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.

Transport

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This Week the Swans have continued enjoying our Transport Topic!
We have focused on flying transport and in Language for Thinking we learnt about the first people to fly, first in hot air balloons and then aeroplanes made from wood! We thought these people must have been very brave! Then we saw the progression to bigger, faster and better aeroplanes, moving on to aeroplanes that take us on holidays and rockets that can go into space!
In Discovery Time we had the small world airport and planes  out in the tuff tray. The children really enjoyed pretending they were flying away on holiday!
On the Maths Table we used the transport counters and the tens frames to help us write our ‘First, Then and Now’ number stories and sentences.
On the Writing Table the children used their fantastic phonic skills to write sentences about different modes of transport. They even remembered to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops at the end of their sentences. Well done Swans!
  
On another table the children had to read the captions and match it to the corresponding picture. We also had a cut and stick activity where the children needed to cut and stick the modes of transport and decide if they were from the past or the present and then colour them in carefully!
    
The Swans really enjoyed playing the transport matching game, taking it in turns and showing amazing sharing skills!
On the Workshop Table the children used the gummed paper and scissors to make amazing modes of transport. They used scissors carefully and wrote a sentence underneath to explain what they had made.
In ‘Talk for Writing’ this week we have focused on the book ‘ Martha Maps it Out’ by Leigh Hodgkinson. The Swans are learning all about making maps and this book really helped the children.  The children drew a picture of their favourite place and wrote a sentence about it.
As you can see the Swans have been really busy this week and worked really hard!
Well done Swans!

Transport

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The Swans are continuing with our Transport topic and this week we are focusing on boats and water transport.
In ‘Language for Thinking’ this week we conducted an experiment to find out how boats float. The children tested out a piece of wood, cotton wool, a pencil, coin a crayon and a rubber band to see which objects floated and which sank. As a family group the children recorded their findings on a sheet. Most of the objects sank but the pencil and the piece of wood floated!
In maths we have focused on number stories using the language ‘First we have…’, ‘Then we have… more….’ and ‘Now we have….’
Many of our Discovery Time activities are transport based too! The children have been writing captions about different types of transport, counting groups of transport and finding the correct numeral and finding the correct number of counters in tens frames on the toy cars to match with the numeral.
They have enjoyed playing with the the boats in the water tray too!
We have painted our fantastic clay tiles and they are ready now to sell! I’m sure you will agree they look fantastic!

Coronation Celebrations

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 The Swans have had a fantastic time celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III!
We began the week by learning about the Coronation and why it is such an important celebration for our country.
Our discovery time tables had lots of activities linked to our coronation theme. We finger painted Union Jack flags, used our fantastic phonic skills to write two sentences about two royal pictures, counted royal pictures adding the correct numerals, made play dough crowns adding our own jewels and followed a union Jack pattern to make our own pattern with the pegs and boards!
We also carefully made our clay plaques cutting out a square and  rectangle shape using the cutters to make a crown.
Well done Swans!

Transport

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Our Swans have been reading the Naughty Bus Book written by Jan & Jerry Oke. Its is a lovely book with lots of photos and text telling us all about the adventures of a little London bus. 
The children have being using transport to continue their learning in maths by counting and recognising numbers within 20.
 On the Work shop table the children have made junk models of their favourite transport using old cardboard boxes, paper and plastic bottle tops. On the play dough table the children made fantastic cars and helicopters, rolling the play dough into ‘sausages’ and making the outline of each one.