Make Believe Topic

Our topic this term is "Make Believe". We have been looking particularly at traditional fairy tales and fables. The children have really enjoyed the role-play area, pretending to be all the characters from the stories we have read together.  During the last week the children hosted a film premiere, we sold popcorn, squash and gingerbread men that was all made and sold by the children.

Here are some photos of the other things we have been doing in Reception this term...

The children have all made good progress with their phonics, children are decoding words really well and it has been brilliant to see them reading and writing longer irregular words in their Literacy books.

The girls helped make a chair for the prince or princess to sit on in the castle. (role-play area)

The play tray in our classroom has been changed regularly with fine motor skill activities, this has helped the children with pencil grip and their hand eye co-ordination.

We made Cinderella dresses by dipping the corners of folded tissues in different coloured dyes.

The children have enjoyed the role-play area this term pretending to be knights and princesses. A big cardboard box is always welcome in Reception: this time it plays the role of Sleeping Beauty's bed.

 The children created a beanstalk in the classroom once they saw the Giants legs hanging down from the roof! On the leaves the children wrote lots of words they knew how to spell.

One day the Witch from Hansel and Gretel was in our forest area and shared a story with Reception. The children then created their own list of things they would put into a cauldron if they were a witch making a potion.  

 The children made and decorated a gingerbread house by tearing, ripping and scrunching coloured paper and pasting it on the walls and roof.

The children have been doing Music on a Tuesday afternoon, they have been working this term on recognising sounds, sound effects and they have continued to reinforce beats of music by matching percussion instruments to familiar songs.

The children made dancing split pin knights. The process was a list of step by step instructions they had to follow to independently complete the activity.

 In gymnastics we have continued with balancing and we have moved on to box jumps and log rolls. Each P.E session has been reinforced by the children retelling the key techniques.

We have also been doing dance this term, this session was a piece of music called Giants and Fairys. The children include a starting and finishing position, gesture and most importantly they match their movement to the music. We also listen to different types of music: discuss what instruments they can hear and how it makes them feel.

 The shoemaker came into our shop one day and the children learned about money, a tricky concept for children but as we opened our own shoe shop it helped with their understanding of why we need and use money.

 The children built their own houses made of straw, sticks and bricks from the story 'The Three Little Pigs'.

This term we looked at a famous artisit called Ruth Faison Shaw, a talented finger painter. For our film premiere the children used the technique of the famous artisit to recreate paintings of fairy tale characters. We used the pictures to decorate our classroom.  

 The children decorated and wrote their own tickets/invitations to the film premiere.

We read the story of Red Riding Hood and I set the children an investiagtion of having to find a good waterproof material for Red Riding Hoods coat. The children had to work as a group to sort the materials into waterproof and not waterproof just by touching and looking. We then tested them as a class with water and sorted them from the best waterproof to the worst. Children made predictions, experimented and tested we all finished with a conclusion to the problem.

 We introduced large sheets into the construction area outside, the children were all very keen to make dens and hide-outs from stories we have read this term.

 On the last day we walked around the village and to the the park to find the Wolf from the 3 little pigs and little red riding hood. I pinned up the wanted posters the children had wrote around the village to read on our hunt. We also found the Wood Cutter and Red Riding Hoood on our way...

 The children found the wolf in the park hiding in the tree!

On the wanted posters the children wrote rewards such as extra play and sweets. So with some of the money raised from the shop at the film premiere the children had 10p to buy some sweeties in the village local shop.

Topic - People who help us

This term our topic was 'People who help us'. The children have had a really busy and exciting term, especially with the run up to Christmas. The children have been on two school trips, they have had a junk modelling morning with their parents in school and they put on a fantastic Nativity performance.

Children have now grasped a good understanding of following instructions. Together in music lessons the children have been learning the names of percussion instruments, playing loudly and softly and copying beats of music.

The children made pumpkin soup and we drank it in the woodland area in school and listened to a Halloween story.

The children all did a firework picture by using glue mixed with fluorescent paint and rolling marbles through them covering the black sugar paper. To add the extra sparkle we then finished decoratin them with glitter. The children learnt about why we celebrate bonfire night on the 5th of November and we also learnt about keeping safe on firework night.

Our role-play area for this term was a police car, station and jail.

Children learnt all the names of 3D shapes we see in our world today. One activity the children enjoyed was re-creating their own shapes using different malleable resources.

We learnt about Josepths technicloured dreamcoat.

Children learnt about number ladders and how to effectivly use a number line to add and take away.

Junk modelling morning with Reception Parents. The children with the help of there Mum, Dad or Grandparents help build a 999 emergency vehicle.

Children helped to raise money for Children in Need by dressing up in spots, in Reception children iced biscuits and they added spots (Smarties) to decorate.

We finished all letter sounds from the alphabet, here is Archie practising the correct letter formation pattern on the IWB.

Children wrapped 3D parcels and they were given a numbered letter box hidden around the classroom for them to post their parcel. Children used the parcels as a child initiated game all week, they enjoyed adapting the game by making numbers larger and moving them around different places of the classroom.

Mr Johnson, (Oliver's Dad) is a postman and Reception were lucky enough for him to come in and tell the children about the role of a postman and all the different jobs he has to do on a daily basis.

The children went on their first school trip out of school. The children went to Sanfield Farm and met Emma the Farmer! The children learnt all about the jobs that are done on the farm and got to dress up as different people who help. The children had a nice long wellie walk around the farm and met all the animals. In the afternoon the children played in the woods and did some den building.

The children played a blindfold game and hide the pig.

Police visit day was confusing at first to the children and the parents when they came to school and the classroom looked like we had been 'burglared'.

I had set up a pretend game where the children had to be policemen for the day and work out ho made the mess in our classroom and stole our advent calender.

Children made traps from the construction. They looked for clues I left out and they found a map which sent them all around the school finding different things which lead them to the burglar 'Sedge Fox'.

Children followed a numbered map of the school and they wrote down the list of clues.

We called the police and they arrived at our school driving into the playground with their sirens on. The children told the officers what had happened and how they have helped solve the crime. The police arrested our furry puppet Sedge Fox and Simon the Community Support officer for the area talked about right and wrong.

The officers also let the children try on different parts of police uniform and they talked about strangers and the importance of road safety.

A massive thank-you to all the people who donated things to Reception off the 'Wish tree'. One of the things we used this term is all the wonderful bulbs we had given to us and the pots. The children have planted a good variety of bulbs which will look fantastic in Spring.

Children learnt about measuring water and had a problem solving task which involved water, guttering and a little yellow duck. Children had one bucket full of water at one end of the outdoor classroom and an empty bucket at the other end. Children could not move the buckets out of a marked area and they had to get water from the full bucket to the empty one. They could use the guttering and a measuring jug. The children worked out the guttering needed to be connected with no gaps and elevated for the water to move across. They then had the little yellow duck to make sure the flow was continuous with no drops of water escaping.

I read a story about firefighters and I gave the children a cardboard box and some dressing up clothes. The children were creative and turned it into a fire engine, the children then added words to do with firemen onto the box.

The Reception Nativity performance was just brilliant...

The last week of term was all based around Christmas. We changed the role-play area into a santas grotto...

We decorated the clssroom with paper chains.

We made snowmen...

And Father Christmas pictures with woolly beards...

And the Thursday before half term we went on a school trip to Smart Trees. The children went on an animal hunt in the huge Christmas tree farm.

We got really muddy...

We met the reindeers...

We had a tractor trailer ride which was really fast and bumpy...

And we met Santa Claus...

And we fell asleep on the way home, well sort of!

The next day was the last day of school before we broke up for Christmas. We had a fantastic Christmas lunch put on by FOSS and we sang Christmas songs; a brilliant end to a fantastic term!