Spring 1
Phonics
We began Spring Term with a short review of the Phase 2 sounds we learnt in Autumn Term before starting learning the next set of Phase 3 sounds. We are enjoying using our robot arms to segment, blend and read words independently.
Lost and Found
Our return to school was extra exciting as we discovered black and white feathers in our classrooms - we were very curious about where they might have come from! We made some predictions based on the feathers. We spoke about animals that could've left them.
"I think it was a magpie because they are black and white." Rosie
"They could be from a penguin, they have black and white ones." Willow
We then received a special letter from a boy who had written to explain that his penguin was missing. He asked us to help him find he lost penguin! We got to work making posters and put them up around school so that everyone knew to look out for it! We decorated our classrooms and came up with ways to try and 'catch' the penguin. This included making painting and drawings, constructing icebergs and even writing to our business manager, Mr Hussain, to ask for a net!
We enjoyed being geographers and explorers – looking at globes and maps, noticing the different parts of the Earth: blue is water, green and brown are land and white is ice and snow. We later learned about an Antarctic explorer called Ernest Shackleton. We shared stories, photos and videos to help us find out about his attempts to reach the South Pole. We particularly enjoyed looking at old historical items, similar to those Ernest would've taken on his expedition. These were kindly shared with us by Bradford Industrial Museum.
Eventually the penguin was caught on our school CCTV and we loved watching the videos our teachers shared with us! We were excited to write back to the boy and share the new that the penguin had been spotted.
As we came to the end of the Lost and Found story, we planned and went on a special Antarctic Adventure, combining all our Antarctic knowledge with our imaginations to have a fun afternoon pretending to be explorers together!
RSPB Big Bird Watch
On Friday 23rd January, Reception took part in the RSPB Big Bird Watch. In the mud kitchen, children enjoyed making bird biscuits which they put in the bird feeders and around the outdoor area ready to watch the birds come! They spotted blackbirds, magpies and even some very small and shy robins.
LauLau Song Drawing
Reception are loving their LauLau song drawing sessions! This half-term we had fun taking part in a big LauLau session together. We loved listening to the music and singing our own song, 'We're going on a trip to an Iceberg' as we took our pencils on a magical drawing adventures. We had fun listening to numbers in the song and carefully adding corresponding number of penguins, fish and wave to our iceberg pictures! What a fun way to combine music, maths and writing skills all at the same time!
Meet the Oceans
We have been exploring the world's seas and oceans through our book, Meet the Oceans. We have enjoyed using maps, atlases and globes to find and locate seas and oceans around the world. We have really enjoyed learning about the wildlife that lives beneath the waves and have been busy crafting and making our own ocean animals!
We also took part in a special mini-project in which we made model boats. We began by testing different materials to find those that are waterproof. After, we began drawing and designing our boats, writing lists of the things we would need to use when making them. Lots of runways had making the boats before testing and verbally evaluating them!