Early Years Playground

What Early Years got up to this week

Prep School Anti-Bullying Week

PRE-RECEPTION

We have had yet another busy week in Pre-Reception!

PHONICS

The children have been working extremely hard in Phonics and are enjoying our new Little Wandle Foundations games. This week we have taught the children how to pronounce ‘a’ and have used the pronunciation phrase ‘open your mouth wide and make the ‘a’ sound at the back of your mouth. They are also working on learning to spot words that have the initial sound ‘a’.  In Phonics next week, we will learn to pronounce ‘t’ correctly and identify objects which begin with this phoneme (sound).

LITERACY

Our story this week was, Chicken Licken. The children had fun making masks for the different characters, and then acting out the story.

SCIENCE

The children carried out some Science experiments with Mrs Hurst and made ‘fizzy fireworks.’ They were amazed by the results. It was good fun, and the children could observe that when certain substances were mixed a reaction occurred.

MATHS

In Maths, we have started work on number 2. We have done lots of work on subitising (saying how many without counting) both 1 and 2 on dice patterns and in irregular patterns.

On Monday, the children took part in the whole school Remembrance Assembly. We were impressed by their behaviour as they listened carefully to the service and were very respectful.

RECEPTION

Literacy 

This week we have learnt about Armistice Day to prepare the children to the whole-school Remembrance Service. We have also continued with our topic ‘community heroes’.  This week we have learnt about the role of a vet and the vocabulary for some of the tools and equipment that they use. The children noticed that many of these tools are the same as the ones that doctors use. 

Maths  

In Maths, we started a new module circles and triangles. We introduced the children to the mathematical language for describing the properties of circles and triangles, such as side, straight, corners and round. The children learnt that triangles are flat shapes with three straight sides and three corners, and that circles are flat shapes which are perfectly round. We also looked at positional language. We used language such as in, on, under, over, beside, between, in front of, around, through and ‘behind’ to describe where items are positioned in relation to other items.  

Expressive Arts and Design 

Linked to our learning in Maths, the children have been busy using their scissors skills to cut and create pictures using circles and triangles. After learning about Wassily Kandinsky, the children also created their own responses to his colour study squares with concentric circles. They explored different media to create these. 

Phonics  

This week we learnt the phonemes v, w, x and y. In class we practised saying the sounds, blending the sounds together to read words, for example f-o-x. We then practised letter formation by writing out the letters cursively. We also learnt the tricky words and, has, his and her. This week we started to read short captions and as an extra challenge we practised writing them, for example: a sad cat on the bed. 

PSED 

This term we started a new module in Jigsaw, celebrating differences. In this module we will be learning about respecting similarity and differences. During this week’s session we discussed what we like to do and what we are good at. Everybody had their own ideas and we discussed how this makes us all different.  

To find out more about our Early Years Department click here.

Boarding - weekend life

Ever wondered what our boarders get up to on the weekends? After classes wrap up on Friday, the fun is just beginning. Watch our video to see what makes our weekends so special. 🎥