The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Last week:

In Reception we have been continuing our learning about The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We have been painting super pictures this week in reception of the goats, and the children were able to say which parts of the goats they had included in their paintings. The children were very good at remembering to paint the horns of the goat - they've been listening so well to our story! We also did some amazing sentence making with Miss Davies and focussed on using our describing words to say what we could see about the troll in our story. We had a role play in our classroom where we had to remember the key events in our story and act it out with some of our friends using masks and a troll puppet (this was one of our favourites!) We had play dough out where we were able to practise our fine motor skills and use the play dough to make bridges for the goats to go on top of. We got so much better throughout the week at making bridges, and had a lot of practise in different ways! We had a competition to see which group could build the best bridge, but the children were all so good at it. At lunch time Miss Malpass helped the children to understand how to build a bridge, and what it needed to be strong and work properly. In maths last week we were learning about 'one more and one less', we did this using building blocks and 5 frames. Since the children have securely learnt numbers 1-5 and how to make them, moving on to one more and one less helped to support the visualising of numbers which are bigger and ones that are smaller. It will also allow the children to understand taking one away and adding one to a number. To support this at home you could look at more and less and see if the children can explain which has more (you could use blocks, toys, sweets!!) 

On Wednesday it snowed! Our day focused on the weather as the children were so excited about the snow in the morning! We did some wonderful learning outside and experienced the snow together. We had a discussion about what happened to the snow when we picked it up. The children made some lovely observations and thought about different ways that we could make the snow melt faster. 

This week:

This week we are beginning a new book in Reception - Little Red Riding Hood! The version we are reading is written by Rob Lloyd Jones and can be listened to here: Little Red Riding Hood - Rob Lloyd Jones - YouTube This will give children a good idea of our story, making them even more excited to read and learn all about it. You can encourage the children to get involved with this story through asking them questions - Who is in the story? Do you think the wolf is kind or unkind? How do you think Grandma was feeling? You can encourage using words such as scared, worried, frightened. You could even ask the children to draw a picture of their favourite character ready to share with their teachers and friends throughout the week.

The children will be learning about the characters in the story and whether they were making the right choices, this is a great way to develop their Personal, Social and Emotional Development. We will also be looking at sequencing the story in the correct order to make sure the children truly understand the order of the story and when each event takes place in our book! This book has some amazing vocabulary in it such as swished, cunning, crafty, grinning and giggling, which is an amazing chance for the children to broaden their vocabulary and develop their Communication and Language skills. 

In our phonics lessons we are moving onto our Phase 3 sounds, and continuing to encourage the children's reading of short words such as cat, pin, sat, tin, tap, puff, bell, leg. You could practise some of these at home with the children!

We can't wait to tell you all about this week and the things that we have learnt! Have a fabulous week. 

Miss Davies and Mrs Cooper