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

Pre-Reception

Another busy week in Pre-Reception! 

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. This week the giant moved into Woodpecker class! There were giant-sized pots and pans, his clothes, glasses and even a giant-sized newspaper! 

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’.

In Maths, we have introduced the number 6 with the help of ‘Six Dinner Sid’. He has helped us to count out the amount to 6 and recognise that the last number said is the amount that is there (cardinal principle). We have continued to use ‘five frames’ but also introduce the ‘ten frame’. 

In our Jigsaw PSHE lesson we danced to one of our favourite songs and then thought about how it made us feel. We then took part in an obstacle course; we planned each stage and cheered one another on. We also thought about how our bodies feel when we exercise. 

Reception

This week has been a ‘blooming’ busy week in Hedgehog class. They children have really immersed themselves into our new ‘growth and growing’ topic.

Understanding the World   
Continuing the theme of growth in plants we have been exploring what plants need to grow. We learnt the name and function for different parts of a plant, including leaves, stem, roots, flowers and petals. 

Literacy
In literacy we drew plants and learnt how to label them. We then thought about what plants need to grow and recorded this in sentences. We challenged the children to think of full sentences using a range of vocabulary learnt throughout the week.  

Phonics   
This week we reviewed Phase 3 phonemes: ‘er’ and ‘air,’ words with double letters and longer words. We also revisited a selection of tricky words in phase 2 and 3. We practised reading and writing dictated sentence containing these sounds, for example ‘he has muffins for dinner.’

Maths   
This week continued our learning in the block ‘building 9 and 10’. We explored number composition, one more, one less and doubling with 10. We revisited the part-part-whole model. The children had to select a number to put into the ‘whole’ part of the model. They then counted out the correct number of blocks and placed them in different arraignments between the two ‘parts’ of the model. Finally, they recorded this as number sentences. 

PSED 
This term we started our new jigsaw unit ‘healthy me’. This unit focuses on being and keeping safe and healthy. In this week’s session we played the bean game. Once we had finished, we thought about how they are feeling. We felt our hearts, and discussed what was happening. We thought about how our breathing and skin felt. Finally, we discussed why it was important to exercise.