It’s been another fun and busy week down in Reception! The children have really been digging our topic this week as they’ve all taken a turn as paleontologists at our excavation site. Donning coat and safety goggles, the children stepped into the dig site and picked up a trowel and brush before getting to work. Searching in the sand the children unearthed some interesting bones and teeth that they intimated to perhaps be fossilized from the time of the dinosaurs! As they continued to dig, a selection of ‘fossilized’ dinosaur footprints were found and carefully cleaned off by our mini-paleontologists before being studied carefully and identified by comparing the prints with pictures we have in class.
As we learned more about fossils in our topic time, we got to understand how they were formed over many thousands of years by gradual mineral deposits. As we didn’t have thousands of years, we sped up this process in Reception as the children had a go at pressing a mini dinosaur toy into dough to create an indentation before filling it with liquid plaster and letting it harden. We also invited children to use pastels and chalks to have a go at making their own ammonite fossil artworks, and we have had some wonderful spiral shell shapes created with lots of added detail.
Also this week the children have been challenged to practise their recent maths learning by grouping leaves to feed a herd of hungry triceratops dinos. As they grouped the leaves, the children were investigating division and seeing how many dinos could be fed from the stack of leaves, and whether there would be anything left over after grouping evenly. We also had a lot of children practising their reading comprehension skills to colour in a dinosaur picture by following a set of written instructions.
Phonics sessions this week have seen the children looking at reading and writing words with a CCVC pattern (e.g. twig or drop). As the children have to listen extra carefully to make sire they hear all the sounds in these words to spell accurately it really helps considerate writing and encourages children to check their own spelling which is a skill we are trying to encourage as the children prepare for Year 1.
In our Maths sessions this week we have been revisiting the concept of odd and even numbers and how we can recognise these. The children have had a go at sharing our cubes from an amount to see it the amount can be paired equally (and therefore an even number) or not (and therefore an odd number). We have then also been investigating the concept of doubling and that this means to multiply a number by two. We have rehearsed recall of doubles by playing bingo and had a lot of fun finding the right key to open a padlock by finding the double of the number on the key and matching it to the correct padlock to free the numicon tile.
Last weekend, Mrs Andrews and Mr Verdi completed the Leeds 10k run to raise money for the charity Abbie’s Army. Thank you so very much for all of your kind and generous donations – along with the Gift Aid contribution we raised just under £2000 for vital cancer research.
Please be aware of the school’s uniform policy change from September – PE kit full time even on Forest School days – school emblem now printed on rather than embroidered following feedback from consultation. Follow the link below for more information:
www.cookridgeprimary.co.uk/parents-and-carers/uniform
Have a lovely weekend!
The Reception Team.
DATES FOR THE DIARY:
Wednesday 24th June: EYFS and KS1 Sports Day (13:00-15:00) Parents welcome to watch the events and stay afterwards to enjoy the BBQ and games with your children.
Tuesday 14th July: EYFS Summer Celebration (14:15-15:15) – Parents are invited to attend for an afternoon of games, crafts and a mini certificate celebration!
Friday 17th July: Last day of Summer 2 Term
Tinshill Drive
Cookridge
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS16 7DH
0113 386 2500
