Hello to all Reception 1 families!

Well, that is another busy week that has flown by! Firstly, I'd like to thank all you grown ups for your time and patience which helped our parent's evening run smoothly. I was a little nervous about making the phone and zoom calls, thinking we may have a few problems. Luckily that did not happen and it was  lovely to have the opportunity to speak to you all and let you know how very well your children have settled and what fab progress they have made. Miss Edwards and I are so proud of them!

It was fantastic to see so many children supporting Odd Sock Day on Monday for Anti-Bullying Week. The children enjoyed describing and showing their odd socks to each other. To tie in with the sock theme, we read a great story called Simon Sock which the children thoroughly enjoyed listening to. The children then went on to design some very colourful odd socks of their own. I have attached a read aloud version of the story if you would like to listen to it together at home. 

After matching pairs of socks together, our maths worked moved on to repeating patterns. The children identified the pattern, continued the pattern and also created their own repeating pattern using beads and different resources from our outdoor area. You can see some examples in the slideshow below.

In our literacy and topic, we read through the whole of our lovely book Anna Hibiscus' Song. Throughout the story we learn about a little girl of dual heritage who lives in Africa with her family, all living together. Anna, the little girl in the story is so very happy that she doesn't know what to do. She asks different family members what they do when they feel happy. As a class we talked about different emotions that we feel, we showed each other our happy face and our sad face and the children then drew a picture of their happy and sad faces. The children thought very carefully and each identified 5 things that make them feel happy. Using the outline of their hand I scribed on each finger what makes them happy. 

We watched a short video showing different parts of Africa and had a look at a super book called Africa, Amazing Africa written by the same author as Anna Hibiscus. The children described their homes and compared it to the home of Anna Hibiscus in Africa and they enjoyed finding out about Africa. Miss Edwards and I were really impressed with how many questions the children had to ask and how much information they had gathered from the story and the video. We become more amazed each week!

The children continued to shine during their dance session with Miss Murray by using their imaginations, their listening skills and continuing to work through the story of The Gruffalo by moving to music like the animals in the story.
Mrs Lavelle our dinner lady continues to praise the children for their manners and how well they can share and play together. Mrs Hermans has been helping Reception 1 on a Thursday and she was really pleased this week to see the different repeating patterns the children had created.

Take a look at the slideshow to see how busy your little people have been!

Well, that has given you a snapshot of this week. Miss Edwards and I will look forward to seeing all your happy faces at the gate on Monday, raring to go for another fabulous week!

I hope you all have a happy and safe weekend.

Take care

Mrs Spooner x