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

Reception

What a busy, fun filled week we have had in Reception! 

Understanding the world
This week we visited our last destination for our topic ‘Ticket around the World.’ We have enjoyed learning about China. As well as learning about China as a country we learnt all about their Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated. We were lucky to have Lex share his knowledge about the Chinese New Year with us this week. He brought lots of items and treats to share with us. He showed us a red top that he will be wearing when he celebrates, some children’s chop sticks and a puppet dragon. He also brought in treats to share including tangerines and prawn crackers. We all got to take home some treats and a red envelope with chocolate coins in it. Thank you very much Lex! 

Literacy 
In Literacy we learnt about the Chinese zodiac. We read a story and then acted out the ‘Great Race’. We ordered the animals into the correct order. On Thursday we continued to look at sequencing when we looked at how to make pancakes. We ordered the pictures and took it in turns to think of sentences to describe each stage of the process. We used the words ‘first,’ ‘then,’ ‘after that,’ and ‘finally’ to use at the start of the sentences. 

Phonics    
We have now learnt all the phonemes for Reception. This week we practised reading longer words. We used the chunking method when you sound words with more than one syllable. For example, ‘sunset’ and ‘laptop’. We continued to use our phonic knowledge to write sentences. For example, ‘I can see the cow in the farmyard.’ 

Maths    
In Maths, we will be revisiting and extending our learning of length and height. We will also be exploring time and sequencing. We read ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk,’ we then sequenced the book by ordering the days of the week and activities Jasper completed on each day. 

Expressive arts and design    
In celebration of the Chinese New Year, we have been busy making dragons this week. We also painted, decorated our own Chinese New Year wallets, and put coins into them to share with our family. On Wednesday we learnt about and watched Chinese New Year dragon dances. We then recreated our own dragon dance.