoriadockschool.org.uk/
And we have been practising our Fred-talk; blending and segmenting the sounds in CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. We have been listening carefully for the initial, middle and final sounds.
We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!
When we arrived at school on Monday morning, we noticed something rather unusual – a beanstalk had grown in the classroom over the weekend and it had grown so much that it had started to grow through the ceiling tiles. Not only that, but there was a very large shoe dangling through the ceiling at the top of the beanstalk!
We wondered how on earth the shoe had got there and who it might belong to?
We thought it might belong to Mr Quinn or Mr Norris or even one of our dads.
But we all agreed this was unlikely as none of these people had been in school over the weekend – as far as we know!
We decided to read a story about a boy called Jack (and a beanstalk) to see if this might give us any clues…The version we read was by Nick Sharratt and you can re-read it here:
The next day, Mrs Saunders came to tell us that a parcel had arrived for us from Amazon and, inside, there was a letter and a bag of magic beans!
Photo of letter to follow…
We set to work planting our magic beans and, thanks to the song we learnt for our Harvest festival, we already know what a seed (or bean) needs in order for it to grow successfully (sunshine and water).
We weren’t entirely sure how long it might take for our beanstalks to grow – here are some of our guesses!
In the end, we watched this time lapse recording and discovered that it might take around 25 days for our beans to grow:
In our maths lessons, we learnt that it is not only objects that can be counted but also sounds and actions. We used a small drum to count beats and we tried really hard to ‘do not count, hear the amount’ when doing so. By coincidence, we also had a music lesson with a visiting teacher who taught us how to play a djembe; a type of drum originally from West Africa. The teacher taught us how to play a four-beat rhythm, hitting the drum on the first beat and counting the next three. We loved this lesson and we were so impressed by the children’s musical skills! We didn’t manage to get a video of the drumming as Mrs Mooney and I had our hands full joining in, but we did get a video of the children learning the rhythm by walking and clapping it, just before we had a go on the drums (have a look on Seesaw for this).
In our phonics lesson, we learnt the sounds t, i and n. Do remember when practising these sounds that it is not tuh or nuh!
The picture prompt for t is t-t-tower and t is a bouncy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down the tower, across the tower’.
The picture prompt for i is i-i-insect and i is also a bouncy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down the insect’s body, dot for its head’.
The picture prompt for n is nnnnnnet and n is a stretchy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down Nobby, up and over the net’.
Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday!
Welcome back to the second half of the Autumn term. We hope everyone had a lovely half term holiday and a huge thank you for coming along to support us at our Harvest Festival just before the break. We were so proud of the children for standing up and singing their song in front of the whole school and all the parents – weren’t they brave? Here is the song we sang, just in case you would like to a repeat performance at home!
Back in school, we have been busy learning about the festival Diwali which is celebrated by Hindus all around the world over five days. This year, the celebrations took place during the half term break.
Our Spotlight Story this week was the story of Rama and Sita which tells the tale of how goodness and truth triumphs over evil. In the story, Rama and Sita triumph over Ravana, the ten-headed demon. We took this opportunity to talk about whether demons and monsters are real or not and we all agreed that they are just something we find in stories or in movies and not something that we need to be scared of – please do reinforce this at home if you feel it necessary.
You can revisit the story of Rama and Sita on the CBeebies website. We also found out how this festival of light is celebrated; with diya lamps, special clothes, Mendhi patterns, Rangoli patterns, Diwali cards and lots of sweets! And we met Jessica who explained how she celebrates Diwali with her family.
During Diwali, Rangoli patterns are placed on the ground outside homes to welcome the Goddess Lakshmi. She is the goddess of wealth and she is thought to bring good luck.
Lots of different 2D shapes are used in rangoli patterns and we learnt about the names and the properties (i.e. the number of sides) of the most common ones: circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. Can you spot any of these shapes in the rangoli patterns below?
We discovered that there are shapes all around us; in the classroom, in the playground and even walking down the street! Why not go on a shape hunt around your house or in the park? Can you find any of the shapes we have learnt? Here is a powerpoint to help you support your child with their learning of these shapes – please do go over this together if you feel they are unsure – thank you!
This was also a very important and exciting week because we started our phonics lessons! We learnt the sounds that the letters m, a, s and d make. We will be learning new sounds every week, so please do make sure you practise these at home with your child. If you are unsure about how to say any of these sounds, please do check this video below. One of the main things to remember is not to drop your jaw when say a sound like m – say mmmmmm, instead of muh. I hope that makes sense!
Ruth Miskin Training
Whenever we learn a new sound, we learn 3 things: the sound itself, a picture prompt which helps us to put the sound into context and a handwriting saying (linked to the picture prompt) which helps us to remember how to form the letter correctly when writing.
The Read Write Inc flashcards that we use have the letter on one side and the picture prompt on the other. When the children see the letter side, they say the sound. When they see the picture side, they say the picture prompt, e.g. Maisie, mountain, mountain.
This video explains this further and also shows how we use the picture prompt to form the letter correctly. Please note, the picture prompt and handwriting prompt for the letter m is the same.
For the sound a, the picture prompt is ‘a – a – apple’ and the handwriting prompt is ’round the apple, down the leaf’. The sound a is a bouncy sound, while m is a stretchy sound.
For the letter s, the picture prompt is ‘ssssss-snake’ and the handwriting prompt is ‘slither down the snake’. The sound s is a stretchy sound.
For the letter d, the picture prompt is ‘d-d-dinosaur’ and the handwriting prompt is ’round the dinosaur’s bottom, up and down its neck’. The d sound is bouncy.
To help your child practise the sounds, you could play a simple game of memory: use 16 pieces of paper and write the letters on each so you have 4 cards with m on them, 4 with a on them, 4 with s and 4 with d on them. Place them face down on a table and muddle them up. Take turns to turn over two cards at a time. What are the sounds? Are they the same? Keep them if they are the same, turn them back over if not. Carry on until all the cards have been picked up. The winner is the one with the most cards.
Or you could play a sound hunt game – how many things can you find in the house that start with m…or a…or s. If you are in the car, remember ‘I spy’ is always a brilliant way to practice hearing and distinguishing initial sounds in words.
If you have bath crayons, try writing these on the tiles at bath-time and give your child a spray bottle to spray the sounds as they say them. This is also fun in a driveway or on the pavement with chalks.
If your child is already recognising these sounds confidently, why not have a go at writing them correctly.
We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend – if you are out and about enjoying Bonfire Night and firework displays, please stay safe – we had a good chat about how to do this yesterday (listen carefully to your grown-ups, stay well away from bonfires and fireworks, only grown-ups can light fireworks, keep pets indoors, wear gloves if you hold a sparkler and keep it away from your face). Have fun and see you on Monday!
