Despite the title of this weeks blog, we have focused on The Ugly Duckling! Our activities included ‘ Hook a Duck ‘ recording the duck numbers and small world play to re-tell The Ugly Duckling story. This story evoked some strong emotions in the children during circle time, they all felt sad for the ugly duckling and tried to think of ways to help or make him feel better.
At last we found time to finish off our gingerbread men – mixing, stirring, kneading, wrapping, rolling, cutting, baking and decorating… Oh and not forgetting eating – all in a days work for Reception!
We borrowed the super duper oven in the school kitchen to bake our gingerbread… and luckily none of our 30 gingerbread men ran away!
All the children then decorated their own gingerbread man with raisins.
And last but not least all got to enjoy our very own gingerbread man at snack time!
This week we have been learning the days of the week. We have learnt a song to help us remember them, read the days of the week and ordered them in our challenge books. I’ve been asking the children questions such as what is the day: today/ tomorrow/ yesterday? Thinking about the end of the week – the ‘ weekend’ and what different things we do on Saturday and Sunday to the rest of the week. The children often refer to a day as: ‘ oh it’s swimming day today’ or ‘ the roast dinner day’ – do name the day they are referring to for them, to aid their understanding of time and sequencing.
Other activities have included timed number activities :
more pattern making …
The outdoor stage with it’s snowman backdrop has caused a surge of would be West End stars to come up, choose an instrument and sing all of our Christmas show tunes!
As term is coming to an end the class PE skills have developed considerably with excellent listening, understanding, hand/ eye coordination, controlled gross motor skills and a growing ability to play in teams.
Christmas card writing – this has been fabulous with the children choosing to write hundreds of recycled Christmas cards to friends and family. The cards have really inspired everybody to get writing!
All this Christmas card writing has gone hand-in hand with our new Post Office role play area. The children have helped decide what we need in our role play and described many of the roles that can be played out in a post office! They are writing letters and cards, buying stamps, posting their letters, collecting, sorting and delivering them!
I forgot to send the tricky words sheets home on Friday – many apologies – they will come home on Monday. Here’s a copy if you are keen! Some of them duplicate what you already have in the pot but there are some new words. Please take a look at them over Christmas – play snap, a memory game or matching game.
Our Rapunzel towers are up and looking good as a back drop to our class Christmas tree .
We have our class Christmas party on Wednesday and school breaks up for Christmas on Friday at 2pm!