This week has been another busy and exciting week in Reception!

Phonics:
We have learnt two new sounds: ‘o’ and ‘c’. The children have practised saying the sounds, doing the actions, and writing them. We also explored words containing these sounds and continued working hard on sounding out and blending simple words.

Maths:
In maths we have been developing our subitising skills—recognising amounts up to 4 without counting. We have also been comparing groups of up to 3 objects using 1:1 matching and learning the word “equal.” The children practised making sure each person or character had an equal number of objects and even created equal towers using squares.
We also explored copying and continuing simple patterns, which the children really enjoyed.

Art and Design:
This week we experimented with colour mixing. We began with a colour mixing game, predicting what new colours we could make. Then, to create our large collaborative colour-mixing poster, one child painted their hands in one colour and another child in a different colour—rubbing them together, we then made a new colour! Yellow + red = orange, blue + yellow = green, and so on.

Drawing Club:
We have also begun Drawing Club for the very first time! Drawing Club is an approach that builds creativity and early literacy by immersing children in rich stories and encouraging them to respond through drawing. Our story this week was “Pip and Custard: Fireworks.”
We began by looking at the front cover and predicting what the story might be about. As we read, we discussed how the characters were feeling and what might happen next.
The children then had two drawing challenges:

• Draw the fireworks: We talked about how fireworks are bright and colourful—not pencil-grey or black—so we used colourful pens to show this in our Drawing Club books.

• Help Custard feel happier: The children came up with fantastic ideas, drawing something they thought would help Custard enjoy the fireworks. Adults then annotated their drawings.

Our vocabulary focus this week included: illuminate, gather, thunderous, resplendent—we talked about what each word meant and how it was used in the story.

PE:
In PE we continued our work on positional language. Each child had a hoop and a spot as we played Simon Says:
“Stand in the hoop,” “Stand in front of the hoop,” “Stand under the spot.”
The children then worked in pairs to give instructions to each other.
We also practised balancing using different body shapes such as star, tuck, and straight, and developed ball control skills by stopping, rolling, and pushing a ball.

Trip to the Park:
On Thursday, instead of our usual Buddy Time, we went on our first trip out of school to the park with our Year 6 buddies! Before we left, we talked about how to behave, how to listen carefully, and the rules for being outside of school. The children did such a brilliant job of  walking safely to the park. A huge thank you to the parent volunteers—we really appreciate your support.

Children in Need:
On Friday we celebrated Children in Need, and the children loved coming to school in their own clothes for the day.