Food from stories

This week we have been listening to stories that have food in and using them to help us develop our learning in many different ways! We read The Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks and the Three Bears and practised retelling and talking about these stories. We have also been involved in many activities including cooking gingerbread men, decorating and cutting gingerbread men from paper to make puppets to help us retell the story, using playdough and cutters to make gingerbread men, doing some gingerbread man themed maths, acting out the story of Goldilocks, learning about size and how to order things by size, making porridge, mixing different amounts of water with porridge oats (including coloured water!) to see what happens, learning about high and low sounds in music and singing a song about the three bears, and much more!

Here are some photos of some of our fantastic learning this week.

Being kind to others

Today we have been talking about our value this month of 'caring' and considering how our own actions affect other people. We met a dragon called Zag who was feeling sad because some people had hurt his feelings. Even though they had said sorry to him, he still felt hurt and sad inside.

To help us understand this we were each given a piece of paper. We had one minute to scrunch it up, scribble on it with a crayon, shout at it and call it silly names or say unkind things to it, like "I don't want to play with you." Then we unfolded it and told it we were sorry. Even though we'd said sorry, the paper was still crumpled and the crayon hadn't disappeared. This is like when someone is hurt; just saying sorry doesn't make it all better.

We talked about some other things we could do to make people feel better, and came up with some lovely suggestions like "you could say 'I won't do that again,'" (Paul), "love them," (Olivier) and "be really kind to them." (Reece).

We made a kindness circle and all said something really kind about the person next to us. This made them feel good! We decided to be kindness detectives during the day, looking out for people being kind.

By the end of the morning, everyone in the class had been mentioned as being kind to somebody else. Well done to everyone in Nursery and Reception for being so kind and caring, and to everyone who spotted all the kindness and shared it with the rest of the class.

This week we will be learning...

This week we are going to be learning about...

• being kind to each other and understanding how our actions can affect other people
• rhyming words
• similarities, differences and change
• stories that involve food, including 'The Gingerbread Man' and 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'

We will be learning...

• how to show awareness of other people's feelings and be kind to each other
• to recognise rhyming words and say some words that rhyme
• to join in with rhymes, poems and rhyming stories
• to talk about similarities and differences between objects, such as whether something is rough or smooth, hard or soft
• to talk about changes, including how the natural world is changing during autumn
• to retell stories
• to use equipment and tools safely and be hygienic when cooking
• to follow a recipe to make Gingerbread Men
• to talk about the size of objects and order objects by size

You can help me at home by...

• talking to me about being kind to others and praising me when I show care and consideration for other people's feelings (our value for October is Caring)
• playing games to practise rhyming words with me
• reading me rhyming books or singing nursery rhymes with me
• giving me opportunities to explore objects from the natural world and within the home and talking about their similarities and differences
• giving me opportunities to explore change, for example, how the texture of something changes when it is cooked or how ice melts
• cooking with me at home and talking about ingredients, weights, staying safe and following instructions in recipes
• helping me to retell the stories of The Gingerbread Man (Wednesday) and Goldilocks (Thursday)

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'e'
We would welcome contributions for our discovery table that support our understanding of autumn, for example, autumnal leaves, conkers etc

Drama workshop

This afternoon Reception had a very fun drama workshop with Sophia from Hurst Children's Theatre Group. We did lots of activities that helped us work on projection, singing, actions and acting. We did freeze frames and said phrases in different styles, for example, as someone who was grumpy or someone who was really excited.

Can you tell what feeling we are showing in these photos?

This week we will be learning...

This week we are going to be learning about...

• staying safe in the classroom
• 2D and 3D shapes
• the Christian festival of Harvest and the Jewish festival of Sukkot

We will be learning...

• how to use tools and equipment such as scissors safely
• how to make sure we are keeping ourselves and others safe in school
• the names of 2D and 3D shapes
• to talk about 2D and 3D shapes using words like 'flat', 'solid', 'sides', 'faces'
• what Harvest means and why it is important for Christians
• about the Jewish festival of Sukkot, how it is celebrated and why it is important for Jews

You can help me at home by...

• talking to me about objects at home and how I can use them safely
• helping me spot shapes in the environment and playing games to support me, such as 'I Spy' with shapes
• talking to me about Harvest and where food comes from

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'd'

Making pictograms

This afternoon Reception were learning how to make pictograms. We used ourselves to make pictograms showing how many boys and girls there are in Reception, how many people have a brother and how many don't, and whether carrots or apples are more popular to eat at snack time.

Then we worked together to make a pictogram to find out what the most popular fruit is in Reception. We had to take it in turns to choose our favourite fruit and put the right picture in the right place. Then we talked about what we had found out and answered questions about the data.

We found out that apples were the most popular and strawberries were the second most popular. Two more people liked apples than bananas, and only one person liked pineapple best. No one chose grapes, oranges or peaches as their favourite, but we talked about it and decided it doesn't mean nobody likes these fruits - they just aren't their favourites.

A special well done to Reece for super thinking - when I asked him how many people liked apples best, he started to count, then stopped and said "four." I asked him how he knew it was four without counting, and he pointed to the number 4 next to the last picture of an apple. "Because it goes up to four." Great thinking Reece!

Also a big well done to Luke, who made his own pictogram in his Play and Learn time showing what the most popular colour is in Reception and wrote a sentence about what he had found out.

Welcome back!

We have had a brilliant start to the new term with our Nursery children settling into life in Reception and all our new children making a great start at their new school.

We have been learning the rules and routines and getting to know our new friends. We've also been learning about the different areas of the classroom and how we can use different resources to support our learning.