….at Skelton Grange on Tuesday. Sam and Chris invited us to join in as they told the story of The Gruffalo. During the morning, we searched for berries, hazelnuts and crab apples for mouse, listened out for owl’s hoots, sequenced the story and examined wriggly and slimy minibeasts in their natural habitat. We broke for an indoor picnic before heading out to explore again. The children collaborated to gather long sticks for a cosy den. Cakes, soups and hot chocolate were cooked up in the mud kitchen. Critical thinking skills were in evidence when the ball run broke and the children had to work out how to fix it. We bravely balanced along the ropes and Sam sent us flying through the air on the rope swing. What a fun day, filled with outdoor learning and adventure!

Please check your child’s book bag as they have all chosen a couple of photos to bring home to you.

Stories, rhymes and games really help children to visualise the maths that we want them to understand.

One more

In the Gingerbread Man tale, we notice the increasing number of hungry characters chasing him. Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me!

The number of elephants, that went out to play on a spider’s web, increased by one each time until the web fell down. I’m not sure I want to meet the spider, which managed to spin a web that would support four elephants!

At home, you could give the children a few grapes or raisins or cubes.

How many do they have? Can they tell you how many they will have if you give them one more? Count to check.

Ask children to listen carefully to you clap 1, 2 or 3 times. Can they clap one more time than you?

Taking one away

As the frogs jump off the log into the cool pool, we notice how many is one less than 5, then one less than 4, and so on.

Another game to try at home is to drop a few small stones into a tin. Ask the children to listen carefully as you drop them in one at a time. They can count aloud as they hear the stones hit the bottom. Ask your child how many stones will be in the tin after you have taken one out.

We love these stories, rhymes and games for developing number sense!

Our focus, this week, has been learning about Diwali – the Hindu and Sikh festival of light – where goodness triumphs over evil. Mrs Ajith very kindly talked to us about how her family celebrate at home.

The children listened to, watched and then acted out the story of Warrior Prince Rama and Princess Sita.

Princess Sita and Warrior Prince Rama loved each other very much.

However, Demon King Ravana wanted Princess Sita for himself and took her away. (Darius is trying very hard to look mean!)

Prince Rama asked his good friend, Hanuman – the Monkey King – for help. So Hanuman rounded up all of the monkeys to help find Princess Sita.

Prince Rama shot an arrow at Demon King Ravana….

…..and he died.

Princess Sita and Prince Rama were reunited. Diva lamps help them to find their way home.

Super drama, RS! It was brilliant that you all wanted to perform on our ‘stage’. I wonder if the children can use the pictures to retell the story at home?

The children rose to the challenge of manipulating clay and then creating patterns with tools to make beautiful diva lamps. Please just add a tealight when they bring them home. We hope they burn brightly and bring you good fortune.

Looking for and identifying patterns helps children to notice and understand mathematical relationships. This week, after noticing patterns on materials, animals and gift wrap, we focussed on helping the children to continue, copy and create their own repeating patterns. Throughout the day, we have been identifying different structures in the ‘unit of repeat’, such as AB (e.g. leaf, stick), ABC (e.g. conker, leaf, stick) or AAB (e.g. banana, banana, apple). Patterns with fruit, children, cubes, bricks and natural materials have given us the opportunity to deepen our understanding. Some of the children have been able to spot and correct errors in the patterns we have made.

We have enjoyed singing this pattern song too. Perhaps you can make up an additional verse at home?

Mass

The children have enjoyed handling objects of different masses and developing their understanding of the terms heavy and light. We have used balance scales to measure which objects are lighter or heavier than others and we were surprised to discover that some bigger objects were lighter than smaller objects.

Capacity

The children have been introduced to the idea that capacity is the maximum amount that something can hold. We have considered how containers look when they are full and when they are empty. Predictions were made about which containers would hold the most objects or liquid and, again, we had a few surprisers. the tallest containers did not hold as many or as much as we anticipated.

Why not find some containers at home and compare how many Duplo/LEGO cubes/ they hold?

Michael Rosen explains on his website that, “Poetry is valuable for all of us for many reasons: it was invented as a good way to remember important things and interesting things. It still does this, through its musical sounds, rhythms and rhymes. It’s also a good way to play with the language around us and playing pleases us.”

Learning through playful language certainly pleases us in Reception. In celebrating this year’s National Poetry Day theme of Counting, we have enjoyed rhymes such as Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day, Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer, Five Little Buns in a Baker’s Shop, Five Little Monkeys Swinging from a Tree and many more. Having puppets/toys helps the children visualise the maths in the nursery rhymes.

However, the children’s favourite has been Two Little Dickie Birds: poetry and magic proving to be a winning combination.

Luke the crocodile snatches monkeys right out of the tree.

Five little children in a flying saucer flew round the earth one day (before lunch).

‘Mr Tumble and friends’ can be found easily online, singing many rhymes, if you want to expand your repertoire at home.

“Me and Toby make a rock finder every day!” Isaac told Mrs Shipley as the boys made their way outside to test their latest innovation. How wonderful!

Brimming with limitless imagination, Reception children are drawn to the DT workshop, where they are encouraged to bring their wonderful ideas to life. We explore different materials and consider how to use them on a small or grand scale. As we grow through the year and develop our fine motor skills, the children will be taught how to use materials and tools most effectively. They are invited to plan their models and are supported in considering how they can adapt and improve their creations.

In this first term, we focus on joining different materials and exploring different textures: glue, masking tape, paper clips, hole punch and treasury tags. We discover that we need to share! This week, the children have been shown how to create texture by folding paper into zigzags and curling paper strips around a pencil. Look at the monsters we made.

You can set up a simple workshop at home by saving boxes, tubes, lids and adding glue sticks and masking tape. Ask the children to show you how they have been taught to look after resources in school: for example, only twisting up the glue stick a little bit at a time and replacing the lid so the glue does not dry out.

If you make anything at home, we would love for you to upload a photo to Tapestry so the children can inspire us with their creations, explaining the materials and processes that they have used.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have made a couple of visits to our adopted class tree: a Ribston Pippin apple tree. By observing our tree throughout the school year, the children will learn about the effects of the changing seasons on the natural world around them.

The children made lots of interesting observations. Leon commented, “I think it’s covered in big juicy apples” and noticed the marks on the top of one of the apples. Mrs Wake explained that, just as boys and girls bruise when they bump into one another, the wind might blow branches into the apples and cause bruising. Edie described the leaf as “green and the edges are a bit spiky”. Coby wondered if “a worm might have bited” one of the apples when he spotted a hole. Toby noticed that the markings on his apple “look like a leaf shape”. When we sliced one apple in half, Darius was quite repulsed; “Ugggh, that’s disgusting!”. Alma enjoyed her apple: “Juicy”. We made leaf rubbings with crayon and apple prints with paint. We all agreed that our tree is beautiful on a sunny day at the end of Summer. We can’t wait to see what happens next.

….and into the school library. “Wow!” We were very excited to meet Aslan and join Miss Whiteley for our first library story – ‘Spinderella’ by Julia Donaldson.

Sharing books is one of the most important and enjoyable aspects of our Reception year. In addition to weekly library visits, we have story time every day, when class favourites are soon adopted. The children enjoy spending time in our classroom book corners, where they can choose from a range of fiction and non-fiction texts.

We encourage you to read with your children at home each day and to encourage them to consider: what they notice; what they wonder; what they think; what might happen next; how might the character be feeling; whether they would like to be in the story?

Family Library Sessions for Reception children and their families are offered on Tuesdays 3.00-4.00pm (younger/older siblings welcome). Meet in main reception. You can also visit Moor Allerton library if another weekday or Saturday is better for you.

The children, who have started Reception this week, are settling in brilliantly. There was excitement at meeting our ACE bears and taking them home to be welcomed into our families. We have explored the different areas of indoor and outdoor provision: painting; crafting; changing nappies in the home corner; creating cakes with playdough; collecting eggs from the chickens; putting out fires in the small world area…..and much more. By sharing our ‘all about me’ boxes, we have started to learn more about our friends and their lives outside of school. Manners have been practised at lunchtime and we have talked about sharing during snack time. Thank you to our Year 6 buddies, who are helping us to settle in. We can’t wait until everyone is here at the end of next week!