Owl Babies 

Cosy Nests

As part of our work on Owl Babies, we thought about how the Owls made their nest cosy. We then thought (all owls think a lot you know!) about how we make our homes cosy. We came up with lots of ideas, such as beds, blankets, cushions, Daddy cuddles, radiators, duvets and sofas. The children were then tasked with drawing their cosy home and adding in what they think makes it cosy. Can you recognise your home? 

Maths - 1,2,3 

In maths we have been exploring the numbers 1,2,3 and looking at items and saying what we notice. 

To start with we looked at plates with dots on. We had to say what we noticed, the children were able to use their eyes to subitise and spot how many spots there were on each plate. 

The children then used counters to represent the number of dots, using 1-1 correspondance. 

We then introduced Numicon as a representation for number and the children spotted the holes matched the numbers on the plate. 

Finally the children found the correct numeral to match the items on their plates. 

Our Autumn Walk

We went on an Autumnal walk to gather leaves and other items to decorate a photo frame. We had special collection card with elastic bands on to help us to keep hold of our leaves so they didn't fly away in the wind. We explored all the different colours and shapes of the leaves as well as how they felt and smelt. We listened to the sounds of the wind in the trees and also spotted that we could see the moon and airplanes in the sky. 

When we returned to class we then started to stick our leaves onto our frames to decorate them. We explored how to use glue spreaders and PVA glue as we usually go for glue sticks when we want to glue an item. This required precision and careful attention to detail so the glue didn't stick to the table. 

Owl Babies 

Clay Models 

As part of our literacy focus into the book Owl Babies, we have been looking at owls and their parts of their body. We had a wooden owl to explore. 

We explored the texture of the clay and looked at how we could manipulate the clay to make an owl shape. We then looked at the natural items we had that we could use to enhance our model. 

Mrs Walsh helped to understand the names for special parts of their bodies, such as talons and beaks and we explored how we could make these with items we found. 

Once we had made our owls, we displayed them so we could see them all and compare them. 

PE - Throwing and Catching

We've been practicing our fundamental skills in PE. Today we practiced our throwing and catching skills. We stood opposite our partners and tried to aim into their hands, our partners tried to catch it. 

Mrs Meakin and Mrs Walsh demonstrated how to do this safely and accurately. We counted how many times we could catch our ball in a row. 

Autumn Paintings

We have been exploring autumn colours in the nature we have seen around us and collected. We used some of this nature to paint some autumn pictures using yellow, red, orange and brown, chosen as autumn colours. 

We tried different items to see what effect they made when we printed with them or use them as brushes. 

An Author Visits

10th October

Today, we had a visit from Jane Cancellara who is the author of Eric Croc. The children listened to Jane tell us her story then we pretended to be superheroes! 

We made up our own stories and told Jane them, so we became authors ourselves! Jane told us all about how she thought up the characters and broke down the story into parts, such as the character, their superhero powers, a problem to solve and how it all ends. 

Church Day 

7th October 

We visited our local Church, St Johns, to explore the grounds and the church building as part of the whole school's Church Day. 

While we were there, we looked around the church yard and explored the colours of autumn and found some autumn seeds! 

Inside Richard showed us how Reverend Rhoda Baptises babies in the font and Richard showed us by Baptising our doll. We looked at how the water was scooped into a special shell and then poured it onto the baby's head. 

Next we met Hilary who is the Organist at the Church. She showed us how the organ works and we all got to have a go playing it! 

We returned to school and then talked about all the things we saw and then we coloured churches and we even drew in the bird's nest we saw in the Church's tower! 

Macmillan Charity Cake Event

6th October

Today the children brought in cakes from home to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Charity. The children then took their money and bought cakes from the cake sale. They came back and enjoyed one of their cakes with their friends. 

Active Maths

Size

In maths we have been exploring the language and concept of size.

In this maths lesson we Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then we talked about the different sizes of their chairs, bowls, spoons and beds. We also considered the clothes that they would wear. 

The children sorted the items out and placed them with the correct sized bear. 

We then finished our maths lesson with a number rhyme. We love to sing and join in with our number rhyme sacks. Today we did Five Little Ducks.

On the playground, we had to decide if we were smaller or bigger than a particular animal and then run to either Mrs Walsh (smaller) or Miss Clarke (bigger). The children had to think about animals such as hippos, goldfish, giraffe, chickens and elephants. 

Next, we had to find items around the playground that were smaller than and bigger than the stick Mrs Meakin was holding. We came over with our items, placed them at the side of the stick to check which circle to place it in. 

We then stood back and looked at all the items we had and checked they were correct. 

Finally we came up with different words for small and big! 

Our Autumn walks with our families 

Over the weekend we took home a special collection bag. We went for an autumn walk with our families and collected different items. We used our senses to look at, smell and feel the different objects we found and then we also listened out to see what we could hear too. 

On Monday we started to bring our bags back into school to show our friends what we have found.

Mrs Meakin helped to explain which trees the leaves and seeds may have come from and we looked at all the different shapes and sizes of the items we had all collected. We will add to our collection as we continue to find items. 

Here are some pictures of the items we collected as well as some pictures of us out collecting with our families. 

3rd October 

Balance Bike Session

We were very lucky to be able to spend the morning learning how to balance using different points of our body and then have a go on balance bikes. We have been developing our balancing skills as well as learning how important it is to stay safe on our bikes by wearing our helmets.  

The skills we have learnt will help us in our PE sessions as well as when we play different games. Our core strength also helps us to sit on the carpet and on chairs safely and securely in order to access our leanring fully. 

Oi Frog! By Kes Gray and Jim Field

This literacy focus book is one of our favourites for rhyming words. The children have been learning all about which animal is allowed to sit on which item, based on their name rhyming with the object. The children have listened to the sounds at the end of the words to work out whether it rhymes or not. 

The children have started their guided writing journey by thinking of a word that rhymes with their animal and trying to hear the initial sound, or fully segment the word, and then using support to write the words. This is our first attempt at guided writing, and we will be working on our letter formation, segmenting and pencil control over the next few weeks to help us to develop this further. 

Week of the 26th of September

This week we have been using our IWB to write our names, draw pictures and practice our phonics skills. Outside we have been building walls and making pictures using our loose parts. We have been playing with our board games as well as practicing our counting skills in other areas of our provision. 

Making a ball and cup toy,

using different joining methods

In a focused design and technology activity, we have been exploring toys from the past and present and we have made our own ball and cup toy. 

Visit our DT gallery page to see what we did. 

Our first PE lesson

This is our first PE lesson. Today we learnt how to move in different ways by pretending to be animals. We moved like a giraffe, tall and thin, a bear, on all fours, a kangaroo, hopping upright, and a frog, hopping on all fours. We practiced these skills then we had to move around avoiding each other and deadly obstacles, such as alligator swamps and mountains!

We then moved slowly like a sloth and fast like a cheetah, all whilst making sure we didn't invade other children's space and bump into them.

We finished back in the classroom with a game of "Sleeping Lions" to help regulate our breathing and heart rates back to normal.  

Squiggle Me into a Writer

We have been developing our gross and fine motor skills using Squiggle Me into a Writer programme. This requires us to use "Flappers" to make large movements using letter shapes to music. The children are able to exercise their core muscles and their finger muscles by moving the flappers around. Children then have to fold the material back into a square after the session, developing their fine motor skills further. 

Week of the 19th of September

This week in Reception class we have been developing our sharing skills, learning how to care for our resources and put them away when we have finished playing with them and play harmoniously with our new friends. The children have been playing with the train track, fixing together the track pieces to make a longer track and working together to make a full track. 

Alongside this we have been exploring games on our ICT board. These have included ordering numerals to help us to practice and embed this knowledge, and developing our listening and auditory discrimination skills through listening games. 

The Colour Monster

by Anna Llenas

We have been reading The Colour Monster as our first key text in Literacy. This is linked closely to what we have been learning about emotions in our PSED activities. We have been able to think about the different emotions the Colour Monster felt in the book and how these emotions feel and look like in us. 

As part of our learning we used the story spoons to retell the story, helping us to recall the key parts of the story. Alongside this we tried to make the faces that reflect how we would feel if we were feeling these emotions. We also talked about how the emotions would feel like in our stomachs.  

Alongside this book we introduce our emotions board and Inside Out characters which help the children to tell us when they need support. 

Decorating our pegs

As part of our transition we have been decorating our emotion pegs and the pegs we use to choose our books each day. The children used the felt-tip pens very carefully to decorate their pegs in an unique way so they would be able to identify their pegs at a glance. Each day the children use their pegs to tell us how they are feeling on our emotion board so that they can identify their feelings and we can support them if they need to talk about how they are feeling. This is helping the children to understand more about their own emotions and how we can express them and manage these with support and independently. 

Our Favourite Books

As part of understanding all about our uniqueness, we have been discussing which is our favourite book to read in our reading area or in our reading arch. We picked out our favourites and talked about why we like this book so much. Some answers included the characters, or if the book was funny; some liked the illustrations, and some liked it because they read it at home with their family. This has helped us with our learning about how unique we all are. Our children realised they liked different books or the same books for different reasons. This is building a bigger picture of who we all are. 

Parachute Games

We use parachute games in Reception to help us to strengthen our core and our gross motor skills. These games can also help us to understand how to manipulate speed, problem solve and work together as a team. They are also really good fun!!

Our first week in Reception. We have been exploring our classroom and making new friends. We have particularly liked the pizza parlour and playdough! The more we know about where we are, the more we can use the resources to develop our learning, knowledge, skills and vocabulary. 

Our self-portraits

We used mirrors to look at our faces and to identify where our facial features were. We talked about our body parts and the colour of our eyes and hair. We then tried to draw ourselves, which some of us found a little tricky. We used this activity to help us to understand just how unique we all are. We realised that none of our pictures look the same, and this is because we are all different and unique.