What have we been doing?

Welcome to Reception

STEM Week

This week has been our Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Focus Week. We've been exploring structures. We were inspired by 'Maisy Goes Camping' to create our own waterproof tents. We discussed what 'waterproof' meant and chose materials we thought wouldn't let the water in. We designed, made and tested our tents.

We had a special visit to the forest school with Emma from Wild Things. A huge thank you to FOSS for funding this. We used tools to join wood to make houses for the fairies who live in the forest. We then used paint to create magical windows and doors. We always love being at the forest and explored the other areas too: looking for birds (and fairies) making potions, building dens and making wands. Back at school we made our own dens in the outdoor area.

We challenged ourselves to get across the 'river' using only lolly sticks and cups. We had some great problem solving to build bridges, boats and rafts!

Chinese New Year

We have loved discovering how Chinese New Year is celebrated. We have made some of our own decorations including lanterns, blossom pictures, fans, sand sculptures and lucky money envelopes. We have made our own dragon masks and done dragon dances. We have retold the story of the Chinese zodiac and loved how the cheeky rat pushed the poor cat into the river to win.

Bikes

We have enjoyed riding our new bikes this week. We have especially enjoyed the circle bike where we had to work as a team to move.

Making Moon Mud

We made Moon Mud! We added cornflour and water and we enjoyed getting our hands in to mix. We were fascinated by how it changed from liquid to solid when we squeezed or tapped it.

"It was really slimy".

"It felt like it was soggy and watery... it's watery and it smells disgusting".

"It feels dry but it looks wet".

"If you squeeze it, it's a solid".

Space

We have been learning about space. We started by saying all the things we already knew about space. We knew some impressive facts, such as:

"Space was born with a big bang".

"We are in space but we are a planet".

"The moon has holes".

"You can't walk in space, you float".

"People fly to the moon in rockets".

Then we thought about what we'd like to discover:

"What is a proton star?"

"Are there six hundred stars?"

"Why do stars have pointy bits?"

"What is the Milky Way?"

"Is there any air in space?"

Here we are making rockets from cylinders and cones:

Santa Visit

We loved Santa visiting our classrooms today. Our parties were lots of fun and we even made our own instruments to play along to the songs.

Year 3 Reading Buddies

We enjoyed sharing stories with our friends from Year 3.

Gingerbread Man

We retelling and innovating the story of the gingerbread man. We made our own gingerbread men using ginger flavoured dough.

Nursery Rhyme Week

We've immersed ourselves in nursery rhymes this week... in and out the classroom. In the playground, we've been singing 'Ring-a-ring-a Roses' and at the forest we sang 'Mud, Mud'. Each day we've had a different nursery rhyme focus:

Monday: Baa Baa Black Sheep

Tuesday: Down in the Jungle

Wednesday: Incy Wincy Spider

Thursday: Row Row Row Your Boat

Friday: Two Little Dickie Birds

We made our own silly rhymes and enjoyed telling these to our friends. Can you guess which rhymes we're singing from the clues in the pictures?

Maths Week

This week the whole school celebrated all things Maths. We used the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to inspire our investigations.

Giant Footprint

A giant footprint had arrived in our classroom one morning. We estimated how big it was and then measured it. We then drew around our own feet and measured them using cubes. We compared them with our friends using the vocabulary 'longer than', 'shorter than', 'longest' and 'shortest'.

Golden Eggs

The hen laid lots of golden eggs in two different nests. We added them all together to see how many in total.

Magic Beans

We estimated how many magic beans were in Jack's jar. The closest estimate won the magic (jelly) beans!

Feathers and Eggs

We compared the weight of the feather and egg the hen had left behind. We then went on a hunt to find something heavier than the feather and something lighter than the egg.

Castles in the Air

We felt sorry for the giant that Jack had cut down his beanstalk and destroyed his home so we set about making the giant a new castle using 3D shapes.

Diwali

We discovered how Hindu's celebrate Diwali. We enjoyed the story of Rama and Sita and used puppets to retell this. We made Diya lamps by shaping the clay with our hands and adding sequins to decorate - this is much harder than it looks! We also experimented making our own Rangoli patterns using paint, sand and natural materials. We pretended to use Henna and decorated 'hands' inspired by Mendhi patterns.

Halloween Party

Reception all made their own decorations in preparation for their Halloween party. We made paper chains and bat bunting to make our classroom look spooky. We enjoyed getting changed into our fancy dress... some people we so transformed we didn't know who they were. We loved the party games and sweet treats to end the day.

Year 3 Reading Buddies

We enjoy spending time sharing stories with our reading buddies in Year 3. Today, the 'fire' was blazing and the fairy lights twinkled on a dreary Autumn afternoon as we enjoyed listening to our friends practise changing their voices for different characters. Some of us even chose to read a book to our Year 3 friend.

Climate Strike

Reception joined the rest of school in taking part in activities in support of #ClimateStrikes

We read the book 'Michael Recycle' and discussed what recycling meant. . We became recycling superheros - making our own capes. We also read '10 Things I Can Do To Help My World' and thought about ways we could help keep our planet a nice place to live.

Roald Dahl Day

Reception loved reading 'The Enormous Crododile' and were inspired to made their own Roly-Poly birds from playdough. We also worked together to create a new cover for the book.