We're going on a bear hunt..!

This week our learning is focused on the fantastic story 'We're going on a bear hunt'. We have been learning how to perform this story and make it exciting for people to watch. We watched the author, Michael Rosen, performing the story and talked about what he did that made it a good performance, such as adding actions, using his face to make expressions and using his voice to show how he was feeling. We've been practising telling the story and tomorrow we are going to perform it for Mrs Comer - watch out for our video!

We've also been busy this week making binoculars to go on a bear hunt, making some swishy swashy grass from the story, making masks of the characters to help us retell the story, using playdough to create scenes from the story and exploring some snow, like in the 'swirling, whirling snowstorm' in the water tray.

This afternoon Reception also composed a musical accompaniment to the story, deciding which instruments worked best for each part of the story. After practising playing our instrument, we listened to the story being read aloud and joined in with our instruments at the right time to make the story even more exciting! We recorded our performance on our touch screen computer and then played it back, talking about what we liked and why and which bits were the most effective.

If you want to watch Michael Rosen's storytelling of the story, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyI6ykDwds&safe=active

Ben Bear's adventures!

This week Ben Bear spent his first week with children in Nursery and Reception and had a wonderful time with Jack and Olivia. Jack and Olivia looked after him all week and have put lots of lovely things in his diary - writing about all their adventures together, photographs and pictures they have drawn. Today they shared Ben's diary with the class and told everyone about the fun things they'd done.

Porridge, storytelling and lots more!

We've been really busy this week learning the story of Goldilocks and developing our learning in lots of ways based on the Goldilocks story.

We made porridge and learnt how to stay safe when cooking. We tried different toppings on our porridge, such as sugar, syrup and chocolate sauce. We talked about which ones we liked best.

We made masks and puppets of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and used these to retell the story,

We have also been learning about size. This morning we have been learning how to compare two things, saying whether one is bigger or smaller than the other, and how to order things by size, going from the biggest to the smallest or the smallest to the biggest. We ordered ourselves by height in our groups and practised the mathematical languages by thinking of sentences for our group, e.g "Jack is bigger than Blue," or " Reece is smaller than Harry."

Then we explored lots of activities to help us learn about comparing and ordering by size and using mathematical language to talk about size.

We had lots of pictures from the Goldilocks story which we ordered from biggest to smallest.

We had a small, medium and large puzzle. We fitted the pieces together and talked about what it was that was getting bigger in the picture. Luke was very good at using full sentences to talk about which were the biggest and smallest things.

We sorted the compare bears according to their size.

We ordered towers of multilink from biggest to smallest.

We sorted welly boots by size. We agreed though that when you have a pair of shoes they need to be the same size!

We used different sized playdough cutters to make small, medium and large playdough cakes!

We did a colouring challenge sheet where we had to colour the tallest thing blue and the shortest thing red.

We've still got more exiting Goldilocks themed activities ahead this week - tomorrow we'll be learning about high and low notes in music as we sing a song about the Three Bears and on Friday we're going to explore lots of different materials to see which makes the best bed!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week we are studying the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Today we read the story and acted it out in the role play using different sizes of chairs and bowls. We talked about the different sizes and used the language big, bigger, biggest and small, smaller and smallest as well as medium or middle sized for the different bears' things. We did well remembering what happened next in the story and some of us are beginning to use deep voices for Daddy Bear or high voices for Baby Bear.

Then we explored some other Goldilocks activities, including listening to the interactive story on the board, playing a Three Bears game, doing some Goldilocks addition work and making some Wanted posters for Goldilocks. We've got lots more exciting Goldilocks themed activities planned for this week, so watch this space!

Teddy Bears' Picnic!

All this week we have been reading and learning about The Teddy Bears' Picnic, and today was our own Teddy Bears' Picnic!

We made teddy sandwiches and rice krispie cakes with gummy bears on to eat at our picnic!

We packed our food and drink up in a basket and got our teddies and some blankets to sit on. We also chose some outdoor toys to play with. Then we carried everything over to the penfold!

We sat on the blankets with our teddies and had our sandwiches, fruit and drinks.

We ran really fast in the teddy races!

Then we sat down and ate the yummy cakes we had made!

Then we played with the equipment we had brought over.

Finally we sat down to listen to a story all about a bear who has a picnic on the moon!

Then it was time to go - we packed up all our things and made sure we hadn't left any rubbish on the ground. Back in the classroom we talked about what we'd enjoyed best about our teddy bears' picnic. Some people said eating the cakes, some said the sandwiches, some said listening to the story, some said the races - Dexter said "I enjoyed everything!"

Rhyming words

We have been learning all about rhyming words in Nursery and Reception! We've been reading lots of stories with rhyming words and singing songs and rhymes. Yesterday we explored lots of different activities that helped us learn about rhyming words.

We played a rhyme matching game on the whiteboard

We read rhyming stories and books of rhymes and poems

We played with the rhyming puzzle and matched the pieces together

We found rhyming words and pictures in the sand

We wrote rhyming words on the board

We listened to nursery rhymes

We listened to a rhyming story on the iPads

We played a rhyming lotto game

We're now getting very good at knowing if words rhyme or not and can recognise when stories we read are written in rhyme!

The Teddy Bears' Picnic

Today we have been reading the story The Teddy Bears' Picnic. We talked about what a picnic is and what we'd like to eat on a picnic. There are lots of things we like to eat, from cheese and marmite sandwiches to cookies, cakes and apple pie!

We used the playdough to make some playdough meals and used the tea sets and blankets to role play going on a picnic. This afternoon we were learning the song The Teddy Bears' Picnic - we're going to keep practising it so we can sing it on Friday when we have our Teddy Bears' Picnic!

Can't You Sleep Little Bear?

We are very busy in Nursery and Reception learning all about bears, and today we've been reading the story Can't You Sleep Little Bear? In the story, Little Bear can't sleep because he is afraid of the dark. Big Bear keeps bringing him lanterns, but there is still too much dark for Little Bear to sleep. So Big Bear takes Little Bear out of the bear cave and shows him the night sky - it has been lit up by the moon and all the twinkling stars. And Little Bear finally goes to sleep!

We talked about things that we are afraid of and what makes us feel better, like having a light on or having cuddles with our mummies and daddies. Then we made some night sky pictures using black paper. We printed stars and cut some paper to make a moon. We also used glitter to make some twinkling stars!

This afternoon Reception were using torches to explore shadows by making shadow puppets and exploring different materials to see whether they were transparent or not. If we could see through them, they were transparent. If not, they were opaque. We sorted them into different groups, then looked at whether or not we could see a light shining through them. Things you can't see through but you can see a light through are called translucent. These are tricky words but we did well with sorting the different materials and could talk about why things belonged in a certain group.

We are enjoying reading lots of stories about bears and tomorrow we are bringing our own teddy bears in from home to share with the rest of the class!

Welcome back!

Welcome back to a brand new school year! We have got lots of new children in Nursery and Reception this year and this week we have been very busy learning about our new classroom and making new friends. Here are some pictures to show you what we've been doing and what we like about our school!