Reception (4-5 years)

We have been working hard rehearsing for our Nativity show. Mrs Riches was very proud of us. We sung beautifully, danced with enthusiasm, and acted out our roles with confidence. We were so proud to perform for our family and friends, sharing the joy of this special festive celebration.

We have also been busy baking Christmas cakes. We weighed out all the ingredients, mixed them together, and put them in the oven. We decorated them with icing and a sprig of holly and wrapped them up to give to our families. We can’t wait to taste them!

We had fun at our last forest school of the year, we toasted marshmallows over the fire, made Santa sticks and used the saw to cut log slices which we will turn into Christmas table decorations.

We have explored hedgehogs through a range of fun and interactive activities. We listened to stories and watched short videos to learn about where hedgehogs live, what they eat, and how they protect themselves.

‘Hedgehogs sleep all through the winter and wake up in spring’ Aria

‘Hedgehogs eat slugs and beetles and snails and some small eggs’ Jasper

‘Hedgehogs are spiky’ Daisy

We enjoyed hands-on tasks such as creating hedgehog crafts using a variety of materials and discussing how to care for wildlife in their gardens. This helped us to develop an understanding of the importance of looking after animals and their habitats in a simple, engaging way.

We worked as a team to create our own nests to hibernate in, goodnight!

At forest school we made hedgehogs by hammering nails into pieces of wood.

We’ve had a very busy week. We found out about Remembrance Day which is a special day in November that gives people the chance to remember those who fought and lost their lives during the war and to honour their memory. We made our own poppies, painted poppy scenes and made poppies with the loose parts.

We have been learning all about apples this week. We found out that apples grow on trees and the seeds can be planted to grow new trees.

We talked about things we can make with apples and then made an apple and blackberry crumble. We prepared the apples by peeling off the skin and chopping them up. We then put the apples and blackberries in a dish, added the crumble and cooked it. Then we ate it, it was delicious!

We also helped support Children in Need by donating money which will support children all over the UK. We had a lot of fun making Pudsey masks, measuring the height of Pudsey’s friends, painting and cutting out Pudsey bears and practising our counting skills by adding the correct amount of spots to Pudsey.

We have been learning about Diwali. It is a festival celebrated by Hindus in India and all around the world. This year Diwali started on 20^th October. It is known as the festival of lights.

We created Rangoli patterns by painting, chalking and using the loose parts.

We made Diva lamps by moulding clay into a pot shape. We left them to dry hard and then painted and decorated them with glitter. Once they were finished, we lit candles and sang a Diwali song.

We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and decorated hands with mehndi patterns.

We also had a lot of fun with pumpkins and spooky activities!

We made pumpkin soup using the pumpkins grown in the school garden. We cut the pumpkin up, peeled and chopped the onions. Then we put all the ingredients into a big pan and boiled them until they were soft.

We then warmed up the soup on the fire at Forest School, it was delicious!

Autumn has inspired our learning this week. We enjoyed reading Leaf Man. It follows the journey of leaf man as he is blown across the land. A Leaf Man's got to go where the wind blows.

We went on an autumn walk around the school grounds and noticed many trees were losing their leaves and the leaves were changing colour. We found red, yellow, orange and brown leaves. We also spotted acorns and blackberries and learned that the acorns had fallen off an oak tree.

We then used our collection of leaves to create our own leaf people.

In the creative area we painted our own autumn trees, explored leaf printing and rubbing and made an autumn leaf by threading wool through the holes of a leaf shape.

At forest school we have are observing the grandmother tree as she changes through the autumn. She has lost a lot of leaves already and many have turned yellow and brown. We have used some of these leaves to print with, make autumn bracelets, leaf rub and make caterpillars.

This week we have been learning about people who help us, at home, in school and the wider community.

‘Firefighters put out fires and use the hoses with water’ Theon

‘Police Officers keep us safe’ Aria

‘Paramedics take poorly and hurt people to hospital’ Elias

We have had a lot of fun role playing at people who help us. We have put out fires, arrested people, made pets better and fixed lots of things as builders.

We explored colour mixing; we found out that red and yellow make orange.

We also created our own map of a town to show all the places in our community where we meet people who help us including a doctors, school, fire station and our homes.

We noticed that the sunflowers in our garden had died so we harvested the seeds. In the spring we will plant these seeds to grow more sunflowers. We can’t wait! 

We have been thinking about our families. We have shared the books The Great Big Book of Families and Families, Families, Families. We found out that there are many kinds of families, but they are all special to us.

We enjoyed drawing, making and talking about our families in a variety of ways.

We also talked about our class being our school family and painted our portraits to display. We looked at our different features and talked about how we have many similarities and differences but are all special.

We have been making lots of new friends and a lot of fun collaborating to collage them.

We were very excited to go to Forest School for the first time. We met the Grandmother Tree, learnt about keeping ourselves safe in the forest and the important rule of ‘No pick, no lick, be careful with a stick’. We had so much fun climbing trees, making mud pies, tackling the rope bridge and exploring the forest. We can’t wait until next week!                

This week we have been enjoying plenty of activities both inside and outside to strengthen our muscles which will help us improve our ability to write.

We have used our large muscles in our body to help develop our whole body and coordination and our small muscles in our hands and fingers to develop precise movements.

We have welcomed all our new Reception children into school and have been so proud of how they have settled in.

We have been learning school routines such as sitting on the carpet for registration, lining up for lunch and what we need to do at tidy up time. All the children are settling well into school life, making new friends and having so much fun!