What Early Years got up to in the Prep School this week

Pre-Reception

The children have worked incredibly hard this week in Pre-Reception. They have fully immersed themselves back into their learning.

We have enjoyed exploring various aspects of Africa. The children have learnt that Africa is a continent made up of over 50 countries and that it has a mixed climate. We have thought about appropriate clothes to wear when visiting both hot and cold countries. They have investigated yams and used their senses to describe them and make predictions as to what they were. We had a go at ‘pounding yams’ and tasting them! It was not a resounding yes from the taste test, but a few did like them!

In Maths, we have been subitising the number 1, 2 and 3 using various formats. The children are becoming much more confident in being able to visualise an amount up to 3.

Next week we will be looking at the number 3, this will include counting 3 and recognition of the numeral 3.

In Phonics we will learn how to pronounce the sound ‘g’. We will also start to encourage the children to listen carefully to the start of words and see if they can identify the initial sound – even if it is not the focus sound of the week.

Reception

What a fantastic first full week back!  

Understanding the World  

This week we introduced our new topic ‘Ticket around the World’. We launched the topic by sharing the children’s homework. The children took it in turns to proudly share their posters and knowledge of the countries they had researched. It was lovely to see the children take such pride and excitement in sharing their work. We then moved onto exploring maps. We learnt that maps can be used for varied reasons. We used maps of the school to navigate our way around and looked at the key to identify the buildings.   

Later in the week we explored the world map. We focused on learning about the United Kingdom. We learnt about the countries that make up the United Kingdom. We also explored the weather and the wildlife. 

Phonics  

This week we started Phase 3 in Little Wandle. We introduced the phonemes ‘ai’, ‘ee,’ ‘igh.’ and ‘oa.’ In class we practised saying the sounds, blending the sounds together to read words, for example ‘l-igh-t.’ We then practised letter formation by writing out the letters cursively. We continued to read and write short captions, for example ‘I can see a web up high.’  

Maths  

We started our new topic ‘Alive in 5’. We explored matching, subitising and representing numbers within 0-5. We used 10 frames to find out how many altogether when adding 2 numbers together.   

Expressive arts and design  

Linked to our learning in Understanding the World, the children have been busy making and designing maps. Using a variety of resources, the children made Union Jack flags.