This Week in Reception

Hello Elephants and Zebras,

This week we have been adapting our Magic Porridge Pot stories. Elephants chose to make magic milkshakes and Zebras opted for magic soup! We loved seeing them come up with their own ideas on how we can adapt the story.  We are learning to “Retell the story, once they have developed a deep familiarity with the text, some as exact repetition and some in their own words.”  (Development Matters 2021)

During Child Initiated Learning we have had lots of fun activities to choose from including:

Inside:

  • observational drawings of pumpkins.
  • making magic counting wands with the sticks we found during our Mini Explorers time.
  • making roads and pathways with tape – such a fun activity!
  • building Lego is always popular and the children are fantastic at sharing the resource!

Outside:

  • we have had some willing gardeners to help weed and plant herbs.
  • we left some number mats out and some children decided to match the correct amount of animals to some of the numbers.
  • we had fun pulling apart pumpkins in the sensory tray . . . . this led to some children deciding to plant a seed from a pumpkin and draw a map to show where it had been planted!

Sound of the week

We are learning to ,”read individual letters by saying the sounds for them” and “develop the foundations of a handwriting style which is fast accurate and efficient” (Development Matters 2021).

This week we have been practising our ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘o’, ‘c’ and ‘k’  sounds as well as revising last week’s letters. We have been looking at how to write the letters that go with each sound. We have been using chalk outside and inside we have made letters using wool, pipe cleaners or lolly sticks and turning them into characters with eyes and faces – such brilliant imaginations!

How you can help at home:

If you would like to practice the letter shapes at home you could head outside and collect leaves, sticks, acorns and see if you can make the shape of a letter with what you find.  Inside, if you are having spaghetti for tea and have a few bits left over – try making a letter with the cold spaghetti after dinner. It may be a little messy but is lots of fun (we promise!) and a great way of practising fine motor skills!.  We would love to see some pictures of what you try!

Have a lovely weekend,

The Reception Team