What Early Years got up to this week

PRE-RECEPTION

It was British Science Week this week and, this year’s theme was ‘change and adapt’.  In Pre-Reception we have thought about how a caterpillars change over time and have also taken part in the British Science Week ‘camouflage caterpillars’ exploration. On Thursday, dinosaurs visited us. The children had great fun playing games with Jam the tyrannosaurus rex. They listened to a talk about being kind and celebrating differences. Additionally, the children enjoyed watching Mrs Cryan being eaten by a dinosaur whilst the pupils all shouted, ‘eat her’. Perhaps, we may have more to learn about kindness. The children really enjoyed their day.  

PHONICS

Moving on to Phonics, we have learnt how to pronounce the sound ‘b’. We have taught the children the rhyme ‘Put your lips together and say b as you open them b.’ You can watch the Little Wandle video at 48 seconds for the pure sound. 

MATHS

In Maths, we have explored mass. The children have learnt to use balance scales and are beginning to use the key vocabulary ‘heavy’, ‘heavier’, ‘light’ and ‘lighter’ to compare the weights of different objects.  To illustrate, we made our own balance scales using coat hangers, string, and cups; we have added a link in the homework section below if you would like to try this with your child. The children also enjoyed making ‘balance scale cakes’ and we are sure they will enjoy eating them too! 

PSHE

Finally, in our Jigsaw PSHE lesson we learnt about how important a bedtime routine is to help us get our all-important sleep. We spoke about the different bedtime routines that the children have. We listened to lullabies, had a ‘bedtime’ story, and noticed how relaxed they made us feel. 

RECEPTION

Understanding the World

Firstly, continuing with our topic ‘Growth,’ this week we have been learning about human growth. We enjoyed looking at and listening to the story ‘Once there were Giants’ by ‘Martin Waddell’. The book explored the different stages humans grow through, baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult and elderly. We all enjoyed looking at the baby photos and guessing who was who. 

Literacy

Subsequently, linked to our learning about human growth we discussed and compared what everyone could do as a baby compared to what they can now do as children. Then, they thought of their own sentences and then recorded them in their literacy books. 

Phonics

Moving on to Phonics, this week we reviewed Phase 3 phonemes. We focused on reading and writing words with two or more digraphs. Additionally, we also revisited a selection of tricky words in phase 2 and 3. To illustrate, We practised reading and writing dictated sentence containing these sounds, for example ‘The queen has seven sheep and a shark.’ 

Maths

This week continued our learning in the block ‘Building 9 and 10’. We explored number composition, doubling, odd and even.  

Understanding the World

This week was British Science Week. The theme for the week was ‘change and adapt.’ The children enjoyed learning about how animals change to blend into their surroundings to survive. To demonstrate, we set up an experiment on the field, the children had to find different coloured caterpillars. Following this, we then discussed which of the caterpillars were easy to find and why. Also, linked to science week the children were very excited to be visited by 3 dinosaurs on Thursday. As you will see from the photographs, they had a fabulous time.   

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