All About Me

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This week the Swans have continued their theme of all about me. During Language for Thinking time, they have discussed who lives in their house and their families, and even created playdoh pictures of their families.
They all focussed on the Colour Monster story for their Talk for Writing. The children were able to match verbally the correct label the different coloured monsters with the correct emotions. They did a great job recreating the different emotions with their partners. And finally at the end of the week they were able to draw their own colour monsters. We also have had a great time learning about being a good friend. We created a friendship band for our own talk partners too!
At the end of our busy week, we finished off with our PANTS lesson. Within this lesson the children learnt a very catchy but important song about consent and about feeling safe. They also learnt who they can talk to if they feel unsafe within school and outside school.

Settling In 

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This week the Swans have had a great time settling into their new classroom and meeting their new friends and teachers. All of the children have been superstars and have settled really well into all the new routines and structures. They have showed all their new teachers how creative and kind they are by sharing with new friends and building the most spectacular things. We are all super proud of them. Well done, Swans!

Arts Week

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The Swans have really enjoyed Arts Week!

Miss Coghlan told us all about the artist Van Gogh and showed us lots of his beautiful paintings. We have focused on two of his most famous pieces of art ‘Starry Night’ and ‘The Sunflowers’.

Miss Coghlan also introduced all the Swans to an online drawing session, where the children followed step by step instructions on how to complete both ‘The Sunflowers’ and ‘Starry Night’ paintings. The teachers also took part and everyone did a fantastic job!
At the end of the session we all had a chance to share our work with each other. Each piece was different and each child’s own interpretation of the instructions. The children were totally absorbed with their work and so were the teachers!
We all discovered how calming and relaxing an Art class really is. The children sat quietly, carefully producing their art work which of course they were very proud of and rightly so!
Every piece of work was amazing. Well done Swans!

During Discovery time our activities have followed an Art theme and have included observation drawings of a vase of real Sunflowers, painting a picture of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ using paints on tin foil, and recreating ‘Starry Night’ on the Tuff Tray using a picture frame and a variety of resources.

Each piece of art work the children have completed this week is unique to them, and the children have appreciated the value of this! All parents will get a chance to see our fantastic art work at the whole school exhibition on Friday.

Marvellous Music

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This week in Music the Swans have come to the end of their Chranaga unit Reflect, Rewind and Play. Today they have been using all of their taught skills to hear the variety of instruments played in Flying Theme by John Williams (E.T. theme music).
‘I can hear a violin; it sounds really creepy’ Maya
‘ The drums are really loud’ Andy
‘ I like this music; the pulse is different all the time’ Anaya
The children have learnt loads about the different tempos of music and explored the different emotions and feelings the music invokes.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

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This Week the Swans have continued learning about the Fairy Tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
In our ‘Talk for Writing ‘lesson on Monday the children sat in their family groups and looked at a picture of each character in the story and thought about what each of them might be saying. The children came up with some fantastic ideas which they then put into practice in their writing task during Discovery Time.
On Monday afternoon the Swans tasted three bowls of porridge and had to decide if it was Daddy Bear’s, Mummy Bear’s or Baby Bear’s. The children didn’t know which one they would be tasting, so they were very brave to just ‘have a go’.  They decided one bowl tasted sweet, one salty and the last one just right! Well done Swans!
 In our maths Lessons this week we have been working on Positional Language such as on, under, above, behind, between, in front of and next to. Firstly the children needed to work with their Talk Partners to position their soft toy correctly. They then played a barrier game to make a tower using a variety of different resources using their amazing listening skills and ability to follow instructions. Finally they individually had to draw pictures using Positional Language. This is a difficult concept and you completed this task brilliantly !!!
 
Our Discovery Activity tables had a Goldilocks and the Three Bears theme once again.
The children made maps, bowls and spoons for the three bears with the play dough, wrote speech bubbles for the different characters in the story, counted pictures from the story and consolidated their adding and subtracting skills on the maths table.
 
Once again a very busy week and you have worked really hard!
Well done Swans!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

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The Swans have been very busy this week learning all about the story of the Three Bears. Lots of the children already knew this story and they enjoyed retelling it during ‘Talk for Writing’. They learnt the song ‘When Goldilocks went to the house of the Bears’ using actions to go with it.
Swans enjoyed completing the activities on the tables with our Fairy Tale theme. We expect the children to complete two activities before they earn a silver card and four before they earn a gold card. The activities are also more challenging as we prepare the children for Year One but they have amazed us once again this week with their levels of knowledge ad using all their ‘behaviours for learning ‘ to successfully complete each task.
Our activities this week have been: writing a sorry letter to Baby Bear, using the ‘Compare Bears’ to play a game using a dice,  sequencing and comparing the weight between them and dry porridge, using a variety of resources to make a bear’s face, making play dough bears and decorating them and a ‘cut and stick’ activity adding toppings to three bowls of porridge and writing a sentence underneath.
In maths the children have been exploring the concept of sharing a number of objects into groups so that each group is equal. This is quite a difficult concept but Swans have taken it in their stride, not only using counters, whiteboards and pens to show this with their talk partners but also using themselves as the counters and the hoops as the groups .
Well done Swans!
Happy Eid to all Swans celebrating this important festival this week. The children took a bag of sweets home with them from one of our families and we remembered to say ‘Thank you’.
Our Strawberry Patch has produced lots of fruit this week! The children have enjoyed picking and eating the fruits of their labours!
Keep up all the hard work Swans and see you next week!

Trip to the Farm 

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This week the children have been learning about the farm. The children have discussed what animals they would see at a farm, what animals young are called and what food grows or comes from a farm.
We had the fantastic opportunity to take all of our learn to Atwell Park Farm. The children had an AMAZING time, feeding the animals, learning all the different facts about the farm and even getting the chance to stroke and hold some of the animals.

Jack and the Beanstalk

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The Swans have been very busy once again this week! We have continued to explore the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We acted it out in small groups and discussed it in our family groups thinking about  how the different characters in the story may be feeling and what they may be saying.
The children have made the most of the warm sunny weather by keeping cool in the water tray. Thank you for sending the children into school with sun hats and making sure they have sun cream applied. We have made sure the children drink plenty of fluids and keep in the shade during the hottest part of the day.
Our Discovery Time activities have continued to have a ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ theme.
On the maths table the children have ordered the beans from 1-20 and found the correct numicon pieces to make numbers from 10-20.
They children have sequenced the story pictures and made puppet characters working on those cutting skills! The swans are becoming fantastic writers and have written some fantastic captions using their amazing phonics skills!
The children enjoyed mixing paints to make orange, pink and purple . If you ask them l’m sure they will be able to tell you which colours they used!
Finally an update on our strawberry patch! We are starting to see our green strawberries turn red! The children are continuing to help with the watering and will soon be enjoying juicy strawberries for snack time!

Fairy Tales

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Our new topic for this term is Fairy Tales. Our first story is Jack and the Beanstalk. In Talk for Writing the Swans enjoyed retelling the story using actions and in Language for Thinking they sequenced the story.
Our Discovery Time activities included playing a game with a partner, using a dice to take it in turns, to reach number 20 on the beanstalk. We also used the small world figures, castle and house to act out the story on the tuff tray.
We made a play dough beanstalk using beans, gems and pipe cleaners to decorate it. On the Work shop table we drew a beanstalk decorating it with wool and leaves. We coloured pictures of the characters from the story and used our cutting skills. We also used different beans to make a picture.
On the writing table we wrote captions for Jack and the Beanstalk using our super phonic skills!
In maths Swans have been learning how to subtract using numbers within ten using the double-sided counters. They have even managed to record number sentences!
In Phonics the Swans have been practicing how to sit at their tables to complete their writing task getting them ready for Year One. Well done Swans!
It has been’ Empathy Week’ this week and Miss Coghlan explained this difficult concept using a fantastic video and Power Point presentation. Swans have tried to show empathy to all our friends all week.
Finally our strawberry patch in the outdoor classroom is bearing fruit! The strawberries are big and green but with some watering and sunshine we are hoping they will turn red soon and the children can pick them and eat them at snack time.
As you can see we have had a busy start to our final term in Reception. Keep up the hard work Swans!

Road Safety

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It has been another busy week for Swans! In Language for Thinking on Monday we learnt about’ Road Safety’ and discussed how we need to keep ourselves safe when we are crossing the road. The children already had fantastic ideas on how to keep themselves safe, for example holding hands with a grown up, stopping at the kerb and remembering not to run across the road.
Miss Coghlan showed the children a short video where we watched a mum with her daughter finding a safe place to cross where they could see both sides of the road. They needed to remember to look and listen as they crossed the road.
We have also learnt about different enviroments around the world, making comparisons on how people in Africa live compared to how people live in the UK. We focused on the difference between the climate and how it impacts on the houses we live in, how we shop  for food and the differences in the produce you can buy.
 
To finish off our transport topic this term we have brought together all of our learning about the different types of transport in our Discovery Time! In the Tuff Tray the children have enjoyed sharing the different types of transport. In our Outdoor Classroom the children enjoyed working together to put together the large trainset. They enjoyed making a car or a bus with the steering wheel and chairs taking turns and sharing the resources.
Well done Swans!
On the writing table the children used their phonics to write one or two sentences about one of the modes of transport of their choice. On the workshop table the children painted a picture of their favourite vehicles with the water colours and wrote a sentence underneath.
The Swans used their maths skills to order a transport jigsaw, make the correct number of rocks for the trucks on the play dough table and even used their addition skills to count pictures of different vehicles and write a number sentence using tens frames and counters to support them!
Our Learning Walls in the classroom are full of all the fantastic work that they produce every week! Well done Swans!
 
We have had a fantastic term and the children have definitely earned their half term break!
Hopefully the weather will be kind and you will all come back refreshed and ready for our final term in Reception.