It’s not quite the end of the world but we have faced an extinction level event in Reception this week! As part of of our Dinosaurs topic, we have been learning about the most popular theory of how the dinosaurs came to die out on the Earth around 66 million years ago. We talked about what meteoroids are and how they are rocks from space that fall to Earth as meteors. To demonstrate how most of these rocks burn up as they move through the atmosphere, the children had a go at ‘flying’ small pieces of chalk along the playground floor towards a representation of Earth. Most found that the chalk wore away though friction and didn’t make it to hit the Earth’s surface, but larger pieces of chalk made it down to the planet’s surface. We then learned that the meteorite that crashed to Earth 66 million years ago in the Gulf of Mexico is believed to have been between 6 and 9 miles wide! We saw via Google Earth that this was bigger than our school – bigger than Cookridge – and in fact as big as the whole of Leeds! We saw on screen lots of images of craters left my meteors falling but to really explore the concept we took to the playground and experimented by dropping ‘meteors’ into trays of flour and water to see the impact of larger and larger rocks. Though this got a little messy, it clearly showed the wide reaching impact of a large collision like the one that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs.
We have kept the children busy with some dino-themed challenges this week again. In our art area, the children tried their hand at squirting and blowing yellow, red and orange paint to create a lava eruption from a volcano. The children were encouraged to play a board came called ‘Dino-Snore-us’ with their friends, making sure to take turns and co-operate to read the end of the game. We also had a map reading challenge, with the children asked to follow some written directions using north, east, south and west compass points to lead them to one of three caves on a large map. Many children also had a go at using small dino toys to fill in ten’s frames and writing number sentences to show these number bonds to ten. Outside the children had a blast trying to free dinosaurs trapped in ice blocks. They were not allowed to smash the ice but had to find ways to accelerate the melting process which led to a lot of thinking and collaborative work – some found warmer surfaces nearby to move the ice to whilst some utilized hot water to free the little dinosaurs.
As we head towards the end of the school year, and things get a little busy, we made time for our last Reading Buddies session with our friends in Class 10. As the weather was so lovely we took our books out to the field and read outside for a change. This time together with the older children has been a joy to see and over the course of the year the Reception children have build a really good b0nd with them and will surely miss their buddies next year as they head off to high school.
In our last proper phonics sessions in Reception we have been looking at words with three adjacent consonants (words such as scrunch or strap) as these clusters of sounds can be hard for children to discern when it comes to spelling. The children engaged in activities to practice reading and writing words with these consonant clusters and even had a go at putting together a dance routine with some moves such as ‘starspring’ ‘strut’ or ‘scrunch’.
Our Maths sessions this week really put the children’s number-sense to the test as we tried our a few problem solving activities. We had to think about numbers ‘one more’ or ‘one less’ to complete a set of loop cards where each card gave a clue to the next; had a go sorting number sentences by their solutions (requiring some brilliant mental maths); and trying to work out how many legs would be inside a boat just from looking at the top half of different combinations of people and animals (a boat of two men and a dog for example would contain 8 less – bar any unforeseen injuries!).
From this point on school reading books will not be sent home as we need to inventory the school library and prepare for the summer break. Please return any outstanding books as soon as possible. There remains the range of Rhino Readers books available to share via the Twinkl Phonics app to keep reading over the summer break – should you need reminding of your child’s log-in just ask.
There are a lot of fun games and activities on the Twinkl and Purple Mash and Numbots websites and apps that can be enjoyed over the summer break. We encourage children to practise using these at home and especially if they can practise logging in themselves as this is a skill that will come in very handy in Year 1. If you have misplaced these log-ins please let a member of staff know and we will get a new one printed out.
Have a lovely weekend!
The Reception Team.
Mr Verdi, Mrs Andrews, Mrs Bray, Mrs Good and Mr Waterworth (for those that were asking for the names of staff in Reception!).
DATES FOR THE DIARY:
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
