Week beginning 3rd Feb

In our topic work this week we have been learning about the different planets. This included us talking about Jupiter and the big red spot - a storm that has been raging for at least 150 years. We also discovered what Saturn's rings are made of and how many rings scientists believe Saturn has (500-1000). In Maths we have focused on one less than a number. We have used a number line to jump back, sang counting songs such as 5 speckled frogs and used tens frames to take one counter away each time.

We enjoyed lighting the fire for the first time at Wild Space on Thursday. The children demonstrated how to safely approach and kneel by the fire whilst toasting their marshmallows. We also continued to build on our gross motor skills by balancing and climbing. It is lovely to see the children's confidence growing week by week at Wild Space, in particular with trying new things and talking in front of the class at the end.

On Number Day we enjoyed a range of different maths activities. This included colour by number, decorating numerals, snakes and ladders, making stars and number hunts.

Week beginning 27th January

This week we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We found out how it is celebrated around the world and listened to the Chinese Zodiac story. The children have enjoyed making different dragon masks and taking part in a dragon dance with some traditional music. We also painted Chinese numerals and talked about the differences we noticed in the way that we record and write numerals. In Wild space we enjoyed playing the ‘Queen Bee’ game and ‘123 where are you’. We also spent time practising how to move safely around the fire circle, in preparation for when we start our fires. We are beginning to see the children choosing to write more and more in their 'play and learn' time, which is lovely to see. This week we focused on writing animals names from the Chinese New Year story.



We have continued to track the space station on the following link - Live Space Station Tracking Map | Spot The Station | NASA

Week beginning 20th January

This week in our topic work we have been learning about astronauts. We discussed what skills astronauts need, how they get to the international space station and what their job is. The children were particularly interested in where the astronauts sleep and what they eat whilst in space. We have been tracking the international space station daily on the whiteboard in class. We discovered that the space station travels around the earth 16 times every day. The children enjoy spotting where it is on the map each day. 

In our Maths work the children have been practically adding two amounts together. Some children have enjoyed the challenge of recording a number sentence, whilst others are verbally saying "four add four equals eight".

We continue to focus heavily on fine motor skills and this week our focus has been on threading small beads, stretching bands to make shapes and dough disco.

Week beginning 13th January

This week we have introduced the following new sounds - w, z and j. We have focused on writing simple sentences such as "I am hot, or I am big". We continued with our story of the week 'Whatever Next'. The children have been ordering the story, including the beginning, middle and end. They are also writing labels or short sentences with support.

In Maths we moved on to exploring the numbers 6,7 and 8 by combing groups and representing the numbers in different ways. We are challenging the children to find the missing number and talk about how they know.

In our Topic work we are learning about astronomers and what they use telescopes for. We are also beginning to discuss the differences between planets.

Week beginning 6th January

It has been a lovely first week back after the Christmas holidays. It has been great to see the children come back to school eager to learn and being excited about our new topic – Space. This week we have introduced the topic and discussed what Space means – Where all of the stars and planets are found. We also discussed which planet we live on and discussed the land and water. Our story of the week for this week and next week is ‘whatever next’.

In the creative area the children have made their own representations of rockets. They all look different and fantastic. For our literacy group work we have described what we would take on a journey to the moon. We then wrote labels using our initial sounds or by segmenting CVC words. 

In Wild Space we created a new shelter area, had some children exploring on a pirate ship, made some weighing scales and used the balance beam.

Week beginning the 16th December

We have had a busy and exciting end to our school term this week! For Pride of Elm day on Tuesday, we enjoyed a film with popcorn and hot chocolate. In the afternoon we watched a pantomime performance of Cinderella in the hall. This week we have also been making Christmas cards and have had the opportunity to make lots of Christmas crafts. We are so proud of how well the children performed for their Christmas Nativity. They sang beautifully and behaved excellently. We hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we did.

Have a lovely Christmas Holiday.

Week beginning 9th December

This week we have enjoyed practising our Christmas Nativity songs and making our 'star' headbands to wear for the performance. We are looking forward to sharing this with you next week. Everybody was very excited for the Christmas lunch on Thursday in our Christmas jumpers. We enjoyed some Christmas music and shared a lovely lunch together.

We have also been busy making Christmas cards, split pin reindeer and Christmas tree decorations with lollipop sticks. In Phonics we have moved on to learning the following new sounds; k, l, u and r. We will continue to build words and some simple sentences including these sounds. In Maths this week we have revisited our knowledge of 'zero' and 'more' or 'less' than a number. We have used tens frames and Numicon to represent this practically.

Week beginning 2nd December

This week we have focused on the future of transport. This included thinking about our own new inventions. The children came up with some brilliant ideas including a flying car, an underwater train and a bike that steers itself. We encouraged the children to write some labels or words to accompany their designs and ideas. We are also continuing to learn about what a sentence is and how a sentence is formed. We are writing simple sentences such as: sit on the mat, the pig is big and pat the dog.

In P.E we continued to practise our gymnastics shapes. We pretended to be woodland animals – a toad, a squirrel, a snake and a rabbit. We then made the following shapes – pike, straddle, straight, tuck and star.

We enjoyed our last Wild Space session before the holidays, by making clay woodland animals and getting quite messy in the mud kitchen!

Week beginning 25th November

In Phonics this week we have started to write simple sentences together - I am big. Sam sat. We are using the sounds we already know and have introduced the language of 'full stop'.

This week in Wild space we discovered a letter from the fairies and elves that live in the forest! They explained that their home had been blown down and they had nowhere to live. Some children enjoyed using various natural materials to make new fairy houses. It was lovely to see some teamwork and collaboration, sharing their ideas and compromising when needed. We also painted on ice and explored the different effects this has.

In Maths we have been learning about 2D shapes. Our challenge this week has been to find a triangle shape in our environment. We have found lots of squares, rectangles and circles on the ceiling, walls and floors so far. 

Week beginning 18th November

This week we enjoyed a visit from the dental hygiene team, who talked to us about the importance of brushing our teeth and what might happen if we don't do this regularly. They also provided all of the children with toothbrushes and timers.

In Maths this week we have started learning about 2D shapes and their properties. We are encouraging the children to look for shapes around their home or when out on a walk. The children are beginning to explain how they know a shape is a triangle (three corners and three sides). In phonics we introduced the f, v, d and e sounds.

Wild Space was particularly chilly this week! However we put on all of our layers and had a great time den building and discovering ice. The children enjoyed exploring the different shapes made of ice and seeing leaves and sticks frozen within it.

Week beginning 11th November

This week we looked at trains as part of our transport topic. Our story of the week is ‘The Train Ride’. We joined in with the parts of the story that we knew and imagined where we would go on a journey. You can find an online version of the story here .

We then looked at the ‘bullet train’ in Japan. The children enjoyed finding out lots of facts, including; it can travel at over 200mph, it is the fastest train in the world and it can have over 1,000 passengers on the train at one time. The children completed some train journey sheets, drawing and labelling what they could see out of the window. In the role play area we have created a train station and train. The children have enjoyed taking turns to check the tickets and go to the beach, shop or swimming pool.

In phonics we have continued to use the g,b,h,c sounds to segment and blend CVC words. In Maths we introduced the part-part-whole model. We continued to add amounts together to make four and five. The children then said the number sentence. Towards the end of the week we enjoyed a day learning about children in need and why it is so important. We then created some Pudsey masks and enjoyed some lovely games together. 

Week beginning 4th November

This week we were very excited to go to Wild space for the first time! It was lovely to see the children exploring the environment and trying new things. We had a lovely time. These are some of the things the children enjoyed:

-           Making a den

-           Using the rope swings

-           Using the rope ladder

-           Exploring the mud area

-           Looking for minibeasts

-           Playing games and singing songs.

Each session starts with a game and ends with a song alongside a circle time discussion around the firepit where every child has the chance to talk about what they have enjoyed. We look forward to exploring more as the weeks go on and introducing the fire.

Also this week we started our new topic – transport. We began by discussing what transport means and naming transport we already knew. We discussed our journeys to school and the different transport we have been on. We introduced the word ‘journeys’ from our knowledge organiser and started to talk about our own experiences of journeys. 

Week beginning 21st October

This week we finished our dance unit in P.E by creating a transport dance. We performed for our friends and the children have worked incredibly hard, building their confidence this half term.

During our phonics activities we have been building CVC words with magnetic letters and then writing the word underneath. We have been supporting the children with letter formation using the correct patter. We are also continuing to listen for initial sounds.

To support our fine motor skills we have been making balance bridges for the small bears. The children needed to carefully balance lollipop sticks and see how many bears they could fit on. We are also exploring different moves in dough disco – squeeze, roll a ball, splat, poke and roll a sausage shape.



Have a lovely half term!

Week beginning 14th October

This week we have been learning about 'people who help us' as part of our topic work. We discussed different jobs and how they help us, especially in an emergency. This led to lots of role play outside as 'police officers' and 'teachers' inside using the phonics whiteboard.

In Maths we have been exploring numbers 1,2 and 3. We thought carefully about the different ways we can make those numbers, including 'two add one equals three'. We also found numbers that are more or less than each number.

In P.E the children have been working on creating their own dances this half term. This week we made a dance for 'getting ready for school' and 'travelling to school'. The children then performed the dances for each other.

Week beginning 7th October

This week to support fine motor skills we have introduced dough disco. You might hear your child singing -

"squeeze squeeze squeeze the dough, squeeze it in your hand. Happily, happily, happily, happily in our dough band."

We are also continuing with 'squiggle while you wiggle' gross motor dancing with ribbons. Alongside those whole class activities we have been using pins and tap tap shapes to create our own pictures and designs. The children have been very creative! This also extended into using the 2D shapes to create our own pictures.

In Maths we have been comparing groups using the language of 'more', 'less' and 'equal'. The children have taken on challenges at the maths table, identifying which numeral is more or less and challenging each other. We are encouraging the children to answer in a full sentence such as, "five is more than two". We are also asking the children how they know and using a number line to check.

Outside we were very excited to find a large caterpillar on the chalkboard. We have been trying hard to investigate and research, so we can find out which type of caterpillar it is.

Have a lovely weekend

Week beginning 30th September

This week for our topic work we have been learning about Autumn. We started off by investigating the objects in our Autumn tray. We used the stories of 'pumpkin soup' and 'leaf man' to discuss the food that is harvested in Autumn and how the leaves change colour. On Thursday we went on an Autumn walk around the school field. We noticed lots of brown, yellow, red and orange leaves. We also noticed that some trees are still green at the moment. We collected some leaves to make our own 'leaf people' and leaf crowns. In the creative area, the children painted some beautiful autumn trees. We have put them on display for others to see.

In Maths we have been learning about repeating patterns. We encouraged the children to describe their patterns, make their own, continue a repeating pattern or find a 'mistake' in the pattern that I had made.

In Literacy we thought carefully about the initial sounds in objects and sorted them into groups. We also started to learn our new phonics sounds - n, o and p. Some children created speech bubbles using their initial sounds, to represent things the characters had said in the story 'pumpkin soup'.

Week beginning 23rd September

This week we have continued to segment and blend CVC words in phonics. We have played whole class games such as 'I spy' and 'silly soup' to support the children with hearing initial sounds in words. We will be having a big focus over the next couple of weeks on hearing the first sound in a word.

In Maths we have been grouping and sorting objects in a range of different ways. The children enjoyed grouping themselves by the foods they liked or their eye/hair colour. We compared the amounts and used the language of more than, less than and equal to.



Outside we have been working on our fine motor skills by making models from wood, screws and bolts. It was a very tricky job so it requires lots of patience, we have seen some lovely models so far! Also outside we have been working together to create ramps, train tracks and roads using the pipes and guttering. We are also using the large chalk board and whiteboard to practise our phonics sounds or numerals.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week beginning 16th September

This week we have enjoyed learning our first set of phonics sounds - s, m, a, t and i. We will continue to focus on these sounds next week. We have started to build CVC words such as sit, sat and mat. We have also been working on identifying objects that begin with those sounds.

Your child will have received their first reading book and library book this week. We would really appreciate it if you would spend some time sharing these books with your child. In the first reading book, we are encouraging the children to talk about the characters, what they can see happening in the story and looking our for any sounds they recognise. We are supporting the children with blending the sounds into words.

In our Maths work we have been counting out objects and matching them to the numerals. We have also been trying hard to order the numbers we know. Next week we are going to be working on grouping objects and talking about which group has more or less.

In our topic work we have been learning about our bodies. We discussed why we need bones, then developed our role play area into a doctors surgery. We also discussed all of the different amazing things we can do with different body parts, such as; dancing, playing sports or playing an instrument. We have introduced the 'Colour Monsters' story and this week we focused on the feeling of happy. This is represented by the yellow colour monster and we discussed the different things that make us feel 'yellow'. We used small parts and objects to make different faces that are happy, sad, angry, shocked or tired.

Outside, as always, has been very popular! It has been lovely to see the children working together to create an aeroplane in their imaginative play, taking part in group games such as tennis or creating soups in the mud kitchen. We look forward to what next week will bring!

Week beginning 9th September

We have had a lovely first week in Reception this week! It has been lovely to see how well the children have all settled in and we have enjoyed getting to know them. This week we have explored both the indoors and outdoors environments and started our phonics learning! The children have been busy getting to know each other by playing games, singing, completing puzzles and working together to build models.

We will be having a big focus on fine motor skills activities throughout this term. We work on our fine motor skills to improve the control and strength in our hands and wrists. This is needed for good pencil grip, pencil control and effective writing. This week we have been threading, cutting, using small peg boards and using tweezers to rescue 'creatures' from the webs.

We look forward to choosing a library book next week and starting our topic work!