Autumn 2-What is my body telling me?
Week 8
Welcome back! This week in Reception we have focused on the celebration of bonfire night and the story of Guy Fawkes. The children enjoyed learning about real events from over 400 years ago. We looked at and compared things that would have been used when Guy Fawkes was alive and what we use now in 2023. The children discussed and sorted the items. We watched videos of fireworks and the children recalled their own personal memories of seeing fireworks. They wrote about fireworks and used many different ways to create fireworks such as modelling, painting, chalks and collage.
In maths we have started to look at 1,2,3. The children have been practicing their subitising skills. (watch the video to help understand how and why your child is learning to subitise) We have focused on the composition of numbers up to three through games and activities.
The children have enjoyed getting back outside using the sand pit, climbing and using the water area. They had great fun building a huge den with throws and other furniture, at one point there were 20 children inside!
Week 9
This week we introduced our new big question, ‘What is my body telling me?’ For this half term we will be investigating our 5 senses and learn why they are so important. The first sense we explored was our sense of touch. We read the story- Going on a bear hunt- and thought of lots of words to describe how each obstacle the family met would feel. We re-enacted the story and joined in with the repeated refrains. The children then used their sense of touch to feel grass, mud, water, sticks, ice and fur. They wrote down what each felt like using their phonic knowledge. We also looked at how we could draw a map to show the journey of the family on the bear hunt. The children drew or painted their maps and then used them in the outdoor area to go on a bear hunt of their own.
In maths, we continued consolidating our understanding of 1,2 and 3. We played games using dominoes, building block towers and a throwing into hoops game.
The Hindu festival of light, Diwali was at the weekend. We enjoyed learning about the traditional way Hindus celebrate Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita. The children learnt how to make traditional rangoli patterns using rice and coloured sand and created colourful Diwali cards to share with their families. We learnt a Diwali song- you can sing it at home. (To the tune of Frere Jacques) It’s Diwali, It’s Diwali,
Festival of light, festival of light.
Fireworks and divas, fireworks and divas,
What a pretty sight, what a pretty sight.
Week 10
The sense we focused on for this week was our sense of hearing. We read the story of the owl babies and then pretended to be one of the owl babies, Percy, Sarah or Bill. We listened to lots of noises that could be heard in the forest, animals, the weather and other owls. We discussed how we thought the owl babies would feel being left alone in the forest with all the noises around them. The children all wrote a letter to the owl mummy to tell her what they could hear and how they were feeling. They used props and toys to retell the story and made their own owl baby stick puppets too.
The children went on a sound walk to hear the different environmental sounds around our school. They also used the musical instruments to retell the story from last week- we’re going on a bear hunt- they had to decide which sounds they would use for each part of the story and then retell the story adding in their sound at the right part.
Maths was all about circles and triangles! We looked at the properties of the shapes and did lots of sorting, exploring and learnt vocabulary to describe each shape. We looked at the work of Kandinsky, especially his work on concentric circles. The children were encouraged to replicate his work using various media.
We have started to learn the songs for our nativity play. The children have been learning about the story of the first Christmas and how that relates to the story we are telling through our play.
Week 11
This week was all about our sense of sight. We read the story of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Can You See? The children learnt the word observation means to look very closely. They used their observation skills to make a colourful poster. The children needed to remember and sequence the animals in the story and which colour they were. The results were amazing!
Using their observational skills the children were challenged to investigate maps. They had maps of our local area as well as maps from other towns or cities. The children learnt how to identify features of a map such as roads, rivers, houses and famous landmarks. They were very excited to find the houses of Parliament and remembered the story of Guy Fawkes, they also had many stories to tell about their local area, where they lived and what was near to their house on the map.
The children needed to use their joining skills to make themselves a pair of binoculars. The first challenge was to join the tubes together and the next challenge was to cut and attach a piece of string long enough to wear the binoculars around their necks. This took a lot of thinking about and we saw some amazing collaboration with some hold and measuring the string while someone else cut it. They then took their binoculars outside to observe their world around them.
The children started to look at the composition of numbers up to 5. We introduced the concept of using 5 frames to identify an amount. The children started to use the five frames to self-register by adding their photo to the frame in the correct place. We will be learning how to work out how many children are in school by understanding 2 5 frames are equal to 10. This is a concept the children will develop over the next few months.
It was National Road Safety Week this week. The children watched videos and took part in a road safety quiz. We acted out how to cross a road and learnt the rules of stop, look, listen and think! Watch the video below and ask your child to explain to you about being safe when near a road.
We looked at the work of Van Gogh this week, in particular his painting of The Starry Night. The children were encouraged to use their senses to recreate the painting in the style of Van Gogh. They could paint on foil or paper and used brushes and forks to create the swirling effects on the original painting. The results were beautiful.
We had our work shop visit this week. The lady took the children on a journey of their senses. She was really impressed with their knowledge of their senses and how well they listened and carried out each activity. We had a brilliant time and then our friends from Chennestone arrived for their turn. We had time for a quick catch up before we had to leave the hall.
Week 12
Our sense of taste was put to the test this week. The children enjoyed the traditional story of Hansel and Gretel. They discussed what the witches house would have tasted like and if they would have eaten it or not! We learnt lots of new vocabulary to describe different tastes and learnt that the taste buds all around our tongue actually taste different types of taste.
The children were able to sample a small amount from different taste groups. They tried cocoa powder for bitter, crisp for salty, a fruit jelly sweet for sweet and lemon juice for sour. Their faces said it all! Their sense of taste is obviously working really well!
The children used props to retell the story and went outside to leave a trail of pebbles like Hansel in the story, this then turned into using the guttering to make a pathway to find their way home. They pretended to be Willy Wonka and had to design their own sweet treat for Hansel and Gretel. They used their imaginations and produced some very detailed drawings.
The children continued to explore using 5 frames to explore the composition of numbers 1-5. They have been singing songs such as 1 man went to mow and 5 little speckled frogs. Each time something was added or taken away they needed to add or remove a counter from their 5 frame to represent the amount that was left.
We ended the week by performing our Christmas nativity play to our families. Unfortunately, lots of us were at home sick, but the show must go on and we performed it amazingly! On Friday the nursery joined us for the day. The children had a wonderful time looking after and supporting the youngest members of our school. A special day was had by all!
Week 13
This week was all about our sense of smell. The children used the story of the gingerbread man to explore what having a sense of smell means and how it helps us to detect danger, good smells and bad smells. The children were set a challenge from the gingerbread man. He explained to them that if there was a bridge to cross the river then the fox would not have smelt him and he would be able to get across the water safely. He asked the children to test different materials to find out the best material to make a bridge. The 4 materials were straws, paper, wooden sticks and card. We discussed what a fair test would be and used stones to test the strength of the bridge. The children learnt the skill of using tally marks to record the amount of stones each material was able to hold. They recorded all their tests on a sheet and then analysed the data to tell the gingerbread man the result and what he should use to build a bridge.
In maths, we looked at shapes with 4 sides. We discussed the properties of these shapes and discovered a square is actually a special type of rectangle. The children used their creative skills to draw and cut out various shapes to create their Christmas cards.
The children enjoyed making their own gingerbread men using ginger fragranced playdough- they used their sense of smell to identify the scent of ginger and then at the end of the week they got to bake real gingerbread men. They were delicious and the smell of baking filled the whole school!
