Blog week ending 22nd October

Autumn Exploring!
Magic Maths!
RWI!
Halloween fun!

Annnnnd relax!

That is the end of our first half term in reception - it has been a pleasure getting to know your wonderful children. They have made us smile and laugh, which has been sorely needed during these testing times - so a big shout out to Pear class - what a fab bunch you are !

This week as part of our Autumn exploration, we completed a leaf hunt outside in small groups looking for the leaves from the oak, sycamore, beech and horse chestnut trees on our school field.  This was such a time of discovery as we looked at the different shaped leaves, all of the autumn colours and the seeds that these trees produce. 

 Later in the week we looked closely at sycamore leaves - some were very large and non were exactly the same colour.  We discovered that they had 5 points, a bit like the 5 fingers on our hand!  We had a great afternoon creating leaf prints from these leaves, by mixing autumn colours.  The results are beautiful!  We also created our own Autumn pictures to explore the changes we have seen this season so far and I encouraged the children to tell me why and how these changes are happening. This week we've also talked about some animals who don't hibernate but who are currently making stores of food to get them through the long and cold winter.

Half term is a great time to get out and about and explore these changes further, crunching in leaves, looking at the gorgeous colours, spotting seeds and signs that plants and trees are preparing themselves for the winter.  

 In our mathematical work, we've continued to work with our key vocabulary: 

more than

less than/fewer

equal to/the same

 

We have built and compared towers with blocks as we used this language and we've looked at a range of representations of numbers 1-5 as we use these words. 

 It would be great if you could reinforce this language over the holidays.  In particular, focus on getting your child to make a set of something with less/fewer than you.  This has been quite tricky for us!  We all want more!

 Our sounds this week have been e, h and l.  Here are the little rhymes we use: 

e - chop off the top and scoop out the egg

h - down the head to the hooves and over his back

l - down the lovely long leg. 

 To round off the week, following on from our classroom interests, we had a spooky session creating Halloween stories, costumes, loose part art and creating our own spells in our classroom cauldron. In reception, we try to ensure that our children’s collective and individual interests are followed and this will come to the forefront next term when we begin to utilise our classroom learning journey board where Pear class children will begin to initiate their own learning weekly, alongside our adult led topics.

 *A big well done to this week’s Star of the Week:  Wilfred Patten for his fantastic independent writing and always trying his best!

 Have a wonderful, restful half term and we will see you very soon!

Laurie Horne-Smith