PRE-RECEPTION
We have had yet another busy week in Pre-Reception!
The children had great fun acting out the traditional tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff. They were very convincing as trolls. The children worked well together to build bridges and then took turns trip-trapping over them.
Maths
In Maths, the children enjoyed exploring the primary colours and made some fantastic red, blue and yellow object collections. They are beginning to solve “odd one out” colour problems, which involve deeper thinking and can be quite challenging.
Literacy
We have also read Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? One of our ‘top ten’ books. The children have made bear shaped biscuits.
Phonics
In Phonics, we have continued to develop the children’s ability to “tune into sound” by using body percussion and instruments to mimic sounds they may hear around their homes. This also supports their personal, social, and emotional development as we encourage the children to stand up and talk about their families.
PSHE
In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson, which also supports personal, social, and emotional development, we focused on taking turns, sharing, and considering each other’s feelings. The children helped resolve an “argument” between Mrs Webster and Mrs Watts, by encouraging them to apologise and reminded them to take turns with the toys. We have also taught the children the phrase: “Can I play with that when you have finished with it?”
The children have also been working hard to learn the lyrics and tune to their Harvest Festival song.
Next Week
Maths
We will continue to explore colours, with particular attention to secondary colours. We will also begin matching buttons by their colours and shapes.
Phonics
We will continue to “tune into sound” and think about the different sounds children may hear in their local environment.
PSHE
We will focus on using gentle hands with our friends and being kind to one another.
RECEPTION
Literacy
Continuing with our topic ‘ourselves,’ the children talked about their families. They clearly enjoyed sharing about their loved ones, including several pets! We further developed our listening and speaking skills by asking questions to find out more information. We also explored several books that celebrate the differences between families.
Maths
In Maths, we continued with the module on ‘match, sort and compare.’ This week, our focus was on comparing. We compared objects by size, length, height, and which group had more or fewer items. We modelled and encouraged the children to use mathematical language such as bigger/smaller, tallest/shortest, long/short, fewer, and more. The children really enjoyed applying their new learning to practical problem-solving activities, for example, organising themselves into a line from shortest to tallest.
Phonics
This week, we learnt the phonemes ‘i, n, m, and d.’ In class, we practised saying the sounds, blending them together to read words (e.g., ‘t-a-p’), and letter formation by writing the letters.
Expressive Arts and Design
As part of our ‘ourselves’ topic, we have encouraged the children to create representations of their families using loose parts. ‘Loose parts’ play allows children to be creative, curious, and imaginative, using a range of materials with no set outcome. The results were fantastic.
This week, we created self-portraits. We explored what makes each of us unique by looking closely at our features using mirrors. We discussed our differences and celebrated how special we all are. As artists, we thought carefully about the colours we chose, experimenting with different materials and brush sizes to bring our portraits to life.
Find out more about Early Years here.
