This week our learning was based around our Drawing club story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We built bridges and climbed over bridges. We designed and built various ways to cross rivers and experimented in the water tray with sinking and floating materials and built rafts out of natural and man-made materials. We painted rivers and fields by mixing and exploring the use of different blues and greens. We drew, coloured and wrote about the characters in the story and also made troll faces using natural materials in our Tuff Tray. In music, we used drums to explore different sounds to represent the trip-trapping of each of the goats, using small drums for the smallest goat and large drums for the largest. The children listened well, played at the right time and were able to copy a pattern on their drums. As we were thinking about rivers and bridges, it seemed a good idea to link to our local area. The children were able to identify pictures of local buildings and areas around North Tawton, including bridges and rivers that they might have walked by. We learnt a little more about our ‘House Teams’ and that they were all named after local rivers. I also introduced the children to the poetry of Ted Hughes and explained how this very famous poet lived in our community. I read some of Ted Hughes’ poems for children about animals that live in our local environment. The children continue to make great progress in their phonics. I was very impressed with their writing this week and we are encouraging them to read and write during their independent learning using ‘Fred Talk’ and ‘Fred Fingers’. After Easter, with one term left in Reception, we will be gradually increasing the length of the phonics sessions to prepare them for the expectations of year 1. In maths this week, the children recognised, made and represented doubles up to double 5. They really enjoyed the practical activities involved and were able to work collaboratively with a partner. The children were also introduced to the concept of odd and even numbers through visual representation which they were then able to create from multilink: It has been lovely to get outside more this week. The children love the outdoor area and are so creative with the varied learning they can experience in our fantastic environment. Hopefully, spring is now here and we will be able to do much more learning outdoors in the coming weeks.
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Castles, Knights and Dragons. This week we have continued to explore traditional tales and fairy stories, this time through the theme of castles, knights and dragons. The children made castles using a variety of materials and mediums, including, junk modelling, construction, cutting and sticking 2-d shapes as well as colouring and drawing castles. They have developed their fine motor skills to make moveable knights by carefully cutting out and then attaching arms and legs to the knight’s body using split pins to make the limbs moveable. They also designed their own coat of arms using a ruler to divide the shape into two or four parts and then drawing and colouring to represent themselves. Some children made colourful dragon faces by printing with the unusual material of bubble wrap to create scale-like patterns on fire-breathing dragon faces. Others, cut out and wore their own dragon masks which they used to try and scare their teachers!
The children have continued to develop their phonic skills in daily phonic sessions and have applied their skills to their independent learning where they have been reading and writing captions as well as reading books available in the classroom with increasing independence. They delight in spotting and using the new sounds that they learn each day and enjoy writing words and phrases in their play. Over the next 2 weeks, I will be assessing the children as we do at the end of each half term to check on the progress they are making. This is also true in drawing club. This week, the story was Billy and the Beast – a modern story reminiscent of George and the Dragon but in this story the hero is a little girl who outsmarts the rather stupid beast! The children love coming to drawing club to use their imagination to make the story their own using drawings and ‘adventure codes’ to make the magic happen! In maths this week, the children explored the composition of numbers within 10, focusing on the ‘special case’ of when 2 equal parts combine to make a whole. The children used their skills of comparison to identify when 2 sets are equal or NOT equal. They saw a range of familiar representations including dice and fingers to explore the idea of ‘2 equal parts’, and then found the whole by combining these parts. The children continued to use their subitising skills, and are beginning to ‘know’ the whole when they see 2 parts the same size for larger numbers within 10, as well as beginning to recall some doubles facts. I was really impressed with how they worked collaboratively in pairs to make their own doubles which they then represented on whiteboards as you will see in the photographs. We also enjoyed further enrichment of our curriculum through French and music this week. Marion came and delighted the children with her story of ‘la chenille qui fais des trous’ (the very hungry caterpillar). Using beautifully illustrated story stones, Marion told the story in French and English to her captive audience! The children love these lessons and they love Marion coming in. We are so grateful to her for giving up her time to teach the children a modern foreign language. In our music lesson this week, the children worked together in small groups to compose music using percussion instruments. They are learning not only musical skills and knowledge such as pitch (high or low), tempo (fast or slow) and dynamic (loud or quiet) but also the social skills of sharing, collaborating and negotiating. This week, within our theme of traditional tales and fairy stories we have played and learnt through our theme of heroes/heroines/princes and princesses.
The children are making good progress in their phonics lessons and are becoming real readers who are able to apply their skills to other books and the environment. In maths, we have been learning about the composition of the number 7 through games, activities and songs. The children learnt that 7 is made up of 5 and 2 as well as 4 and 3 and 6 and 1 and so on. In Drawing Club this week we watched an old cartoon featuring the alternative superhero Bananaman. As well as drawing him and his nemesis Dr Gloom and his ray gun, we used new vocabulary to go with the story. Superheroes also featured in our continuous provision as we designed our own superhero symbols, made super hero vehicles from junk modelling and decorated super hero capes. Our PE lessons have been focussed on ball skills and gymnastics. Mr Pearson taught the children how to control a ball and on Monday in gymnastics, they were learning how to use control to make different body shapes such as tuck and star shapes. On Wednesday this week we were able to get outside in to the sunshine. In R.E. we have been learning about the Easter story and this week after remembering the four seasons we thought about how spring links to the Easter story. We went outside and collected natural objects to make our own Easter gardens. Thursday was of course World Book Day. So great to see all the children dressed up as their favourite book character - especially nice when they bring their favourite book with them too to share. Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers or special others out there for Sunday. I hope the children have some lovey surprises for you and you are able to enjoy a special day with your family. |
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