“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!