This week in Reception

This week we have all enjoyed the spring-like sunshine and spotting signs that a new season is on its way! Some children had observed it being lighter in the mornings on the way to school, some children had seen beautiful snowdrops and crocus growing and others felt it was a little bit warmer outside. Roll on spring!

Shrove Tuesday

We were also excited to learn a bit more about the celebration ‘Shrove Tuesday’ – Pancake Day! We learnt some interesting facts from Mr Reid’s assembly:

Pancakes are made from eggs, milk and flour. When this is mixed together it is called ‘batter’, then it is fried in a large pan. We enjoyed discussing our favourite toppings!
Long ago this was a special day for feasting before the start of a time in the Christian calendar called Lent. Lent is the time before Easter and rich foods used to be forbidden, so the rich foods were used up the day before by making pancakes!
Pancake day is celebrated in the UK but also all over the world, including Portugal, Iceland, Australia and Brazil. The size of pancake might change and the toppings can be different too.
Flipping pancakes was a tradition that started in Ireland (linked to folklore about getting married).
Pancake races originated in a town, not too far from us called Olney, near Milton Keynes. The people of the town still race with aprons and frying pans today.

During Explore time, we had a go at our own ‘pancake races’. We practised by flipping beanbags!

We heard that many of you enjoyed pancakes at home- yum!

Fiddly Fingers

Our mornings always start with ‘Fiddly Fingers’ activities, which the children rotate round. These activities are designed to strengthen the muscles, involved in fine motor movements in fingers and hands and give the children an opportunity to practise coordination, developing specific skills such as holding small items. This week our activities have included:

Working with friends to complete dinosaur puzzles
Counting objects in the basket and recording on a whiteboard
Practising screwing and unscrewing nuts on bolts
Cutting out a hedgehog shape and cutting triangles out for the spines
Owl babies tracing; following the dots with a pencil
Drawing around a hedgehog template, cutting it out and snipping the edge for the spines

Literacy

This week in Literacy we have started a new story ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell and we are learning a ‘Talk for Writing’ version using a story map and actions. We have been using a story mountain to think about the different sections of the story; the beginning, the middle and the end. One activity we completed was to sequence pictures from the story by placing them on the correct part of the story mountain.

Phonics

This half term in Phonics we are reviewing the phonemes we have learnt so far; single sounds, diagraphs and trigraphs- this is quite a few! We are practising recognising the written sound (grapheme), reading words including these sounds and having a go at writing them:

It is very exciting to see children becoming more independent readers and writers!

We are also practising recognising the HRSW (Harder to Read and Spell Words by sight)- please continue to practise these at home (word tiles we sent home). Do ask if you need replacement copies.

Maths

We have been revisiting the ‘Stable order principle’ in Maths this week ie;- rehearsing the order of the first 10 numbers and understanding that the position of each number doesn’t change. Reviewing the ‘staircase’ pattern has helped the children with this as it helps them to ‘see’ that each number goes up by 1 more, plus the composition of number, eg:- 4 and 1 more make 5.

Following this the children have enjoyed counting opportunities; our Maths challenge- using a certain number of blocks to make a model, counting children in the line, using our 10s frame to count attendance in the morning.

Good strategies were discussed to help us;