Reception Blog - Spring 2 Week 5

It’s Spring at last! This week, the children have been playing with spring-inspired activities in our provision and beginning to discuss new life, linked with The Easter Story from The Bible – lots more on this next week!

Last week, the children were Super Scientists! They loved testing the speed of their reflexes during our ruler catching experiment, and working out who was the fastest in each group. They certainly were impressive! We enjoyed sharing their findings from the biscuit dunking investigation they did at home. Thank you for your support with this, it sounded like you all had lots of fun! We also found out about a scientist called Pearl Ayjakwa who works in a lab and uses an x-ray microscope to look inside different objects and materials. Some children even decided that they’d like to be scientist when they’re older! We finished our Frozen topic with 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 by the radiator, or even wrapping it in a towel! The children definitely agree with what Pearl said on her video – learning is fun!

This week, the children 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. 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.

In Maths, the children wowed us with their enthusiasm and recall in beginning to learn number bonds to 10. Keep practising! They also loved using the balance scales to investigate weight/ mass and find out which object was heavier/ lighter. Even better, many were able to balance Numicon 10 with two other pieces that total 10, for example, 8 + 2. Your children really do love learning!

We’re really looking forward to seeing you at our Parent Open Afternoon next Wednesday and the children are excited about the Easter Service at church on Thursday.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Reception Team 😊

Expeditions & Exploration!

Wow! What a fantastic couple of weeks we’ve had in Reception. Both our trips were absolutely brilliant and the children were just AMAZING! We don’t think any class has ever received certificates for everyone two weeks in a row, but they were so well deserved – we are so proud of your behaviour and learning on our trips Reception!

Our learning has been really focused on aspects of Geography (the Polar Regions, maps, physical and human features) and History (changes in Collingham and daily life). The children have been so enthusiastic about all this learning, and we can’t wait for them to blow us away with their skills during Science Week (next week).

It was lovely to speak to you all this week at Parents Evening and we thank you for your continued support, especially with the super tricky sentence writing!

The children had all loved playing in the snow this morning and told us all about the fun they’d had. Then, amazingly, we managed to do a full day of learning – Phonics, Maths and PE – well done Reception!

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

The Reception Team

Reception Blog – Spring 2 Week 1 2023

We have had a really fun and busy first week back in Reception. Our focus story has been Mr Wolf’s Pancakes – perfect for Pancake Day! The children learnt about why we celebrate Shrove Tuesday, even impressing Reverend Carolyn in Collective worship with their knowledge! Then they helped to make, and of course, eat some pancakes – yummy! We are continuing this theme in our enhanced provision and on World Book Day next Thursday.

We have also started learning more about the Arctic and Antarctic through stories and information books about the famous explorers Ernest Shackleton, Captain Scott and Matthew Henson. The children talked about how much courage and perseverance they must have needed to complete their expeditions. Thinking about our own expedition around Collingham in a couple of weeks, the children became the real planners by drawing a map, writing a letter, compiling a Kit List and competing a Risk Assessment. Your children really are amazing!

As well as all this, we seem to have just about cracked both capital letters and letters names, but please continue to practise at home if you have chance. The catchy/ slightly annoying song on Tapestry might help!

In Maths, our main focus has been measuring length – again, something which can be easily practised at home. Try asking your child to order several objects by length or height and ask them to describe their size to you using the correct vocabulary. We also started measuring length using non-standard units which they loved. They could try measuring how many footsteps long the garden is, how many hands long their bed is or how many blocks long a pencil is. Just make sure whatever unit they use, it’s exactly the same size and there are no gaps between each unit.

The children are hugely excited about our two trips that are coming up. They really are growing up so much and progressing so well, we just know both trips will be fantastic!

Happy Friday!

The Reception Team