PRE-RECEPTION
Another busy week has flown by in Pre-Reception!
We have continued our learning about seasonal change and autumn. Additionally, the children enjoyed an autumn hunt in pairs around our grounds, spotting signs of autumn. During their search, they found lots of seasonal treasures, including bare trees, berries and sycamore seeds.
The children have also created some fantastic autumn-themed artwork. They used forks in creative ways to print prickles on hedgehogs, leaves on trees and feathers on owls, producing some wonderful results.
This week, we have focused on helping the children understand that marks have meaning. As a result, everyone had a go at copying the letters in their name and the children have loved using our Message Centre to make marks and leave “secret messages” for their friends.
LITERACY
In Literacy, our Helicopter Story was The Princess and the Frog. The children thoroughly enjoyed acting out the story, in which the princess accidentally threw her golden ball into a pond and the frog came to the rescue. Following on from this, we held a science investigation where we explored which objects sink and float, with the children making predictions and testing their ideas.
MATHS
Meanwhile in Maths, we have continued sorting and grouping objects. The children were encouraged to think of their own sorting rules, such as “pine cones” and “not pine cones” when sorting natural loose parts. In addition, they have also enjoyed spotting our deliberate mistakes and explaining how to correct them!
It is hard to believe that we have now completed our first half term back at school. We are delighted with how well the children have settled into school-life and the progress they have made already.
Looking ahead, after the half-term break, we will be learning about the Hindu festival of Diwali, the Festival of Lights. We look forward to exploring the celebrations, traditions and stories associated with this special festival.
reception
We cannot believe that the children have already completed their first half term in Hedgehog Class! It has been a wonderful start to the year, and the children have been incredibly engaged and enthusiastic in their learning. Throughout this week, we have been busy exploring the theme of Autumn.
A huge thank you to everyone who brought in an Autumn Walk Bag. The children thoroughly enjoyed investigating the different items, sharing their observations, and discussing what they could see. Consequently, this provided a fantastic opportunity to introduce new vocabulary and encourage the children to speak in full sentences as they described their discoveries and shared what they had learnt.
Literacy and Understanding the World
As part of our autumn topic, we explored the different signs of the season, including how animals prepare for winter through migration and hibernation, seasonal celebrations that take place during autumn and the changes we notice in the weather.
Expressive Arts and Design
Equally, our creative area has been particularly busy this week! The children used their developing fine motor skills to create their own hedgehogs and experimented with making leaf silhouettes using paint and leaves. Together as a class, we also worked together as a class to practise careful listening and following step-by-step instructions to draw hedgehogs.
Baking
At the end of the week, we revisited the importance of following instructions while baking our own hedgehog bread rolls. The children demonstrated excellent listening, turn-taking, and teamwork skills throughout the activity. Their kneading techniques are developing wonderfully too!
Maths
In Maths, we continued to build our understanding of comparative language by exploring the concepts of “more,” “fewer,” “heavier,” and “lighter.” The children enjoyed using weighing scales to compare different objects and discuss their findings using the correct mathematical vocabulary.
Phonics
Finally, in Phonics this week we learned the phonemes: ck, e, u and r
Together, we practised:
- Saying the sounds aloud
- Blending sounds to read words (for example: d-u-ck)
- Forming the letters correctly using cursive script
In addition, we also introduced the tricky word: I. Tricky words are words that cannot always be sounded out and need to be recognised by sight.
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