Phonics-We have been learning to write tricky words such as you and was and have also practised reading and writing CCVC words such as plan, trip, smell, groan etc. The children have used a phoneme frame to help them with this.

Literacy- At the beginning of the week we carried out some penguin research, attempting to answer the questions we came up with at the beginning of our topic. We used non-fiction books and the Internet to help us gather this information. Mrs Barnett has then been working with groups of children throughout the week to create their own penguin fact file including their most interesting facts.

Maths- We have been finding more and less than numbers to 10 and proving this in different ways such as using objects, ten frames and part part wholes. The children have also been showing number bonds to 9 and developing their number bond fluency in Number Time this week.

Safer Internet Week- We have been discussing our SMART rules to keep safe when online. The children then explored the Google game Interland which teaches the key lessons of Internet safety through four fun, challenging games. The aim to is to ‘play your way to being an Internet Lengend.’

We cannot believe that we are at the end of another half term! We are now half way through the year! Have a fun and restful half term break Reception.

Maths- We have continued developing our number fluency by counting on and back in 1s, 2s and 10s. We have also reminded ourselves of number bonds 1-8. This week the children focused on number 9. We discussed 9 being a square number and made this using cubes. The children were then representing 9 in different ways. We have also been practising 1 less than numbers to 5 to ensure we are secure with this and can prove answers using equipment.

Phonics- The children have started Phase 4 phonics this week and so we have been learning the tricky words ‘said’ and ‘so’. We have also been reading and writing consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant (CCVC) words using phoneme frames.

Chinese New Year- We have had such an exciting week learning all about Chinese New Year. Did you know it is the year of the pig? We have created a Chinese dragon, cooked and tasted vegetable stir fry, made red lanterns and had a go at copying some Chinese letters and words. We also tasted prawn crackers and sweet chilli dip. We watched a video clip about how Chinese New Year can be celebrated and the children acted out the zodiac animal race across the river in the small world play. We really enjoyed learning the Chinese dragon song too!

IT and Computing- The children have begun their new unit ‘We can Take Turns’. The children took turns to use the laptops, one child was the teacher and one the pupil. The children were encouraged to listen to their peers for advice. The children created Dinosaurs on the Dino Builder website. They developed their drag and drop skills using the trackpad.

Science- The children have been discussing ‘plus minus interesting’ about everyday items made of different materials. For example, the ‘plus’ of having a glass umbrella would be you could see through it, the ‘minus’ would be it’d be very heavy and the ‘interesting’ would be that it would still keep you dry and would look unusual. Next week the children will be discussing how they can improve the design of everyday objects to make them even better. The children will draw their designs and explain these to their friends. This has all stemmed from being inspired by James Dyson.

RE- The children finished off their Mosque artwork by adding the silhouette of the building. We talked about golden domes and minarets.

What a busy week! Have a brilliant weekend Reception.

Literacy- The children have wowed us with their boat descriptions. We have been discussing what boat we would travel in to the South Pole and what patterns it would have e.g. stars, stripes, spots. Some children have then started writing their ‘Lost and Found’ stories. We have been retelling this Oliver Jeffers story, ordering the pictures and writing the story ourselves.

Maths- We have been finding out one more and one less than different numbers to 8. We discussed more getting bigger and less getting smaller. The children have also been developing their number fluency by counting on and back in 10s to 100 and 2s to 20.

Phonics- This week we have been learning to read the tricky words ‘are’, ‘her’ and ‘all’. We have also been revising the phonemes for the graphemes er and oi.

PE- This week we had gymnastics on Thursday morning so that Mr Alexander (our KS1 and KS2 PE teacher) could come and observe our rolling skills. He was so impressed with the children’s attitude towards their learning in PE.

RE- Continuing our Special Places unit, this week we were focusing the place of worship for Muslims, a mosque. We listened to the call to prayer and engaged in a virtual tour of a mosque, observing the different important features such as the Qur’an stands and prayer mats. The children then engaged in some beautiful artwork in which they discussed the minarets and golden domes.

IT and Computing- The children have continued to input their data on the program J2E to create pictograms of the information they have gathered. The children decided what information they wanted to find out e.g. what’s your favourite pet? What weather do you like best? What’s your favourite minibeast?

I hope you enjoy a snowy weekend!

Phonics- We have been revising the graphemes ear, ure and air. We have also been revising the tricky words we have learnt so far. Please continue to practise these at home as well as creating words on their ‘caterpillars’.

Literacy- The children are still inspired by the Oliver Jeffers story, Lost and Found. This week Miss Smith, a trainee teacher, brought in a suitcase full of different items and the children discussed what might be appropriate to take to the South Pole (such as snow boots and a wooly hat) and what might not be any good (such as a sun cap and flip flops). The children then wrote a list of items they would take to Antarctica with them. Many included their pets!

Maths- The children have been solving a subtraction number problem this week using the ten frames and part, part, whole diagram to help them work out and prove their answers. The problem was; 'I put 8 cupcakes in the staff room. 3 teachers ate a cupcake each. How many do I have left?' Many of the children decided to record this problem on whiteboards too.

PE- We are coming to the end of our Gymnastics unit and the children’s confidence when accessing the apparatus now is fantastic! Many of the children not only attempted a forward roll off the bench but also off the table top! We have been developing our rolling techniques when doing a range of rolls.

RE- This week we visited St Bartholomew’s church and did a little hunt for features typically found in a traditional Church of England church. For example, an altar, font, lectern etc. Next week we will be talking about the place of worship for Muslims, a mosque.

IT and Computing- The children have moved onto data handling using the laptops to record their information. We have been using a program called J2E to record our data as pictograms. The children were asking their friends different questions such as, what’s your favourite animal and which transport do you like best?

We hope that you have a super weekend and we will see you on Monday!

Living in a Land so Cold topic entry point- We are very excited about our new topic! We wrapped up warm and pretended our classroom was a very cold place like Antarctica. The children explored the topic related objects such as a map, globe, penguin toys, books, pictures, video clips and sensory tough trays. This helped the children generate any questions they may have at this point in the topic. E.g. do penguins have feathers? Do penguins sleep in igloos? What happens if penguins live in warm places? Over the next few weeks we will be investigating and finding answers to these questions.

Phonics- We have been revising the graphemes oo, ar, or and ur. We have also been revising the tricky words we have learnt so far. Please continue to practise these at home as well as creating words on their ‘caterpillars’.

Literacy- The children are loving reading the Oliver Jeffers story, Lost and Found. We have also carried out some visual literacy around this story. The children have been working with me to write about what they would do if they found a penguin at their front door!

Maths- The children have been solving snowflake addition problems using the ten frames to help them work out and prove their answers. We have also been creating 8 in different ways and learning the number bonds to 8.

PE- I was so impressed with the amount of children who were brave enough to practise their forward rolls off the apparatus. We were applying the rolls we have been learning on the floor on the apparatus and it was lovely to see the children applying these new skills they have acquired.

RE- We have continued our lessons on 'which people are special and why?' This week we were learning about the Prophet Muhammad who is a very important figure to Muslims.

IT and Computing- Last week the children took photographs of each other on the iPads and recorded themselves speaking on the computer. This week the children played on their own computer game in which they had to listen to a recording and choose the correct child’s picture.

We hope that you have a brilliant weekend Reception!

Welcome back Reception! We hope you all had a fun and restful holiday and are beginning 2019 feeling refreshed and excited for the year ahead. We have really enjoyed chatting to the children this week and seeing their lovely faces again. It is also really great to have Mrs. Barnett back with us.

Literacy- We have been sharing our exciting Christmas holiday adventures with our peers and then we had a go at writing about our Christmas break. The children were encouraged to think of a sentence, say it, read it and check it. We used the alphabet mat and finger space outline to help us.

Maths- We have been practising our subitising by recognising dice numbers and have been making 6 in different ways using the ten frames and part, part, whole diagrams. The children have been saying sentence stems practising their number bonds to 6. E.g. 3 and 3 makes 6, 2 and 4, together make 6. 5 add 1 equals 6 etc.

Phonics- We have been revising the consonant vowel digraphs sh, ch, th and ng. Please continue to read with your child as often as possible to ensure their phonic knowledge is secure and their reading fluency is developing.

Science- Over the next 6 weeks we will be engaging in sessions guided by The James Dyson Project. We will be learning about the work of this design engineer, particularly focusing on his improvements on the design of a household fan. This fan will be revealed to the children next week but this week we were learning about the skills of a design engineer.

RE- Over the next couple of weeks we are learning about special people in different religions. This week we read the Bible stories about Jesus and Zacchaeus and Jesus and the paralysed man and discussed the qualities of Jesus and why Christians believe he is so special.

PE- The children have been improving their forward rolls in gymnastics and practised rolling along and off the benches.

Next Tuesday the children will be engaging in a Science morning held at Tardebigge First with other Reception children from first schools within The Ogden Trust. They will be joining us for a morning of space themed activities.

Have a brilliant weekend! See you on Monday

Literacy- The children have done some fantastic writing all about our Nativity play. They were encouraged to hear the sounds in the words they were writing.

Maths- We have been finding the missing numbers between 0-10 and practising writing numerals 0-9.

Phonics- We have been revising the graphemes already taught and learning to read the tricky words be, he, she, we, me, all, her, are, was, they and my. To ensure your child’s learning does not dip in the holidays, please try and read as often as you can.

Party Day- A huge thank you to FOTS for organising a party lunch. It was fantastic! The children also enjoyed playing party games with their friends in the classroom.

Finally, we hope that you all have a fun filled Christmas holidays and are able to relax a little too! We are so delighted with the progress the children have made during this term. Adults around the school have also commented on how settled and well behaved the Reception children are. They seem to have matured so much in such a short space of term. We are so proud of them and think they all deserve a rest!! Well done Reception, enjoy your holiday!

Literacy- We have written some super lists for Father Christmas and posted these in his special Christmas post box on Tuesday when we visited Smart Trees. Please take a look at our Smart Trees blog to view photographs from our trip. The children then wrote some super recounts of their day in Bishampton.

Maths- We have been identifying and describing the properties of 2D and 3D shapes. We have been encouraging the children to use the correct vocabulary when describing the shapes e.g. sides when describing 2D shapes and faces when describing 3D shapes. The children also created repeating patterns on an outline of a Christmas stocking.

Phonics- The children have been revising the graphemes previously taught and the new tricky words ‘all’ and ‘are’. We used phoneme frames to help us write our words for the first time and have also been writing lots of captions to build our confidence when writing sentences.

Science- The children created diaries about their broad beans that they have been busy growing at school. We drew a picture of what these looked like when we first planted them and again just before we took them home. We were surprised to observe that some of the beans grew all the way up to the castle and others did not grow at all! We discussed why this might have been the case.

PE- The children engaged in their final gymnastics session of the term, hence PE kits being sent home to be washed and checked over the Christmas holidays. This week we practised our rolls that we have been learning so far; roll on back, pencil roll and teddy bear roll. The children were then introduced to a forward roll and practised this from different starting points such as the spring board, standing on the bench and squatting on the bench.

The children have also been busy with their Christmas craft. Each child is creating a Christmas card, Christmas decoration and a calendar to take home with them next week.

A reminder that next Friday, on the last day of term, it is our school carol concert. This will be starting at 2.30pm over in the church. It would be lovely to see you all there.

Have a very festive week Reception and we’ll see you on Monday for our final week of the Autumn term! Where has that time gone?

What an exciting school trip! The children loved using their maps to try and find the 12 days of Christmas around the Christmas trees. We then met Father Christmas in his magical Christmas grotto and enjoyed lunch in the barn. Afterwards, we experienced a very bumper tractor trailer ride and explored in the play area and maze. We also met many of Santa's reindeer. We were so proud of the children's fantastic behaviour. Well done Reception! We are feeling very Christmassy now!! 

We are SO proud of every person in Reception class. The children blew us away with their brilliant singing and acting. We hope you enjoyed it too! Thank you for being a super audience.