Reception
Amwell Nature Reserve
On Wednesday morning Reception class walked to our local Amwell Nature Reserve. We saw many different birds including cormorants, terns and a heron. We went on a mini beast hunt and found snails, spiders, woodlice and tiny white creatures that jumped liked fleas! We enjoyed pond dipping and watching the boatmen float acrss the water. It was fun to splash in the shallow water in our wellies.
Dinosaurs
We have really got our razor sharp teeth stuck into our Dinosaur Topic this term! Visit Reception and you will find us roaring, brandishing our claws, flicking our imaginary tails and with a monstrous appetite! Did you know that in our Dinosaur Den we discovered some pre-historic rock? We then used brushes and pics and gently persevered to reveal dinosaur fossils. We were able to discover the names of these dinosaurs by looking in our Dinosaur non-fiction books for clues.
Computing
In computing, we designed our very own dinosaurs and used our knowledge of phonics to aid us in writing a descriptive sentence about it. During Learning through Play we discovered real dinosaur bones on the school site! Mrs Emmony and Mrs Levins made it a site of historical interest which means we cannot dig up the garden anymore in case we damage these fossils.
French Day
Oh la la! We have just enjoyed a wonderful French Day at school. We listened to French music, learnt French songs, wore blue, white and red; made our own French Flags; experienced a French café, ate le pain and le croissant and learnt the parts of the body for the French hokey kokey ‘Gouzie Gouzie’. It was so much fun, we think we might move to France!
Chinese New Year
Happy Chinese New Year everybody. In Reception, we have been celebrating the Year of the Rooster! The children have been learning about how Chinese people celebrate the New Year. They clean their homes, wear new red clothes for luck and decorate their homes with red material and lanterns. Often families will go and watch a firework display and see a traditional lion/dragon dance.
In story time, we learnt about the legend of ‘Niam’, a Chinese Lion who every year would enter a village for food. The people discovered that the lion was scared of red and loud noise. This is why the Chinese people dance the traditional lion dance! We looked at footage of lion/dragon dances, especially, the movement made by the dancers. In P.E, we formed small groups and practised mirroring our leader’s movements in a line. It was tricky but great fun. Our teacher filmed us and we watched the video back to see how we could make it even better!
In Understanding of the World, we learnt about the Chinese New Year traditions. We prepared a Chinese Feast and we all had a go at trying some traditional food. We tasted special rice biscuits, seaweed, spring rolls, Chinese beansprout curry and a Chinese rice dish. We even had a go at eating the food with chopsticks! It is really tricky!
In Learning Through Play time, some of us wanted to make a Chinese dragon, our Teacher asked ‘How will you make it?’ Some of us chose egg boxes, plastic bottles or toilet roll tubes. We found some shiny paper to make the tail and some of us used tissue paper to look like the dragon was breathing fire! They are on display in our classroom. Please come and have a look!
We are in the process of turning a big box into a dragons head, we hope to end our topic with a whole class dragon dance in the playground!
Christmas Cards
On Thursday 10th November we invited parents and carers in to help us make our Christmas cards. We had a very busy afternoon when the children enjoyed the opportunity to work with someone from home. They produced some lovely cards which will be sent away and made into packs of cards that their families can buy and send to friends and relatives at Christmas.
Understanding of the World
In our Reception Class we are settling in so well! As part of our ‘Understanding of the World’ learning, we’ve examined a real wasp nest! We dissected the nest and used magnifying glasses to discover how the wasps lived and worked, and where they lay their eggs. We discovered lots of facts.
Did you know that wasps make nests from paper? They chew up strips of bark and spit it out again to form a rough paper. We were fascinated to discover that Honey bees have five eyes, four wings and six legs! We created our very own wasp and bee puppets, made paper hives and sang songs about wasps and bees.
Phonics
In Phonics, we have started Phase 2 and so far we’ve learnt the first 5 sounds for ‘s’ ‘a’ ‘t’ ‘p’ ‘i’ ‘n’. We’ve also been practising our letter formation. Our Teachers have been very impressed with our writing skills.
LearningThrough Play
During our ‘Learning through Play’ time, we created a ramp course to race cars using guttering; built towers and houses out of building blocks; practised our cutting, sticking and modelling skills in the craft area and enjoyed playing together in our Vet Surgery, Café, home and Post Office role play areas. We even created our very own Pirate Ship – Ahoy!
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