Reception Spring 2022-23
Chinese New Year
We have had a fantastic week celebrating Chinese New Year in Reception. We learnt about all the different animals celebrated and this year we discovered it was the year of the rabbit. We have our very own Chinese restaurant in the home corner where we have discussed how to use chopsticks before attempting to use them. They are very tricky! In our outdoor areas we have looked at the Chinese symbols used to represent numbers and using paint brushes we have tried mark making in coloured rice. We have also been very creative in our art areas making the mask of the lion. We have used different shapes and sizes in red, orange and yellow paper and decorated our paper plates. We will be wearing these when practising our dragon dance, which as you can see we have had so much fun learning.
Mental Health Week
This week was Mental Health Week and Reception celebrated this through the theme “Lets Connect". We sat and discussed what mental health was and we talked about the different feelings people may have at different times. We also looked at the idea of belonging and discussed who we feel we belong to, our families, school, clubs and friendship circles. We then made drawings of those different people.
PE - A Snowy Day!
Today in PE our focus was to develop accuracy when throwing to a target. Our warm up involved; jogging through the snow, skipping through the snow, side stepping through the snow, snowman (children stand with their legs apart and their hands on their hips) and sledging (children sit on their bottom, using their hands and feet to slide along the floor).
We then worked in teams on different stations to practice different throwing activities. We had to aim and always keep our eye on the target. We used underarm throws to try and get as close to our target as possible. We each had a go on each station.
World Book Day
We were so excited celebrating World Book Day. We were all dressed up and looked fantastic in rainbow colours and costumes! We had a fun day taking part in the activities. Year 4 children then came up to read with us and help to design our bookmarks.
Throughout the week we have also read a 'rainbow of books.' These were story books with a front cover from every colour of the rainbow.
Easter Cards
We have really enjoyed making Easter cards to send home. Some of us chose to make a chick by painting our hands with yellow paint and then decorating using collage materials for details of eyes, beaks and wobbly legs. They all look so fun and made us all smile. We also had the option of designing rabbits using collage materials or fluffy rabbits using cotton wool. The designs were fantastic and we are becoming so creative and independent in our work. We hope you enjoy seeing the cards around your home as much as we have enjoyed making them. Happy Easter to you all!
Maths - 2D and 3D Shapes/ Sorting numbers
In maths we have been looking at 3D shapes and how they differ to 2D shapes. We have talked about the many different names of 3D shapes including cube, cuboid, pyramid, sphere and cylinder. We were able to hold the shapes and recognise that 3D shapes can be squashed but 2D can not as they are flat. We have also been discussing number value and we are starting to organise numbers from biggest to smallest.
NSPCC
School have been raising money for NSPCC. We wore green and also attended an online assembly presented by Mrs Reynolds in class. This helped us to understand Childline and how or who can keep us safe. We have all remembered the key message: Speak out, stay safe.
PE - A Windy Day!
This PE lesson was all about moving around with the ball on a calm or on a windy day. We started off the lesson where Miss Clark shouted out the following commands; forward with the breeze, backwards with the breeze, a gust of wind, whirlwind and gone with the wind. We had to do a range of actions depending on what Miss Clark had asked us to do.
We then played 'stop that ball' where we had to imagine that we had gone to the park on a very windy day. In pairs with one ball between us we had to stand opposite each other, about five big steps away. We then practised rolling the ball to each other and stopping it with our hands. We explored rolling the ball in a breeze (softly) and rolling the ball in a gust of wind (with power).
We then played 'through your legs' where in pairs, one of us had to stand with our legs in a straddle position. Our partner had to try and roll the ball through our legs and then run around the other side to collect it. We then had to change over after three rolls.
Lastly we played 'easy breezy'. In this game we had to pretend that there was a gentle breeze and roll our ball slowly to our partner. We then had to place two cones together around 1m apart- to make a gate. We had to move around the hall rolling our ball to our partner through other peoples gates. We had a competition to see who could roll their ball to their partner through the most gates in 1 minute. We had very good ball control - even in the windy weather!
Special Persons Daffodils
We all worked very hard carrying out observational drawings of daffodils. We talked about the colour of the flowers and shape of the head of the flower. We all thought they looked like trumpets in the centre and there was even a couple that reminded us of a lion mane. We thought about the colours we wanted to use in our drawings and whether we wanted to draw our daffodils in a vase or blowing in the wind whilst in the grass. We all hope you loved our pictures as they were a special gift to all our loved ones to remind you how special you are to us.
Phonics
We always work really hard on a morning in our phonics lesson. We are excellent at sitting smartly and rehearsing our familiar sounds as well as learning our new daily sound. We have started to look at a daily sentence too and as a group we break it down and discuss the sounds and words that are familiar to us and also the use of capital letters and full stops. Miss McTeer has been so impressed with how hard we all work.
Safer Internet Day
Reception took part in a presentation and activities in helping us to understand and celebrate Safer Internet Day. We read the story Hanni and the Magic Window. This explained what to do and who to speak to if we see something wrong online. We also discussed safe use of online play such as gaming and how we should not share information.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Our literacy topic has been Jack and the Beanstalk. We have had so much fun reading the story together and then carrying out lots of different activities. We dropped our own magic beans in the classroom then we were amazed to find the next day a beanstalk had grown! We are watering it on the hope it will only get bigger and bigger. We also were able to plant real beans in soil and we are going to water them each day and watch them grow.
Easter Bonnet Parade
We have been working so hard in Reception over the last few weeks rehearsing our Easter songs. It was such a special morning for us and we were all very excited to be on stage to perform for all our loved ones. A huge thank you for all your support at home and for the effort made making such wonderful Easter bonnets, I think you will agree we all looked fantastic. It is always a pleasure to see everyone in school enjoying our performances. We all loved spending time together and eating the yummy Easter biscuits, they were a very special treat. Thank you for your continued support and a huge well done to all our children for being "Shining Superstars" on stage!!!
