Autumn Term 2024
We have had a fabulous couple of weeks in Reception! We have enjoyed settling in and making lots of new friends! Take a look at what we have been up to!
All about me!
This week we have been looking at our facial features. We have drawn our own self portraits after looking in the mirror and identifying our features. We have spoken about our five senses and which sense belongs to which facial feature and how this body part helps us. We have also made portraits using collage materials for our ‘This is me’ display. Later in the week, we looked at our artist of the term Pablo Picasso. We all thought his artwork was very funny and we loved learning facts such as Picasso only used blue when he was sad! We then drew our self portraits again but this time in the style of Picasso. We have also enjoyed developing our cutting skills and made our own silly faces to go up on our display!
Autumn days….
We have started to learn about our next season Autumn and what seasonal changes happen during this time. We have really enjoyed going out into our garden and picking apples from the tree, which we then used to make apple crumble. We spoke about knife safety, with Mrs Wake who helped us to cut our apples, and then Mrs Hewitt boiled them in a pan with water and sugar. We then made the crumble mix with Miss Hetherington before we were able to do the best part… eat our crumble! It was delicious!
The Three Little Pigs
This week we have been learning all about the traditional tale of the Three Little Pigs. We have had lots of fun reading and acting our the story using props. We have also been very busy sequencing the story and retelling the story in our own words. We have made pigs out of playdough, collaged our own pigs and mixed red and white paint to create our own pig pictures. We have really enjoyed making our own houses out of sweet treats and using the hair dryer to replicate the big bad wolf blowing our houses down. We all showed excellent team work skills, ideas and resilience.
We have also been looking at our development and how we have grown since we were a baby. We have enjoyed sequencing photographs of how we have changed from a baby until now. We have loved learning all about where we live, how we live in the UK and using Google maps to find our houses. We have also discussed the different different types of houses we live in and common features of a house.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!
The children have really enjoyed working in groups to create their houses out of sweets treats. They thought carefully about what they would use and why. Take a look at our amazing sweet houses and the big bad wolf blowing down the houses. We really enjoyed completing our experiment. Team 3 we our winners, well done!
Harvest and Autumn
We have been learning all about Harvest and what we are thankful for.
We have looked at what season harvest falls in and have also learnt all about Autumn and how we spot the signs of Autumn.
We have read the story of the little red hen makes pizza with Mrs Skipp and talked about how Christians believe that God gave us wheat and grain. We really enjoyed decorating our pizzas.
We went into our allotment in the garden and harvested some vegetables. We found carrots and potatoes below the ground. We used these to create repeated patterns, which was our focus in maths along with comparing mass, length and capacity.
Whilst outside we looked for signs of autumn and observed how the trees are changing, the leaves falling and how the colours of the leaves are changing.
We have loved learning about Harvest and Autumn and we are very thankful!
World Space week
We’ve had a great week exploring space in Reception! We have been very busy learning about Neil Armstrong and Tim Peake. We have been looking at the different planets, modern day astronauts and how they travel. We have enjoyed learning about what space is, what we see in space, what planets are in space and how we get to space. We have learnt how it is dark and cold in space. We have also made a space display with a rocket and planets, created planet suncatchers for our windows, sang space songs, wrote what we would take to space and thought carefully about the initial sound in words. We have also completed space yoga and created rockets out of 2D shapes.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, homes and maps!
This week we have read the story of Goldilocks and the Three bears. We have talked about the characters, setting and plot of the story. We have linked this to our topic work on homes and used this to talk about the different rooms in a house and what items/furniture you would find in each room. We have looked at different objects and learnt lots of new vocabulary. We have tried hard with our cutting skills to cut pictures out to stick into the correct rooms of a house. We have also created a map of the UK using collage materials and spoke about how maps help us and what we can locate on them. We have created our own maps to school using pictures of the places we pass on our way to school. We then used and aerial map of our school to locate different classrooms, the dinner hall and the sports hall. We have also had lots of fun building houses for the bears, retelling the story using props, playing with the dolls house and making bears in the creative area. Take a look at what we’ve been up to!
Local landmarks
We have been learning all about our local landmarks this week. We have really enjoyed looking at the different bridges in Sunderland, Roker lighthouse, the Stadium of Light and Penshaw Monument. We have discussed the purpose of a lighthouse and bridge and how they help us. We have also talked about the location of these landmarks in Sunderland and where they are situated. We then played a matching game with these. We have really enjoyed creating structures of our local landmarks in the creative area. In maths, we have been looking at subitising and matching number to an amount.
Bonfire Night.
This week we have been learning all about Bonfire night. We have looked at the history of Guy Fawkes and where the gun powder plot happened. We have spoken about Bonfire night and how we celebrate it. We have also looked at the artist Jackson Pollock and created some amazing art work outside using sticks and paint brushes. We have also looked at the different noises fireworks make and pretended to be fireworks and danced Handel’s music for Royal fireworks. We have created lots of amazing art work and collage pictures to represent fireworks and bonfires and created structures of the houses of parliament in the construction area. We have also completed science experiments with fizzy vitamins to create rockets and used milk and food colouring to create firework style patterns. We ended the week by taking part in some traditional firework traditions and had hot chocolate and ‘hot dogs’.
Remembrance
This week we have been learning all about Remembrance Day. We have spoken about why we remember and how we remember by wearing our poppy. We have made our own poppies in the style of George Seurat, created our own cenotaphs using construction blocks, listened to Pipes of Peace by Paul McCartney, dressed up as soldiers and spoke about how the armed forces help us. In PE, we completed an army assault course to se if we were up for the challenge of joining the military!
Take a look at some of our amazing work this week!
Anti-bullying week
We have also taken part in anti-bullying week, wore our odd socks to show how we are unique and created kind hand prints for our whole school assembly. We then thought of different ways of how we can be kind to each other to share with our friends.
Children in Need
Visit from Marley Potts Fire brigade!
Nursery rhyme week
This week we have taken part in national Nursery rhyme week! We have had lots of fun singing twinkle, twinkle, Old Macdonald, the big ship sails, incy wincy and 5 currant buns.
Twinkle Twinkle
On Monday, we spoke about stars, read how to catch a star, sang twinkle twinkle and made our own star wands.
Old Macdonald
On Tuesday, we sang Old Macdonald with props, explored the small world animals and the noises the farmyard animals make. We made our own animal masks from paper plates using different craft resources.
The big ship sails
On Wednesday, we sang the big ship sails and created our own ships outside as a team using large scale construction materials. We spoke about boats and ships they materials they are made out of and how they float. We also spoke about how the boat sank in song. We linked our learning to water safety and the importance of learning how to swim. We then spoke about how Sunderland was a ship building City and looked at pictures from the past and compared them to now. We loved seeing that our bridges are still here now!
Incy wincy spider
On Thursday, we sang incy wincy spider and learnt some amazing spider facts! We also made a craft spider and attached a ‘drain pipe’.
5 currant buns
On Friday, we sang 5 currant buns. We enjoyed baking currant buns and had to follow the instructions very carefully. We then iced our buns and added a cherry. We set up a little shop and used these whilst singing out song. After, we got to taste them! They were yummy!
Celebrating Diwali
This week we have been learning all about the Hindu and Sikh celebration of Diwali. We have learnt the story of Rima and Sita and why Diwali is celebrated. We have read stories and watched videos to help us to learn about how Diwali is celebrated and what traditions are carried out during this 5-day festival. We have created our own rangoli and mehndi patterns. We have also made our own Diya lamps which we are going to decorate and celebrate. Linking to our topic we have been looking at light and dark and talking about different light sources. We have also explored creating shadows with torches which we absolutely loved. Later in the week, we complete some Diwali dancing and made a sweet ‘coconut barfi’.
The Bubble man!
To celebrate our wonderful behaviour we were lucky enough to have the Bubble man visit us this week. We loved watching the Bubble man complete his amazing tricks! Take a look at him and us in action!
Santa Dash
The Nativity
We have been learning all about the Christmas story and using actions to help us to remember the story. We have been learning about why Christians celebrate Christmas and talking about how we celebrate it.
A trip to the Theatre to see Tinsel
On Wednesday, we went to Washington Arts Centre to watch Tinsel. We really enjoyed the show and the teachers were very proud of our behaviour and how we represented Southwick. We enjoyed listening to the story of the fairy and loved dancing to the music.
Christmas Parent workshop
On Friday, we were lucky enough to have our parents come and visit us in school. We enjoyed working together to complete different crafts. Thank you for all coming and Merry Christmas!
A visit to Holy Trinity Church
On Tuesday we went to visit Holy Trinity church to find out more about how Christians celebrate Christmas and why? We listened to the Christmas story and acted this out with Nikki. We had lots of fun exploring different toys at the church. We coloured in Nativity scenes, played with animals and used the large scale construction blocks to create stables and a manger for Baby Jesus.
Christmas time!
