Happy Easter!
We have had a fantastic couple of weeks learning about Easter through our RE Salvation unit, focusing on answering the Enquiry Question: Why do Christians put a cross in an Easter Garden? Highlights have been; Miss Wilson acting as Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and the children waving palm leaves and shouting Hosanna!; working out what all the Easter symbols and artefacts represent or why they are special; doing some amazing writing in order to retell the story; and creating our own class Easter Gardens. We have been so impressed with the children’s compassion and courage throughout all this learning.
Another highlight was our Easter-themed Parent Event involving, not one, but two, hunts! My favourite! These helped to consolidate their learning about symbols and the story, using maps and Spring. Plus we hope it was fun for everyone as well!
It has seemed like a very long and busy term but we’ve made it through, managing to stay enthusiastic to the end! Well done Reception Class!
Have a very Happy Easter everyone!
The Reception Team 😊
Spring is here!
It’s Spring at last! The children have loved playing outside lots in the lovely weather and we’re all very excited for our new play area to be installed next week!
Last week, the children were Super Scientists! We’ve nearly finished our Frozen topic now, so had lots of fun doing an ice investigation where the children had to work out how to make their ice cube melt faster. They had so many ideas – warming it with their hands, blowing on it, putting it in the sun or under the hand drier, or even putting it under the tap! They even wrote up their investigation with drawings, labels and a sentence - like proper scientists!
This week, the children have absolutely loved ordering their photos from past to present and talking about how they have changed over time. Understanding and talking about their own lives so far is a really important part of their History learning, as well as thinking about how we actually find out about the past (sources), in this case, recent memory and photographs. Thank you for all the photos – they’re gorgeous!
In Phonics, we have now finished the tricky Set 2 sounds and will be recapping these continuously over the next few weeks, as well as learning about capital letters. Knowing these sounds, along with learning the tricky/ red words, allows the children to become more independent and ambitious writers. We can already see an improvement in lots of their writing which is amazing! Any practise you can do at home will be greatly beneficial.
For the final couple of weeks of term, our focus will be Spring and The Easter Story. Lots to follow on Tapestry!
We’re really looking forward to seeing you at our Parent Meetings next Tuesday and Wednesday, and at our Parent Open Afternoon on Wednesday 2nd April.
Have a lovely weekend!
The Reception Team 😊
Explorers, Historians and Bookworms! J
Yet again, the weeks are jam-packed simply whizzing by!
Reception Class had a fantastic trip to The Deep last week. The children demonstrated amazing behaviour throughout the day and were very sensible on the long coach journey. We loved exploring The Deep, recapping our learning about The Poles as we walked through The Kingdom of Ice. It was very exciting as we got to go behind the scenes into a sea lab, where we had a brilliant workshop. We met Percy the Penguin and followed him on his journey around the world, then had a go at lots of different activities, even learning about penguin’s eggs and feathers. Well done Reception, we all had a wonderful day!
On Monday, our focus was Diversity and we read a fantastic book called Mixed. We talked about how everyone is special and unique in their own way and it’s good when everyone mixes together! We then used the story Mixed to inspire some art work and we created our own unique cities by mixing colours and created worlds for these people. The end products are amazing! :)
We have had a super week in Reception, reading and learning from our focus book – Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. The children absolutely loved designing, making and tasting their very own pancakes – thank you Mrs Wilson for being THE best cook EVER! J They listened to the story several times, answered questions about it and retold it together. After a demonstration by Miss DL on how to create a story map using drawings and labels, they children made their own – the results are fantastic! We used this as another opportunity to recap our learning about places (the UK, villages, towns, cities) and human and physical features. Lots of children have already started making their own maps in our Writing Area and we are loving this independent writing – keep going children!
On Wednesday, we went on our fourth school trip – an expedition around Collingham! Some children demonstrated some good map skills, following the route and finding specific features we passed such as the church and the bridge. Most children could explain whether these features were human or physical, really consolidating their Geography learning of the past couple of weeks. They also became historians, hunting for clues about the past by looking for blue plaques on buildings and noticing things such as large and uneven shaped bricks. The children all followed our safety rules and we were very proud of them. They were so intrigued and enthusiastic when looking at photographs of Collingham in the past – especially the railway line and station! Try asking them about how Collingham was different in the past and which features have changed.
World Book Day on Thursday was another exciting and fun day! The children all looked comfy and cosy, enjoyed sharing stories with friends and took part in a character hunt around school.
We hope you all have a restful weekend.
The Reception Team J