….is the question we have been discussing, as hope is our focus value of this half term. For the children in RS, ‘hope is wanting something good to happen‘.

The children were invited to talk about, draw a picture or write down what they hope for and there were some wonderful contributions: a train ride; a visit to a museum; a story from a big sister; a turn with the puppets; a visit to the garden; some new shoes; to sit with a new friend.

As part of our learning about hope, we explored the concept of trust. We considered how Jesus placed his trust in God during his time in the wilderness, refusing the temptations offered by the devil [Matthew 4:18:22]. We also learned how Peter, Andrew, James and John left their fishing boats to become disciples, who followed Jesus [Matthew 4:1:11]. The children suggested that the fishermen were happy to follow Jesus because “they liked him” (Coby) and “He was the son of God” (Isaac). We played a fun game of ‘Follow the leader’ but recognised that we should only follow someone, whom we trust to make good and kind decisions.

brings new life and we have noticed that, while our class tree is still leafless as it wakes up from Winter, there are flowers on the ground under the tree. Did anyone know what the flowers were? “Yellow ones!”, said someone. “You mean daffodils,” Edie specified. We also noticed crocuses.

In class, we made observational crayon drawings of daffodils.

Lent

Ash Wednesday marked the start of Lent. We learned that during the 40 days (not including Sundays) of Lent, some Christians choose to give something up that they like/enjoy, just as Jesus gave up food and drink during the time he spent in the desert to be with God. We talked about what we might give up. Jay suggested “Pringles”. Leon thought he might give up his “house”.

I hope that the practice we put into flipping pancakes in our outdoor area saved some mess at home. We talked about how the ingredients used for making pancakes are not eaten until Easter by some Christian families.

Planting potatoes

We examined a real potato and gathered the children’s ideas about where potatoes come from. “The shop” was the most popular response but some children suggested that, before they arrived at the shop, potatoes grow “in soil”….”on farms”…”in fields”. We then found a toy potato in our feely bag and considered why it might not grow if we planted it. “Well, it will just get dirty, won’t it?” suggested Reggie.

Mrs Wake has kindly given us some seed potatoes to grow. We went outside and added nutritious soil to the bag – not too much as we learned that we will need to ‘earth them up’ when shoots appear. The seed potatoes were positioned carefully so they would have room to grow. We checked for stones as Aunty Mabel (Come Outside) warned that any stones might result in funny-shaped potatoes! The children suggested that the plants would need water and a sunny spot in the outdoor area. We can’t wait to follow their progress.

World Book Day

Thank you so much for all of the effort that went into costumes for World Book Day. Well done to Edie, who read us the story of The Ugly Duckling. I wonder which stories you might share at home this weekend?

….a basket appeared in RS. It contained a cake, a hooded red cape, an axe and a grandma. What were they doing in our classroom? Where had they come from?

The children guessed that the objects may be connected to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ – a popular traditional tale. We discovered that some of us were familiar with this story. We also discovered that we had different ideas about how the story unfolds. Over the course of the week, we discussed the beauty of traditional tales; they are passed down from generation to generation and the details change depending on who tells the story, creating many different versions. We don’t always need a book to experience the magic.

The children were invited to paint a wolf and to draw Little Red.

We have been reading and acting out lots of other traditional tales too. Zoe and Frankie enjoyed pretending that the book was the fox’s mouth and snapped the gingerbread man inside!

Which traditional tales do you enjoy at home? Maybe you could phone/FaceTime a relative and ask them to tell you their favourite from when they were younger?

Don’t forget….they all lived happily ever after. The end.

In Reception, maths involves lots of manipulatives and is very visual to support the children’s understanding of new concepts.

When considering the composition of 6, 7 and 8 this week, we have used ladybird outlines and the children explored how many spots (counters) could go on each wing. We then noted aloud what each part was and the whole; for example, 4 is a part and 3 is a part, the whole is 7.

Outdoors, we threw 6, 7 or 8 beanbags into a hoop and observed the split between how many beanbags were in/out.

As an introduction to pairs, we considered where we might find pairs: socks, shoes, earrings, scissors, swimming goggles, eyes, ears. Patterned socks and wellies were used to illustrate the concept of pairs. The children noticed that 2 socks make 1 pair, 4 socks make 2 pairs, 6 socks make 3 pairs and so on. This is particularly tricky to get our heads around so please do practise at home with family socks! We learned that 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are even numbers because we can make pairs without any spare socks left over. When we have 3 socks, we can make 1 pair and there is 1 sock left over: 3 is an odd number.

Away from maths, the children were invited to make a love bug. Some of them chose to include a message of thankfulness, for the recipient, on the back.

Can you believe that we are half way through this Reception year? It’s always an opportune moment to reflect, with the children, on how much progress they have made since September. Well done, RS, and thank you to everyone at home for your support. Enjoy your week off.

This week we have been learning about Lunar New Year. We started by looking at the places in the world where many people celebrate Lunar New Year. We discovered that Lunar New Year is a celebration of a new moon every Spring. Families prepare by cleaning the house before putting up decorations: lots of red for luck and flowers as a reminder of Spring. On the morning of Lunar New Year, new clothes are worn to recognise the fresh start and children are given red envelopes containing money. Lanterns are made to symbolise the brightness of Spring and people offer good luck messages. Feasts with eight or nine (lucky numbers!) dishes are eaten. Families then go outside to watch the dragon parade and dancing. After the parade, there are firecrackers to deter bad spirits. Each year is named after an animal. I wonder if the children can recall why this is?

2025 is year of the snake so we have been learning lots of interesting facts about snakes.

Our beautiful lanterns required lots of precise cutting and stapler-support from Amy. Some children decided to make a snake too: joining the parts with treasury tags was challenging but great for developing our fine motor skills.

We enjoyed our own animal races in the outdoor area.

Thank you to Mr Chan for coming in to tell us how he has celebrated Lunar New Year with Ian and his family in Hong Kong.

Motivated by the RSPB big garden birdwatch, we have been learning all about our feathered friends.

We discovered, from an information video, that all birds: have feathers; lay eggs; have a beak instead of teeth and have wings (but not all birds fly). After enjoying the book, ‘A Busy Day for Birds’ by Lucy Cousins, we went on our own birdwatch around the school grounds. Can the children recall which birds they spotted in the sky or on the field and which birds they heard in the hedgerows?

To try and attract more birds to our class apple tree, we made bird cake. Here are the instructions if you want to make some at home.

The children were also invited to draw a bird.

Our class story invention this week featured Muffin, the Puffin, being rescued by his lifelong mate, Huffin.

Can the children tell you what happened?

How exciting to walk into assembly and discover that police officers, Sarah and Paul, had come to visit us in school. We thought about the questions we would like to ask them when it was our turn to go outside so that we could learn more about what the police do to help us.

During the visit, Sarah asked us which vehicles the police might use other than a van. Their favourite answer was from Emma, who thought that they might drive “Lamborghinis”. Sarah and Paul also loved the idea that there may be police camels, giraffes and cows when they asked which animals help the police with their work. We learnt that dogs and horses are used by the police but that Paul thought that “Giraffes is a great idea for looking in high places”.

We all had the opportunity to be ‘locked up’ in the back of the police van and were excited when the lights and sirens were switched on by Zoe and Lucas.

When we returned inside, we reflected on what we had learned about how the police help us.

Lucas recalled that, “the baddies go in the back and are locked in so they cannot escape”. “The uniform is bright yellow so we know they are there at night.” (Isaac). “If people hurt you, you use a shield to stop them.” (Ian) “The sirens are really loud.” (Reggie) “The sirens were so loud I had to put my fingers in my ears.” (Hector) “You ring 999.” (Coby) “Being an officer is good because you can catch baddies.” (Toby)

Thank you to Sarah and Paul for coming and for inspiring so many of us to say, “I want to be in the police when I grow up!”.

….is our topic this half term. The children have been talking about all of the people, who help them. Parents will be pleased to hear that you came up quite a lot – especially in relation to feeding them! We have also identified doctors, the police, builders, firemen, teachers, refuse collectors, nurses, dentists and delivery drivers.

There has been some wonderful role play in our medical centre. Coby used the thermometer: “Put it in your armpit or your mouth to make sure you’re feeling alright”. Ian told Miss Hague, “It’s a bandage for a leg cut or bone break.”

While sharing our story about Dr Miranda, Isaac revealed that he is on course for a medical career if he wants one. He offered a super explanation for the term swollen: “It’s where you injure something like your ankle and it becomes fat.”

He also told us, “If you are hot, you might have a temperature”.

Most of the children were able to recall their own medical experiences. We heard about rashes, earaches and sore throats.

Thank you very much to Amy for coming in on Friday to explain what she does in her role as an intensive care nurse. Please ask the children what they recall from her visit.

Later in the half term, we will welcome a visit from some police officers.

….whose head appeared in our classroom. After hunting around the classroom to find all his body parts, we put him back together. Fred, the bear, wrote to thank us for our help and he explained that it wasn’t the first time that something bad had happened to him. We sent Fred letters to ask what happened in the past.

Fred sent us a book, which explained that he had not, in fact, been squished by a lorry or hit by a lion or thrown out of a window (or any of the other suggestions from children in RS). He had been pushed into a bin by a dog and ended up on a truck to the dump. Oh no!

We practised our cutting, pinning and sticking skills by making our own bears and dogs.

Next week, we will start to imitate the story, learning the words with actions.

In our final week of Autumn term, we have enjoyed several Christmas celebrations with singing, dancing and edible treats.

Ahead of our Christingle service this afternoon, we learned that Christingles are used in some Christian churches during the Advent period. We discovered that each part of a Christingle represents something special for this time of year. Can the children remember what?

Thank you for all of your support this term and for your kind and generous festive messages. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas break.