Chinese New Year

Gong Hey Fat Choy (Happy New Year) Everyone,

We have been learning all about the Chinese New Year this week.  This year it is the Year of the Horse.  We have listened to the story of how Chinese New Year came about and we've acted out the race between the twelve animals.  If you don't know the story why not ask us - we are all Chinese New Year experts now and we could tell you all about the Great Race across the yellow river.  We even know who won the race!

We retold the story of Chinese New Year with stick puppets

Daniel from our class has gone back to China for the New Year Celebrations and we have been looking on our globe to see how far he has had to travel - it's a really long way !  Hopefully when he returns he will have lots of photos of the celebrations.

 

Courtney knows where China is on the globe

We have learnt a lot about Chinese traditions and cultures this week by reading lots of non fiction books and by looking on the computer for information.  We know that they sweep their houses to get rid of bad luck and that they give their front door a new coat of paint.  We have looked at lots of pictures of Chinese New Year decorations and found that a lot of the decorations are red and gold. 

We've made our own lanterns with sparkly decorations and we've had a go at making Chinese Lion puppets and our own fans.  We have copied some really tricky Chinese numbers and Mrs Young was very impressed with how well we concentrated on getting it just right.  Mrs Ball will have lots of work to choose from when she puts up our Chinese New Year display in the corridor !

 

 

Indianna making her lion puppet

 

                                       

 

Taloola had great ideas to decorate her lantern

 

 

Jamie-Lea with her fabulous lantern

On Thursday we tasted Chinese food - prawn crackers and noodles and we really enjoyed them.  We put on Chinese music and surprised Mrs Ball and Miss Cannell by saying hello in Chinese 'Ni Hao' when they came in.

 

Mackenzie and Reece tasting prawn crackers

 

 

Jessica-May and Lexi enjoy the noodles

 

On Friday we had great fun pretending to be Chinese Lions dancing in the parade.  We used our lion puppets and the scarves to make us look like Chinese Lions and Mrs Ball was very good on the drum - just look at our lovely photos ! 

 

 

 

We have also learnt all about pandas - we know that they eat lots of bamboo.  Mrs Young brought in some real bamboo from her garden for us to see (I hope there are no pandas in her garden?). Here are some facts we have learnt about pandas:
Pandas are black and white.
Pandas like to go in water and drink it.
Baby pandas are called cubs, when they are first born they do not have any fur.
Pandas like to climb up trees.
Pandas have 4 fingers and 2 thumbs!
Pandas have sharp teeth so they can eat the bamboo.  

We have done other things as well this week !  We have continued to learn our Phase 3 phonics.  This week we have learnt the sounds 'ai', 'ee', 'igh' and 'oa'.  These are those tricky sounds where 2 letters make 1 sound so keep practising at home.  Thank you to all the parents and carers who could stay to our Phonics drop in on Monday - we had more people attend than any of the other Reception Classes - so well done if you managed to come.  I hope you found it really useful - if you have any other questions please do mention it to us and we will be happy to help.

In maths we have been learning about ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc).  This is something you could practise at home with a few toys and some post - its - why not give it a go?

 

That's all for now.  See you next week.

Grasshopper Class

Jungle Animals

Hello Everyone,

This week we have been learning about all sorts of jungle animals.  We have read lots of non-fiction books about big cats, elephants and crocodiles.  We've also read lots of animal stories and we have been concentrating on using lots of expression in our reading to keep the listener interested.  We have made our own pictures of jungle animals and made some cut and stick animals too.  We are getting so much better at cutting now and are really quite independent when we are making things.

Sophie made a pair of binoculars - I wonder if she can see any jungle animals?

 

 

Reece with his fantastic crocodile - look at that amazing cutting !

 

 

Jessica-May with a whole family of giraffes

 

 

 

Is that Indianna or an elephant?

 

 

On Tuesday we had a visit from a lady to tell us about how to keep safe on the roads and in our cars.  We had a lovely time listening all about Bethany and Benjamin Bear and we even got our own certificate.

 

                                            Eimantas straps Benjamin Bear into the car seat


In phonics we have been learning that sometimes 2 letters make 1 sound eg s and h together make 'sh', c and h together make 'ch' and t and h together make 'th'.  This is really tricky to get the hang of and we hope that as many parents as possible can come to our phonics 'drop in' at 9.00 next Monday (27th January).  It will only take 20 minutes and it will show you how to practise these tricky sounds from Phase 3 at home.  It would be lovely to see you there !

In maths we have been working on finding 1 less and 1 more all week and we are really good at it now.  Why not ask us a 1 more or 1 less question at home and see how much we have learnt?

On Thursday we made sock puppets with Mrs Ball.  We had great fun deciding what our creature was going to look like.  We used our imagination to make up silly animals.  We even had a competition to see who could make the most imaginative puppet.

 

                                                        Alexus making her sock puppet

 

                                      Lexi, Lennon and Sophie hard at work on their models

On Friday in PE we had the large apparatus out again - we have learnt how to jump carefully making sure that we bend our knees so that we don't hurt our backs.  Jona was very good at balancing and so was Jamie-Lea.  Well done !

Ebony got in the Good Work book this week for always trying her very best - well done Ebony !

See you next week.

Grasshopper Class

Ducks

Hello Everyone,

This  week we have been looking at lots of story books about ducks.  We have looked at speech bubbles and thought bubbles and we even had a go at putting our own speech bubbles onto a photo of everyone.  On Monday we read a great rhyming book called Nine Ducks Nine - it was about a sly fox who wanted to eat the ducks but luckily the ducks had a plan and were too clever for him.  Why not ask us about the story at home?

We have made lots of ducks this week too - from card, feathers, paint and pastels.  We are getting much better at using our imagination in our art work.  Have you seen our fantastic farm display?  I'm sure you will agree that it looks fabulous - thanks Mrs Ball and Miss Cannell for sorting that out for us.

                                                                    Our farm display

 

Abigail with her fantastic chick !

 

 

 

Sophie created this fantastic duck picture !

In maths we have been learning to do subtraction number sentences - it is a bit tricky and we might spend some of next week on it as well.  We have sung lots of songs where you have to find 1 less - 10 green bottles, 10 in the bed, 5 little ducks - and we are getting better at finding 1 less.

                                                    Taloola doing a number sentence

In music as well as singing we have been learning to keep a steady beat.  We started with clapping along to a beat and next week we might use different instruments.

We have also been investigating floating and sinking.  We tried out lots of different objects and tried to guess whether they would float or sink.  We had fun trying out the crepe paper - it was red and when we put it into the water all the dye came out of it and made the water turn red!!

 

 

 

 

The red dye came out of the crepe paper and turned our water red !

 

In phonics we have learnt the last few letters (y, z and qu) so now we know the whole alphabet.  We have also started learning the letter names as well as the sounds and are getting much better at the alphabet song. 

In PE we have been learning how to use the big apparatus.  First we have to learn how to lift the equipment properly to get it out and put it away, then we are going to do lots of balancing and jumping !

Learning to carry the mats

 

                                                          Jona balancing on the bench


Well that's all for now.

Grasshopper Class

Welcome Back !

Welcome back everyone !

Happy New Year !  It's been a really quick week this week so this will be quite a short blog.  It's lovely to see everyone back in school.  We have had full attendance all week so we have got Attendance Ted again and an extra prize each from Mrs Hanger's box for 100% attendance !  It makes such a difference when the children come in every day as they don't miss any of their learning.

Every Friday we have a special Good News Assembly and one child is chosen from each class to be in the Good Work Book.  This is the first week that Reception have attended this assembly and Lennon was in the Good Work Book this week for listening carefully all week - well done Lennon.    May be next week you may be in the Good Work Book on Friday?

 

 We won Attendance Ted with 100% attendance

 

 

Lennon with his special certificate and pencil - we are all proud of him !

This week we are learning about farms and the animals that live there.  We've also learnt a few new names for baby animals - Sophie already knew that a baby cow was called a calf, and Jessica May knew that a baby pig was called a piglet.  We also learnt that a baby horse is called a foal and a baby sheep is a lamb.

We have done lots of farm paintings and collages and they will soon be up on display in the corridor outside our class!

 

Reece with his fantastic painting

We have started phase 3 in phonics and have covered the sounds v, j, x and w this week.  We have been working hard on blending and segmenting the sounds to write short words like -  win, will, jug, van, box, six and the children have been listening really carefully - well done !  We are now also learning the names of the letters  and are learning the alphabet songs.  Why not have a go at some of the games on the phonics website - just click below.

Phonics Games

In maths we have been making sure we all know how to make an adding number sentence eg 3+4=7 and some of us can even write down our own number sentences.  Abigail and Lexi had a really good try at doing this all on their own.

 

 

Lexi with her number sentences

 

 

 

Abigail worked hard on her number sentences

We have been thinking about sentences and counting the words as we make up our own sentences.  We have learnt that a full stop means 'the end of the sentence' and we've all had a go at writing our own sentences about animals on the farm.

On Thursday we had two ladies come in from the Council to talk about recycling - they talked a lot about not using too many plastic bags, so if your child tells you off next time you use a plastic bag youi know why!!

You may have noticed we have got a great new climbing frame in our outdoors area - I'm sure we will have lots of fun playing on that with our friends !

 

We have also set up a new role play area in our class.  This half term we have a vets and the children are having a great time pretending to bring their pets to be seen by the vet !

 

Oniaka is a great Receptionist - watch out Mrs Bodger she'll be after your job !

Well that's all for now see you next week.

Grasshopper Class