Hello everyone, what a great week it has been in Reception thinking about two different national celebrations – The Queen’s birthday and St. George’s Day.
This week
We started the week reading the story ‘The Birthday Crown’ by Davide Cali. In the story, there is huge excitement at the palace. It’s the Queen’s birthday. In the palace, Mr. Wiggins, the Master of Ceremonies, has been hard at work organizing the celebrations. Now everything is ready but for one thing. The Queen still has to choose the perfect birthday crown! The children really enjoyed imagining all of the different crowns the Queen might wear. We then discussed what they knew about the Queen. We then researched some facts about who the Queen was and how she celebrates her birthday. The children shared their own birthday experiences throughout the week and it was lovely to hear of all the similarities and differences in how the children celebrate their birthdays. Some of the opportunities children had to explore further included designing and making crowns, writing birthday cards for the Queen, wrapping birthday presents and writing labels and writing a list of things needed for the Queen’s party.
The children heard the story of St. George and the Dragon. In the story, the children heard of how brave St. George rescued a village from a dragon that lived nearby. We spent some time finding out about St. George and how he is a significant person to people who live in England. We heard how two boys; Sam and Matthew, prepare for St. George’s Day and what they actually do as part of their celebrations. As part of the provision, the children had opportunities to explore this further by making dragons, building castles, painting or drawing pictures of the national flower of England; the rose, creating shields that represent things that are important to them and making split pin knights. To finish our week the children tried some traditional English ‘ploughmans’ lunch (cheese, crackers, cucumber and pickle).
In Phonics, the children learnt new digraphs and trigraphs /oi/, /ear/ and /ure/ and had lots of opportunities to play games and practise their segmenting and blending to read using previously taught sounds.
In Maths, the children were using their hands to help them practise making number bonds to 5 and 10 and developing their understanding of teens number being “10 and X more”.
Next week
- We will be developing our map and fieldwork skills to learn about the Geography of our school grounds and the local area.
- We will be using the art of local artist Samuel Lucas to look what Hitchin was like in the past.
- We will be thinking about wedding celebrations and how a Christian wedding is celebrated in a church, using Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding as an example.
- In Maths we will continue to develop our understanding of teens numbers and number patterns when counting in order to count beyond 20.
- In Phonics we will be looking at CVCC words and further practising how to segment sounds and blend for reading.
Supporting your child at home
- Promote and model active listening skills e.g. “Have I got eyes looking, ears listening, lips closed and hands still so I can concentrate on what you’re saying. This will help your child understand how to listen carefully. This will in turn help children why listening is important to help you learn e.g. “I could tell you were going to say the right answer you were listening so carefully.
- Use lots of new vocabulary throughout the day by modelling words that are relevant to what they have been learning about or related to their interests e.g. “I can see that you’re delighted with your new toy,” “It looks as if the sun has caused the puddles to evaporate,” “Have you ever heard such a booming voice?”
- Give children opportunities to develop the core strength and stability needed to support small motor skills e.g. encouraging and modelling tummy-crawling, crawling on all fours, climbing, pulling themselves up on a rope and hanging on monkey bars. By doing this, children will develop their small motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently. Small motor skills could include threading, sewing, planting and caring for plants, preparing food, dressing and undressing and playing with small world toys.
Any other information
- WATER BOTTLES – As the weather starts to improve, please could water bottles be in school each day.
- AFTERNOON SNACK – If you would like you child to have an afternoon snack from home, please provide a fruit/vegetable snack.
- READING BOOKS – Please could book bags be in school each day.
- JUNK MODELLING – Thank you so much for all of the junk you have provided to us, it is always very much appreciated. Please keep it coming!
We hope you have a good weekend.
Mrs Fisher and Mr French
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
