29th September
Firstly, can we say thank you for how well attended parents evenings have been this week, seeing you all and discussing how your child has settled has been really enjoyable, thank you again for sharing information and giving feedback, we really value your support.
This week......
What a week we have had in Robins, we can’t quite believe that we are only at the end of the first month in Reception (and it hasn’t even been a full month) and yet all the Robins are taking every part of school life in their stride and showing such enthusiasm for learning!
On Monday we began the week by continuing to develop our counting skills, building on from last week’s subsitising, we helped Ellie the Elephant who was struggling to count how many objects there were altogether and found that the last number in the count tells us this, Ellie was very happy we could help her!
When we weren’t busy inside making lunch for our friends in the home corner we could often be found outside in the kitchen area creating some wonder different teas, from “Bubble tea” to “Blackberry tea”, the children were extremely eager to make as many different teas as they could and they were all simply delicious! Click on the image below to enlarge.
The children also enjoyed further developing their obstacle course this week, adding different levels, using the milk crates and stepping stones, showing perseverance when they found a slightly slippery part and pretending that they were climbing across the “swampy waters”, when asked what they might find in the swampy waters I was told clearly “crocodiles of course!”, luckily we are yet to spot any but shall keep our eyes peeled just in-case!
At the beginning of the week in phonics, we were introduced to the phoneme ‘n’ and played stand up and sit down, where we had to listen very carefully for when we could hear the ‘n’ in a word, even if it was at the end of the word rather than at the beginning! We then explored different words and used our arms to segment and blend, we were amazing at hearing where the ‘n’ phoneme was in all the different words! We then progressed through the week to learn m, d, g and o. Don't forget our Phonics Workshop is next Tuesday after school, we will talk you through these games and more.
We have taken full advantage of this continued dry weather and have been accessing outdoor learning as much as possible during continous provision. We have created tracks for the cars, experimenting with differing angles to see whether the cars go faster the steeper the slope, balancing and negotiating space on the balance bikes (showing real friendship and kindness by helping others with helmets) even adding a tyre to the track to act as a roundabout!
As well as all the gross motor activities as described above, we focus on developing the fine motor skills too (ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists) in preparation for writing. Activities include, picking up small objects using our fingers such as in the Loose Parts area, using small tools such as the hammer in Tap Tap Art, painting using paint brushes in a variety of sizes to create the desired effect, using the glass gems to follow letter formation, cutting and sticking in the junk modelling area, using the magnetic pens to create a picture using small magnetic balls, so many activities, take a look at the photos below to see it all in action. Of course, the children don't realise all of this is going on - they think they are simply playing!!!!!
This week, we added two more activities into our daily learning. Every day the children vote for which story they would like to hear read at the end of the day, they have a choice of two and we change the books every day so that the children get to hear a wide range of high quality stories. This week we introduced an area where the children can participate in some story telling of their own using puppets, character spoons and well know story books - in my opinion there is nothing better than immersing yourself in a book - especially if there a friend close by who shares your enthusiasm!
And finally....Friday, we are still loving a Friday and this week we went on our first welly walk. We put on our hi-vis jackets (the children were calling them life jackets which was rather worrying.....don't quite know what they thought was going to happen!!!!), we put on our wellies and we headed out to the bus, took our seats, seatbelts on....at one point you could hear a pin drop, the nerves were taking over, we slowly pullled out of the school gates only to hear...."that's my house, I live just up there, my Nana lives here" normal business was resumed and the bus was soon filled with chatter and excitement.
We arrived at the Chaddleworth site and could not wait to explore, run, laugh and simply enjoy our time out - what a way to end the week, it was exhausting and exhilarating and finished off with some milk and relaxation in the sensory area.
Have a wonderful weekend - looking forward to seeing many of you in the school BBQ tomorrow, if not see you all next week!