Week 8 in Class R

Class: Reception Year: 2023 - 2024

This week, we read the story Pattan’s Pumpkin by Chitra Soundar. The children discussed in their partners what they could see in the picture from the story. We spoke about where the story is set and looked at pictures of India. We discussed how the children would travel to India and looked at different methods of transport we might use to travel there, thinking that maybe a plane would be a better choice than a car. We looked at the globe and used a torch to represent the sun, showing why India is a hotter country than the United Kingdom. On Friday, we used props to retell the story and then acted it out ourselves. The children enjoyed being the rain, wind, thunder and lightning.

On Tuesday, we tasted five different foods from around the world. We tasted rice pudding with nutmeg, pineapple, mango, beetroot, and bell peppers. The children had to decide whether they enjoyed the food or did not enjoy the food. They then rated the food using different smiley faces. As a class, the children voted for their favourite food they tried. We spoke about where fruit and vegetables come from and looked at which fruits grow in hot countries and linked this to our Pattan’s Pumpkin story. 

On Wednesday, we had a very special visit from some crew at Holmes Chapel Fire Station. We prepared questions to ask them. The children enjoyed looking at the fire engine and learning about the equipment inside: hoses, medical kit, spades, ladders, and the all-important kettle and cups for if they are at an emergency job for a long time. The firefighters showed us their uniform and talked to us about how they put them on quickly when responding to an emergency. The also talked to the children about fire alarm in the homes, what they are for and what they sound like. In preparation for Bonfire Night, they discussed keeping safe around fires and fireworks; always staying with an adult.

On Monday we took part in our Golden Mile challenge. All the children ran around the trim trail and completed two laps. Well done R and Ra!

In phonics, we have learnt the sounds (phonemes) ff, ss, ll and j. We have listened to those sounds in words (orally blending) and trying to read them within words. The children are coming on really well with this and starting to spot these around the classroom too. The children learnt the tricky words, put, pull, full and as.

In our maths lessons at the start of the week, we spoke about positional language such as next to, behind, in front of, underneath, and on top of. The class had their own figure to move around their body following the positional language. We have also looked at the number 5 this week, we have looked at where it is in our counting system, counting out objects and things that cannot be seen, knowing 5 is our stopping number. As well as counting, we have looked at the cardinality ‘howmanyness’ of 5 by subitising, knowing we have 5 fingers on one hand and looking at the pattern of 5 on dice. 

For handwriting, we have revisited some curly caterpillar letters, in particular ‘a’ and we looked at how to write the number five.

PE was different this week, as we were unable to get into the hall and it was very rainy weather outside so we learnt some yoga poses in the classroom instead. We talked about the importance of balance and keeping your core strong to help us to do day to day actions like walking, running, sitting still, climbing, etc.

I hope you all have weekend and enjoy Bonfire Night if you are celebrating.