PRE-RECEPTION
Another busy week in Pre-Reception! It was great fun seeing all the children dressed as their favourite characters today. This week we have taken inspiration from a workshop about creative writing and written a story together in Pre-Reception. I am not sure ‘Henry the Worm’ is going to be a best seller, but the children enjoyed coming up with the ideas.
The children have continued to love learning about planting and growing. We are beginning to see some bean shoots peeking through! We have continued looking at the traditional tale Jack and the Beanstalk through our Literacy lessons. The children are enjoying singing the accompanying songs and pretending to be giants.
PHONICS
In Phonics, we have taught the children to pronounce the sound ‘h’ phoneme (sound) using the rhyme ‘open your mouth and breathe out sharply h’. Please feel free to watch the Little Wandle video (at 46 seconds) to listen to the pure sound being demonstrated.
MATHS
In Maths, we have been looking at height. We have used the vocabulary short, shorter, shortest and tall, taller, tallest to compare both ourselves and different objects. The children have been practising using sentences such as, “The giraffe is taller than the elephant and shorter than the tree.” Please encourage your children to use this vocabulary at home to compare family members or objects around the house.
PSHE
In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson, we danced to one of our favourite songs and then thought about how it made us feel. The children enjoyed taking part in an obstacle course; they planned each stage and cheered one another on. We also thought about how our bodies feel when we exercise.
Next week
We will continue to look at our topic, growing and planting. We will introduce a lovely book called Errol’s Garden by Gillian Hibbs and our Literacy planning will be based around that.
In Phonics we will introduce the ‘b’ sound in Phonics.
Maths will have a focus on length and height.
RECEPTION
What a blooming busy and exciting week it has been in Reception! The children have really thrown themselves into our new topic, growth and growing.
Understanding the World
Continuing our focus on plant growth, the children explored what plants need to grow successfully. They learnt to identify and name the different parts of a plant’s leaves, stem, roots, flowers and petals and discussed the function of each.
Literacy
In Literacy, the children drew detailed pictures of plants and practised labelling the different parts. They then used their knowledge of what plants need to grow to write full sentences, drawing on the vocabulary they have gained this week. We encouraged them to challenge themselves by using a wide range of descriptive words.
Phonics
This week, we revisited Phase 3 phonemes including ‘er’ and ‘air’, as well as words with double letters and longer words. We also reviewed tricky words from phases 2 and 3. The children practised reading and writing dictated sentences using these sounds, such as “He has muffins for dinner.”
Maths
This week, in Maths we continued learning within the unit building 9 and 10. The children explored number composition, one more and one less, and doubling within 10. Using the part–part–whole model, they selected a number for the ‘whole,’ counted out the corresponding number of blocks, and explored different ways to partition the total between the two ‘parts.’ They then recorded their findings as number sentences.
PSED
We began our new Jigsaw topic, healthy me, which focuses on staying safe and healthy. During our session, we played the bean game and afterwards discussed how our bodies felt. Children observed their heartbeats, breathing, and skin temperature before thinking about why exercise is important.
World Book Day
We had a wonderful time celebrating World Book Day on Friday! Across the school, each year group created Story Jars based on a chosen book. In Reception, we selected Jack and the Beanstalk, linking perfectly with our topic.
The children planted beans in their jars, created beanstalks using a stick and pipe cleaners, added their own imaginative castles, and carefully cut out characters. The finished jars looked fantastic, and we hope you enjoyed seeing them on display!
Next Week
Next week, we will begin exploring growth in humans.
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