Ready for a rest…!
We can’t believe the half term is over already – where did that go?! Despite the cold, wind, rain, snow and general tiredness that comes with this time of year, the children have tried hard to remain focused on their learning and make some really good progress.
Many children are now confident with all the ‘special friends’ (digraphs) that we have been learning in phonics and we are delighted that some children are now choosing to write independently during their play, such as labels on their drawings and cards or notes for family. Please continue to encourage any independent writing at home, whether it’s labels on drawings or objects, shopping lists, writing words or a diary in their own notebook (for example, I went to the shop). Anything like this will really help to improve their confidence when writing independently during our Big Writing sessions as well as during their play.
The children have continued to show great enthusiasm for maths this half term, focusing on numbers 5 and 6, shapes and measures. Again, any practise at home would add to their confidence in these areas.
During our topic learning, we have started to answer the question Where is our school? by using maps and atlases to learn about the countries of the UK, where Collingham is located and the differences between villages, towns and cities. The children loved this geography-based learning!
We have ended the half term, learning about the Lunar New Year celebrations and how it is celebrated around the world, including China. They have found out facts about why and how Lunar New Year is celebrated and enjoyed listening to The Great Race, the story about how the years were named after 12 animals. Highlights of the week have been the stir fry tasting and dragon dancing in PE!
It has also been Children’s Mental Health Week and the children have thought really carefully, offering compassionate opinions after we have read stories about feelings, such as Ravi’s Roar and Milo’s Monster. We have been encouraging them to Speak Up when they need help, are worried or something has gone wrong.
After all this learning, and a lot of play, the children seem pretty tired and we hope that you can have a fun-filled but also restful holiday.
The reception Team 😊
Winter is whizzing by!
How can we have been back for 3 weeks already! The time is absolutely whizzing by in school, perhaps because we’ve been so busy!
Last week, our focus story was Noah’s Ark from the Bible. The children have listened to and discussed the version in our children’s Bible, focusing on important and perhaps new language such as Ark, dove and promise. We have also read lots of other versions of the story and the children have enjoyed playing with Noah’s Ark small world toys and counting animals in twos. The children have also been thinking about a new year promise that they could make such as tidying their playroom or going to sleep on their own.
This week, we have begun our main topic for this term – Frozen! The children started by exploring what winter is like in our school grounds here in Collingham, then used visual prompts to begin to think of questions about winter and the polar regions that they might like to find answers to during this topic. Yesterday we discussed hibernation and migration and will continue to recap these concepts next week. We had great fun making bird feeders which we hope will attract lots of birds to your garden this weekend. Don’t forget to do some bird spotting or counting and tell us about what you’ve done for homework!
In Maths, the children have continued to consolidate their learning about number 5, working out all the ways that 5 is composed (2 + 3, 4 + 1 etc) and even recording their findings on part-part-whole models. We have also continued learning about 3D (solid/ chunky) shapes and the children particularly enjoyed using feely bags and hunting for these shapes in real life. Perhaps ask them to find these shapes at home too! They have tried heard to learn the following shapes: cone, cube, cuboid, pyramid, cylinder, sphere and even triangular prism!
In Phonics, the children have loved learning about our new ‘special friends’: ee, ay and igh! They couldn’t believe that 3 letters make just 1 sound!
Have a lovely weekend and happy bird spotting!
The Reception Team 😊
Fantastic First Week Back!
We are so pleased with how all the children have come back to school – enthusiastic and ready to learn – despite the excitement and busyness of the Christmas holidays!
We have been recapping our tricky sounds – the digraphs ch, sh, th, qu, nk and ng – and using these to write words. All children have been reading and writing other 3 or 4 letter words during our group sessions and have quickly got back into the swing of things!
In Maths, our number of the week has been fabulous 5! The children have also been busy recalling 2D shapes and solving shape puzzles. We have been impressed with their logical thinking and good explanations.
It has been our whole school Vison Week and we hope you have been finding out what we have been doing via our posts on Tapestry. The children have demonstrated excellent understanding of the 3 parts of the school Christian vision and the 3 bible stories that we have linked to them. We have been so impressed with their knowledge, understanding, compassion and empathy throughout the week.
Have a lovely weekend.
The Reception Team 😊