Keeping healthy and safe!

In Nursery and Reception this half term we  have been learning about keeping healthy and safe. During healthy eating week we made delicious fruit smoothies to share with the rest of the school and we have learnt about how different foods help to keep us healthy. We also enjoyed taking care of each other in our doctors' surgery role play!

We were also very excited to have a special visit from the police! They showed us their police van and we listened to the siren. We also got to sit in the van and wear special police clothes! We learnt about how to stay safe and what number we should call if we need help from the police, the fire service or an ambulance.

We also learnt how to stay safe on the roads. We used chalks to mark roads and roundabouts on the playground and drove around on our bikes and scooters. We also made traffic lights. If people went the wrong way or didn't stop at the lights or a crossing our eagle-eyed police officers were giving them tickets!

Maths Week

This week was Maths Week in Nursery and Reception! All week we have been focussing on developing our maths skills in all areas of the classroom, such as hunting for numbers hidden in the sand, using money in the role play, exploring capacity in the water area and talking about size, height and length as we make models in the construction area.

We have also been working on our own individual maths targets and on Friday we welcomed mums and dads into our class to share our maths learning.

In our adult led activities we have been doing lots of maths investigations to develop our mathematical thinking and problem solving skills. These have included finding the possible totals when rolling two dice, working out how to share some pirate treasure, finding as many different ways as possible to show the number 5 and seeing how many counters we can put into a pot in one minute!

Counting, ordering and matching numerals to quantities

Developing number recognition and fine motor skills

Finding and then ordering numbers in the sand

Practising number formation

Working out which coins are needed to make different amounts

Investigating how many counters we can put in a pot in one minute

Using money in the role play

Playing games on the whiteboard to find numbers on a hundred square

Showing five in different ways

Exploring possible totals when rolling dice

Solving problems involving sharing

Learning to recognise 3 digit numbers

Exploring capacity - how many small cylinders does it take to fill the largest cylinder?

Creating and continuing patterns

All about food!

During the first half of the Autumn term Nursery and Reception have been studying the topic of Food.

We have learnt about different types of food and where food comes from as well as learning about how to have a healthy, balanced diet and how different foods affect our bodies. We know that milk will give us strong teeth and bones and made some milkshake. We learnt about where eggs come from and made some yummy omelettes. We learnt about fruit and vegetables and made some fruit salad and vegetable soup.

We have also been reading and acting out stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Gingerbread Man and we made some porridge and gingerbread men.

We also learnt about Harvest and the Jewish festival Sukkot. We learnt that Harvest is a time to celebrate all the food we have, to thank God and all the people (such as farmers) for the food and to share food with those who have less than us. We read the story of the Little Red Hen and made some bread. Unlike in the story, we all helped to make the bread and we all shared it. It was delicious!

We have also been learning about food from around the world. We ate some Greek food such as pitta bread, feta cheese, olives and tzatziki. We learnt about Italy and looked at some pasta. We compared how it felt before and after it was cooked, ate cooked pasta and used dried pasta to make pictures and for threading onto pipe cleaners to make bracelets. We also explored Mexican food and ate tortilla chips, salsa, tortilla wraps and refried beans.

Here are some photos from our busy first half term!

Maths in the Classroom

The children love to learn through self-initiated activites. Here is one of our pupils very pleased with herself at completing a Maths game on the smart board!

Busy Busy Busy!

The Nursery and Reception classroom certainly is a hive of activity most days.

In Nursery and Reception we love painting, discovering and learning through play with our friends.

Here are a couple of examples of the sorts of things that we get up to in Nursery and Reception!

Easter Chicks

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been incredible egg-citement in Nursery and Reception (which has subsequently spread across the school!) regarding nine freshly hatched chicks! As part of the Living Eggs project, nine eggs were delivered last Monday and over the course of the week, we welcomed nine chicks into the world.

Easter Chicks!

Seven of the chicks will be offered to any school families who are interested in having them and we are planning on keeping two of them in school until Easter to give children across the school the opportunity to look after them.

A visit from the police!

Today children in Nursery and Reception had some very special visitors - some police officers! They brought their police car and police van into the playground to support our learning this half term about people who help us. We got to dress up in some police uniforms, sit in the police cars and use police tape to tape off an area of the playground! We looked at some of the tools the police use, such as handcuffs, radios and cutters to open locks. We also got to put the sirens on - it was very loud!

Thank you very much to Special Sergeant Downs and Police Constable Doe for their time this morning!