Welcome to our class page. We will regularly update our page so you can see the fun we are having and what the children in Early Years are  learning about.

Staff 

Mrs Wright-Class Teacher

Mrs McLaughlan-Teaching Assistant

Mrs Wilson-Lunchtime Supervisor

Session times for Nursery

Morning session (15hr provision) - 8.50am-11.50am

30hr provision- 8.50am-2.50pm

We offer additional afternoon sessions for children who access 15hr provision at a cost of £10 per afternoon.

Times of the school day for Reception 

8.50am-3.20pm

Please make sure all your children's clothing and belongings are labelled as it makes it easier for us to return any lost items and saves us getting in a muddle!

Please could all children bring a water bottle, a coat and their book folder each day.

P.E days

This term our P.E day is Monday. On Mondays your child must come to school in their PE kit.

 Reading

We have a library system in class where children can take home books on a daily basis.

Rhymes

Below is a list of the nursery rhymes and counting rhymes we will be learning this term.

Hickory Dickory Dock

Humpty Dumpty

Incey Wincey Spider

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

If Your Happy and You Know it

Five Currant Buns

Five Little Peas

Wind the Bobbin up

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Five little ducks went swimming one day

Ten green bottles hanging on the wall

We're going on a bear hunt

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

One, Two, Three, Four, Five once I caught a fish alive

Boogie Beats

On Thursdays we have fun movement and music sessions.

Star Challenges

Each week the children are encouraged  to complete their 'star challenges' from a range of different areas of learning and they receive a gold star sticker and certificate if they complete these challenges.

Friday 24th May

This week, as part of the Take One Picture project, we explored the painting ‘The Courtyard of a House in Delft’ by Pieter de Hooch. We had lots of partner discussions about what we could see in the painting. We then listened to a soundscape to help us think about what was happening in the painting. The children focused on the openings and archways in the picture, and painted them using watercolours. We went on to work in pairs to create our own cardboard cut-outs of
the archways and windows in the painting.
In Maths, we explored sharing and grouping through lots of practical activities. The children discussed equal and not equal groups and they have identified whether a number is odd or even by sharing into two groups. The children have used the language ‘odd’, ‘even’, ‘equal’ and ‘unequal’.
In Phonics the children have practised the sounds they have been taught so far.
We read the story ‘The Dot’ in class and talked about how we need to have a ‘yes I can’ attitude towards activities we feel we are not good
at. The children then turned their black dot into a picture. We had some creative cats, a mouse, a boat and a few flowers!
In PE, we continued to develop our athletic skills and learnt how to run a relay race, which is quite tricky at first!
We finished our work on the life cycle of the sunflower by sequencing the life cycle. The children were very good at talking about the different stages of the cycle, using the correct vocabulary for each stage.
Today, the children have constructed a flower, using their design from last week. They used the technique of scrunching up tissue paper to fill inthe flower.
We hope everyone has a lovely half term break!

Friday 10th May, 24

This week, we continued to explore the illustrations in our class story. As a class, we wrote a description of the boy, then Reception children wrote some sentences about themselves. In Nursery, the children talked about and drew a picture of something they like to do.
In Phonics, the Reception children are becoming more confident at reading and writing words. In Nursery, the children have played lots of ‘Fred talk’ games.
In Maths, we have started to look at shapes and their properties and the children selected shapes for a
particular purpose. They explored how shapes look when rotated and then then the children made their
own shape pictures by manipulating the shapes so they fitted together. The children have made pictures using the numicon pieces. Today, the children have played some shapes games in class.
In PE, we have continued to develop our athletic skills, and the children enjoyed working outside.
We had a lovely outdoor Boogie Beat session on Thursday, in which the children acted out the story of the ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’.
Today, the children developed their folding skills, and Reception children have made a paper snake.

Friday 3rd May, 24

This week we have explored the features of rivers and streams and we sorted photographs into rivers or streams. We have begun developing our map skills by building our own town map and we have explored what buildings are in our local area. We have started to look at simple symbols that we might see on maps and we have talked about what they mean. We have tried to draw our own town maps using a simple key.
In Maths we have explored the concept of addition and subtraction through a range of practical activities, rhymes and stories. We have created our own mathematical stories.
We have looked at two more illustrations from our book ‘Errol’s Garden’ and talked about what the characters were doing and how they might be feeling. The boy in our story loves to plant. The children have been very good at looking after our newly planted vegetables and we have noticed
more seedlings appearing from our sunflower seeds. We had a letter delivered from Billy the bee who asked for our help to sequence his poster about planting a flower after it got muddled. The children helped Billy out and then explored how bees and butterflies collect nectar from flowers.
In music we have practised and performed lots of familiar songs.
In P.E we have continued to develop our athletic skills and have enjoyed playing some team games.

Friday 26th April

For Earth Day on Monday, we talked about and sorted pictures of things that are good and bad for our planet. We used Google Earth to locate our school. Reception also wrote some sentences about Earth Day. We learned about where rain comes from and discussed what happens to rain when it falls, including forming puddles. Unfortunately, we were unable to go on a puddle walk, as surprisingly it hasn’t rained much this week, but we will do this another time! We talked about how the rain affects us and have also started to talk about the differences between a puddle and a pond. Today, the children compared the water from a pond with the water from our water butt.
In Maths, we practised counting in order to 10 in Nursery, and beyond 20 in Reception. We practised counting on from a given number and we played active maths games to help us recognise our numbers and count accurately in sequence. Reception children are becoming very good at representing the numbers 15-20.
In PE, we practised our running, jumping and throwing skills.
Also this week, we started our new Power of Reading book, ‘Errol’s Garden’, and planted peas and carrots in our garden. Our caterpillars are slowly growing bigger, though we can’t see any changes in our sunflowers yet!
In ICT, we programmed the critters and the Bee Bots to reach a desired location.
In class, we worked on our scissor and threading skills. Next week, we will look at different ways of joining materials.

Thursday 28th March

This week we looked at different artefacts from homes in the past (flat iron, hot water bottle, carpet beater and an oil lantern) and the children tried to work out what they were used for. In Maths we have been learning to explore, name and sort 3D shapes.

We have completed a range of Easter themed tasks this week including an Easter picture hunt in the garden, baked Easter nests, an egg hunt and we made an Easter card.

We have talked about our the things we do at home with our families at Easter time.

Friday 22nd March

We had a lovely visit to Berwick library where we read some stories, looked at the selection of
books on offer, explored the library environment and found out from Carol the librarian what her job
involved. We returned to school with lots of new memberships and the children checked out a book to read at home. We found out the library run a Lego club which lots of children were interested in. There is a Berwick Library Lego Club Easter special on Saturday 13th April at 1pm, which is free but places must be booked.
This week, we learnt about the festival of Holi and the children have created bright colourful artwork using a splatter or marbling technique. We also read and discussed the Easter story in class.
In Phonics, Reception children are getting super speedy with their letter sounds and have become more confident reading and spelling words. They are trying hard to write sentences independently.
In Maths, we learnt to recognise a number by grouping it into smaller sets and then saying each amount before confirming the whole number. We have also explored number bonds to 10 using the numicon shapes. We have practised doubles up to 10 on the ten frame with counters and on our fingers.
We have continued to explore homes in the past. Next week, we will look at some artefacts that were used in homes in the past.

Friday 15th March

This week we have been very busy scientists in class. We have watched and photographed the changes we have seen in our flowers in class and in the garden. We have looked at different varieties of apples (Braeburn, Pink Lady, Gala, Granny Smith) using our senses. We talked about the colour, shape, size and taste of the apples. We then looked closely at the inside of the apples finding seeds and we examined them with the magnifying lenses. We then bagged up the apple cores and predicted what might happen to them over time (in a week or in a month). We used Explorify to see how an apple tree changed over time and talked about the different seasons. One of our star challenges this week was to
look around the garden for signs of spring and tick them off on our scavenger hunt sheet. Another challenge was a STEM challenge whereby the children built tall structures using cups and lolly sticks.
We had two visitors in class this week. On Monday, Sally from Field to Fork baked some delicious soda bread with the children. She talked about the how the ingredients changed when mixed together. On
Wednesday we had a visit from Caroline Wilson who talked to us about being a photographer and catching special moments in time. She showed us the equipment she uses and she brought in some examples of her work. She gave us some tips on how to take good photographs using the I pads. Finally we watched an online lesson (Science Farm Live: A day in the life of farmer).
In Maths we have learnt about height and we have used the vocabulary tall, short, taller and shorter. We have started to identify and look at different representations of 9 and 10.
We have read the story ‘Peepo’ in class and we have used the pictures in the story to help us compare houses from the past with houses we live in now.
In P.E we worked with a partner to develop the ability to hit a ball with a bat, throw and catch a ball.
We have played games in class such as odd one out and describe it to help develop the children’s speaking, vocabulary and reasoning skills.

Friday 8th March

This week, we continued our work about the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Next week we will draw a story map to help us sequence the story. In class, one of our star challenges included a book scavenger hunt whereby we looked in a range of books to find different animals, objects or characters. This week we have read lots of books by Julia Donaldson

We looked in more detail at different types of homes. Next week we will compare homes in the past with the homes we live in now.

In Maths, we worked on identifying and representing doubles with our fingers, cubes, in pictures and on the 10 frame. We have also started to explore and compare lengths. The children completed a classroom hunt to find objects that were long and short. After we read the story ‘Superworm’ the children used playdough to make long and short worms.

In PE, we practised more rolling, catching and some agility activities. We introduced using an overarm throw to get our ball/beanbag to travel a longer distance.

On World Book Day, the children enjoyed the reading and illustration workshop hosted by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom.

Friday 1st March

This week, we started our new topic: ‘Homes.’ We talked about our own homes and features of a house, and have read information books about homes. We also explored the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs.’
In Circle Time, we all shared our news from the holidays. Reception children have drawn pictures and have written a short
sentence to go with their drawing.
In Maths, we continued our work on the composition of 6, 7 and 8 and have introduced odd and even numbers by looking at number representations on the 10 frame.
In Boogie Beats this week, the children had a lovely story about the life cycle of the butterfly.
In PE, we practised balancing, throwing and catching skills using balls and beanbags.
Also this week, we introduced the directions forwards, backwards, right and left, and played games giving and following instructions. The children enjoyed being the robot and following the directions to the wolf’s house. We used the remote control cars and the coding critters, which has been very exciting!
Today, we baked sticky blobs for snack.

Friday 16th February

This week in early years we have learnt about Shrove Tuesday and the children ate pancakes with their favourite toppings for snack on Tuesday. We found out some interesting facts about pancakes such as the world record for the most pancake flips in two minutes, which is 349.We have focussed on the story of ‘The runaway pancake’ this week and we had read other stories such as ‘The Gingerbread man’ and ‘The Runaway Chapati’ which have a similar structure. We then talked about the differences between the stories.
In Maths we have been learning about the composition of 6, 7 and 8. This week we made valentines cards by colouring on tin foil using felt pens then we sprayed this with water and used our paper heart to print the colours. The children were amazed with this technique and the hearts they made were beautiful. Nursery children made a collage heart with pink and red tissue paper.
In Boogie Beats this week the children went on a circus adventure and practised lots of throwing and balancing skills in their interactive story.
In P.E we practised lots of activities and games based on balancing and throwing. A tricky task was to flip the beanbag from our foot to our hands!
Today we have recapped the names of the birds and pets we have learnt about this term and we have sorted them into their correct animal group (bird, mammal and reptile).

Friday 9th February

This week in Early Years in PSHE, we have had lots of circle time activities to talk about who and what is
special to us and about the children’s likes and dislikes.
In Maths, we learnt about capacity and the children have become more familiar with comparing how much different containers hold. We focussed on the number rhyme ‘Five Little Aliens in a Flying Saucer’, and in Reception we used this rhyme to explore the composition of 5 and 6.
In Reception, we practised being super speedy reading our letter sounds and words. Nursery worked on developing their pencil control and writing their name. We have finished our book ’Our Very Own Dog’.
In D&T, we designed bookmarks. For our artwork this week the children each made a doodle picture,
creating some amazing colourful, unique pictures.
Also this week, we had a visit from Mr Hogg and Oliver’s rabbit Bing. The children enjoyed finding out what type of rabbit he was, what he ate and where he lived.
Today, we learnt about Chinese New Year and ate noodles for snack. Reception children went to Hillside
Lodge to take part in an intergenerational Boogie Beat session, which was good fun.

Friday 2nd February

This week in Early Years, we continued our work about animals and how to care for them.
On Tuesday, we went to Pets at Home and learnt how to look after guinea pigs and rabbits. We met two lovely guinea pigs, who we named Charlie and Fudge. They were very happy with all the cuddles they received from the children.
In Maths, we learnt about mass and the children have become more familiar with using the balance scales to compare the quantities on either side. In Reception, we then measured the mass of different objects using cubes and we looked at how to make the scales balanced.
In Phonics, Reception children have continued blending and spelling CVC words. We have tried to make our writing smaller and neater.
In class, we read some information books about life cycles and this week the children sequenced the human life cycle. We are beginning to use the correct vocabulary baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and elderly person.
We have finished our sewing work in D&T. This was a very challenging task but with some perseverance we got there!
We enjoyed our visit from Brucegate Dental Practice. We learnt about foods that are good for our teeth and foods that are not.
We talked about the importance of drinking water during the day. We talked about how to brush our teeth correctly, how often we should brush them and for how long. Our visitors showed us what the dentist wears and what the patients wear during a dental appointment.
Our clay models have dried and we painted them today. The children are very proud of them! We looked at the work of an artist called Julie Wilson who makes animal sculptures.

Friday 26th January

This week in Early Years, we continued reading our class story and found out more about dogs. We talked about and drew pictures of our own pets or pets
we would like to have.
In Reception, we learnt about the composition of 5 and played games to help us understand this concept.
In Nursery, we played number recognition games.
This week, we designed and made our clay animal models. We now need to wait for the clay to dry before we can paint them.
In class, we learnt a few winter songs and are currently learning the song ’I Can Sing a Rainbow’.
Our ice tray was very popular this week and it prompted discussions about how the ice changed to water.
We have also started to learn about the human life cycle and have talked about the different stages (baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and elderly
person.) Please can all children bring in a named baby photograph on Monday 29th January, as we hope to set up a ‘guess who’ game in class.
Today, the children baked scones for our class snack and the class had a visit from Barnie (my 2-year-old labradoodle), which the children were very excited
about. Next week, we have a workshop at Pets at Home on Tuesday afternoon, which should be good fun, and we will hopefully learn more about how to
care for a range of pets.

Friday 19th January

This week we have started our new Power of Reading book, ‘Our Very Own Dog’ by Amanda McCardie. We have talked about
what we already know about dogs and what we would like to find out. We looked at the pictures of the dogs inside the front
cover and we have talked about the differences between them.
Children in Reception have written short descriptive phrases to match the dog pictures. Together, we looked at an illustration from the first page and discussed who is in the picture and what they were  doing.
We are getting very good at spotting birds in our garden. During the RSPB Big Schools Birdwatch we spotted 10 blackbirds, 27 sparrows, 7
blue tits, 1 pigeon, 8 robins and 3 starlings.
In Maths, we focussed on rehearsing the order of numbers and understanding that the position each number holds in our number sequence
doesn’t change.
In PE, we played parachute games. We are learning to work together as a team.
This week, we have explored the properties of clay and have experimented by moulding, rolling, cutting or making marks in the clay using a variety of tools. Next week, we are going to design the animal sculpture we would like to make from clay.
The children have continued to develop their weaving skills by completing some paper weaving.
The Nursery children made cakes for snack today, which were delicious!

Friday 12th January

This week we have been learning to name and recognise garden birds. We have looked closely at the characteristics of each bird to help us spot the birds in our garden. We have made some bird cake and cheerio feeders to feed to the birds. 

The children have been naming parts of a bird and Reception children have produced labelled diagrams of a bird.

We have recapped the features of winter. In maths we have recapped the concept of zero and identified 0 in pictures and counting rhymes.

In boogie beats we went on a fairy tale adventure with 'Cinderella'. 

Merry Christmas from all the Early Years Team!

Friday 15th December

This week in Early Years, we have built upon our understanding of the ‘First Christmas’ story. We have talked more about who was in the story, what happened in the story and we sequenced the story. We watched a lovely animation of the Nativity on CBeebies whereby the story was retold using beautiful sand drawings.

The children performed their play ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ amazingly on Monday and we were so proud of every child. We hope you enjoyed it too!

We have been busy making our Christmas cards and tree decorations and we are learning some new Christmas songs. In Boogie beats we enjoyed a lovely Christmas themed session.

In maths we have focussed on counting and knowing that the last number in the count tells us how many objects there are all together. We have been counting out decorations on to Christmas trees and matched numerals with the correct quantities. We have been singing lots of number rhymes to help the children to hear, join in with and develop their knowledge of the counting sequence.

The children baked some reindeer rice krispie cakes, which they really enjoyed.

Friday 8th December

This week in Reception, we have investigated the composition of 3, 4 and 5. One of our star challenges in class involved ordering numbers.

In circle time we talked about what we would like for Christmas. We composed a class Christmas list then the children made their own wish lists.

In class, we have talked about belonging to a group and discussed different types of groups we might belong to such as our school, a club, a church etc. We have read and talked about the story ‘The first Christmas’. We have set up a stable where the children can use the masks and other resources to act out the story.

In science we have been learning about the season winter and I was impressed with the things that the children could tell me about winter. We have some resources in our investigative area in class for the children to explore.

The children have created some lovely Christmas silhouette paintings which look beautiful hanging on our class washing line. The children have also made paper chains to decorate the windows, so our classroom is starting to look very festive.

We have been very busy preparing for our Christmas performance on Monday!

Friday 1st December

This week in Early Years, we finished off our Power of Reading book, ‘Owl Babies’.
We sequenced and acted out the story using puppets.
In Phonics, we have been doing lots of Fred talk and blending with the letter sound cards.
In Maths, we focussed on the numbers 4 and 5. We have also been learning about the
concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. We investigated our own bodies and familiar toys and are
beginning to understand that whole things are often made up of smaller parts and that a
whole is therefore bigger than its parts.
We further developed our understanding of road safety by talking about how we can stay
safe at night.
In Art, we looked at the work of the artist Megan Coyle, who creates landscape collages
using magazines. We took some photographs around school and used these to create our
own landscape collage in the style of Megan Coyle. This was quite a tricky job!
On Friday we talked about Advent and made cakes for snack.

Friday 24th November

This week, Early Years learned about Road Safety. We practised using the ‘STOP, LOOK,
LISTEN, THINK’ approach for crossing the road.
In Maths, we identified and discussed the properties of circles and triangles. We hunted for, sorted
and identified these shapes in pictures, and played some shape games in class.
Reception children have designed wanted posters for Mummy Owl and have written letters to
Mummy Owl from the baby owls, Sarah, Percy and Bill, asking her to come back as they are
missing her. Hopefully she will return when we read more of the story in class next week!
In PE, we used some new apparatus to help develop our climbing, traveling and jumping skills. We
also learnt how to perform a log/pencil roll. This was much trickier than the children anticipated!
In class this week, we set up a transient art station. On Wednesday, we had a collage station for
the children to use to make pictures from. Please see our website page to see the children’s
unique artwork.
Also this week, we explored how shadows are made. The children enjoyed using the shadow
puppets in class, and we are also learning about nocturnal animals.

Friday 19th November

This week in Early Years we been learning about day and night. We have learnt some facts about barn owls and have made owl collages from tissue and crepe paper.

In maths we have finished off our work about ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ and have been learning to form numbers using the correct formation. We have continued to work on representing numbers to 5 on their fingers and counting each object, action or sound once. We made collections of 5 in different ways.

In P.E we have continued developing our balancing, climbing, jumping and traveling skills on the large apparatus in the hall. The children are now very good at moving along the apparatus in a variety of ways.

This week we listened to and moved in response to 3 very different pieces of music. We voted for our favourite track and then we let our paintbrushes respond to the music. The children really enjoyed this!

In class today we have talked about Children in Need and the children have completed a range of Pudsey themed challenges in class. We have decorated Pudsey biscuits for snack today.

Friday 10th November, 23

This week in Early Years, we have started our new Power of Reading book ‘Owl babies’. So far we have looked at an illustration from the story and discussed the picture and made predictions about what might happen next in the story. We have drawn the setting from the story. In phonics we have been doing lots of Fred talk and blending with the letter sound cards.

In maths we have finished off our work about the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and we have begun to explore the concepts ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ but will continue with this next week.

In P.E we have been developing our balancing, climbing, jumping and traveling skills on the large apparatus in the hall. The children are looking forward to their lesson next week.

We have discussed the ‘Gunpowder plot’ and talked about the connection with bonfire night. The children shared their own experiences of bonfire night. The children used different painting techniques to make a group firework picture.

This week we created pictures using finger painting. Once the children’s artwork was dry we introduced the term ‘abstract’ painting and ‘figurative’ painting to describe the type of picture the children had chosen to paint. More children in the class chose to make a figurative painting and we had some lovely flowers, a shark, a caterpillar, fireworks and a motorbike.

On Thursday we started to talk about Remembrance Day and why we see people wearing poppies. Today we iced a poppy biscuit for snack and have made a class poppy wreath.

Friday 27th October

This week in Early Years, we have continued our work about the story of ‘The little red hen’. We have retold the story using story puppets, sequenced it on the washing line and made bread on Wednesday just like the little red hen did! We have also looked at the journey of bread both in the classroom and out in the fields when we went on our trip to The Hirsel on Tuesday.

The children particularly liked the scavenger hunt we completed looking for signs of Autumn around the Hirsel estate and seeing the highland cattle. We learnt how to identify males and females. The children drew lovely pictures to show what part of the trip they liked best.

In maths we have finished off our work about patterns. In P.E we played target games to help with our throwing and aiming skills.

We had a special visitor from Asda, Shona Campbell (Asda Community Champion) came to talk to us about healthy eating. We tasted some fruits and breads and we learnt where in the world our fruits come from.

On Thursday and Friday we entered into the Halloween spirit and we set up a spooky spell kitchen. The children all followed a spell recipe and we has some spells to make us disappear, reappear and to turn us into a witch. We have rescued the spiders in our cobweb tray, copied patterns in the sparling rice tray, designed witches hats and pumpkin faces and we have listened to the stories Funnybones and Room on the Broom. We finished off the week with a Halloween Cosmic Yoga adventure. I hope you all have a lovely half term holiday.

Friday 20th October

This week, Early Years have been talking about and identifying patterns we see around us. We have looked at repeating action patterns we can make with our bodies and the children have been copying repeating patterns with buttons, bricks and cubes. We have started to make our own repeating patterns which we will build upon next week. We have enjoyed playing pattern games on the smartboard.

Our focus story this week has been ‘The Little Red Hen’. We have read the story and retold it using picture prompts. Today we have watched a retelling of the story on the smartboard and we compared it with our book version.

In circle time we talked about feeling angry and we made sensory bottles in class to help us calm down when we are feeling cross.

In P.E we focused on kicking and stopping balls. We then used the pop up goals to develop our accuracy at aiming at a target.

As part of Arts Week we have focussed on the sense of smell. In class, the children have painted using spices and scented paints. We listened to the story ‘My City Speaks’ and we have looked at the work of the artist Anicka Yi.

Friday 13th October

This week, Early Years have been exploring capacity. We have been busy in the water tray comparing how much different containers and bottles hold and using the language to describe how much was in the containers using the words full, empty, half full, nearly empty and nearly full. The children have used syringes to fill cups and bottles. The children have played lots of ‘show me’ activities whereby they have shown the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 on their fingers without looking at them. They are amazing at this now! We are now discussing different ways to represent that number.

We have read information books about autumn and we have been learning some new autumn songs.

In PHSE we have read a book about Harold the giraffe who likes to keep healthy and he has also helped us to talk about our emotions. We have used the zones of regulation to express how we were feeling.

We have been developing our pincer hold and finger strength using syringes, fitting construction pieces together and by picking up small objects. In P.E we have continued to work on one foot and seated balances, moving in a variety of ways and throwing, catching and rolling objects. We have enjoyed playing the games ‘stuck in the mud’ and ‘beans’.

The children have made observational drawings of soup cans in preparation for designing their own label next week. For snack today the children have made a toffee apple loaf cake.

Friday 6th October

This week, Early Years have been ordering objects by size and weight, and learning the vocabulary linked to these areas such as small, little, big, large, larger, smaller, weight, heavy, light, heaviest, lightest. The children became human scales when comparing the weights of the objects. We have started to use the bucket balances to compare the weights of two objects. The children have also ordered a variety of objects by size. We all enjoyed the story 'Dear Zoo' which we used to compare the sizes of the animals. Reception children have learnt the letter sounds f, e, l and h, and have practised their oral blending (Fred Talk). We learned about the sense of smell this week, using a collection of pots in which we had to guess the item using our sense of smell. Next week we will use spices in our playdough recipe and to make smelly paints to paint with. In Circle Time, the children talked about people who can help them in school, at home and in our community, and we finished off the houses for the people who are special to them. We have talked a lot this week about our school rules, 'Ready, Respectful and Safe', and what they mean in our school/classroom. We have continued to think about autumn and this week, the children enjoyed sorting the conkers but they especially liked our conker rolling activity in our outside area. The children printed lovely autumn trees using colours we see outside at this time of year. We designed a vegetable soup and made it for snack today. It was delicious!

Friday 29th September

This week, we have been comparing sets in Maths, as well as looking at the numbers 2 and 3. We learnt
that 1 and 1 makes 2, and 1 and 1 and 1 makes 3. Our Numberblock friends have been helping us with
this.
Reception children have learnt the letter sounds c, k, u and b and have practised their oral blending (Fred talk). We also focussed on writing our names using the correct letter formation.
We all enjoyed our jellybean challenge on Wednesday, in which the children had to use their sense of taste to guess the flavour of the jellybeans. The children would love to play this game again with their families!
As part of Local History Week, talked about where we live. We looked at photographs of castles in
Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, learnt the parts of the castle and talked about who lived in
castles. We then set up a castle area in the classroom. The children worked with a partner to build castles and we tried drawing castles. Please look on our class page to see their lovely work!
In Circle Time, the children talked about people who are special to them and drew pictures of them. They are all so unique! Next week, we will build a house out of wooden sticks to display them in.

Friday 22nd September

This week we have been sorting in maths. We have  sorted buttons, toys, natural materials and even the children! We are trying very hard to explain how we have sorted. We have also been doing lots of counting and working out how many we have altogether.

We have been naming the characters and talking about the phrases they use when they arrive for the party in our Power of Reading book So Much! We have experienced many birthday parties in our home corner this week.

We have started to learn about our senses and this week we have explored the sense of touch through feely bag activities and by sorting materials into groups depending on their texture.

We have recapped the difference between fruit and vegetables and have talked about which part of the plant the fruit or vegetable comes from. We have also examined the seeds in fruits using magnifying glasses.

In circle time we brought in objects that were special to us and we shared these with the class.

Reception children have been working hard to learn their letter sounds and write letters using the correct letter formation.

In our art work this week we have used felt pens to make different lines and today we have printed using objects that have different textures.

15th September, 2023

This week we have been learning to name and label parts of our body. We had a lovely body part hunt in the garden and we drew around each others bodies with chalk on the yard. In our maths work we have been learning to match and make sets of objects. We have been naming and sorting fruit and vegetables and the nursery children made a lovely fruit salad for snack today. 

In our art work we have been drawing pictures with wax crayons using a variety of lines as well as printing with fruit and vegetables.

In Reception we have been learning the letter sounds m, a, s, d and t.