All About Me is our topic for our first half term in Reception. We will be finding out about each other, our families, our school and our community. The knowledge organiser below features key vocabulary that we will be teaching the children.
To support our learning we suggest that you could try to engage with the following low, or no cost activities from 50 things to do before you're 5.
Visit 50 Things to Do | Cambridgeshire & Peterborough and look for these activities!
#34 Woodland Wandering
#17 Hocus Pocus Potions
#33 Home from Home
#13 Shout and Shhh
#43 High Five
Week 6
The children's learning about jobs in the community and emergency services has really excited them and they have been very engaged throughout the provision. There has been lots of dressing up and role play with the children practising using new and relevant vocabulary.
They have discovered that primary colours can be mixed to create secondary colours and they have put this knowledge to use when painting their own creations and portraits.
The children have now been taught all of the individual letter sounds through our Read Write Inc phonic scheme and they have been orally blending sounds and using magnetic letters to build words.
In maths, the focus has been on exploring patterns. These have included patterns in the environment, patterns we can make by using our bodies, e.g. claps and stamps, as well as patterns that can be made using pictures and objects.
Week 5
This week has been all about where we live with the children talking about what they see on their way to school, looking at maps and even trying to build simple maps of our school. We sorted ourselves into groups to show how we travel to school and then created a simple block graph to show the results.
The Owl Babies story was adapted and Fox Babies was created! The children have been using their phonics learning into use to write simple words for the story too and they were so proud of their efforts.
In maths, the children have been developing their use of vocabulary for comparing sizes, mass and capacity. They even turned themselves into human balance scales to show their thinking when comparing the mass of different objects.
Week 4
This week the children have been practising their sorting skills and looking for things that are the same about groups of objects. This is a key mathematical skill and should also help the children with tidying away resources when they 'Choose it, Use it and Put it Away!'
They have been exploring families and understanding that all families are different as well as considering what makes them special.
They have continued learning Owl Babies and have enjoyed practising their nipping, gripping and pinching skills to tear paper to make feathery owls!
Week 3
"I want my Mummy!" could be heard quite a lot in Reception this week, but not because the children were sad, but because they were happily joining in with the familiar repeated phrase when we were reading Owl Babies! The children have been trying to use props to retell the story as well as looking for the Owl Mother as they continue to explore our provision.
Maths has been all about matching and sorting which has also been useful in helping the children with putting resources way properly when they are tidying up and the end of COOL time! They have been making groups of objects by looking for features that are the same and some even sorted themselves into groups, for example those wearing a red top and those not wearing a red top.
Red, blue and yellow have been a feature of this week as the children learnt about primary colours. A different colour was heavily featured on Friday, however, as the children developed their fine motor skills with wool winding, drawing and cutting carrots in preparation for our contribution to the Ely Cathedral Harvest Festival.
Week 2
This week began with the children enjoying a dance lesson. They listened well to instructions and loved using the coloured scarves and hoops to enhance their movements.
The children have enjoyed listening to The Colour Monster and have been developing their use of language linked to feelings. They practised their cutting skills to fill 'jars' with things that make them happy or keep them calm. In the text, yellow represents the feeling of being happy so the children mixed, cut, squeezed and poured to make yellow happy 'potions'. They have also helped the Colour Monster with his muddled feelings by sorting poms poms and making a calming home for him by choosing green resources and adding a dash of pink for love!
The phonic sounds t, i, n, p and g have been taught this week and the children have been trying their best to form these letters too.
Lunchtimes have been lovely with the children now understanding the routines and they have been really independent with carrying their lunches, getting their cutlery and clearing their trays when they have finished.
Week 1
What a busy first week the children have had! We have been so impressed with their bravery and independence as they tried new things and explored their new surroundings. The children have been excited to make new friends and have been building relationships with the adults who work with them in Reception. Already, the children are beginning to get used to new routines and expectations and have even begun their reading journey by beginning to orally blend letter sounds and recognise the letter sounds m, s and d. It has been a very tiring week for the children but we have loved having them in school and look forward to see what next week brings!
