Spring

As you all know learning in reception takes in many different forms, it isn't always an end product or a piece of work. Learning happens through problem solving, interactions, imaginations, discussions, listening, exploring the outdoors, investigating, being curious, role playing, being creative and being physical to name but a few! Each week we will upload the children's learning and adventures

Week Ending 1st April

This week we have been busy:

• Continuing our work on number bonds to 10 using numicon and Easter resources.
• Enjoying the careers afternoon, seeing what jobs we could do when we are older.
• Doing some lovely writing all about why we love our Mummies following Mother's Day on Sunday.
• Learning about Good Friday and making crosses to remember Jesus' sacrifice for us.
• Using chalk pastels to create Easter cards.
• Chomping on ham and cheese on crackers, cereal, yogurts and fruit.
• Designing and making Easter biscuits.
• Planting trees in in the outdoor area.
• Creating race games in the outdoor area using tubes and balls. The winner was the team who got all 20 of their balls down the tubes quickest.
• Finishing our half term with a pamper afternoon.

Everyone has worked so hard this Spring term and we are so proud of everyone. We have had so much fun learning and we are excited about the Summer term.

Week Ending 25th March 

This week we have been busy:

• Getting a very exciting surprise in our mud kitchen....... a mystery egg!! Was it a dinosaur egg and how did it get there? We wrote some instruction on how we could look after the egg and we made it a safe and cosy bed. On Wednesday the egg disappeared and we are still wondering where it went and who was inside it! Hopefully one day we will find out!
• Being explorers in the dinosaur dig and museum in the continuous provision.
• Learning about 'The last Supper' and recreating the story, we enjoyed bread for the body of Christ and blackcurrant juice for the blood of Christ, along with some fruit and olives.
• Exploring 1 less, finding 1 less from a group and 1 less on the number line. 
• Visiting the stations of the cross in the church ground and learning about Jesus' journey to his crucifixion.
•  Enjoying the sunshine in our outdoor area, using our stage to make songs up with instruments, playing in the water trays.= and painting daffodils.
• Eating yogurts, fresh bread, fruit, crackers and ice lollies.

Week Ending 18th March 

This week we have been busy:

• Celebrating St Patrick's day with mass in the morning. We made shamrock badges and draw 3 symbols inside them to represent 'The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit' and we wrote about St Patrick in our RE books. 
• Sharing dinosaurs into 2 equal groups using the miniature people and racing cars into equal groups. We discussed odd and even numbers too.
• Learning about volcanoes and carrying out a science experiment to understand how they erupt.
• Developing our observational drawing skills, we used a range of mediums and drew dinosaurs, thinking about the size, shape and texture of them.
• Mrs Patrick got a make over ready to be a bridesmaid on Saturday.
• Strengthening our hands in finger gym with cutting, colouring, balances and writing activities. 

Week Ending 11th March

This week we have been busy:

• Listening to the Author Rachel Suddart read her story of 'Howard's Hugs' to us, followed by acting out the story.
• We were palaeontologists and dug for fossils in our outdoor area.
• Exploring how to share numbers using a part part whole model.
• Munching on wraps and pitta breads with cheese and ham in and coco pops as a treat.
• Comparing Cleator Moor to the time of the Mesozoic Era (when dinosaurs lived), talking about the similarities and differences. 
• Learning about Palm Sunday, making our own palms and acting it out with our donkey.
• Reading in our guided reading groups focussing on decoding, prosody and comprehension. 

Week Ending 4th March 

This week we have been busy 

• Celebrating lent, Father Paul held a mass in the school hall where we all received our ashes from the palms we burnt last week. We also wrote our own Lenten promises on crosses and presented these to Father Paul. We have discussed the things we are going to give up, take up and pray for during this time of Lent.
• Enjoying books for 'World Book Day', everyone loved coming to school as their favourite character and doing book related activities all day. We particularly loved it when Year 6 came to read to us at the end of the day.
• We listened to the story of 'Mr Wolf's Pancakes', made our own ingredients lists and enjoyed eating our own pancakes.
• Investigating the number 11 and length. We used our mini mes as non-standard measure to measure things around the class and used our feet to measure dinosaur footprints. 
• Developing our comprehension knowledge using our weekly focus books. The new books are so much fun and we are excited to read them every day.
• Looking at signs of spring while we have thought about how we can grow more like God and enjoyed painting daffodils. Our cress has grown but we didn't have many takers for egg and cress sandwiches!!
• Eating pancakes, pasta, crackers, hot dogs and pears.

Week Ending 25th February 

This week we have been busy

• Writing questions that we want to answer in our dinosaur topic.
• Using our guided reading books to answer comprehension questions in our writing books.
• Making cocktails in the mud kitchen.
• Learning more about our class Saint, Saint Bernadette.
• Acting out the story of 'Jesus in the Wilderness'.
• Making repeated patterns, in a range of ways including using numicon as stamps in paint.
• Planting cress to begin understanding growth and growing like God in Lent.
• Placing our palm crosses in the fire pit for our ashes next week.
• Chomping on toast, crackers, melon and cereal.

Week Ending 11th February 

This week we have been busy

• Role playing our class wedding in RE in preparation for our real wedding at church next half term.
• Using the climbing frame in our last session of gymnastics with Mrs Harper.
• Visiting church and the grotto to pray with Mary for the sick on 'World Day of the Sick'.
• Writing AMAZINGGGGGGG stories. I AM SO PROUD of ALL the stories, everyone used their imagination and phonics knowledge so well.
• Making number bonds to 10 using 10 frames and double sided counters.
• Feeling loving by making each other Valentines cards and exploring the Valentines resources in the classroom.
• Celebrating our China topic with games, music, the 'Yeh Shen' Cinderella short film and a Chinese banquet.

We have had another great half term with lots of learning, fun and progress. Well done everyone! Enjoy your half term. Love Mrs Patrick xxx

Week Ending 4th February 

This week we have been busy

• Learning facts from Paddington Bear about China.
• Celebrating Chinese New Year.
• Visiting the Paddington Bear exhibition at Tullie House.
• Using our phonics skills to write up our trip.
• Exploring the number 9.
• Practising jumping off a bench with straight legs and landing with knees bent in gymnastics. 
• Learning about weddings in RE and sharing our family wedding photos. Mrs Patrick was sad how old she must look when nobody recognised her in her weddings photos!!

Paddington Bear Trip - Wednesday 2nd February

WOW what a day we have had at Tullie House! We explored the interactive Paddington Bear exhibition and created our own Paddington Bear stories that we acted out wearing costumes! We finished our trip off with a play in Bitts Park! The children were fabulous and represented our school exceptionally well! 

Week Ending 28th January

This week we have been busy

• Looking at the different parts of story; characters, settings, problems and solutions. We made posters of ideas and inspirations ready to make our own stories next week.
• Enjoying listening to the story of Pi-Shu the Little Panda. We wrote facts about pandas and used toothbrushes and sponges to paint panda pictures. 
• Ordering numbers and selecting the number that was one more and one less than a given number. In maths mastery we focussed on the number 8.
• Making a mess on the snack table and not cleaning up after ourselves!!! But between that we ate a range of cereal and fruit. 
• Understanding why we gather at church and beginning to learn the meaning of the Eucharist.
• We visited the library to enjoy some new books and put up our China work on the library display board. 
• Being REALLY focussed during our guided reading sessions and using our phonics skills to segment and blend words. 
• Continuing our balancing and travelling skills in gymnastics. 

Week Ending 21st January

This week we have been busy:

• Getting flexible and developing our balancing skills in gymnastics.
• Learning the story of 'The Run Away Ricecake'.
• Using of phonics skills FANTASTICALLY in our guided reading sessions every morning.
• Practising our subtraction skills within our play to learn time and in small groups with Mrs Patrick.
• Chomping on crumpets, toast and yogurts.
• Visiting Father Paul at church to learn the importance of 'Gatherings', Father Paul was so impressed with how much we knew about the different parts of church.