Wk beginning 8th July 2019

Where does food come from?

We have been looking at where our food comes from, especially where do some of the vegetables we eat grow?  Is it above the ground or below? We have researched where beef and pork comes from and what  fish fingers are made from. We have also spoken about peoples' reasons for not eating certain foods. In the Challenge zone, the small world tray has been full of animals and the children have been thinking about food chains and what other animals eat.

Tasting different fruits.

Some groups have been tasting different types of fruits such as pears, mandarins and cherries.

Role play shop

Our role play shop in the classroom has been very popular this week with some children making Welsh signs. (Our new Welsh dictionaries have helped us improve our vocabulary.) They have been given real coins to practise paying for items.

Circuits and Sports

On the field outside, lots of the children have been trying out different sporting skills and completing circuits.

Free choice play

As usual, there has been lots of free choice play across the learning areas with the children developing their skills and demonstrating how much they have absorbed during  focus tasks: confidently counting or writing labels and lists, sharing and organising, problem solving and planning.  

WK beginning 1st July 2019

This week we have learnt a lot about where our food come from and about food chains. There is a lot of confusion about the function of farms and which animals provide the different meats we may eat in our food.

Some of the children have made squished tomato sauce, pasta and cheese -after first learning how to prepare and be ready to cook safely. We have talked a lot about hand washing and hygiene.

Outside the children have been digging up vegetables in the digging area and chopping them up in the mud kitchen.

We have set up a role play shop with all the signs, shopping lists and receipts written by the children. They even developed their own staff rota lists!  They have been given real money- just pennies - to pay for their items. The 'store announcements' have been very funny, usually something about a lost child! The person on the til' has nearly always put on a different voice to their usual one and has loved doing the 'BEEP' as they scan the items. It has been fabulous to watch the children make the role play space their own.

Also this week, the fancy dress clothes have been washed by the children in the water tray outside and huge washing lines of clothes have been pegged out. Some children find opening and releasing a peg very difficult so practising helps strengthen little fingers.

We have been doing a lot of singing and performing songs too. The musical instruments have been out and the favourite songs have been blasting out.

The children have also competed as part of their house in the Welsh poem competition. I was very proud of all those who performed.

Wk beginning 24th June.

This week we have been sorting items into groups using different criteria. The children were excellent at thinking of different criteria. We counted our collections, organising them into arrays of ten to make them easier to count. Next week we will be recording our groups with pictures, marks or numbers.

Reception have been practising their Welsh writing by naming their favourite food, translating into Welsh and copying a sentence into their books. They also uploaded a picture of their work onto Seesaw.

There has been lots of problem solving, especially with the construction materials both inside and out. Fine motor skills have been strengthened by a variety of activities such as cutting, drawing, mark making, threading etc. and gross motor skills improved by various sports activities and climbing, swinging, pouring, digging and cycling.

We have been singing a lot of nursery rhymes this week. ( Next week, the children will be asked to work with a small group and perform  their favourite nursery rhyme.) We have learnt some that are new to the children and practiced some old favourites.

The children were all excellent this week at creating their own dances to show different emotions. The moves were brilliant and definitely made you think/feel the various emotions.

There has been lots of free play and choosing in all the areas with the children taking the lead.

WB 3rd June 2019

The children have been learning about capacity this week, estimating how many blocks would fit into different containers, filling containers with blocks and comparing how much smaller or larger the different containers were. The children coped brilliantly with this concept and had great fun trying to guess- then check. 

Some of the learners got to make beans on toast and eat the it! We went into the staff room to heat the beans- it was very exciting. 

Lots of the children have made mini movies with the iMotion app and models they have designed themselves. We had a great giggle watching the movies together. 

There has been sports equipment outside so that the classes can try different skills with different equipment. This will continue throughout the summer term. 

Next week, we'll be looking at symmetry. 

WB 20th May 2019

We have learnt how to make beans on toast this week by reading instructions. We will re-read the instructions and actually make beans on toast after half term.  We have spoken a great deal about hygiene, especially making sure we wash our hands after visiting the bathroom or before we handle food.

Some of the children in Reception have asked their parents to purchase (or borrow from the library) books we have used for story time or Talk 4 Writing.  We love hearing news like this. Thank you for supporting your children in their love of books. We know lots of you read to and with your children; the comments in the reading records are often about favourite stories or school books they have enjoyed. Story time is one of the best times of any day, in and outside of school.

Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging their children to help with the cooking. We have received some lovely photographs which we have shared with the class.

Week beginning 7th May 2019

The weather has been very wet this week up until Friday when lots of the children were able to access and enjoy Forest school. A group of children managed a session on our new bikes on Tuesday and hopefully they'll be lots more chances for everyone to have a go on the bikes over the rest of the term.  

In class the children have been learning the Welsh for some of their favourite foods and looking carefully at different fruit and vegetables before creating detailed sketches. We then refined our gross motor skills and hammered golf tees into the vegetables- great fun! We've been doing lots of numeracy and lots of literacy. The stories about Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel are a firm favourite with many of the children and have led us on to lots of interesting discussions. Free play always shows how inventive all the children are, creating fabulous stories, dressing up and moving furniture to make special areas. Many of the children have a love of construction and are proud of the amazing things they build, loading pictures on to our school Seesaw account independently.

Welcome to the start of our Summer Term. 

Our school project heading for this term is 'Food, Glorious Food'.

The children have been asking a lot of questions about food:  Where it comes from? What happens to it after it's eaten? How do we know if we've had enough? What is healthy food? And loads and loads of others! We will be trying to find all the answer together this term. 

We are planning to do some cooking too. Please ensure all allergy information is up to date for your child. We will be focusing on mainly fruit and vegetables, sandwiches and soup. We hope to try and make our own bread too. Please encourage your child to help at home ( if appropriate)  and if you want to send us pictures of you cooking together- that would be brilliant. 

Extra information:

Our class book this term is 'The Disgusting Sandwich' by Gareth Edwards.