During our RE lesson, children heard the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. They then spoke about things they could share at home and at school. To end the lesson, penguin class made their very own bread and enjoyed sharing it with their classmates!
Reception have been doing lots of work on doubling and halving and have been very keen to find different ways to find the answers! Below, are just some of the examples!
This half term reception have been looking at transport. We used tally charts to find out and record how children in penguin class get to school. We then transferred our data into pictograms!
During our ‘transport’ topic, we looked at different types of old and new transport and discussed how transport has changed over the years. We also pretended to go on our own journey and wrote postcards home to our loved ones!
People who help us
As part of their ‘people who help us’ topic, the two reception classes visited the local fire station to meet the fire fighters and find out more about their job and how they help us. The children thoroughly enjoyed the trip and were very excited to see the fire engine elevated from the ground! Some of the children got to try on the fire fighters clothes and one of the firefighters stood on a pupil’s foot just to prove how strong their boots are!
In keeping with our ‘people who help us’ topic and following a wonderful visit from Nurse Karen, reception decided to write get well soon cards for Mrs Kelly’s mummy who is poorly. They also enjoyed role playing doctors and nurses and taking care of the sick.
Penguin class loved the pancakes we made for Shrove Tuesday and were very impressed with Mrs Kelly’s skills in the kitchen!
Traditional Tales- Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
This half term’s topic was ‘Traditional Tales’ and the first tale we looked at was ‘Goldilocks and the 3 Bears’. We role played the story using small world figures and got to make our own porridge. We extended the idea of measuring ingredients to measuring objects. We used scales to weigh and compare different items around the classroom!
Traditional Tales Role Play
As part of our ‘Traditional Tales’ topic, we converted our home corner into a castle fit for a Giant. We had various LARGE props to support us with our role play, including; a large door and a huge bunch of keys, an extra large pencil and rubber and giant gold bars! We also had a giant remote control for the giant’s TV! As part of our story week on ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, we made a huge beanstalk and cut out our own leaves to attach to the castle!
New Year – New Promises
To kick off the new year and the beginning of the spring term, reception decided to write new year promises on new year learning leaves. We spoke about the things that we are good at and then decided which thing we wanted to get better at and work harder at, this school year. We then attached all of the leaves to our giant learning tree display! Children said they wanted to get better at a range of different things, including; listening, drawing, writing, adding numbers, recognising shapes and tidying up!
This year, the reception and nursery classes rehearsed and performed a Christmas Nativity called ‘A Big Star’. The play was about a big star who could not shine. However, as soon as the baby Jesus was born, the big star began to shine and was able to show the Kings the way to Bethlehem.
The children worked very hard to learn their lines, the songs and the actions and thoroughly enjoyed dressing up and presenting their performance to their families.
Last week, the children in Penguin class had the opportunity to learn about ‘Diwali’; the Hindu festival of light. They enjoyed watching a video about a young boy and his family and how they celebrate this special event. They also listened to the story of Rama and Sita and were able to recall this story when making their very own Diva lamps! Many of the children remembered that, in the story, people lit small lamps and placed them outside their homes to show Rama and Sita the way back home.
Penguin class had a fantastic week celebrating book week! Our author of the week was ‘Nick Butterworth’ and our focus story was ‘One Snowy Night’. The children absolutely loved this story and enjoyed re telling it whilst sitting inside Percy’s house (we converted our role play area into two sections to represent different parts of the story; the snowy scene in the park and the warm cosy cabin where Percy lives). The children were so excited to be inside Percy’s house and kept to their promise to keep it nice and tidy, just how Percy likes it!
During book week we were also extremely lucky to have Ellis’ mum come in to school to read a story to us about dinosaurs! A topic that we love! Thank you!
As part of the weeks activities, we also took part in a teacher /story swap! Penguin class thoroughly enjoyed hearing the story of Hansel and Gretel, told by the very lovely Mrs Hiller.
As part of our work for Black History Month, and in keeping with our current RE topic ‘we are all different and special’, we decided to make paper plate faces to reflect our differing but special features.
To further reflect the idea that we are all different and special, we decided to draw around and cut out our hands and colour them in using appropriate skin-toned colouring pencils. We then each attached our hand to the tree to demonstrate that we all grow together.
During Black History Month, Penguin Class had the opportunity to hear about Martin Luther King and his belief that no matter how different we might look, we are all special. They understood that Martin Luther King wanted to make the world a happier place and so taking inspiration from this, the reception children decided to come up with their own ideas about how they could each make the school and the world a happier place.
‘I can share my toys with my friends’
‘I can give my friend a smile when we are playing’
‘I can help my mummy do the cleaning up and the baking’
‘I can give my mum a hug to make her happy’
‘I will listen to my teacher’
As we come to the end of our first half term in reception, it is so lovely to see the fantastic friendships that are blossoming! Children are taking turns, sharing resources, playing cooperatively and showing genuine happiness for their peers successes! Children use physical activities and games to develop their independent maths skills, just like the game below where children are identifying numerals and writing down their score using playground chalk! Well done penguin class 🙂
Phonics & Ourselves
In keeping with our ‘ourselves’ topic, we decided to draw around a class mates body! We then used our phonic knowledge to help us identify word cards (‘t’ for ‘toes’ and ‘n’ for ‘nose’) and place them on the correct body parts! All children were eager to show off their fantastic phonic skills!
In our RE lessons we have been learning about God’s World and all the things God made. Children were extremely proud to share their drawings of all the things God made!
Here’s what the children remembered…
J – ‘sea, flowers, sky, grass and the sun’
E – ‘God made the rain, the snow, elephants, trees, sun, penguin and the people’
R – ‘flowers, sun, grass, sky’
A-R – ‘ sun, flower, beach, grass, moon’
As part of our topic all about ‘ourselves’, we have been talking about all of our favourite things. Children had the opportunity to bring in their favourite toy from home and share it with the class during ‘show and tell’ time. We then decided to talk about our favourite story books and the children showed very good recall of many traditional tales!
‘I like the Gingerbread man because he runs away and the animals try to catch him and he’s too fast. The fox tricked him and then he eated him’ – E
‘I like it when she (Cinderella) dances with the Prince’ – L
‘I like Tip Top books because all the things fall down’ – M
‘Jack climbed up the beanstalk and saw big and he hide. Then he went down the beanstalk before the giant big catched him. Then he chopped the beanstalk down’ – E
This half term our topic is all about ‘ourselves’, so we decided to draw self portraits! We had lots of fun using the mirrors to help us get our self portraits just right!
Here’s what the children had to say about themselves..
‘Ive got a really nice smile’ – R-J
‘I like my brain because it helps me listen’ – E
‘Ive got brown cheeks’ – M
‘I like my eyelashes’ – S
‘Ive got a lovely pink tongue’ – L