Hello from Lilac and Willow. It has been absolutely fantastic having the all of the children back with us in school.
We’d like to say a very big thank you to all of you for helping the children transition from home learning back to learning at school. The children have had lots of fun learning and playing with their classmates and have worked really hard this week! Well done everyone!
This Week
We were very pleased to be able to share some exciting new resources with the children; brand new monkey bars and a rope walk. The children now have additional opportunities to develop their gross motor skills and have fun whilst doing so. We have already seen the children practising with these and they are improving every day.
As we enter Spring, it gave us an opportunity to spruce up other areas of learning in our outside area ready for the children to return.
- New ingredients box for the mud kitchen
- Moving the construction area to a larger space outdoors and adding design resources.
- New images, world map and greetings from around the world to inspire creativity in our role play pirate ship.
- New musical instruments and CD player in our performance stage.
- Questions prompts added to our story seats to become the new “Talking Seats”
Our main focus for learning this week has been to explore what life is like in another country. We started by reading the story ‘Off We Go to Mexico’ by Laurie Krebs. We used the book to helps us discuss the similarities and differences between Mexico and the UK. We also read a non-fiction information book about Mexico so that we could recognise the difference between fiction and non-fiction, as well as learn new and interesting facts about Mexico. We also learnt about Mexico in the past by learning about the artist Frida Carlo and her style of painting and what life in Ancient Mexico with the Aztecs would have been like. As part of our provision, the children had opportunities to show their learning through a range of activities including:
- Designing and making construction block/junk models of Mexican houses.
- Making the Mexican Flag
- Drawing and colouring pictures in the style of Frida Carlo
- Writing facts about what they have learnt about Mexico
- Designing and making construction block/junk models of Aztec pyramids
- Creating decorations for a festival including paper chains and a traditional Mexican bunting called Papel Picado
- Designing and making an Aztec Sunstone using repeating patterns
As part of our Maths and Phonics this week, we wanted to give the children the opportunity to revisit and review all the brilliant learning they’ve done at home by showing us what they know.
Next week
- We will be reading the book ‘Everybody Bonjours!’ by Leslie Kimmelman – https://youtu.be/CHPiTNeTubg
- We will be learning about life in France to help us compare it to life in the UK
- We will be finding out about the artist Henri Matisse
- We will be celebrating Red Nose Day on Friday 19th March
- We will also become Superheroes!
- In Maths, we will be learning about number bonds to 10.
- In Phonics, we will be learning the sounds /oa/ and /er/
Supporting your child at home
- Narrate your own and children’s actions e.g. “I’ve never seen so many beautiful bubbles, I can see all the colours of the rainbow in them.” This will show children how they can articulate their own ideas and thoughts in well-formed sentences.
- Extend their thinking e.g. “You’ve thought really hard about building your tower, but how will you stop it falling down?” This will help them to connect one idea or action to another using a range of conjunctions
- Have fun with phrases from the story through the day e.g. “I searched for a pencil, but no pencil could be found.” This will allow the children to use new vocabulary in different contexts
Any other information
- PE – PE will be starting this week (Monday is Willow and Wednesday is Lilac). Please come to school dressed in your PE Kit.
- Please could all children bring their book bags with them each day.
- Every child will continue to be provided with a snack each morning. In addition to this, from now on, you may send in an additional fruit/vegetable snack for them to have in the afternoon. This is optional.
- We update our Reception blog weekly so don’t forget to check it out and see what we’ve been up to as well as any important messages – https://samlucas.herts.sch.uk/our-learning/reception/#class-posts
If you would like to be notified every time there’s a post in Reception please email us – subscriptions@samlucas.org.uk with the subject “Subscribe to Reception Blogs”
We hope you have a lovely weekend and wish you a very Happy Mother’s Day (please check your child’s book bag for a card and gift).
Mrs. Fisher and Mr. French
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
