W.C 10.11.25 and 17.11.25

Over the last 2 weeks, we have been widening our knowledge of penguins, we are penguin experts after all! We have created soome fantastic pictures using the iPads and been exploring ice in the water tray. We have also been following steps to draw our own penguins and making them out of playdough! 

Our literacy is still focussed around penguins, as is out Mantle.

In Mantle, after establishing that our footprint belonged to a penguin, Mrs Heynes and Mrs Paxton drew out a zoo! We filled the zoo with animals; camels, giraffes, zebras, crocodiles and penguins.  But something terrible has happened! We met the zoo owner who told us that all the animals had to be re-homed because the zoo was losing down! He had found homes for most of the animals, but only one penguin remained!

He gave us a list of things the penguin needed, which we didnt think looked right, but we followed them because he told us too. After a week, the penguin looked very sad and was loosing his feathers! We had not been looking after him properly! The penguins thoughts said he was lonely, hungry, too warm and sad! We wrote a new list of instructions to make him feel better.  

We then discovered something shocking..........he was holding an egg on his feet!  What ever we do with the penguin now has to be quick! We cannot have the egg hatching is a closed down zoo!

W.C. 03.11.25

Our fist week back after half term has been very busy.

We have started writing about a penguins in Literacy and have had some footprints in our Mantle story.  We have also been learning about Bonfire night and have used the provision to create some amazing firework pictures. 

We found some unfamiliar prints on the carpet.  At first some of the team thought they were hand prints, but then we can to the conclusion that they couldn't be hand prints as they were on the floor - so they had to be foot prints.  But who has left they!  We shared our thought about what animal we think could have left them:

• Lion
• Dinosaur
• Penguin
• Giraffe
• Elephant
• Rhino
• Hippo  

There was only one thing to do... we had to do some investigating!

We look at some different footprints and matched them to the ones on the carpet.  We found the matching footprint, so now all we had to do was match it to the correct animal.  

The team worked really hard and discovered that the footprint belonged to ...

A Penguin!

W.C. 20.10.25

This week the children have been learning about Diwali.  They watched a family prepare for the celebration, creating rangoli patterns, decorating their homes with Diva lamps and lights.  The women and girls also have mehndi art on their arms and hands.  

The children had a great time exploring creative activities focused on Diwali.  

Mantle this week

The team have been working hard these past few weeks helping Fixington town and the Mayor of Fixington is really pleased with all of our work.  We have:

• Fixed a leaky pipe from the swimming pool.
• Redesigned a playground and created playground equipment.
• Sorted a build up of parcels in the Post Office.
• Fixed the teams van.

We received a letter from the mayor asking us to help with one last job.  He has been let down by a part planner and he wants us to help make some decorations for a party.  If we do a good job we will get invited!

As it would be Halloween soon the team set to work creating the decorations and exploring the provision. 

They really enjoyed making hanging bats, designed pumpkins, hammering golf tees into pumpkins, making potions, fishing spiders out of the bubbly water and writing a list of all the Halloween items. 

We had a fantastic time at the 'Spooky Halloween' story night and 0ur decorations were used to decorate the classroom! 

W.C 06.10.25 and 13.10.25 - Reception have had a super busy couple of weeks!  We have been exploring the resources up on The Green; den building, making campfires, swinging in the nets, collecting acorns and making mud pies (amongst other things!). We had some special visitors into school that we helped make some huge banners for.  Mrs Heynes' class did some oil pastel leaf rubbings on some material and Mrs Paxton's class dripped some coloured inks onto some other material.  You may have seen these bannners at the community march!  

To develop our understanding of the world, we have been looking at homes and families from different parts of the world.  We compared houses and families in Sweeden and Kenya, and discussed the similariites and differences with ours.  

Our handwriting is really coming on now and we have started writing a word in phonics! Fine motor activities will continue to be a priority throughout the year to help make us good writers!

In Mantle we have been fixing lots of things around Fixington Town. We have fixed a burst pipe at the swimming pool and designed and made a new park.  This week we found out there was a problem at the Post Office!  We couldn't open the door to the post office because there were so many parcels stacked against it! we had to sort the parcels by size, shape or who they were for.  Obviously we couldnt have this happen again, as it is not safe, so we made some posters to keep the area tidy!

After we solved the Post Office problem, we found out that our Repair Rangers van had broken down, so we couldn't use it to go to any more jobs! Because we are good at fixing things, we deceded to fix it ourselves.  Some of the lights were not working, the windscreen wipers were broken, the windscreen had a crack in it and the wheels needed tightening! Luckily, we are back on the road and ready for our final job........What could that be I wonder?

WC 29.09.25 - We went out for a walk this week! We were looking for shapes in the environment and the different types of houses.  We spotted circle drain covers, rectangular for sale signs and square windows and paving slabs! We also noticed that all houses don't look the same! The children walked beautifully and were very respectful and safe.

We started a new Literacy unit this week, looking at the 3 Little Pigs Houses, we listened to the story and then talkd about what their houses were made of.  We looked at what each house was made of and decided that the brick was the best thing to use to build a house.  We then watched a video about how to make a house! We looked at some different examples of brick houses and did some amazing writing about what we noticed!

PE has been great with Mrs Bailey.  The children have been practising getting undressed and dressed, as well as keeping their belongings together. Please keep doing this at home too! They are using the hall space safely and have been refining their ball skills!

We also saw our new outdoor space open this week.  Mr Keiran opened The Green on Friday and we celebrated with a drink in the classroom! Watch this space for more photos of us using the green.

In Mantle this week the children were tasked with job number 2 from the Mayor of Fixington.  The equipment in the park was all broken and dangerous!  The children were shocked when they saw the stake of the broken playground and set about designing and making a new one! Lots of constuction later, and the new equipment was ready!

WC 22.09.2025 - The children have been busy again this week. There have been lots of activities in the provision that encourage the development of fine motor skills and co-operative play and house building in the construction area!

In Maths, we have been thinking about sorting. We have been finding different ways to sort buttons; by colour, size, shape and even by how many holes they have in them! We have had activities that link to our Mantle problem and lots of play outside in the Autumn sunshine!

Handwriting and Literacy remain a focus and the children continue to learn new phonemes daily, whilst learing to hold a pencil correctly and work the fingers to build a good, strong pencil grip.

We found out what the problem was in Fixington.......The Mayor told us there was a burst pipe at the swimming pool and all the water was flooding the surrounding area!  We had to work quickly and as a team to fix the problem with our tools. Luckily we were able to fix the pipe and clean up the mess that was left behind and filled in a repair report.

WC 15.09.2025 - What a fantastic week we've had in Reception.  We have been busy writing, working cooperatively and exploring the inside and outside provision. PE is going well and the children are learning to use the space safely and organise themselves when getting undressed and dressed. We also have been fixing and building things this week (linked to our Mantle - see below).

We started a new Mantle this week, where we are a team of Repair Rangers! We are all clever, kind and good at fixing things, so this role seems perfect for us! We had to establish what a Repair Ranger might wear to be safe and what  they might need to carry around to be able to fix things.  The children had some great ideas! Of course, we needed a Repair Ranger badge to show who we were!

We then recieved a letter from the Mayor of Fixington.  He told us that the town was in trouble and he needed the help of the Repair Rangers.  We first needed to know what Fixington looked like, so we made a town map in the Blue Room....I wonder what trouble the town is in?

Our First Week - The Reception children have had a fantastic start to their school journey at Woodrow.  We have been exploring the new environments inside and out and learning how to share, care and learn together.  We have played games to get to know each other and talked about our school and classroom rules.

We have been talking about and exploring our emotions, using The Colour Monster to help us.  We have been thinking about the things that make us feel sad, happy, angry calm and scared. Photos of some fantastic early writing can be seen below, along with our beautifully decorated colour monsters that are on display in the unit.

Have a look at some of the other things we have been up to......