My Butterfly Bouquet 

This week we have continued learning about life cycles, focusing on the life cycle of a butterfly. Our story highlights the four stages of the life cycle of a butterfly, the children have represented these stages in continuous provision using various materials and skills such as using different pasta shapes and paint printing to show the symmetry of a butterflies wings. We now have a depth of knowledge of understanding the world and life cycles which we can carry on to KS1 in our science topics. 

Tadpoles Promise 

This week we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog reading the story Tadpoles Promise. We have learned lots of new vocabulary and explored various ways to show the life cycle of a frog from creating with materials to writing sentences in our Literacy books. We used play dough to create eggs and froglets and used scissors to cut out and order the life cycle of a frog to recall information and consolidate our learning. We really enjoyed all activities linked to this topic and have a sound understanding of the life cycle of a frog and even some facts about frogs. 

Easter

Burglar Bill

 This we have been reading the story Burglar Bill. We used our prior knowledge and unders of people who help us and their job roles to help solve the crimes in this story. We even set up our own crime scene in our classrooms and used clues, finger prints and our knowledge of police and detectives job roles to solve the crime. We had a visit from Merseyside Police who showed us their special equipment to carry our their job and they even let us sit in their police car. We had a visit from a forensic scientist who told us more about their job and showed us how to make different images using our own finger prints. 

World Book Day!

Mothers Day Massage 

People who help us

Over the past two weeks we have been learning about people who help us in our community. We learned about people from all walks of life and people with different job roles enhancing our understanding of the world. We learned specific facts and details about different job roles and how these people help us in everyday life. 
We had special visitors from Merseyside Police, Firefighters and even a special assembly about the importance of dental care and brushing our teeth to keep them clean and healthy. This experience was very exciting and consolidated our knowledge. 
We used junk modelling to work as a team to build our own emergency vehicle, we designed and painted our own uniforms for various job roles from nurses to postal workers. 

Oliver’s Fruit Salad 

Continuing with healthy living our next focus story was ‘Oliver’s Fruit Salad’. This story showed us that fruits and vegetables can be grown by ourselves and not always bought from shops. We discussed how these fruits are grown and then end up in the shops for people to purchase.
We made our own fruit salad in school following step by step instructions and we even wrote about this in our Literacy books. We explored a sensory station filled with fruits that we could smell, touch, feel and taste.

Our artist for this term is Giuseppe, he has art work that uses fruits and vegetables to make portraits and tried this in our creative area, it was lots of fun! We also did observational paintings of different fruits, fruit collage plates and fruits out of play dough. Take a look at some of our pictures and work. 

Supertato

This week we were reading the story ‘Supertato’. We learned a lot about living a healthy lifestyle through having a healthy diet and the importance of regularly exercise. We explored various fruit and vegetables to get creative in our continuous provision activities, we printed with vegetables and paints and used real potatoes to make our own Supertato. We used our fine motor skills using tweezers to try and capture the Evil Pea and put him back into the bowl - this was very tricky! 

Chinese New Year

 This week we looked at a celebration ‘Chinese New Year’. We learned all about the Great Race and the Chinese Zodiac, we learned what Zodiac animal we are and that this year is the year of the Dragon. We used role play to reenact the Great Race and even tried some traditional Chinese foods. We explored the Chinese culture by learning more about this celebration and what it looks like around the world. We used our fine motor skills and practiced using chopsticks, we got creative and made lots of decorations such as dancing dragons and lanterns and we even got the chance to practice writing some Chinese letters and numbers. 

Jungle Animals

•  Over the past two weeks we have been reading the stories ‘Monkey Puzzle’ and ‘There’s a tiger in the garden’. We have been learning about different animals and many things about them - their habitat, their features, their lifestyle and their diet. We explored with different media and materials to investigate what jungle life is like. We created story maps in our Literacy work using role play, actions and key words to remember the story before drawing this and writing captions to re-tell the stories. We focused a lot of rhyming words as this was a clear theme throughout Julia Donaldson’s ‘Monkey Puzzle’. 

Parent Stay and Craft

Forest School

Emperor’s Egg

To welcome our Spring term we have been learning about Antarctica and Emperor Penguins. We have been learning about interesting facts about this topic such as the climate in Antarctica and the life of male and female Emperor Penguins. 

We learned new key vocabulary such as male, female, huddle and chick. We learned about how Emperor Penguins look after their egg and even tried to balance an egg on our feet like Emperor Penguins do - this was very tricky! We got creative making polar bears, Penguins, painting the Antarctic skyline and wrote about what we would as humans to need to go and live in Antarctica. 

To top off this brilliant topic we were even lucky enough to have a snow day in school so it really felt like we were in Antarctica after all ! 

It's Christmas!

The children have really enjoyed getting ready for Christmas! We have been learning about The Nativity Story and the Children performed their own Christmas nativity, which was fantastic! 

We have joined in with lots of fun Christmas activities, such as making reindeer food, salt dough decorations and even meeting Santa himself! 

Owl Babies

This week, our focus text was Owl Babies. We have been learning all about nocturnal and diurnal animals.

During Literacy, the children were able to use their Phonic knowledge to write a list of nocturnal animals. In Continuous Provision, the children have been busy creating their own nocturnal animals, using lots of different materials and making a warm cosy nest of sticks and feathers!

We have also had some very special visitors in school this week! The children were lucky enough to meet and hold some real owls. It was so much fun learning lots of new facts.

Diwali

This week we have learned about the festival of light ‘Diwali’. We read the story Rama and Sita, we could retell the story and describe the characters in the story. We learned about how people celebrate the festival Diwali, we learned about Rangoli patterns, Diya lamps, fireworks and traditional food eaten during this festival. We explored these things in continuous provision using pasta, bright coloured and lots more resources to get creative. Take a look at some of our photographs below. 

Pumpkin Soup

This week we explored the wonderful story of Pumpkin Soup. 

In Literacy we explored the characters from the story and how they felt. We made wonderful maps to predict where Duck had been before he went home. They were incredible. We also discussed instructions and followed instructions to make yummy Pumpkin Soup.

In Maths we explored numbers to three. We went on number walks and found lots of numbers around the school environment. We made sets of numbers and explored what numbers make these numbers.

In Continuous Provision we scooped out pumpkins and explored what was inside and matched pumpkin numbers and letters. We printed and painted with different vegetables and found out where vegetables are grown.

Tiddler

This week we have been reading the wonderful story of 'Tiddler.' 

In Literacy we compared this story to the Rainbow fish and discussed similarities and differences. We explored the ocean and thought of adjectives to describe this and wrote a sentence in our Literacy books. The teachers were so impressed.

In Maths we have been exploring Measures and Patterns. We have compared weight, capacity and carried on and created our patterns. We were amazing.

In Continuous Provision we have been making play dough sea creatures, practising our cutting skills by cutting out sea animals to make a display and making an under the sea habitat in our construction area.

Rainbow Fish

We spent two lovely weeks exploring this wonderful story. We discussed feelings and emotions further.

In Literacy we learned lots of new vocabulary and looked at feelings from others' perspectives. We talked about sharing and how it makes us feel when we share things that are of importance to us.

In Maths we explored sorting to a type, set and group. We did brilliantly.

In Continuous Provision we made wonderful under the sea collages, caught number fish and matched and sorted them to a number along with lots more exciting activities.

Colour Monster

We have been reading the wonderful story of The Colour Monster. We have been exploring our feelings and emotions and talked about different strategies we can use when we are feeling angry or sad. We have been introduced to the zones of Regulations too.

In Maths we have been exploring matching. We matched objects that were the same and sorted objects discussing about how we grouped them. We did brilliantly!

In Continuous Provision we have been using our fine motor skills to sort objects into different colours using tweezers along with threading around colour monsters.

We have painted and collaged our own colour monsters and talked about how we can mix colours to make a new colour. We also used play dough to make our own colour monsters too.

Our first week in school!

We have made a fantastic start to the school year. We have settled in beautifully and made lots of new friends. We have been introduced to the class and school rules and are doing an amazing job following our new school routine! Well done Reception!