WB 01.07.2024

We had a fabulous time with Millie in our new dance studio this week.  Millie taught us a really long dance! As usual, the children made Our visitor feel very welcome and showed off their great listening skills. They did a super job at remembering all the moves!

WB 24.06.2024

This week we have had lots of water play because of the hot weather.  The children have been washing the babies in the tuff tray on the playground and Mr Mottet set us up a sprinkler on the playground! We had great fun running in and out of the water, cooling ourselves off! We even set up a tray of cool water to paddle or feet into.

Other activities have included making pizzas on the creative table and seaside pictures in frames in the sand tray.

In mantle, Millie has started sorting out her loft. The helping hands had to look at the items and decide what they were used for and what they were made of. We also discussed whether the objects are still used now, or whether they are from the past. The children used lots of questions and had some fabulous ideas!

WB 17.6.24

This week we have been carefully watching our caterpillars, waiting for them to turn into cocoons! (By Friday they had)
We have had a go at some observational drawings, looking carefully at the caterpillars and drawing what we have seen.

We also continued our art project, and today began adding our silhouettes to our postcards. We began by choosing a silhouette to match our chosen place and carefully drew it using a charcoal pencil. Then we made sure to colour it in all black, as silhouettes don’t have any gaps! 

In maths we have been looking at pattern rules and finding the repeat. We were really good at finding the rule and creating our own A B and A B C patterns! 
 

We have enjoyed lots of caterpillar themed provision, ordering numbers on the IPad, making caterpillars out of paper and tracing our very own caterpillars and butterflies. 
 

Check back next week to see how our caterpillars are getting on.

Week Beginning 10.06.2024

This week in Mantle we have had news that Millie’s eyes are not very good. We learnt about what happens when you visit the optician and found out why people wear glasses.

We have been using pastels begin to create landscapes to represent the places we wrote about on our postcards, we will be adding more detail next week.

We have had an exciting delivery of caterpillars this week. We will be looking closely over the next few weeks, at the changes that the caterpillars go through….keep checking here for updates!  Also related to minibeasts; the children have found a resident spider in the classroom! They check on it daily, to make sure it is OK!
 

Week beginning 3.6.24

This week, reception enjoyed a visit to Little Owl Farm Park. We had the most fantastic time!
We began the day by meeting a baby chick, daisy the Guinea pig and Galaxy the rabbit. We were very respectful to the animals and stroked them all very carefully. We then explored the farm and were lucky enough to see some baby piglets who were born on Monday! 
After a stop for lunch we ventured up to the field and met turkeys, geese, chickens, ducks and some goats! There were also some Shetland ponies with their manes dyed rainbow colour. At first we thought they were unicorns, but after reading the sign, we saw that they were just ponies!

We had so much fun riding the zip wire, we were so brave and went really fast! We also got to have a play on soft play, which we loved. We had some very sleepy children on the way home, and enjoyed a power nap!

What a fabulous day we had!

Week Beginning 20.5.24

This week we have began to explore our new under cover areas. We have enjoyed getting into role as builders in the construction area. We built some wonderful buildings and even a park with a see saw! We have been moving all of our bodies in our new music and movement area, dancing to our favourite songs and using Pom poms and scarves to dance with. It was so much fun! 
 

We completed our shape work this week, learning how to compose and decompose shapes. We had fun exploring the carpet tile shapes and seeing which shapes we could use to create other shapes. 
In literacy we finished writing our post cards. They have turned out brilliantly! Next half term we look forward to creating some art work to go on the front. 
 

In our mantle story, Millie took a tumble and broke her arm! She was visited by a paramedic, who took her to hospital for an X-ray. We have learnt all about X-rays and what they do, and even had a go at building a Skelton in role as doctors to find out exactly where Millie had broken her arm. We have been playing doctors in the role play, bandaging up our patients and helping them feel better.

To end our week, we had a little party. We sadly said goodbye to one of our grown ups, Miss Jones. She is going on a new adventure and to celebrate that, we all had a piece of cake and a drink of squash together. Good luck Miss Jones, we will all miss you lots!

We hope you all have a restful half term week, and we look forward to seeing you all for the very last half term before summer.

Week Beginning 13.05.2024

This week the children have continued their work on 2D shapes in maths.  They have been learning how to describe the position of a shape in relation to others.  They have had a tea making station in the classroom, to practice their tea making skills for Millie and the other Helping Hands clients in Mantle.  We have been busy finishing out boats in DT, using junk modelling and their designs, they have all made and tested a boat. The boats needed to float and the sails had to catch the wind. The children were encouraged to talk about how they could improve their boat if they were to do the task again.  We also had a tuff tray of dinosaurs that needed some bridges built for them, so they could cross the lava!

Outside, we have been painting at the easel, making forts using the tyres, wooden bricks and crates, and we’ve had a car wash!

Week Beginning 6.5.24

What a beautiful week we have had this week. The children in reception have enjoyed a week full of outdoor play and lovely sunshine. 
 

In literacy, we have began looking at “The Snail and The Whale” and began creating our own postcards to send to a loved one. We have looked at writing a greeting sentence, and stating where we are in the world. We enjoyed looking at maps and deciding where our dream holiday would be!

In maths, we have continued our work with 2D shapes and the ways in which we can rotate them to create pictures called Tangrams. We have explored this in our provision using the IPads, Lightbox and softplay. We have created some wonderful pictures, from dinosaurs to cats.

In mantle, we have undertook some training as our team “helping hands”. After understanding all the jobs carers do for people, we felt it was best to learn a very important job.. how to make a cup of tea. We boiled the kettle, added the teabag and water to the teapot and then stirred in the milk and sugar. We then all tried our cups of tea, they were delicious. We even had a cheeky biscuit… the best part! 
 

After all our hard work testing waterproof materials, seeing which materials sink and float and designing our ideal boats, we have began creating them. We made sure to look closely at our designs and use the materials we had chosen. We then tested to see if our boats floated and whether they were successful. We felt very proud of our creations. 
 

We have continued our learning in the provision this week, exploring orbeez alongside the marble run, discovering dinosaurs in the sand and creating ice creams with the play dough. Outside we have been working as a team to build caves, making sun beds to lounge in the sun and practicing our gross motor and coordination skills by throwing popmpoms onto sellotape. 
 

Week Beginning 29.04.24

This week the children have been exploring 2D shapes in maths.  We have been building shapes with different resources and learning what it means to ‘rotate’ a shape.  
 

We have become a team of home helpers in our Mantle story this week. Millie needed some help to walk her dog Bernie, and she found a card for the Helping Hands. She rang them and asked for some help, but we realised that we needed an office! We made the office using keyboards, phones and paper.

We finished our learning about Rosie in history by collaging our own galleon. We also wrote some super super sentences.

On our creative table this week, we have had junk modelling and jellyfish making to develop our creativity and fine motor skills. The jellyfish look fantastic hanging from the ceiling!  The marble run has proved to be a great activity for working as a team.

Week beginning 22.04.24

This week in reception we have continued reading our book “Rosie sends a signal”. We have been exploring the differences between boats in the past and present and conducted an experiment to see whether past boats with sails or modern boats with engines would travel the fastest. We then had a look at telescopes, which at the time of Rosie’s story we’re a brand new invention. We learnt that telescopes magnify and help us see things that are far away. We peered on to sea without our telescopes and couldn’t see anything. We went snd created our own telescopes and saw the Spanish Galleons coming over the horizon!

We have continued with our mantle story and peeped through Millie’s window to see her opening something…. A card! It was Millie’s 86th birthday. We then realised that she had only received one card, which made her sad, so we spent our afternoon making her birthday cards and sending them to her house. We also began investigating the base 10 blocks, representing numbers from 10-99. When we went to visit Millie the next day, she was peering out her window… the weather had changed and the path had gone and poor Bernie couldn’t have a walk. We discovered that it had snowed, and Millie wanted to know which ingredient from her cupboard would melt the ice fastest! We covered three cups of ice in salt, sugar and pepper. Ask your child which one melted the ice!
 

In our maths learning this week we have been looking at adding and taking away. We have had lots of practice at using our 10s frames and counters and have been representing addition and subtraction stories (first there were___ then there were _____ how many now). 
 

In PE we took a trip to Australia and practiced a variety of skills in a crocodile snap game, a kangaroo throwing game and a cheeky koala game. We have had a brilliant week!

Week Beginning 15.0.04.2024

Reception have been reading a new book Rosie Sends a Signal, and have been busy exploring the differences between portraits and photos, transport from the past and present and clothes from the past and present, making links to the book.
 

We have started a new Mantle story, and have discovered a new area in the classroom. An old lady called Millie lives here, along with her old dog Bernie. I wonder how she is going to need our help? 
 

We have also been scientists, working scientifically to make predictions and complete fair experiments to find out whether certain materials are waterproof or not, and which objects float and sink.

In maths this week we have been working with numbers beyond 10. We have been building numbers between 10 and 20 (using the stem sentence 15 is made of 10 and 5) and verbally counting beyond 20, thinking about the patterns in the numbers.