Music and Art Week – The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens

This week in Reception the children have been learning what an orchestra is. They have looked at the different instruments in each family of an orchestra and they have listened to the classical piece of music ‘The Carnival of the Animals.’

The children really enjoyed a musical quiz based upon carnival of the animals and they were very competitive! They had to listen carefully to each piece of music and discuss, in pairs, what animal they thought the music represented.

The children then worked in groups to produce a dance, a piece of music and a piece of Art work. The Art work was based upon Van Gogh’s painting entitled ‘Between wheat and Sky’. The children all worked independently and produced some lovely masterpieces!

The children have created animal dances of their own. Can you guess which dance is representing a lion? Can you guess which dance is representing an elephant? Can you guess which dance is representing fish in the aquarium?

The children have also created animal music of their own. Can you guess which music is representing an elephant? Can you guess which music is representing a swan? Can you guess which music is representing a kangaroo?

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Over the past two weeks the children have been learning about caterpillars and butterflies. They have learnt a lot of caterpillar and butterfly facts and they have explored the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’

The children have written some super sentences about caterpillars.

They have also drawn some fabulous caterpillars on the iPads.

And the children have been great tryceratops’ when they read different phase three CVC words on caterpillar’s bodies and matched them to the corresponding caterpillar heads.

Lots of children chose to make caterpillars using play dough and a selection of carefully self-chosen resources.

Some children chose to make paper chain caterpillars instead. The children were fantastic stickosaurus’ as it took a lot of patience and skill to join the paper chains together.

The children have also learnt about symmetry this week. They have explored symmetry in a variety of ways. Some children chose to make symmetrical play dough butterflies.

Some children chose to make symmetrical butterflies using the computer programme ‘symmetry painter.’ Whilst other children chose to design and colour their own butterflies on paper

And symmetrical butterfly painting was a very popular activity!

The children have also learnt about repeating patterns. Some children explored repeating patterns by completing multilink caterpillar cube challenges whilst other children completed a variety of finger printing caterpillars.

The children have also been very creative this week and lots of children demonstrated their understanding of the life cycle of a butterfly at the workshop table. They selected their own resources to represent the four stages of the life cycle: the eggs, the caterpillar, the chrysalis and the butterfly. The children all worked independently and were great thinkodactyls.

Today the new Puffins from reception had their transition day. They all had a fantastic day meeting their new teachers and were amazing at following their new routines. Well done Reception you will make excellent Puffins in September.

Ladybirds!

This week we have continued to learn about Minibeasts and we have focused upon ladybirds. We began the week by reading the stories ‘The Bad Tempered Ladybird’ and ‘What the Ladybird Heard.’ The children loved the stories and they have been finding ladybirds in our outdoor area all week!

In the classroom some children chose to explore the life cycle of a ladybird. They watched a video on YouTube and then they cut out the life cycle stages of a ladybird. The children then sequenced the life cycle pictures. It was very interesting to learn that the larvae goes into a pupa just like a caterpillar!

Lots of children chose to paint their own ladybirds. Each ladybird is unique in its own way. Did you know that ladybirds can have up to 20 spots?

Lots of children also chose to make ladybirds out of play dough as well. The children were great stickosaurus’. They chose their own resources and decided upon how many spots their ladybird was going to have. Did you know ladybirds have six legs and the most common type of ladybird has seven spots?

The children also made ladybirds at the creative table. We love how the children all made ladybirds but each one is so different. The children have been great thinkodactyls and solveosaurus’. It was very tricky to make the ladybirds and it needed a lot of perseverance!

At the Maths table there were lots of different activities taking place. Some children used the ladybird as a part, part, whole model which they then used to create and solve their own addition calculations. Other children ordered ladybirds from 1-20 and some children used the spots on dominoes to find different compositions of numbers. This required the children to use their problem solving skills!

Lots of children chose to draw ladybirds or play the sequencing and ordering ladybird games on the computer. Once again the children were developing their mathematical language of smallest and largest.

The children have also been super independent writers this week. They have used their phonic knowledge to write some fantastic sentences about ladybirds. Their writing is amazing! Well done Swans.

This week we have continued to learn about Minibeasts and we have focused upon worms. We began the week by reading the story ‘Super Worm.’ The children loved the story and they have also enjoyed learning about the common earth worm. In class we suddenly had a worm infestation! The children made worms by threading pasta onto wool and by threading small beads onto pipe cleaners. This required the children to have good hand eye co-ordination and they were definitely stickosaurus’ as it took a lot of time and patience to complete. The children have also used a mixture of everyday and mathematical language throughout the week to describe and compare the lengths of the worms that they had made.

Lots of children chose to make worms out of play dough as well. This was quite a tricky task as it was difficult to roll out even shaped worms. The children made worms of different lengths and compared them to each other and to the printed worms on the table. They also spent time adding in the segments and the hairs onto their worms. Some children even added on the worm’s saddle!

The children also made worms at the creative table. They enjoyed finger printing worms of different lengths!

At the Maths table there were lots of different activities taking place. Some children found worms of different lengths and ordered them from shortest to longest. Other children sorted worms according to their own criteria. Some children paired up worm number bonds to 10 and some children even made worms out of construction and tried to make the worms as long as themselves!

Lots of children chose to draw worms on the iPads or on the computers. The children were great artists as they really paid attention to detail in the drawings of their worms.

The children have also been super independent writers this week. They have used their phonic knowledge to write some fantastic sentences about worms. Their writing is amazing! Well done Swan

This week we have begun our Minibeast topic. We read the story ‘Aaaarrgghh Spider!’ The children loved the story. Their favourite part was when the spider invited all of his spider friends round to the house! The children have become fascinated with spiders. We have watched some fun fact videos and the children are becoming very knowledgeable about spiders. Lots of children chose to write some of the amazing facts that they have learnt this week about spiders onto spider paper! They used their phonic knowledge very carefully.

The children have really enjoyed singing spider songs as well! They have used picture cards and the water tray to re-enact the ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ Nursery rhyme.

Some children chose to draw spiders using the pastel chalks whilst other children chose to draw spiders on the computers.

Lots of children chose to solve addition sums using spider counters and the counting on method. Some children even managed to be fabulous solveosaurus.’ They were able to independently solve different addition and subtraction number sentences and then they matched each number sentence peg to the correct answer on a spider. Wow!

The children have also learnt about the life cycle of a spider this week. Did you know baby spiders are called spiderlings?

The children have also made some fantastic play dough spiders. Each spider has eight hairy legs! Can you see the hairs? Did you know that spiders can have up to eight eyes as well?

Not all spiders spin webs either. The children have learnt that whilst some spiders are really good at making webs other spiders are really good at jumping and some spiders like to hide under rocks and logs! The children had to concentrate very hard to make their woven webs this week. What a fabulous spider fun filled week we have had!

This week we have continued our topic on Measures by reading the story ‘The Magic Porridge Pot.’

The children had great fun playing with porridge oats in lots of different ways! (Not sure Mrs Boyson enjoyed the clearing up quite so much!)

Some children chose to weigh porridge. The children had to be a tryceratops as it took a lot of patience to weigh the porridge with accuracy. It was also quite tricky to make sure that the balance scales were balanced. Other children chose to explore capacity by pouring, filling, emptying and transferring porridge oats between different sized pots and containers. They were all great explorosaurus’.

Some children chose to paint with a solution of paint and oats! They had to concentrate hard to paint the different characters from the story with such care and control.

Some children chose to make porridge pots of their own using play dough. The children were set the challenge of making three different sized pots. They had to make sure their pots were bowl shaped so that they could fill their pots with porridge. The children were also able to use mathematical language to describe the sizes of their pots and the quantity of porridge oats that each pot held.

Lots of children chose to make stick puppets of the characters from ‘The Magic Porridge Pot’ story and they also used their phonic knowledge to write speech bubbles for each character.

Some children also chose to use their phonic knowledge to write some fantastic stories and sentences about ‘The Magic Porridge Pot.’ The children were great stickosaurus’ and thinkodactyls and their writing is amazing!

The children have also really enjoyed solving the ‘Magic Porridge Pot’ addition sums. We have been learning how to add numbers together using the counting on method in Maths. The children applied this knowledge to this ‘Magic Porridge Pot’ addition activity. They were able to put one number in their head and count on in order to find the answer to the different sums. Very impressive! Well done Swans.

This week we have continued our topic on Measures by reading the story ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker.’ The children have been developing their vocabulary this week and have learnt alternative words for small such as teeny, tiny, weeny, minute, tiny, titchy, little etc.

The children were set a challenge read some teeny weeny words. They had to use magnifying glasses to enlarge the teeny tiny words on the creative table. The children then wrote down the words and read the words to an adult.

Having listened to the story the children were very keen to become shoemakers themselves. They had to be a stickosaurus, a thinkodactyl, a tryceratops and a candoceratops in order to become a solveosaurus and a proudosaurus! The shoes were all independently made and each one totally unique. The children also really enjoyed trying on their new shoes

Lots of children chose to measure their own feet. They then used non-standard measurements such as cubes to measure how long their feet were!

Lots of children also chose to weigh shoes. The children had to be a tryceratops as it took a lot of patience to weigh the shoes with accuracy. It was also quite tricky to make sure that the balance scales were balanced.

Some children also demonstrated great perseverance when they challenged themselves to sew a running stitch around some cut out shoe templates.

Lots of children wanted to pretend to be the shoemaker and his wife. They wanted to write a note back to the elves thanking them for making them such beautiful shoes. The notes that the children wrote had to be teeny tiny! This was quite a challenge!

Lots of children also completed this weeks’ hot task which was to choose some elf addition sums and to solve the calculations using either a part, part, whole model, a tens frame or the first, then and now model which encourages the children to use the counting on method.

Another busy week in Reception!

The Enormous Turnip

This week we have continued our topic on Measures by reading the story ‘The Enormous Turnip.’ The children have had great fun using our small world characters, construction, story boards and stick puppets to verbally retell the story and they have enthusiastically joined in with all of the repeated refrains.

The children have also demonstrated how much progress they have made in phonics this    week as they are now applying that

  The children have also demonstrated how much progress they have made in phonics this    week as they are now applying that   week as they are now applying that knowledge in their own writing. Here some children have written either part of or all of the Enormous Turnip story whilst other children have written down key people or objects from the story.

Lots of children chose to use pastels to draw and colour some beautiful turnips. The children really looked at the turnips carefully and they chose colours for effect, blending in colours when they wanted to merge different colours together.

Lots of children also chose to make turnips on the play dough table. We think the turnips are amazing. The children were definitely super tryceratops’. The turnips are all so different but so carefully made. Some are so intricate too!

Some children chose to practise their fine motor skills by tracing a very large picture of a turnip. They had to concentrate as there were lots of small, detailed patterns inside the turnip to trace.

Other children chose to practise their fine motor skills by carefully using scissors to cut out and make different ‘Enormous Turnip’ character cones, whilst other children chose to complete different repeating patterns using the characters from the story. Both activities were a bit fiddly. The children really needed to be a tryceratops to complete these tasks.

Finally lots of children decided to be a solveosaurus this week by using a dice to generate different addition sums. The children then used turnips and a part, part, whole model to solve their calculations. It has been another busy week in Reception.