Autumn

Term 1b Week 7

Reception finished off the year in style with our lovely Christmas outfits for our Christmas Party.  This week we also watched the rock band perform and had a trip over to the church to hear the year 5s and 6s retell the Nativity and we joined in with a few of the Christmas songs. 

Term 1b Week 6

This week we had our Nativity performances and the children worked so hard to remember lines and sing songs with a few brave children taking on new parts on the day to fill in for others who were off school.  

Our Senses topic finished this week with us making and eating melting snowmen biscuits lots of the Reception children enjoyed the sweetness of the icing!

Term 1b Week 5

In our Maths sessions this week we have been thinking about parts and wholes.  We used the sentence

'-- is a part and -- is a part and the whole is --' e.g.

'2 is a part and 3 is a part and the whole is 5'  or

'1 is a part and 1 is a part and 3 is a part and the whole is 5'

Term 1b Week 4

Nativity rehearsals have begun in earnest and we are learning lots of new songs and actions.  We have thought about the Christmas story, talked about how Christians celebrate because they believe that Jesus was God's son and they are really happy that he was born.  

In our senses topic we thought about touch, we touch with our hands and skin.  The children worked in groups to explore feely bags with items in.  They were encouraged to talk about what the objects felt like - soft, hard, smooth, hot, cold, rough.  We tried to use explanation sentences - e.g. 'I think it is a cup because it is hard and I can feel the handle'.  'I think it is a ball because it is soft and smooth'.

Term 1b Week 3

We have begun rehearsing our Nativity, we are joining with Year 1 to perform the Nativity Play 'Away In A Manger'. 

The sense we are thinking about this week is our sense of smell - we shared bottles and boxes and thought about what they might have had in them before and if we liked the smell or not. 

Many of the children are learning digraphs in Phonics - 2 letters that make one sound - 2 graphemes that make one phoneme, such as 'ch' and 'qu'. 

In our Maths this week we have been thinking about double - when we double we add the same again so that we have 2 equal groups, Reception talked about doubling by using the phrase 'double --- is ---'.  We used our fingers to double numbers up to 5. 

Term 1b Week 2

Reception have been busy investigating our next sense, hearing.  We have talked about volume and pitch and made noises from the environment like ringing bells, phones, or animals.  The children joined in with a listening game in small groups where they had to listen really carefully to fill in their bingo board.  We made shakers and practised using them to make loud and quiet noises.  

In our Maths work we have been continuing to think about comparison and worked hard to order objects and pictures in their size order. 

We have also been thinking about parts and wholes using the phrase 'My ..... is a part of me and the whole of me is .....'.  'My arm is a part of me and the whole of me is Josh'.  Moving on to thinking about the parts in different quantities 'one is a part and one is a part and the whole is two'.  

Term 1b Week 1

Reception have begun their new topic for this half term which is 'How do I find out about the world?'  We are thinking about our 5 senses and this week have thought about what we can see.  We learned about Diwali (which happened before our half term holiday) a festival of light and Bonfire night.  Reception created lovely fire works pictures with chalks on black paper and we had a dark tent up in our classroom which we used to enjoy all of our light toys.  

Term 1a Week 8

It has been a long half term but Recetpion have worked really hard to get used to our setting and follow our routines and expectations.  This week we have been having a go at an art job, drawing what we can see.  The chidlren took selfies with an ipad and then worked hard to copy only what they could see on the screen on to their ipad outline.   

Term 1 Week 7

In our Maths sessions this week we have been thinking about shapes, we have named circle, square, triangle and rectangle and thought about sides, corners, straight and curved.  Reception have enjoyed the shape song  - link below - as well as going on a shape hunt around our school and making pictures using shapes.  We also took part in our whole school Harvest Festival singing 'Big Red Combine Harvester' and working hard to do all of the actions too. 

Term 1a Week 6

We have finished our first half terms worth of phonics lessons!  The children have been taught the first 20 sounds in the 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised' curriculum, in the coming week we will be checking what they can remember and working hard to fill in the gaps.  

Reception have been working on being authors and illustrators making up our own Dear.... Stories, we wrote to a shoe shop, a pet shop, a toy shop, chocolate shops and sweet shops, and decided what we needed to send back and why, and what we needed to keep. 

Subitising has been our subject in maths and the children are getting really good at recognising patterns of 1,2 and 3 without counting. 

Reception have really enjoyed dancing along to the Koo Koo Kangaroo Guys - here are 3 of our favourites.

Term 1a Week 5

We have been making up our own Dear...Stories using bags of animals and choosing 3 to send back with various reasons (too noisy, too spiky, too flappy) and one to keep.  Reception went on a walk to collect natural resources for our temporary art, we looked at Andy Goldsworthy's art to inspire us and tried to use colour, size and arrangement to display the things we had found. 

Term 1a Week 4

This week we have completed reading groups in the class and each child has taken home a talk about book to share with their grownups.  Reception went on an autumn walk and looked all around our school grounds for signs of autumn in nature, we went up on the field and into the school garden.  In Maths we practised our counting using pictures of sandwiches and a plate we had a session altogether using the smart board and then had a go individually.  In our English sessions we retold the Dear Zoo story using our wooden zoo animals and in PHSCE we drew about our families.     

Term 1a Week 3

It has been really exciting to have all of the children in together this week, we have worked hard to learn to tell the story of Dear Zoo.  Below is the story map Miss Morgan drew on the white board, a link to the story on YouTube and a video of Reception re-telling the story. 

Term 1a Week 2

We have continued to settle into the routines and expectations of Newburn Manor Reception Class and this week we have made and eaten jam or honey (or just marg) sandwiches.  The children used gel to clean their hands, spread marg on the bread, spread their next topping, folded the bread in half and then ate their sandwich.  In the coming days we will use photos of this experience to think about sequencing events, talking about processes and ordering activities.  

Term 1a Week 1

We have had a lovely start to our Reception year with the children coming into class and exploring the new environment and resources carefully, whilst getting to know the adults and other children in our class.  It has even been warm and dry enough some days that we could spend some time in our outdoor area.