Happy New Year! 2024 has started with a roar for us in Reception, as we are reading ‘Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs’ and exploring all things dino! The children have been writing labels in Literacy, persevering by using their robot arms and blending hands and saying the word out loud a few times, to fully think it through before writing. We decided what part of the story was the beginning, middle and the end by drawing the key events on a Story Mountain. We used green for the beginning, orange for the middle and red for the end.
In literacy we aim to ‘choose books that will develop their vocabulary’ (Development Matters, 2023) and this week we have been learning the context of new words in the book. On Monday we learnt the definition of the word ‘attic’ and discussed if all houses have them, or not. In Child Initiated learning time, some children chose to extend this by building a road with houses and selecting cones and pyramid shapes for the attics.
The low temperatures this week have allowed us to explore ice and frost. We encourage interactions with the outdoors to foster curiosity and give children freedom to touch, smell and hear the natural world around them during hands-on experiences. We found some Dinosaurs in the environment, like the ones from Harry’s Bucket! Like Harry, we bathed the dinosaurs and cleaned them and gave the bucket a good scrub.
How you can help at home:
When reading at home talk about words in repeated phrases so that word boundaries are noticed and not blurred: “Listen carefully, what words can you hear? Oncesuppona time: once –upon – a – time.” (Development matters, 2023) Can you count the separate word on your fingers or do a clap for each?
Take on different roles in imaginative play, to interact and negotiate with people in longer conversations. (Development Matters, 2023) Share a back and forth conversation where you and your child ‘ping pong’ the conversation back and forth and each say 5 things before changing the topic to something else.
Provide pattern and building sets, ie. pattern blocks, building blocks and magnetic construction tiles, as well as found materials. Challenge children to copy increasingly complex 2D pictures and patterns with these 3D resources,: “I bet you can’t add an arch to that,” or “Maybe tomorrow someone will build a staircase.” (Development Matters, 2023)