Last week: 

Last week in Reception we were continuing our learning of the story Little Red Riding Hood. The children really enjoyed getting involved with all of the activities based on this story. Seeing the children's language and vocabulary, based on Little Red Riding hood grow and develop has been amazing to see. 

The children got a letter from Little Red Riding Hood, telling them that the wolf had stolen Grandma's basket of food! The children were all eager with ideas on how we could help Grandma, as well as identifying her feelings; this was a great way to build on their Personal, Social and Emotional Development. We were super kind friends by making jam sandwiches to send to Grandma, and we even got to try some! The class came up with some good describing words for the jam - sticky, tasty, sweet. This was a really good chance for the children to learn new vocabulary and focus on their Communication and Language. We were then focussing on ways that we can stay healthy, and got to try some yummy foods! The aim of the lesson was for children to understand that foods which are high in sugar are less healthy.

We then learnt about how we can keep our teeth nice and healthy and the things we should be doing to keep them clean! Some of the children enjoyed pretending to be dentists and inspecting their teachers' teeth! We also enjoyed watching a video on YouTube of how long we should be brushing our teeth for - watching this video at home will make sure your children are brushing for the correct time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X4Udn7lbuY

Last week, the children found a new enjoyment for the outside area, where they were using pots and pans to scare off the wolf, and working as a team to see if they could find the wolf in our bushes. Focussing on describing the wolf, we encouraged the children to build their language and vocabulary. Children also enjoyed painting characters from our story and describing what they could see and have created. 

The children have been trying so hard with their writing skills, and have been writing a shopping list of items Little Red Riding Hood may want to buy for her Grandma. To build on their writing and blending skills at home, you may like to choose a short word from the sounds that we know and encourage the children to write it independently. 

This week in Reception we are moving our learning on to a story called The Enormous Turnip. The children will be learning and discussing different types of vegetables, how and where vegetables grow and describing what they look like. Encouraging new language sough as crunchy, rough, underground, root vegetable. You can develop the children's learning about vegetables at home by asking them to describe different vegetables they can see/taste/feel. 

We will be using our fine motor skills to enhance our physical development by using play dough to create different parts of our story. Children will be able to cut, roll, pinch and squeeze their play dough to manipulate it in different ways. We will also be focussing on our fine motor skills in our creative area where children will be using real vegetables to create art. In our maths lessons this week we are learning all about comparing mass. We will be using weighing scales in the classroom to find objects which are heavy and light. To develop the children's understanding of this, you could give them the choice of two (2) objects at home and ask them to say which one is heavier. Focusing on language of heavier, lighter, heaviest and lightest will help them to understand this concept. In our role play area this week the children have the chance to act out our story using their own vegetable patch and play kitchen to imitate making turnip soup from our story.

We are still continuing to learn our Phase 3 sounds in phonics, and children are beginning to read short sentences during our phonics lessons. Please continue to read the children's reading books that are sent home, even if it just a few minutes each night, you will notice a huge impact. The children are becoming more familiar with tricky words (these are words that cannot be segmented and blended). We have been watching a video to help their recognition of these words. Please feel free to watch the video at home: Tricky Words and Sight Words Song - YouTube. 

We can't wait to show you what we get up to this week, enjoy your week! 

Miss Davies and Mrs Cooper