Reception News: 12th December 2019

12th December 2019
Star of the Week:  Eloise
Mathematician of the Week:  Abigail
Values Champion:  Jacob
Rocking Reader: Ruby
Writer of the Week: Bellatrix
Maths:  One less

We are focusing on one more/ less. Children should see the link that one less than a number is the next number they say when they are counting backwards.

We sang the song five little ducks and the song 5 currant buns. We acted out the song in the hall. How many buns are there altogether? Put a penny in the pot, how ,many pennies do we have? How many buns do we have now? We repeated the song and questions highlighting there is one less bun each time, but one more penny.

We also played a game of musical chairs. What happens each time the music stops? How many chairs do we have now? Are their enough chairs for each person? How many chairs are going to be left?

The final game we played was I clapped 4 times and they had to clap one less time. We repeated the activity with different actions hopping, jumping and tapping their head. Theses are all things you can do at home to support them with one less.

They sometimes got a bit muddled with one more/ less and were using them interchangeably. It's really important they understand the language so they don't get confused as this is the beginning of addition and subtraction. Superstars!

Construction:  the children looked at images of a staircase built with different materials (lego, building blocks and bricks). They were encouraged to build their own staircases looking carefully at how many items were needed for each step. The children were asked if they had used one more each time.

They children really enjoyed this and used the peg people to show go up their staircase jumping one more each time. Well done!

Tree of Teamwork:  The children were given the outline of a Christmas tree. When provided with a variety of loose parts they were given one instruction... to work as a team.  We let their creativity and imagination run wild while they explored new materials and listened to each other's ideas.
We had so much fun with this activity we wouldn't let Mrs Ellis take away the outline, although maybe the silhouette will change.

Special Visitor:  This week we had a special visit from Mrs Mills' sister in law, Sonia. As a practising Muslim, Sonia showed us her head scarf, prayer mat and her special book, the Quran which she read to us in Arabic. We learnt how to pray like Muslim's and we showed Sonia how we, as Christians, pray differently. We looked at pictures of Mrs Mills dressed in gold for Sonia's wedding and discussed why they couldn't wear white like we do for our wedding day.

As a special treat Sonia brought us some yummy food to try. We are very proud of all of the children for trying both the savory and sweet options - some children even had seconds and thirds!

Thank you to both Sonia and Mrs Mills for organising such a lovely afternoon allowing us to look at the Muslim faith in an interactive (and yummy) way.

PE:  We had a great final Stelissa session. Disco lights and Christmas music... what more could you want? The children have loved these sessions each week and have enjoyed moving in a range of ways to different stories though movement and music.

We will be sending PE kits home - please bring in any bits that have been mislaid in PE bags so we can return any items to their owners before Christmas. The children will be doing PE outside in January so will need joggers, pumps, t-shirts and grey hoodies in their PE kits.

Forest School:  We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring our outdoor area as part of our forest school session. We had a go at weaving, leaf printing and chalking. Mrs Ellis was very impressed we showed Mrs Pincher how "heart smart" we can be - amazing work today everyone!

Nativity:  Wow where do I even begin... I am so, so incredibly proud of all the children and how confidently they sang, danced and delivered their lines. Each and everyone of them a super star!