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.
Another challenge to use our observational skills was to look at maps and to identify some of the features. The children studied maps of our local area as well as towns from all around the country. They learnt how to identify roads, rivers, houses and schools.
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.
