Writing about the wonderful things God has created

This afternoon we heard the story of Creation and talked about all the things God made. First we talked about making sure the story was in the right order - we put the days of the week in the right order and then put 'first', 'second', 'third', 'fourth', 'fifth', 'sixth' and 'seventh' in the right order. The story wouldn't make sense if the days were all in the wrong order!

Then we talked about all the wonderful things God made in the world and how we could use interesting words to describe them. Instead of just saying "stars" we could say "the twinkling stars", or "the twinkling stars in the black night sky." We talked about the things we liked and how we could describe them. Next we drew pictures of the things we liked best of God's creations and wrote "I like...", explaining what we'd drawn and using interesting words to describe it.

In Reception, we like...

The shining sun (Matthew, Harry, Jamie and Lucy)
The crunchy snow (Olivia)
The lovely animals (Trystan)
The sparkling moon (Rhys)
The twinkling stars (Maddie, Grace and Hope)
The shiny moon (Ollie)

What are your favourite things in the world? How could you describe them?

Riddles

On Friday afternoon we were learning about riddles. We thought about the animals that had been on Noah's Ark and words we might use to describe them. We learnt how to write riddles and the rules we had to follow for writing our own riddles. We had to use the word "I" in our clues, start a new line for every clue and finish with "What am I?" We also had to give the trickiest clues first, and save the easiest clues until near the end so as not to give the answer away too quickly! Here are some of the riddles we wrote - can you work out which animals we are describing?

I have a big tummy.
I have big feet.
I have a tail.
I have tusks.
What am I?

-Hope

I have flippers.
I have a tail.
I play with a ball.
I live in water.
What am I?

-Maddie

I have claws.
I have big feet.
I can run fast.
I have legs.
I have spots.
What am I?

-Grace

I have fins.
I have sharp teeth.
I live in the sea.
What am I?

-Olivia

I have a tail.
I have a long neck.
What am I?

-Ollie

I have a tail.
I have feet.
I have skin.
I have sharp teeth.
I have curved toenails.
What am I?

-Trystan

Chinese New Year

Yesterday we were learning about and celebrating Chinese New Year. We learnt the story of how the first twelve animals to race across a river had the years named after them and that we are moving from the year of the Snake into the year of the Horse. We made Happy Chinese New Year cards and colourful dragon paper chains as well as trying some Chinese writing. We coloured some Chinese pictures, including a colour by numbers dragon, and used playdough to make some Chinese symbols. We also cooked and ate some Chinese food - stir fry and noodles. Some of us tried to use chopsticks to eat them - it was tricky!

Rainbows

Yesterday we were learning all about rainbows. We are learning the story of Noah's Ark this week and our new sound of the week is 'r', so it was a good day to learn about rainbows! We looked at pictures of rainbows and talked about the shape and the colours. We learnt that the colours of a rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet and that they always appear in the same order. We made rainbow pictures using lots of different materials - paint, chalk, crayons, pencils, felt pens and oil pastels. We also used ICT to make rainbow pictures on the iPads, the laptop and on the interactive whiteboard. We had to remember to put the colours in the right order and draw the right shape of the rainbow.

Noah's Ark investigation

This afternoon we have been exploring materials and testing their properties. First we talked about different materials we knew and the properties they had, for example, metal is hard, glass is transparent and fabric is soft. We talked about why some materials are good for certain jobs - you wouldn't want a metal window because you wouldn't be able to see through it! And a chair wouldn't be good if it was made of paper - it wouldn't be strong enough to hold you! Would you like to have clothes that were made of wood? No!

We talked about which properties we wanted in an ark. We decided we wanted something strong, so it wouldn't break, and something that would float. In the water tray we tested 6 things to see if they floated or sank. First we had to make predictions. Sometimes we were right, and sometimes we were surprised by what happened! We recorded our predictions and our results on our investigation sheet. Look at our photos - can you work out which things floated and which sank?

We talked about what other properties we would need from a material used to make an ark - we wanted something strong and waterproof! In our child initiated time we explored lots of things in the water tray. We tested containers to see if they sank when we put water in, we tested the playdough to see if it would float if we made it into different shapes, we tested to see if things were waterproof and we made some arks and tested to see how many animals and people we could fit in!

Noah's Ark dance

This morning in PE we used dance to tell the story of Noah's Ark. We pretended to be Noah and chopped, sawed, hammered and painted the ark. Then we had to go looking for animals to take on the ark. We moved as animals in different ways. We were...

fierce tigers!

big elephants!

tiny mice!

and waddling penguins!

Lucy and Grace made an arch and we all walked into the ark two by two.

We made movements to show the rain was falling. Then we worked with a partner and used our bodies to make the ark. We had to move around on the water, bobbing up and down and swaying from side to side!

We pretended to be the dove that Noah sent to search for dry land. We used our arms as wings and flew around the room. Then we swooped to pick up an olive branch and flew back to the ark.

Finally we were the rainbow that God sent as a promise to never flood the world again. We worked with a partner. We crouched down, then slowly rose up with the music, raising our arms and joining them together to make the shape of the rainbow.

Doubling

Today we have been learning what doubling means and how to find double a number. We found out that when you double a number you add the same amount again - so 'double 4' is just '4 + 4!' We practised finding doubles of numbers with multilink or using our fingers. Then we explored doubling with some doubling challenges on playdough mats and some doubling puzzles. We are learning some of our doubling number facts by heart!