Week 1 – 10th September 2021.

WOW! What a fabulous start to school. Mrs. Pugh, Mrs. Barnett and I have had the best week getting to know all the children. We have spent time talking to the children, working our way around the classroom to explore their new environment and generally settling into school life! The children have had lots of firsts this week, with new adults, new environment, new routines, new rules but they have all been wonderful. Having small groups in has helped with a smooth and calm transition. We appreciate your patience for this.

We have been making mud pies in the mud kitchen, colouring in dinosaur pictures, feeding the babies in the home corner, making sandcastles in the sand area, riding the train to Dino land, singing (oh yes, I said there would be lots of singing!) nursery rhymes and other favourite songs, making our rainbows for the Rainbow Room, exploring the science equipment, observing the classroom fish and generally being really busy working at school!

From Monday we will collect and drop the children from the gate at the Community Hall. The lunch board will be there for you to select your child’s lunch. 30 children are all in on Monday, so the area will be busy.

We hope you all have a fabulous weekend. Get some rest children!

This week in Superhero Reception, we have been doing lots of fantastic work.

Welly Tuesday- On Welly Tuesday, we went down to forest school, we had lots of fun using our imagination, some children were roasting mud marshmallows on their own fire pits they had created, some children were making chocolate milkshakes, some children were building bridges and stepping stones to get over the very muddy puddles and some children pretended to be kolas swinging from the trees.

Writing- Everyone got to create superhero healthy fruit skewers to make us big and strong superheroes. To be able to make these skewers children wrote labels for each fruit independently, I was so impressed with children’s growth mindset and willingness to achieve. We ate them all up in snack time and they were ever so yummy.

Maths- This week we have been looking at doubles up to 10. We know that double is the same number twice. We have used doubling machines all week to help us. We have played lots of fun games such as matching pairs, dominos, paint printing and dice rolling.

Phonics- This week we spent our last week working on phase 3, we have been working hard learning our last few digraphs and trigraph, looking at ow, ear, oi, air. We are really working hard to remember all of our phonemes and writing our graphemes.

RE- This week we were able to go and visit a special place, a special place close to home for Tardebigge First School. We went and visited St Bartholomew's church, looking at the special things within the church that we had previously labelled in our writing, like the font, the crosses and the Bible. Then we celebrated our special achievements from the week in Tardebigge’s special place and had celebration assembly in the church.

Lets have another amazing week as superheroes, 

Miss Machin

We have done so much this week!

In Writing this week we have all tried very hard with our handwriting, improving our sweeps and flicks. In our first writing piece, we became real life superheroes and created drawings for a loneliness campaign in Redditch, we wrote our kind words and drew a picture to make someone smile. These were so lovely, and the children worked so hard.
Next, we focused on developing our handwriting for our names, using our cards to practice sweeps and flicks.
On Wednesday we wrote about our own real-life superheroes’ qualities and what makes them so amazing. Its so brilliant to see that lots of the children’s superheroes are Moms, Dads and Nannies. They all love you to pieces.

In Maths this week, they have blown my socks off with how incredibly quickly they have picked up their number bonds. Each day we have looked at a new number bond, playing lots of games to help to support and cement this knowledge. We have worked towards creating a number bonds rainbow with a new sum on each colour. Everyone tried their hardest. Reception you have impressed me with how amazingly you got on and tried your best.

In topic this week, we have started to grow some cress, we are experimenting to see if cress seeds need soil to grow. The children have made hypotheses about which materials will help it to grow the best. Let’s wait and see to find out what happens.

1. This week, we have looked at special places for Muslims, as this week marks the end of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid. We have been lucky enough to find out first-hand from someone in our class about what happens at an Eid celebration. We have then also taken a 3D tour of a Mosque and looked at special objects and places that you might find in there.

We are continuing on our quest to be the best superheroes in world next week, I can’t wait to see which adventures we get up to.

Have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Machin

I can’t believe how quickly this week has gone!

This week has been a blast, we have had such an adventure being Vets and Doctors. We have been so lucky, Mrs Pugh has been so kind and brought in her animals, we even stroked ‘Checkers’ the snake and bathed ‘Bruce and Aurtoise’ the tortoises. We have also learned about their habitats and interesting facts about these animals. Did you know that tortoises don’t drink through their mouths they drink through their tails.

In maths this week we have looked at patterns, we have loved playing the pattern games in our lessons so much the children requested the game in independent play. We have also created our own patterns using blocks and pegboards, some children even created tricky patterns with 5 different colours.

Welly Tuesday, because it was raining and windy this week we decided to go on a welly walk. It was so lovely to see all the leaves and blossom on the trees, although it was very cold to start and after a lot of running around / playing tag, we warmed up and loved the adventure.

Within topic this week we have looked at the scientist and musician, Brian Cox. Looking at his hit song in the band ‘D ream’ and looked at how it relates to the pandemic and how with a positive attitude ‘things can only get better’. We additionally looked at his science work about space.

To top the week off we have had three children who turned 5 this week!! We had to celebrate in style and have a birthday party. We played birthday games and pass the parcel and even got a slice of cake too.

We have had a fantastic week in Reception,

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Machin

This week we have been police officers and detectives.

We have been on an exciting mission to find clues and track down the culprit of the toy stealing mystery. Our three suspects were Mrs Marmalade-Custard, Mrs Raspberry and Mrs Curly-Wurly-Twirly. The children used their fantastic questioning skills to understand the suspects’ alibis as well as their intuitive clue spotting skills, knowledge of lengths and patterns to distinguish between footprints and fingerprints. Safe to say you are in good hands with detectives from Reception on the case.

In Maths this week we have been working on subtraction of single-digit numbers. We are now brilliant at using our tens frames and we understand spoken maths problems. The children were even able to create their own maths problem scenarios. We especially liked maths problems about donut shops.

Phonics - This week we have started to look at some Phase 5 graphemes. These are alternative Graphemes to ones which we have previously learned - ay (ai) ea (ee) ie (igh) ou (ow), we have recapped these and played lots of fun games to help us remember the new sounds. As detectives, we have also been searching through tricky word clues, which has been such a popular activity.

In music with Miss Walker and Mrs Pugh the children were able to choose their musical instruments and sing to familiar songs they know and love, such as Sticks Sticks Sticks by Hey Duggee. The children thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with new instruments and noises.

RE - This term we are learning about special places. We have discussed what makes places special to us and where our own special places are. This week we learned about special places for Christians, especially why a Christian’s special place may be a Church and when they might visit one.

I cannot wait to hear all your fantastic stories about what you got up to over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Miss Machin

What a week back after half term, we have started our new topic, Reception to the rescue. Each week we are learning about different community superheroes. This week we looked at Firefighters!

To kick start off our topic this week, we got to interview a firefighter called Rob. He was ever so amazing at answering all our questions. Rob was impressed with our questions and our listening. We learnt about what they wear, their job and what it takes to be a firefighter. We loved it so much that we have all applied to become Reception firefighters, we have sent off our applications and we are waiting to hear back from the fire station on Monday, fingers crossed.

Phonics- This is the last week we are going to be recapping our Phase 3 sounds, we have been looking at the digraphs oi and er and trigraphs ear, air and ure. Lots of great segmenting and blending. We have also been looking at our tricky words in both phases 3 and 4. Singing our tricky word songs is a great way to help recognise them in our reading.

Maths- This week we have been looking at our place value in numbers up to 20. We know that one number can go in the ten column and in the ones column as the numbers don’t like to squeeze in one column together.  

ICT- With Mrs Pugh and Miss Walker we have been learning about Beebots, we were firefighters and had to get the beebot to the fire to save everyone. We used the commands to navigate the beebots to the fire, some children were able to plan where they needed to go next and use more than one command at a time.

Next week we are going to need to become critical thinkers and problem-solvers as we become police officers and detectives.

Have a lovely weekend in the sunshine,  

Miss Machin

This week has flown by,

Phonics- This week we have been recapping our phase 3 phonemes, we have been working hard in phonics, even writing our tricky words in the sentences we read. Lots of children are writing and blending CVCC words.

Maths- This week has been all about 3D shapes, Cubes, Cuboids, Cones, Cylinders and Spheres. On Friday the children coloured in their own party hats (cone shape) which had lots of different 3D shapes on them. We have also been looking around the classroom finding these shapes in our everyday lives. What 3D shapes do you have in your home?

Welly Tuesday- This week we went on a beautiful spring walk, what a lovely time of the year! Everybody had a tick list of spring things that we kept an eye out for, such as, daffodils, birds, flower buds and more. We even saw something to add to our list. This was an animal that is white and fluffy and says baa, can you guess what it is? Yes, we saw baby lambs. Reception and I were so excited to see lambs, the farmer had only just brought them into the field. They were ever so tiny, what a fantastic sign to see.

Whole class reading- This week we have been looking at Handa’s surprise, from this we have talked about asking questions, we wrote our own questions to Akeyo.

RE- We have been looking at Easter (Good Friday and Easter Sunday), we learnt that on Easter Sunday Christians commemorate Jesus’ resurrection. We learnt about lots of Easter traditions, we looked closely at flower crosses where Christians decorate a cross with flowers. As a class, we decorated the school cross with flowers ready for Easter Sunday.

What another fantastic week of hard work!

Phonics- In phonics this week we have been recapping over our phase 3 sounds and trying really hard to hear all of the sounds, we have looked at the graphemes sh, ch, th, oa, oo (poo at the zoo) igh and ee while also segmenting and blending CVCC words too.

Maths- This week we have been looking at weight volume and measurement. On Tuesday we had a very exciting maths lesson about capacity, we had to make sure we had the correct amount in each glass for the science experiment to work. We looked at empty, nearly empty, half full, nearly full and full amounts in the glass. All the mixtures reacted and made the potion rise up and over its full capacity and spill out over the top. They loved the awe and wonder. The children also had the chance to weigh items using scales (not snake scales), their challenge was to find things that were 10g heavy, this was harder than they thought. You could try and see if you can do this at home on scales.

Welly Tuesday- In forest school we had lots of fun because it’s nearly spring, I asked the children to make dens and habitats for animals. Lots of children made all sorts of dens for all kinds of creatures, we had snake dens, rabbits’ dens, worm homes and even dinosaur dens. We also were given frogspawn, which we are now looking after in our school pond and we looked at the lifecycle of frogs.

Whole class reading- Throughout this week we have been looking at a book called Dinosaurs in our School, these are disruptive dinosaurs just like the dinosaurs the children made at home. The dinosaurs created chaos in the classroom, painting the tables, throwing books around and making a terrible mess. From this book, all the children have created their own disruptive dinosaur pages. They have been up to all sorts; clogging toilets, breaking toys and gobbling up our bread and spread. I will be sharing the finished results of our published book with the children on Monday. I’m so excited to see their faces! Everyone has worked so incredibly hard to produce their sentences, we have been so impressed.

Well done reception, keep up the good work for next week,

Miss Machin

WOW, blink and the week is over, I can’t believe we have all completed our first week, I am amazed at how the children have come in and settled back into school life all so quickly.

Throughout this week it has been Science week, and what a fun week to start back on.

 Science week- We have looked at volcanos and created our own erupting volcano in class, we later found fizzy dinosaur eggs to start off our topic of Jungle Giants and Deadly Dinosaurs, we also talked about astronauts and space, sending our pop rockets up to space using powdered rocket fuel (fizzy vitamin c tablets) and water, the children did lots of exciting experiments with Miss Walker and Mrs Pugh, blowing up balloons with reactive gasses, colour catching to make a rainbow and to end the week with a bang, we did the coke and mentos rocket.

Phonics- This week, we have recapped all our Phase 3 and Phase 3 tricky words, remember you can always practice your tricky words at home with the very catchy songs.

Maths- This week we have been learning to subtract numbers using our tens frame, we have been looking at worded number problems using dinosaurs and astronauts to help us learn. I was so impressed with their learning by the end of the week we have even started to look at our number bonds to ten with a very catchy song!

Welly Tuesday (not as catchy as Welly Wednesday)- It was a VERY muddy session in forest school (please bring spare socks), the children thoroughly enjoyed their time outside and being able to be back with their friends, lots of children loved playing and jumping in the muddy puddles and lots of children loved digging for worms. In Reception class we had an important email for Alan the Astronaut who was feeling sad, he wanted to see a rainbow from up in space, lots of children used the colourful water left by Alan to make him a pretty rainbow decorating the trees in forest school.

PSHE- This week we have focused lots on well-being, it has been a big change for all of us coming back to school after such a long time away, this week in whole class reading we looked at a book called Worrysarus, this book looks at a dinosaur and his worries and how he learns to cope with them, such a lovely story. We have also played lots of listening games to help improve our listening skills.

Dinosaurs- This week the children had the chance to show off their fantastic homemade dinosaurs, these looked amazing, thank you for all the time you spent making these, they are great but I have a feeling they are naughty dinosaurs, we will have to wait until next week to see what they get up to…

I just want to say a huge thank you for all the hard work you have done over the lockdown.

Have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Machin

Party day was a huge success. The children loved coming to school in their party clothes and enjoyed playing party games with their friends. Thank you to FOTs for providing the yummy snacks and Christmas crackers.

On Wednesday the children were surprised by a visit to Father Christmas at Miss Hill’s stables. It was such a wonderful and magical experience! Thank you to FOTs again for providing refreshments and presents.

Phonics- We have been learning the grapheme er (better, letter) and learning the tricky words ‘her’ and ‘all’.

Maths- We have been continuing our learning on 1 more and 1 less than numbers to 5. Continue to practise this at home.

Thank you for all of your help and support at home with your child’s learning this term. It makes a massive difference. Over the Christmas holiday, keep the reading, tricky word practise and caterpillar words ticking over. Little and often is the key!

However, most importantly make sure you enjoy spending time with each other over Christmas and make the most of a rest!

From January, Miss Machin will be teaching Reception class and I will be predominantly working from home with the exception of Forest school on a Tuesday afternoon. It will no longer be Welly Wednesday! Please ensure your child brings their waterproofs to school in a bag on Tuesdays and remember to send your child in with their wellies on the first day back.

Enjoy your Christmas break!