Whew! What a scorcher of a week! The extreme heat this week has been something to contend with for Reception this week, but we’ve made the best of it and tried to stay cool as best we could. The water area was particularly enticing this week with lots of children experimenting with moving items down water channels made in different configurations. In the hottest part of the day we restricted children who preferred to be outdoors to sitting in the shade with some books which was lovely and relaxing. On Thursday, Mrs Hunter even treated all the children in school to an ice pop to help cool us all down!
As Wednesdays’ Sport’s Day could not go ahead as planned this week due to the hot weather, the school surprised all the kids with a Slip ‘n’ Slide fun day. The Reception children had a whale of a time flinging themselves down the hill and cooling off. Hopefully (if the weather plays ball) we shall now be having our Sport’s Day on Thursday next week (2nd July).
Cautious of over-exertion in the heat, we kept Thursday’s Forest Schools sessions simple this week. The children loved having time to enjoy the climbing frame (luckily fairly well shaded!) and the other play equipment, whilst many chose to help out watering all the crops in the vegetable garden with the hose. The hose may also have been turned on the kids at times as a welcome shower!
Our topic all about dinosaurs continued this week, with the focus of looking at how dinosaurs evolved and how creatures still living today are related to the extinct reptiles. We learned that birds are in fact the closest living relation to dinosaurs and we focused on looking at the cassowary bird of Australia. The children closely studied pictures of these amazing flightless birds and wrote down their observations on sticky notes. There was also a challenge to cut and stick 2D shapes into position to make some stylized dinosaur pictures, whilst some also chose to try their hands at junk modelling and turned boxes, tubes and carboard into their very own dinosaur models.
Outside (when the heat allowed!) we have a station set up for the children to test their balance and co-ordination with a selection of bean-bag challenges – balancing. throwing and catching them with impressive skill! The final challenge we encouraged was a speaking task, where the children had to complete a course and then recount what they had done to an adult using the correct past tense verbs (“I wrote my name,” rather than “I writed by name,” for example).
In phonics sessions this week we have really challenged the children by applying all their amazing reading and writing skills to have a go at using polysyllabic words. These longer words require the children to listen carefully and break the words down into parts or ‘chunks’ to spell them or when reading them within sentences. We also had another chance to do some role-play this week, with the children having a great time retelling the traditional tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Our maths sessions this week have focused on exploring the make up of numbers up to 20 (and in some cases beyond!) as well as having a go at some addition problems.
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:
Thursday 2nd July: 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
