Autumn 2, fireworks, bonfires and Guy Fawkes!

Hello Everybody,

I trust everyone has had a lovely half term?

We will start Autumn 2 learning about fireworks, bonfire night and Guy Fawkes! We will explore the traditional and modern celebrations. 

Our PE lessons will now be on a Tuesday morning. On Friday afternoons we will be doing our Nature Explorer's learning outside, please ensure that children have warm clothes and welly boots to change into after lunch.

We will start trialing our new end of the day routine tomorrow, drink bottles and snack pots will be placed outside at 3:25, we would encourage you to collect your child's belongings before 3:30 to help with speedy exits at the end of the day! It would be really helpful for all drinks bottles and snack pots to be labelled. We will review this trial in 2 weeks, any feedback you have would be helpful!

As stated before half term we have changed some of the layout, it may be helpful for the children to see these pictures prior to coming to school, if they find change a bit tricky.

We've moved the mud kitchen, is is a highly popular area and having it on a the paving means that the children can play with it even when its wet!

Construction Kingdom is now in the grass area.

This is our new sensory tent, this area has been designed specifically for use for children who have identified sensory or regulation needs. It will be closely monitored and an adult led provision, all children will be able to experience the tent throughout the week. We are really looking forward to supporting the children using this calming space.

The Message Centre and Drawing Club is proving so popular we have doubled the number of children who can access it at one time!

Our Make and Create station has also had a revamp.

We are really looking forward to seeing all the children tomorrow.

Ms Evans and the Reception Team

Request for Resources

 Hi Reception Families,

We are in need of some resources, if you have any of the following we would be really grateful. if you can bring them in on Tuesday

• Kitchen/toilet roll tubes
• Newspaper
• Old clothes especially tights/ leggings/ t-shirts
• Jars

Next week we will be exploring the traditions surrounding Firework Night, we will be making Bonfire Guys, but we won't be burning them!

We will also be starting our Nature Explorer sessions on a Friday. Children will need to bring warm clothes they can get messy in and welly boots are essential!

Looking forward to seeing you all next week!

Ms Evans

Diwali, shape and the end of our first half term together!

 Hello Reception families,

I would like to start by saying, how very proud I am of all the children and what they have achieved during the first half term of the academic year, their attitude towards their learning has been wonderful. We really are inspired to learn!

This week we have had a split focus, we ended our trip in Space on Tuesday and turned our focus to Diwali. It's been lovely to hear that children have been discussing their learning at home this week!

In Power maths we have been learning about shape. We have done lots of recognising shapes and we really enjoyed our potato printing group activities.

We've really enjoyed investigating pouring and filling different vessels in the water table, we pretended a volcano was erupting!

We  have planted daffodil bulbs with Mr Bascombe Ms Evans is really looking forward to when they bloom in the spring!

We made planets and asteroids using clay, these will come home after half term.

Turning our attention to our Diwali learning today we have had a Diwali Celebration day.

We have made Diwali lanterns, (Did the children tell you it's the festival of light?)

Ms Dainton took us on a sensory adventure of the story of Rama and Sita which we did in our bird groups.

We also made Rangoli, traditionally Rangoli are made to welcome Lakshmi into your home. Rangoli are a temporary design, completing a Rangoli is a lovely mindful activity, the children really enjoyed this!

We also experienced another Diwali tradition of sharing food! 

Each half term each class awards seven certificates acknowledging children's achievements. As I'm sure you can appreciate this was a difficult task given what a stella start all pupils have had and I am deeply proud of all children!

Awards were given for Drawing Club, Problem Solving, PE and Ready Set Go which acknowledges shining examples of our Inspired to Learn ethos.

Turning our focus to next half term, I will be making a few adjustments to the layout of the room and will share photos in due course so children can be aware of the changes.

As we move into the colder season when children will be wearing hats, scarfs etc we will be putting drinks bottles and snack pots into two boxes and putting them on the playground at 3:25. 

This will mean the children will have less to carry/ put away/ get out a spread everywhere two seconds before the end of the day! We would encourage you to take the child's drink/snack from the box before the end of the day. We will review this method two weeks into the next half term.

On Fridays children will be bringing home a 'book to love' this will be a book of their choice, to share with you at home, this will not be a reading book for them to practice reading, but will provide children with the opportunity to discuss their ideas and enjoy what we call in Reception a 'book snuggle.'

Our trip to Maiden Castle Farm will also be rescheduled for early next half term so watch this space for updates!

We will start next term by exploring fireworks and Bonfire night. We need newspapers, old clothes and hats as we will be making Scarecrows/ 'Guys' any donations you have would be gratefully received (especially tights or leggings!)

Staffing update:

We are saying a see you soon to Ms Dainton as she will be moving into Year One after half term and a fond hello to Mrs Briant who will be joining us as a 1:1 TA. Most of the children know Mrs Briant as Karen from preschool, we are really looking forward to her joining us Monday-Friday. 

I'd like to express my thanks to Ms Dainton for all her work with us this half term!

Phew what a blog well done for getting to the end!

I hope you all have a wonderful half term break and we can't wait to see you all very soon

Ms Evans and the ever wonderful Reception Team!

Fly me to the moon!

 Wow! 

What a week we've had! It has been an absolute privilege to be with the children this week, there's been so many #inspiredtolearn experiences!

It is safe to say Space and Moon week has been tremendous, so much so we are going to continue our super space learning into next week!

We have loved playing in the new gravel pit, they children have worked together wonderfully and have a done a fantastic job at keeping the gravel in the pit so we can all enjoy it.

Clever Mr Bascombe made us a pallet car which we've used as a Moon Buggy just like Neil Armstrong! Thank you for the Gravel Pit and the Moon Buggy Mr Bascombe we've loved it!

Now, on Tuesday I decided it was time we went to space, but I needed help, I wasn't sure how to get there.... But never fear the fantastic children in Reception told me I needed a rocket and they helped me build one, we had to make a computer to help us fly the ship, our space chefs made sure we had lots of yummy food to eat whilst we were away. But before we took off we had a disaster, we didn't have any fuel! So we all made a 'button' (mark making or drawing) and we pushed our buttons to refuel the ship, we had to press our buttons 5, 8, 9 even 15 times to make sure we had enough fuel and the children (aka astronauts) were amazing at counting! Once we'd got fuel and blasted off we visited the Moon, Mercury and Jupiter, where we stopped off and sang some space themed songs!! We did all this and managed to make it back in time for lunch!! Phew!!

On Wednesday we noticed that the moon had forgotten to go to bed and was still out in the morning, we decided that we needed to send the moon a message, again the superduper Reception astronauts saved that day, and made a sign telling the moon to go to sleep!

 I'm sure the moon had a good sleep!

On Tuesday we watched a video of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon! We were very interested in the way you walk on the moon! We have spoken about the super secret force called gravity, it's just like the wind you can't see it! But in space there isn't any gravity and on the moon there's less so you bounce, or as Neil Armstrong said you 'hippity hoppity'  Well, we just had to learn how to walk on the moon.... Safe to say Reception will all be ready for their first moon walk!

This afternoon we made our own planets, it was fantastic to see the children so deeply engaged in their learning experiences!

Our Space station has been extremely popular this week too!

Now, space potatoes!

Space Potatoes have been a child led activity, in a nutshell paint space on a potato... A beautiful concept that only the mind of a child could invent... Everyone's loved the space potatoes, we've painted and painted and painted them! It's been so lovely to see the children discussing their ideas and enjoy mixing and creating new colours! I am pleased to have found another use for the mighty potato!

Looking for letters and numbers with our secret stars

Building towers with 3D shapes in maths.

Enjoying the Bucket and Pulley, 'Jurassic park' in dinoland, sharing sharing stories, drawing spaceships and general merriment in the mud kitchen!

The joy, happiness, play and deep learning experiences have been truly amazing this week, I even had a que for Drawing Club this morning!

Every single child has been a complete super star this week, on Monday I learnt a new word, Koselig, which is Norwegian, it describes 'the warmth of being together' I truly believe we have celebrated that this week!

 
Ms Evans and the brilliant Reception Team