Welcome to Reception!
SUMMER TERM PE DAY: Wednesday.
Please see our Half Termly Curriculum Overview for a detailed look of all the learning that will take place in Reception this Half term.
Our Enquiry Question this Half Term is "Are all creatures Great or Small?"
We will be learning about a variety of different living and non-living creatures!
Week 1
We were very excited before the Easter holiday to find that we have a pair of large adult frogs and clusters of frog spawn in our pond! This led us to choosing to focus our learning on Frog and their life cycle in our first week back.
We have been pond dipping and found that the frog spawn hatched over the holidays and there are tiny tadpoles in our pond now. We have learnt the stages of the fogs lifecycle, we have learnt about different types of frogs including poisonous dart frogs and goliath frogs.
We have read information books together and found out what frogs like to eat and how they eat. We know that frogs can breathe underwater and on land and drink through their skin!
We looked at other pond life and found out about other creatures and insects that lay eggs both in and around water.
We really enjoyed singing five speckled frogs in our maths work and we learnt to estimate and subitise numbers to 10.
Week 2
This week we focused our learning around tiny garden creatures. We began the week with bug hunt and collected lots of interesting minibeast to look more closely at with magnifying glasses and microscopes.
We learnt to sort and classify the minibeast we found and we talked about their special features using vocabulary such as thorax, abdomen, exoskeleton and wings.
The children chose their favourite minibeast to write an interesting fact about.
We learnt to use information books, and websites to ‘research’ our minibeast and shared what we found out together.
In our knowledge of the World sessions we studied the life cycles of butterflies and stick insects and we have learnt how to take good care of these insects in our classroom. Our butterflies are currently in their cocoons and most of our stick insect eggs have hatched.
We have kept a close eye on our tadpoles too, some of them are beginning to grow their legs and turning into froglets!
Week 3
This week is a very short week. We only two days together in class.
We have continued our work on Minibeasts on Tuesday and finished off our amazing fact sheets!
On Friday we learnt about the Kings Coronation and discussed the significance of the events over the weekend. The children know the name of our new King and Queen and know why some people will be celebrating this weekend.
We will have a small visit from Rainforest Dave later in the half term and he will come to show us some very large and exciting insects he has found in the rainforest!
Week 4
This week’s learning will be all about safari animals and wild animals such as leopards, cheetahs, lions and tigers. The children have already told us they would like to learn about snakes and monkeys.
We will discover what these animals eat and find out about their natural habitats. We will make comparisons between these animals and look for similarities and differences.
We will discover where these animals originate from and locate new places around the world on a globe and world map.
In our art and craft area we will be looking closely at camouflage and animal patterns and using this to influence our own designs and creations.
Week 5
At the start of this week we will be continuing our work on animals and finishing our letters to the Zoo. We will be writing letters describing our favourite animals and telling them why we like these animals the most. We will ask the zoo to send us these animals so we can keep them as pets! We will think very carefully about our choices, don’t worry!
Later in the week we will be learning all about the 2010’s decade, in preparation for our Coronation celebrations on Friday.
This Friday will be our Whole School Coronation Party at lunch time and the children will be invited to dress up in red white and blue clothing or clothing that celebrates the 2010’s decade.
We will be creating a large time line of events including the year in which the children were born!
Special events include the birth of new Royal Family members, Royal weddings, the building of our school extension, the first ipad was launched, coronavirus pandemic, the Olympics and other sporting events.
Week 6
This week we will be learning all about dinosaurs!
We will learn the names of some common dinosaurs. We will sort and classify carnivores, herbivores and omnivores and learn about the diets of different dinosaurs.
We will measure the size of a T-rex and use everyday objects to help us make relevant companions.
Our EYFS garden may be welcoming a new arrival in a nest that we will build together! We will make predictions and use descriptive language to describe the dinosaur inside the egg!
The children will learn what it is to be a palaeontologist and how dinosaur remains are discovered and taken from different places around the world.
The children will be able to make their own fossils with playdough and dig for bones in different places.
The children have already asked to learn about how dinosaurs died and why there are no dinosaurs now. The children also want to learn more information about Tyrannosaurus Rex!
We will be making footprints and measuring the size of it using our own feet! I wonder how many Reception children’s feet we can fit into the foot print of a T-Rex!
We hope you have a lovely holiday! See you after the break!