Farms, fun and a lot of firsts for our new Reception children

The new Reception children certainly have had a busy first half term at school. It’s hard to believe it is half term week already, though we did all feel ready for it. Here are some of the things we got up to in the first few weeks of school.

In maths we have been learning about numbers. We have been visiting Numberland where each number has its own house and garden. The numbers like their gardens to be a particular shape. Number 1 likes to have a circle-shaped garden as a circle has 1 side while number 2 likes a semi-circle as that has 2 sides etc. We have been practising counting objects as well as talking about and beginning to record addition. We are getting better at writing our numbers but would still benefit from a little practice of this (especially those tricky number 2s and 5s).

In literacy we have been enjoying lots of farm stories. We made puppets and retold the story of The Little Red Hen. We also learned to make bread just like in the story. We heard the story of Little Red Hen and Horse at Wimpole Farm then took a trip to Wimpole Farm ourselves. Many of the children got to see the pigs being fed and, although it was very noisy, this seemed to be a firm favourite among the events for the day. We also learned all about living things and got to stroke a chick and a rabbit. We talked about how we knew those animals were living things.

In phonics we have been learning our single letter sounds. We only have 4 more letters to learn before we move onto digraphs (2 letter sounds). We need to keep practising forming these letters correctly and have even been using these letters to write simple words. During the parents information evening we mentioned the Jolly Phonics website where you can find links to videos about each sound/phoneme. This may be of use if you are unsure of the pronunciation of each sound. The website address is http://jollylearning.co.uk/overview-about-jolly-phonics/

Last week we were learning about apples in preparation for National Apple Day on 21st October. Thank you to many of you who sent in different types of apples. We had lots of fun tasting the different apples and comparing them. Taste is one of the 5 senses we have been learning about in science. We also enjoyed lots of stories about apples in both literacy and maths.

We really have been busy with far too much to mention here so please do enjoy looking at the pictures below which will hopefully help to provide further insight into our activities so far.

After half term, we will be learning all about Autumn. Please remember to send in any bits that you collect on your autumn walks. We will be moving on to learning about the sense of sight and light and dark in science. Before we know it preparations will begin for our Christmas show where Winter will be our focus.

Hopefully you are all enjoying the half term week so far. We look forward to seeing the children on Monday, ready for another busy half term!