Bonjour de Lilac et Willow, nous passé un excellent semaine en explorant France (or Hello from Lilac and Willow, we had a great week exploring France).
This week
We started our week by reading the story ‘Everybody Bonjours’ by Leslie Kimmelman. This book is about a girl who goes to visit Paris. While she is in Paris, she describes how everyone says bonjour there instead of hello. Throughout her day she visits different places throughout Paris and realises that everyone she encounters says bonjour. She travels all over Paris and shows the different views of Paris. At the end of the book, the little girl goes back home and realises that everyone back at home says hello. After we read the book, we thought about the similarities and differences between Paris and Hitchin.
The children then wanted to find out more about life in France, so we discussed how we can use books to help us gather information. We then talked about the difference between fiction and non-fiction books. Fiction books contain made up stories and non-fiction books contain true facts and information. One fact that the children were fascinated to discover was that some children in France go to school on a Saturday morning. Our children agreed that they like being at home on Saturday morning.
One of the non-fiction books we borrowed from the school library was about the French Artist Henri Matisse. The book gave the children information about his early life as a painter and explained that as he got older he started to make collages. We learnt about how he made pictures by ripping and tearing pieces of paper and card to make a picture. We looked at one of his most famous pictures called ‘The Snail’. The children then created their own collages in the style of ‘The Snail’.
We also spent some time looking famous French landmarks this week and seeing how they have changed over time. As part of our provision, the children had opportunities to show their learning through a range of activities including:
- Writing facts about what they have learnt about France
- Making the French tricolor Flag
- Designing and making construction block/junk models of French landmarks.
- Creating Artwork in the style of Matisse.
- Practised our observational drawing to make line sketches of different French landmarks.
- Seeing how tall the children could make their Eiffel Tower before it falls down
- Using Art Straws to make pictures and models of the Eiffel Tower.
- Enjoy some delicious French baguette and jam.
The children are really enjoying listening to us read Georges Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. We are having lots of conversations about the fact that the story is fiction and in real life we would never play around with medicines, lotions and potions. They have learnt the word “forbidden” in their words meaning “you should never ever do it” and “mischievous” in their words “playing tricks and being cheeky”. It is lovely to see how enthusiastic they are to hear the next part of the story each day.
We finished our week being superheroes celebrating Red Nose Day for Comic Relief. The children thought about charity and why it is good to help other people. We shared the song ‘Superman’ by Black Lace at the beginning of that day and challenged the children to stop what they were doing and join in with the actions, whenever they heard the song. They did such a super job! Well done Reception. Thank you so much for your generous donations.
Next week
- We will be learning about the festival of Easter.
- We are going to be scientists; investigating and exploring some scientific concepts.
- In Maths, we will be thinking about the properties of 2D shapes and creating repeating patterns.
- In Phonics, we will be learning the trigraphs /igh/ and /air/.
- We will be having an Easter Egg Hunt.
- The children will enjoy a movie afternoon.
Supporting your child at home
- Remind children of previous events: “Do you remember when we forgot to wear our raincoats last week? It poured so much that we got drenched!” This will help them to connect one idea or action to another using a range of conjunctions.
- Use sequencing words with emphasis in your own stories: “Before school I had a lovely big breakfast, then I had a biscuit at break time and after that I had two pieces of fruit after lunch. I’m so full!” This will show your child how to describe events in some detail.
- Congratulate children for their kindness to others and express your approval when they help, listen and support each other. This will help your child build constructive and respectful relationships.
Any other information
- 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 great weekend.
Mrs Fisher and Mr French
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
