What Early Years got up to this week in the Prep School

Posted: 20th September 2024

PRE-RECEPTION

The children have continued to settle well into their new routines and are beginning to understand the rules and boundaries of our setting. They enjoyed taking part in their specialist lessons and had a wonderful time at Forest School. We made the most of the glorious, autumn sunshine. We spoke about the rules of Forest School including: ‘no pick, no lick’, ‘don’t cross the boundaries’, and ‘never walk through the basecamp’. They also enjoyed playing ‘1,2,3, come to me!’.

We had fun cooking this week. The children made a delicious banana loaf and only crumbs remained after snack time. We did send a piece home for you. Some pupils may have eaten that before they left the school grounds, sorry.

In Maths, we have been learning about colours. We have been encouraging the children to name the colours, sort and match objects by their colours and extend their thinking with ‘odd one out’ scenarios. We had lots of fun with paint and mixing colours.

In Phonics, we are working on the children’s phonological awareness. This is how the children ‘tune into sound’. Phonological awareness is a precursor to writing – if children can hear the different phonemes (or sounds) in words at this stage, they will be able to write short words when they learn the graphemes (how the sounds are written).

RECEPTION

Literacy

As part of our current topic ‘ourselves,’ the children brought their favourite toy into school. We have been encouraging them to stand up and talk about their toys in class. The adults modelled how to ask questions and how to listen to the responses given, and it was lovely to see so many confident children sharing their own stories and children being willing to ‘have-a-go’.

Maths

This week, we started our module on ‘match, sort and compare.’ We began by looking at matching items and talking about how and why they match. We then moved onto exploring similarities and differences in items and thinking about how we could sort them into separate groups.

Phonics

On Monday we started our first phonics session. This week we learnt the phonemes ‘s, a, t and p’. As well as learning the sounds we encourage the children to write them.

Expressive Arts and Design

As part of our topic ‘ourselves,’ everyone became artists and created a self-portrait. We used mirrors to look at and discuss our features. We then used a pencil to draw our features before painting them. We explored using different paintbrushes and the different strokes each brush made. Their finished masterpieces are displayed in our classroom for everyone to enjoy.