Reception - Robins
What have we been learning?
The Places We’ll Go Topic
We began our Places We’ll Go topic by going on our own journey to the local shop. The children chose what they wanted to buy and paid for it with their money. We learnt the story The Train Ride. We made a train and went on our own train ride around the school. We drew story maps and acted the story out. We learnt about old and new trains and talked about our experiences of journeys on trains. We have learnt the song ‘Yellow Submarine’ and performed it to our nursery. We made a submarine using cardboard boxes and acted out our own submarine adventures.
Big Garden Bird Watch
We have been looking for birds in the Wild Wood and marking down how many different birds we have seen. The children made bird feeders to take home to feed the birds and have designed bird boxes to be made for them.
Getting to Know You
We have had a very busy term settling into St Michael’s learning about our school Core Values and the St Michael’s Code. We learnt about some of the things that make each child unique and talked about some of the similarities and differences of our friends and families. We learnt about the story The Three Little Pigs and acted out the story on our stage outside. We also went on number and shape hunts around the school.
We visited the life bus and met Harold the giraffe. We helped him to pack an over night bag and made sure he had everything he needed. We labelled different parts of the body.
Essex Wildlife Trust
Lucy came and taught us about different leaves and trees. We identified the types of trees in our wild wood using their leaves. We created a tree using natural materials and made our own mud faces using clay and natural materials.
Outdoor Classroom Day – 1st November 2018
Outdoor Classroom Day is a global campaign to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning . The rain did not deter us from learning outside all day. We completed our daily golden mile whilst jumping in the puddles. We learnt stories in the outdoor classroom, we looked for 2D shapes in the outdoor environment, we learnt and played circle games.
We celebrated party day by having a year group party. We talked about when we have parties, we made a list of things we would need, we wrote invitations to another class, created our own decorations and had lots of fun.
We explored the stories of Winnie the Witch, we made wands, broomsticks and potions. We explored pumpkins and did a scientific experiment using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda inside the pumpkins.
We learnt about bonfire night and fireworks. We used different media to recreate fireworks both indoors and outside.
We learnt about the Hindu festival of Diwali. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and acted out the story using puppets. The children made missing posters to help look for Sita using their sounds to write the words to describe what she looked like. We made Rangoli patterns outside our classrooms using chalk.
We talked about why we wear poppies and made remembrance poppies to hang in the wild wood.
We explored one of the school’s Core Value – Include. In our House groups we read Can I Join Your Club? which encouraged to us to talk about what makes us special and we worked together to make a school shield.
We have learnt about the traditions and stories of Christmas. The children worked with Woodpecker’s class to perform the Nativity story in front of their parents and the whole school. We enjoyed a visit to Colchester Zoo where they helped the elves work out if penguins would be a good replacement for Father Christmas’ reindeer and then met Father Christmas himself!
10 – 15 minutes each day on reading. We change reading books every Monday and Friday and library books every Monday.
Wednesday Morning - PE
For PE we wear red shorts or jogging bottoms in cold weather, white t-shirt with St Michael's badge, plimsolls/trainers .
Every Thursday we visit our wildlife area in school. The children wear coats and wellies when we visit the area.