Four weeks of fabulous learning – you are all settling into your new school routine beautifully!
This week the children have loved exploring more of the exciting areas in Reception including Music (inside and out), our malleable area and our investigation area. There is so much for us to see and do!
Inclusion Week
This week is National Inclusion Week so we began the week by sharing an assembly explaining that we are working towards the Inclusion Award. Following this we learned ‘Old Macdonald,’ using Makaton and discussed how Makaton helps some people to communicate.
Sukkot
Our special visitor, Mrs Cluer, came to talk to us about a Jewish festival she celebrates. She showed us some pictures and shared a PowerPoint about Sukkot. The children were all looking forward to having a go at building their own Sukkahs making sure they left gaps in the roof to observe the stars.
Literacy
We have innovated the story of The Little Red Hen and changed the characters from a bull, cat and rat to a pig, rabbit and a sheep. We are very good at telling the story with actions. Ask us to show you. 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). As the Little Red Hen bakes bread we decided to try different breads in Snack Time.
Maths
We are learning to, “Explore the composition of numbers to 10” (Development Matters 2021). This week, the children explored how numbers can be composed of 1s and, from this, began to investigate the composition of 3 and 4. Composing and de-composing numbers involves children investigating part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2. The children learned from practical experience that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
Music
We have been busy exploring the music area and have been listening to music from Africa. We tried using the instruments to keep beat with the music we were listening to and also discussed how the music made us feel.
Malleable
This week we have learned how to use the malleable area. We used bread, flour and water to make our own doughballs, pizza, bread and pancakes – just like the Little Red Hen!
Here is our Nursery Rhyme of the week:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-doctor-foster-went-to-gloucester/zhkf6v4
Phonemes 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 practicing our ‘g,’ ‘o’, ‘c,’ and ‘k,’ sounds and looking at how to write the letters that go with each sound.
g – start at his ear, around the face and down the beard.
o – around the ostrich’s body.
c – curl around the camel’s back.
k- down the body, up the arm, down the leg.
How you can help at home:
Your child will have brought home the grapheme tiles to accompany the phonemes they have learned so far. Please cut them out and encourage your child to put them together to make words. You can challenge them by saying a word and asking them to make it such as: at, in, sat, dip, peg etc. Remind them to use their robot arms and blending hands when practising the words.
You can support the practise of writing the grapheme by using rice, flour or lentils in a tray and helping them to draw the shapes with their finger. Remember to start the grapheme at the top. You can also see what sounds you can spy around the house – can you find 5 objects beginning with ‘s’ hiding around the house? Happy hunting!
Have a lovely weekend,
The Reception Team