Last week of the term!

It's hard to believe that we're already coming to the end of the Spring term! Only one more to go after this! This week the topic we'll be looking at is Easter and how Easter is celebrated and symbolised. There are going to be lots of opportunities for children to participate in arts and crafts activities as well as some cooking! 

We're also having a special focus on maths this week, with two different maths jobs. One will focus on number and the other on shape - I wonder how many 3D shape names children can remember? 

We'll also be having taking our termly visit to Maiden Castle Farm so we hope the weather will be kind to us! 

Finally, thank you for all the 2 litre bottles that are being brought in to school! We've got lots to get us started but we do still need more. The objective behind the bottle collecting is to make a bottle greenhouse.This will be a project carried out within the school to promote recycling and gardening. Reception will be working with year 2 children to make the greenhouse, hopefully over the summer term. If you do have any spare 2 litre bottles, please bring them into school. Thank you.

Reception team

Off to the museum!

Reception had their trip to Dorchester Museum this morning. The children were VERY excited by the prospect of completing their first school trip in a coach. When we got to the museum we were given a short introduction by the museum staff before they put on 5 different workshops -

1) A small seek and find activity where children had to follow clues and find answers.

2) Making small ammonites - which children painted this afternoon and took home. 

3) Using collage materials to make a dinosaur paw print that went together on a large dinosaur. This is now up in the classroom as you come in so feel free to have a look.

4) Making split-pin dinosaurs - these were taken home. 

5) Looking at different fossils/minerals and making observations & drawings.

The children showed great enthusiasm throughout the trip and showed very good concentration for long periods of time. We were also very well pleased with how the children conducted themselves, so well done! 

Thank you to all the parents/grandparents that came along today. Next Wednesday we've got our trip to the farm so any parents available please come and see us. 

Tomorrow we've got a joint afternoon with pre-school and we will keep you posted as to what we get up to.

Reception team

Buy a signed copy and meet the author tomorrow!

Good evening everyone!

An exciting day tomorrow - as it is part of our reading week, we have arranged for a children's author/illustrator to come in and inspire the children about creating stories! He will be giving an exciting presentation/workshop to each class in the morning and then setting activities for them in the afternoon! The author and illustrator is, Mike Brownlow, author of Ten Little Pirates and creator of the TV series Little Robots.

More information about Ten Little Pirates

Ten little pirates set out to sea in search of adventure. But what will the ten little pirates do when they meet a hurricane . . . and a giant squid . . . and a HUNGRY SHARK? This fun-filled rhyming story, which incorporates counting backwards from ten to one, is great to share with young children who are learning about numbers. The colourful, humorous illustrations feature objects to spot and count on every page. With a bouncy, rhythmic text and lots of great sound words, this piratical adventure is perfect for sharing again and again. Short-listed for the Nottingham Children’s Book Awards and the Sheffield Children’s Book Awards, 2014.

Other books that will be on sale:

Make It! Rocket,

Make It! Robot, both published by Scholastic

Bad Manners! Benjie,

Dog Did It! both published by Piccadilly Press.

Mike will be selling copies of his books at the end of the day which you can buy and get signed as a special gift for your child. They will cost £6.99, and it would be appreciated if you could bring the correct money. The children will have a great day experiencing first hand how to create a book, and it would be a lovely, inspiring momento to take away! Check out his website!

We hope to see you at the end of the day tomorrow!

Mrs. Johnson

Dorset County Museum and the Postbox

As you may be aware we are taking a trip to the County Museum this Wednesday. If any parent helpers are available to help with this trip, please come and mention it to us. 

You will also have received a short letter home last Friday about a trip to the local postbox. We will be writing letters based upon one of the stories we read this week. The content of the letters will be a surprise for you when they arrive - all I will say is, keep Friday 4th April afternoon relatively free, if possible.

Reception team

Reading all kinds of books!

Hello everyone! 

This week we have a special 'Reading week' happening all through the school. In reception we're going to be focusing on a particular author/illustrator: Oliver Jeffers. Over the week we'll be looking at 4 different books; Lost and Found (Today's focus), Stuck, The Day the Crayons Quit and The Way Back Home. Every day we'll be covering a different story and complete problems based around each story.

We've also got 2 joint days this week - Tomorrow (Tuesday) We'll be having an afternoon spent with year 3 looking at a book by Mairi Hedderwick - Katie Morag Delivers the Mail. On Thursday we've got a special afternoon with Pre-school to look at The Day the Crayons Quit. 

We are also very lucky to be having an author come into the school to run a workshop with each class tomorrow - the content of this visit remains a mystery but we will tell you all about it tomorrow! 

As part of a small enquiry this week, we want to see what books you're reading with your children! I know there is space in the Home Learning Diaries to write what books you are reading but for this week only we're going to be putting a small sheet of paper into each child's drawer asking them, or you, to write down any book that they have read this week - please feel free to take this sheet home but please remember to bring it back into school. This information will help us see what books children are most interested in and allow us to possibly discover new books/authors. Thank you

Reception team

Story writing...

Hello all,

We've been busy writing up the stories that were made last week. The children have been very keen to do this and have taken great care over them. We've also started looking at the '+' and the '=' sign - the children have been bowling and adding up how many 'pins' they have got from two throws. This will hopefully lead on to children being able to form and solve their own maths problems. We've also been busy cooking in the kitchen. As part of a whole school initiative we'll be giving every child at least 1 hour of cooking time every 3 weeks. 

Thank you for all the lovely photographs you brought in of your children for our 'Proud to be me!' week. We have copied these and made a display using them - in the classroom. If you would like to collect them to take home, we will leave them out at the back of the classroom for you to take.

A small request - We have been running very low on boy's pants lately. If anybody has any that they are no longer using, please bring them into school. Equally, if we have changed children and given them a pair of pants, please could we ask you to bring them back in to school. Thank you

Reception team

Lots of Growing!

Hello everyone,

We have finally begun to plant bulbs and seeds into our garden area for the upcoming year. All the children have had a go at planting either carrots, potatoes or broad beans and we have spoken about what plants need to live and how it is similar/different to what we need. Over the next few months we'll continue adding to the garden and trying to engage children in growing their own produce. As we get further into spring we'll also begin adding flowering plants. 

This week in phonics we have started to introduce children to some new tricky words: said, do, so and have. We'll be focusing on these in phonics and group reading. We're also encouraging all children to have the confidence to read a word by sight (if they know it) instead of sounding it out first. Many children are becoming confident in doing this with short words. 

For our topic this week we have been asking children to add different things to a 'Dinosaur Park' that will open tomorrow! The children have made dinosaurs, ponds, food and guides to the park. We will be encouraging children to continue thinking of different things they could add to the park throughout the week.

Reception team 

A Numerical Problem

Hello all,

All the children have now had a go at creating their own dinosaur story, and the imagination they have shown has been fantastic - they are currently pinned up on the glass windows inside the classroom if you want to have a read.. Next week we will begin to turn the children's ideas into written stories, so keep an eye out for those too. We have another week of dinosaurs next week and we will be turning the upstairs area into a dinosaur park - we will continue thinking about what we will need and get children to have a go at making as much as possible.

MATHS PROBLEM - 

On the maths teddy job table this week we have had the Numicon out and some children have been interested in different ways of making the same number. So with that in mind, ask your children how many different ways you can make 10, using different numbers. For example: 9+1=10 5+5=10. Whilst we have not begun using the + or = sign, we have done some work on number formation so see if your child can have a go at writing the numbers down. Can you use any more than 2 numbers? 

We've got our trip to Pizza Express tomorrow - thank you to all those who have already volunteered to help. The plan is to bring the pizzas back to school and eat half  of it at school and send the rest home. 

Finally, thank you for everyone for the continued support with the Wow! Moments you keep bringing in. It is lovely to hear all the things that the children have been up to with you, so please keep bringing them in. 

Reception team

Spring Family Bingo

At the Prince of Wales School Friday 28th March.

Everyone Welcome £2 per book = 15 games

Doors open at 5.30pm, eyes down at 6pm

Raising funds for Prince of Wales Pre-School

 

Superheroes!

Hello everyone,

We had a discussion with all the children today regarding the Superhero that they would like to be on Friday. We sent the children out with a sticky label on with this written down but if any got lost, please come and see us and we can tell you. Alternatively, if you have any other ideas in the meantime, please feel free to change the idea. We have also requested that children come to school on Friday dressed in their school uniforms. We would kindly ask that children bring their costumes in to school in a bag and we will change into them when we arrive back at school - a letter was sent home regarding this. 

We apologise that the trip and our dress up day occur on the same day. 

We have begun creating our own stories  this week in literacy and the children have had  some absolutely fabulous ideas so far! In maths this week, we are thinking about ordering events that happen during any given day. 

Congratulations!

A very big well done to all of reception for their efforts in today's assembly. I thought they did very well and their confidence was very well placed. Thank you to everyone that was able to come along today and practising the lines at home!

See you all next week! 

Reception's assembly

Another reminder that Reception's 2nd class assembly is tomorrow morning, at 9.20am We have sent children home with their lines so if you manage to get any time, please practise them.

Next Friday is planned to be a 'Superhero' day! We will speak with the children about what Superhero they would like to be and then send this idea home. Feel free to begin this discussion with your children now. It will then be down to you to resource the costume! 

Reception team

Dinosaur challenge...

Hi everyone,

We have been practising very hard this week with the preparation for our class assembly this Friday. It is supposed to begin at 9.20am and I look forward to seeing you there! The children seem very keen to show you what they've been doing. 

If you didn't already know, we have started the topic of dinosaurs this week! With that in mind I've got a challenge for you; can you design and/or make your own dinosaur? You will have to think of:

• A name for your dinosaur
• What s/he eats
• How s/he moves
• What s/he looks like. 
• Labels for different parts of your dinosaur

Please bring your creations in to the classroom and we will have a look at them! I look forward to seeing them.

Tomorrow is World Book Day so if you have any books you would like to bring in please do so. We will be looking at a few books throughout the day.

Reception team

Pizza express...

Hello everyone,

There has been a change of plans as to how we are going to be getting to Pizza Express next Friday. On the letter that was sent home it says that we are taking a coach. This has now changed and we will be walking instead. I apologise  for the change of plans. If there are any parents/grandparents etc that are available to help on that day, please come and see us!

There were a few parents that gave me money today and this will be fully refunded to you. 

I know that the 'Dress up as a Superhero' day is also on that Friday and I will get back to you once I know what we're doing about that! 

Thank you 

Reception team

RAWRRR!!

Hello all,

Today we have begun our longest topic for this half-term - Dinosaurs. Needless to say, all the children were really excited by this and we had some fantastic speaking and ideas from children this morning! They have helped to come up with some questions they would like to know the answers to, and we'll add these to our topic.

Throughout the rest of this week we will be looking at writing some speech bubbles that could be placed in a 'Harry and the Bucketful of dinosaurs' book - we're trying very hard to get children to read their own writing back to themselves once they have written a sentence and pick up on any mistakes from this. In maths we've started to write numerals down when solving various problems i.e. how many steps does it take to get to the whiteboard. 

We have also begun to add to our garden! Some children planted the first early potatoes last week - if there are any parents that would be happy and willing to come in and help with the gardening, please come and see us! This week we'll be putting in some more potatoes and preparing beds/weeding etc ready for the net batch of vegetables/plants.