Spring 2

This half term has sped by so quickly! The half term started with World Book Day and thinking of new words to learn and share, inspired by the whole school text The Word Collector.

During Topic time, Reception have been learning about Growing. They have learned how plants grow, observing new signs of growth on Spring walks. They have planted seeds to observe as well as conducting experiments to show how roots of a plant work and how leaves breathe out oxygen. The children have also thought about how they have grown and changed themselves and how being healthy helps them to grow – they have loved brushing the pretend teeth! The children also had a think about what they could/couldn’t do when they were smaller and what they want to be able to do when they grow up. After our visit from the police where the children were able to go in the police car etc, there were many aspiring police officers in Reception!

What a busy half term that was! It has been lovely seeing the children really find their feet at Yewtree and seeing their confidence bloom.

Our learning this half term in Literacy/Topic has been focused on Festivals and Celebrations. We started the half term reading the story of Pumpkin Jack and we carved our own class Pumpkin Jack for class. In the story, the little boy watches the pumpkin change and decay over time and then the pumpkin regrows the following year. The children in class have been watching our own Pumpkin Jack in the plastic box in class and comment on his changes – First he was “wrinkly” then he looked like he was “melting” and currently he is “Sloshy and slurpy”! I wonder what will happen next…?

During the festival of Diwali we created rangoli patterns, made salt dough diyas and learned about the story of Rama and Sita. We also learned about Guy Fawkes and enjoyed watching a rather spectacular bicarb and vinegar ‘firework’ in class (a small fruit shoot bottle with bicarb and vinegar that spurts out the top) that worked so effectively, the ceiling had a bit of a spray! The children enjoyed using different media to create firework pictures and with Mrs Chatterpaul explored creating different firework noises and learning about onamatopeia with musical instruments and accompanying words. For Remembrance Day, we listened to the story ‘Where the Poppies now Grow’ and we created a handprint poppy wreath to place in the school’s Remembrance display.

We have recently been focused on the Christian festival of Christmas and have discussed Advent and how people prepare for Christmas. We have learned the Nativity story in depth with the help of our Christmas Play and we have decorated the class Christmas trees and strung up paper chains. We have been singing away in class, learning the songs for our Nativity. The children put on a fabulously unforgettable and unique performance where some ad libbing on lines and some confident moves really brought a modern spin to the Nativity 😉 They were all little super stars!

During our phonics sessions we have been moved into different phonics groups to embed and develop our phonics at our level of learning. The children are developing confidence in their phonics. Please continue supporting your child at home with any phonics tasks. Groups will have specific tasks linked to their learning to practise and try at home.

In maths we have been recently working on pattern. We started by looking at environmental patterns around us e.g. paths, brickwork, animal patterns etc, then we looked at repeating patterns on some fabrics and wallpapers and tried creating our own wallpapers/wrapping papers with stampers. We then further developed pattern knowledge by creating repeat pattern sequences e.g. red, yellow, red yellow and tried to extend them to more complex patterns. We have become so good at these now that we can identify the missing bit really well! Well done!

As for stories, we have continued to read our core collection of books from our curriculum but after it’s initial read in school, a firm favourite from a wider selection of our books is The Hairy Toe! The children have been so enthused and engaged in this book and chant it at me wherever we are! Often they change the words to smelly toe, or hairy nose to keep making it funny! I wonder which book will be our favourite next half term?

Wishing you all a fabulous Christmas/winter break with your families. I am looking forward to hearing all about what you all get up to! Happy New Year and we will see you in 2024!

The children in Reception have settled well into life at Yewtree Primary School and are showing that they are curious and purposeful learners.

Our learning has really focused in on celebrating ourselves and our families and what makes us unique. We have explored books such as Brown (The Many Shades of Love) and The Colours of Us to spark conversation about our different skin tones and how we can mix these colour shades with powder paints and create self portraits choosing appropriate colours. We have learned more about our homes and where we live and have drawn pictures and created models of our homes using junk modelling.

As the season started to change from late summer to Autumn, we looked for signs of the changes in our school grounds and as harvest time approached, we picked the blackberries and chopped apples harvested from Miss Steeden’s allotment to create an apple crumble. We also made harvest time soup, practising our peeling and cutting skills. We shared our photos and method at the harvest festival assembly where we also sang our favourite song so far this year ‘It’s Harvest Time’

During our phonics sessions we have learned many of our set 1 sounds and we have loved getting to know Fred Frog and Fred talking with him (sounding out). Many of the children are now able to create CVC words with the magnetic letters as well as identify initial sounds in words. They have been enthused with the Fred games they are playing at home so thank you to all the parents for the ongoing support.

In maths we have been subitising everything! “We use our brain and use our eyes to see a number in the set”. We have also been counting with 1:1 correspondence and applying this in every day life such as traffic surveys and counting sounds (e.g buttons dropping into a jar.) We have finished this half term looking at measuring with non standard measures – we loved taking our shoes off to measure those and we have loved comparing our heights against the vertical number line.

We have become very familiar with certain storytime books and absolutely love the book Shhh! Many of the children can now tell this story off by heart.

Looking forward to more fun packed learning. Enjoy the half term break!