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Chatsworth Trip - May 2024
Y2 Multisports - Sept 2023
Page for Reception 2021 to 2022
Autumn 2021
The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas
Our first text this term is The Colour Monster. We use this to help our children settle into the new class as well as talk about how they are feeling.
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
Next class book is Owl Babies. We have been learning all about the life cycle of an owl; from egg to adult owl as well as learning how owls take off, fly and glide.
We made our own clay owls looking at the different features of an owl and thinking about the tools we needed to make these body parts.
Time to ride.... cycle and scoot to school week
Developing our imaginations and our physical skills!
Learning about Road Safety
The Dental Nurse visit 8th October 2021
The Dental Nurses came to teach us all about oral hygiene and how to keep our teeth and gums healthy. We looked at healthy and unhealthy foods as well as how to brush our teeth correctly.
In maths we have been learning about patterns
Oi Frog by Kes Grey and Jim Field
This class text is designed to help us learn about rhyming words and patterns in words.
This is one of our class core books so we will revisit this on a regular basis to help us to embed our knowledge of rhyme and rhythm.
Qualitas Balance Bike session 11th October 2021
Autumn...... what a colourful, vibrant season
Design and Technology Day
Toys from the past
We explored some toys from the past. Some were from our parents, some from our grandparents. We watched a video showing toys from 1910 and discussed which toys we recognised and which we still played with now, like marbles.
We then made a ball and cup toy using some skills such as threading, cutting, joining and decorating. We then tried out our toys!
All Saints Day - St Francis
Today we looked at St Francis as part of All Saint's Day. We chose St Francis as we love nature and animals and St Francis is the Patron Saint of animals and ecology. We looked at the story of how St Francis tamed the wild wolf and saved the village then we made hedgehog bread and leaf crowns to celebrate this saint.
Percy The Park Keeper - After the Storm
by Nick Butterworth
This class book is in keeping with our seasonal theme, autumn and looking at nature and weather. We explored where the animals live, which hibernate and which don't and what the animals like to eat, especially in autumn and winter as the weather gets colder.
As part of our learning around Percy the Park Keeper and autumn, we went on a hunt for our missing animals. We had to use our investigation skills to find them all hiding in the school grounds and we used our iPads to take photos of them so we could tell our friends where they were hiding. We talked about what the animals were, what they ate and where they lived.
Police visit 3rd November 2021
We had a visit from a Police Car and we got to try on their uniform as well as look around the car and even try the light and sirens! In the afternoon we played Police Officers and pretended we were in our Police Car chasing down criminals and arresting them.
Bonfire Night 2021
We looked at why we celebrate Bonfire Night and how Guy Fawkes was stopped when he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Some children have been to London so we talked about Big Ben and where the Houses of Parliament were. We watched a video of the fireworks in London so we could see Big Ben and identify where the Houses of Parliament were.
We also watched a safety video showing us how to keep safe on Bonfire Night from Fireman Sam and then we practised the "Stop, Drop and Roll" exercise to keep us safe if our clothes caught fire.
As a treat we made chocolate covered marshmallow "sparklers". We used our fine motor skills to twist the kebab stick to cover our marshmallow with chocolate and then to cover them in sparkles.
Road Safety Heroes!
Our children have been learning about how to keep themselves safe and healthy this term. This time is is revisiting road safety with more practical application. We used the pretend zebra and pelican crossings and talked to the children about safe places to cross the road, and places they shouldn't. Our children all know to hold an adult's hand when near the road and NEVER to run into the road. We practised looking and listening for traffic and using the pedestrian crossing as a safe place to cross.
Our children then looked at Road Safety Heroes, people who keep us safe on and near the roads, and those who help us if we need it. We then drew a picture of our hero on a postcard to remind our adults of all the things they can do to keep us safe.
Remembrance Day 11th November 2021
We spent the day looking at why it is important to remember the soldiers who died or were injured in the wars around the world and why we wear poppies to celebrate their lives and raise money for veterans. We watched a video to help to understand why we stay silent for 2 minutes on the 11th of November and we made our own poppies using wool and sticks as well as painting our own poppies.
Abi Burlingham visit 15th November
The Author of Ruby and Grub
We had a visit from a local author, Abi Burlingham. She is the author of some of the books we like, Ruby and Grub, Grub in love and Grub's pups.
She came and read us Grub's Pups and we made Grub ears so we could be Grub's pups too! We decorated these in our own unique way.
We asked Abi lots of questions about her books and also her dogs. We talked about our own pets too.
We have decided we would like to be authors so we have started our own story station to draw our own ideas for stories in.
Kindness Week
15th - 19th November
In Kindness Week we spoke about why we are kind to our friends, what it means to be kind, and how we can be kind in school. We also talked about what makes us special, what makes us different to our friends and why our uniqueness should be celebrated.
During the week we gave our friends special "kind friend" awards when we felt they had been kind to us in our play and learning.
Stick man by Julia Donaldson
We have been reading Stick Man and learning all about the different places Stick Man ended up on his adventures and the different things he ended up being!
We looked at all the things a stick could be, we came up with lots of lots of different ideas! Sticks are amazing!
We created story maps to show the different parts of the story. This helps us to understand structures of stories and develop our listening and recall skills.
Autumn Lamps
To finish our topic on Autumn, we used some of the colourful autumn leaves we had found to make a lamp to take home and enjoy the autumn colours through the winter. We learned how to use see-through greaseproof paper as a medium for this art activity and how using glue to stick the leaves on would help them stay in place.
Whatever Next? By Jill Murphy
We read this lovely book and then we acted out the book and took a flight to space! We listened carefully to the story so we could draw our own story maps to show the key aspects of the story.
Christingle 1st December
We have been learning all about Advent and Christingle this week in RE. We made our own Christingle Orange and talked about the different parts representing the four seasons, all of God's creations, the blood of Jesus, the light of Jesus in the world, and the world God created.
The Jolly Christmas Postman
by Allan and Janet Ahlberg
This book tells the story of the Jolly Postman who delivers letters to lots of different nursery rhyme and story characters. The letters are all written by other book and rhyme characters and looks at how letters are written and the kinds of things we can put into our own letters.
The children have been writing letters to Father Christmas and his Elves (Emma and Ed) who have been visiting us in Reception. We have looked at how to start a letter and also how to end a letter so the person knows who this is from.
In literacy we have been drawing the characters from the book and writing our own letters to some of the fairytale characters as well as completing a story map to help us to recall key aspects of the story.
Christmas activities
Nativity Performance
New Year!
Let's look around the world!!!
Poles Apart by Jeanne Willis and Jarvis
First book of the new year is Poles Apart by Jeanne Willis and Jarvis. This is a lovely story about a voyage across the world by a lost family of penguins and their new friend a polar bear.
We have been exploring the Polar Regions and reading our new class book, Poles Apart. We all drew something from this book, whether this was a character or something they saw on their journey. We placed our drawings on our map in the countries they belong in.
We were scientists today. We wanted to work out how polar bears keep warm in the icy water.
We tried to put our hands in the icy water and realised it was very cold. Next we tried with some “fur”. In our case we put a sock on our hand. It was warmer to start with then as the sock soaked the water up it got very cold.
Finally we put a dry sock inside a glove then smeared the glove with lard. This represented the blubber on the polar bear, under their fur. The children all reported that this felt very warm in the water and they didn’t feel the cold water at all.
A healthy mind is just as important as a healthy body. Each Friday in Reception, we practice our breathing and mindfulness using Yoga or Mindfulness sessions.
In literacy we produced a story map to help us to recall the plot of Poles Apart, then we created our own adventure stories in small groups. Our adults scribed for us so we could focus on the content, then we acted it out for our friends to see.
Art work
We have been learning all about animals from around the world, as such we have used our knowledge of some of the animals in the South American Rainforests to create some art work.
Here we have tree frogs, anacondas and parrots, all made using different materials and techniques. Our children are learning about how to combine materials in different ways to create different effects and how using some joining techniques work better than others. We are also practicing our scissor control and developing a good control of the tools we use.
Forest School visits
Reception class love to visit Forest School for games of hide and seek as well as looking for treasure. They also love to spend time digging and playing in the mud kitchen in the woods.
Maths - composition of 5
In our maths sessions we dive deep into how numbers are composed of smaller units as well as looking at manipulating the numbers in different ways. Here we are looking at the composition of 5. We looked at how 5 cubes can be split into 2 different piles and how many combinations they could make. Next we looked at how we could make 5 using our 2 hands, playing "bunny ears". We then explored how 5 looks on a number frame, either a 5 frame or a 10 frame. We used our frames in a game with our friend, where one of us hid part of the 5 cubes and the other had to work out how many were hiding using the frame.
Next we moved on to look at number bonds up to 5, using our fingers, the number frame and the Numicon pieces. This helps us to recall number facts which gives us a strong foundation for maths moving forwards.
The Koala Who Could
By Rachel Bright and Jim Field
This book introduces the children to the animals from Australia as well as reinforcing the children's recognition of rhyming words and alliteration. The book also has a message about trying hard to be brave and try new things. This book supports our theme of learning about the wider world.
Independent writing
As part of our around the world journey, we have been receiving postcards from Flynn the Great Explorer. He has been sending us lots of pictures of all the places he is visiting and the children have been writing back to him to ask him questions, in return Flynn has written back to individual children as well as the whole class. This has really helped enthuse some of our more reluctant writers to access our writing areas.
Playing outside in the garden
In our garden we like to take calculated risks by climbing trees, but only as high as we feel comfortable to. We like to practice our balancing skills on the Trim Trail and we also love to get mud between our fingers in the Mud Kitchen.
PE lessons
In our PE lessons we are learning and practicing different ways of moving, whilst also moderating our speed and developing our skills in changing direction.
Children's Council
In Reception we hold a weekly Children's Council meeting. Every child has a chance to be on the Council as it changes weekly. At the meetings we discuss what we have enjoyed this week and what we would like to play with and learn about next week. We always have 5 children on the council so we can use democracy to make a decision if we cannot agree on one item.
The children have chosen our learning themes across the year as well as deciding what they would like as their class treat when they fill our "Gem Jar". Gems are given out for a variety of positive behaviours and the children work as a team to fill the jar. Treats have included, trips to the Forest School area, hot chocolate and a story, a party and popcorn and a film.
We aim to give our children as much ownership in their environment and learning as we can.