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Spring Term

Understanding the World - History

 

LO:  Talk about members of their immediate family and community.

LO: Comment on images of familiar situations in the past.

 

Over the Christmas holidays the children were set a task to complete with their families. We have shared the home learning challenge information as a class and enjoyed finding out about school life over the years. We have looked at photos, images and real-life items from the past, for example: blackboards, milk bottles, reading books, the cane and talked about the similarities and differences of school life today compared with their parents/grandparents time. We have displayed the information on a simple timeline within our classroom which the children are enjoying talking about.                                           

 

Ticket to Ride!
 
We began our topic about journeys and transport by exploring the book 'Snail trail' by Ruth Brown. We made predictions, discussed the meaning of key vocabulary, discovered information about snails and drew our own snail trail routes to retell the story. 

Rosie's Walk

This week children in Reception have been looking at the book Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins. We created the journey that Rosie went on in our outdoor area. We retold the story by walking across the yard, around the pond, over the haystack, through the fence and under the beehives!

Understanding the World - Sensory Walk
 
What things can we find in our school environment?
 
RW went on a sensory walk around the grounds of the school.  We walked through gates, up steps, past trees and the bike shed, down a ramp and over an outdoor stage. We used our sense of sight, hearing and touch to help us to understand our school environment. Children collected different items on the walk and helped to take pictures so that we could draw a map of our journey when we got back to class. We realised that some items we picked up were rubbish and had a conversation about natural and man-made materials.
Bhangra Dancing 
 
Punjabi Roots Academy delivered a fantastic Bhangra dancing workshop to the children in Reception. Bhangra is a celebratory folk dance that welcomes the coming of spring. They had lots of fun learning the moves and putting them to music. 
Maths
 
Comparing mass - Heavier and lighter than
 
Explore what happens when you put different objects on the balance scales. What do you notice? Which objects make the scales tip?
 
Key vocabulary: heavy, light ,heavier than, lighter than
Reading Cafe
 
This term we have begun our early morning reading cafe. Every Wednesday at 8.30am the reception children and their parents can come into school to enjoy a special reading session where they can share stories, practise reading their school book and enjoy a biscuit and juice. 
Expressive Art and Design
 
As part of our 'Ticket to Ride' topic the children have been challenged to create a train using a variety of resources within the classroom. Here are some that were created in the workshop using boxes, tubes and other interesting bits!

Measuring height, distance and capacity

This week RW have been focusing on measuring height, distance and capacity. We started the week by measuring the height of children and teachers using the crates in our outdoor provision. We made towers that were the same height and counted how many crates tall that person was. During this activity we discussed what we meant when we used the key vocabulary taller and shorter.

Maths
 
LO: To explore and use the vocabulary related to capacity
 
We have been exploring capacity and using the vocabulary of full, nearly full, half full, half empty, nearly empty and empty to describe the amount in the containers. We have used rice, sand and water to help us in our investigations. 

To look at how we measure capacity every child took part in making playdough. We continued to use the key vocabulary: full, empty and half full. We used fives frames to help measure the correct amounts.

We measured:

2 full cups of flour

Half a cup of salt

2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

2 tablespoons oil

2 full cups of water

Phonics
 
The children are gaining in confidence to recognise, practise and apply the sounds we have been learning in our phonics lessons. 
Maths
 
LO: To compare capacity
 
The children are focusing on measurement by exploring capacity. One of our focus activities has been to compare capacity by seeing how many items they can find to fit in a matchbox. they have enjoyed filling the box and then counting the items back out onto ten frames to find the total number. This has involved lots of conversations with their friends.

The Train Ride

Over the past 2 weeks children have been busy learning all about trains. We looked at the story ‘The train ride’ by June Crebbin. We made predictions about the journey, retold the story and have had lots of discussions about train journeys that the children in RW have experienced. We were lucky enough to be able to have a real paddle in our role play train station as well as tickets and leaflets that were kindly given to us from Northern Rail.

Amazing Aeroplanes

Our train station was transformed into an airport as we looked at the book ‘Amazing aeroplanes’ by Tony Mitton and Ant Parker. We have been learning lots about where we can travel to outside of the United Kingdom. It has been lovely to listen to the children talk about places that they have been on holiday and / or where members of their family live.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children's Mental Health Week
Every day we began by completing a BBC Mood Booster session. These are fun curriculum-linked resources to inspire children to get moving for mental health and wellbeing. The children have listened really well to each program and followed the instructions. We have spoken after each session to ensure the children have understood the focus. Here is a link to just one of the activities we completed: 
Understanding the World - Geography 
 
LO: Draw information from a simple map.
 
LO: To explore the natural world around them.
 
LO: To recognise some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries.
 
LO: To recognise some environments that are different from the one in which they live.
 
We have enjoyed exploring maps, globes and information books to find out about our local area, Bradford as a city, England as the country we live in and locating it on a world map. We have talked about hot and cold places in our world too. 

RE - Special Places 


What is a special place?

“Disney Land”

“Gulliver’s Valley”

“I think something is a special place that I went to when I was 1 years old.”

“My special place, on holiday. I went to Turkey.”

“Swimming”

“I go to mosque.”


What makes a place special? Have you been to a special place?

One child said that they have a prayer mat and they have to take their shoes off

“It was sunny, it was in Crete and I saw a picture of Mary holding Jesus. I went to 3 churches in Crete.”

“No but it’s like a church because you get to say prayers in front of a candle, like a fair place because there’s hay and some tractors there. Nana from London came with me.”

“When I was a baby, I went to a church and I saw toys.“ (playgroup)

“I went to a church it was quiet.”

“There were baby toys there.”

“I know that Jesus is God’s son.”

“Do you know I went to a church before there were lots of living rooms.”

"My Daddy goes to the mosque."


Where are special places for me at school and/or in my community?

“Church”

“Mosque”

“My special place is, I went to mosque and I saw all the boys there.”

“When I go to school, I got to see Grandma and I have ice cream.”

“I like school.” Do you think school is a special lace? “Yes”

“My grandma’s house.”

“I’ve been to Grandma’s house.”


After our discussions the children were shown pictures of different special places belonging to various religions. We challenged the children to use Lego to build some of these which can be seen in the pictures below.

We continued learning about special places by going on a virtual tour around Otley Parish Church and a mosque.
 
 
The final type of journey that Reception discussed during our Ticket to Ride topic were journeys into space. We looked at the story 'Whatever Next!' by Jill Murphy. The children had lots of fantastic conversations about what they thought they would see on a journey to space, which planets they would like to visit and why.  
Maths
(Wc: 6th February)
Children have been looking at the different ways that we can make 6, 7 and 8. We played bunny fingers where children had to hold up a certain amount on their fingers, looked at dots on dominoes and matched number pictures. We even played a memory game where the children had to work out how many objects had gone missing. 
 
World Book Day 2023!
RW had a wonderful World Book Day. We had favourite book characters, superheroes and children dressed up as adjectives , such as: artistic, sleepy, glamorous, colourful and sporty. They all looked fantastic! In the evening, many children returned to school for our Bedtime Story night. A fabulous end to a lovely day celebrating reading!
RE 
 
We have been focusing on learning and understanding all about different celebrations and festivals that occur in spring for different cultures and religions. We began by learning about the Luna Festival. Miss Morley has then continued to teach us about Holi, Vaisakhi and Pesach. 
 
Holi is a Hindu festival, celebrated by followers of the Hindu religion. However, people from all kinds of backgrounds and religions around the world are encouraged to have fun and take part in the Holi celebrations! The Holi festival has many meanings attached to it. It signifies the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the blossoming of love, a celebration of friends and family, the triumph of good over evil, and the chance to make amends and repair broken relationships.
 
In reception the children had the opportunity to explore powder paint and scatter it onto a large white sheet to create an explosion of colour! The also sprinkled it onto an outline of a child. 
 
RE
Vaisakhi is the time of the year when people of the Sikh religion bring in their New Year. 
Vaisakhi is a spring harvest festival, which marks the start of the harvest and commemorates Guru Gobind Singh, who was one of the original Sikh Gurus. Guru Gobind Singh took his place as a leader within Sikhism at the age of nine. Vaisakhi is also is a celebration of family and solidarity.

Maths

(WC: 27th Feb)

This week we have been focusing on ordering numbers to 10. We spotted mistakes on number lines and used the language one more / one less to talk about where numbers were placed. The children had fun using the Numberblocks to understand that when we count in sequence, we add one more each time.

RE
Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is one of the most important festivals in the Jewish calendar. The eight-day holiday is celebrated each spring, usually in March or April. It's a time when Jewish people remember the deliverance of the Israelites from enslavement in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and their subsequent freedom as a people under the leadership of Moses.
Expressive Art and Design
 
We have made observational drawings of the lovely spring daffodils that have began to appear in our gardens. We studied them carefully thinking about the structure and shapes we can see. We used water colours to fill in the drawings, trying to match the shades to  the real flowers. 

Maths

(WC: 6th March)

Children in RW have begun to explore 3D shapes this week. We have focused on cubes, cuboids, cones, cylinders and spheres. The children have played matching games, made prints in playdough and had conversations about where they might have seen these shapes before.

We introduced the children to the key vocabulary: faces, edges and corners so that they could describe the 3D shapes.

 
SCARF Life Education - PSE Workshop
All About Me
Reception had a visit from Harold the giraffe who talked to them about how we can keep our bodies healthy and ourselves happy. They learnt about the function of their heart, lungs and stomach and how we can look after them. We got to see inside Harold’s washbag for his sleepover to learn about how we can keep ourselves clean. At the end of the workshop the children said goodbye to Harold and gave him lots of hugs to help him feel happy!