Spring Term 1 – Week 2 

• We are powering through our level 3 phonics!
• We are having so much fun writing captions and we are doing amazingly well!
• We have been enjoying the story of the Hundred Decker Bus and designing our own decks – we had everything from a soft play deck to a superhero restaurant!
• We have been exploring the number 7 and all the different ways we could make it.  We even made a giant coloured rainbow with 7 colours for our corridor display.
• We have been thinking about cars and watching how mechanics check and mend them.
• We have been building our own cars from fruit boxes for our garage role play area.
• We have been on an icy, cold and crunchy walk to look for signs of winter.
• We visited Trevor the Tree and noticed that he doesn’t have any heaves on his branches.
• We were fascinated by the ice when we were playing in our outdoor area. This led to some great observations, questions and investigations!
• In P.E we have been practising our throwing, aiming and catching as we pretended to be aeroplanes travelling to other countries

Spring Term 1 – Week 1 

• We have been talking about what we did over the Christmas holidays. We used sound mats to write about our favourite memory!
• We’ve loved watching Wacky Races in drawing club!
• We have thought about which vehicles travel in the air, which on land, which on rails or water.
• We have been looking at how vehicles have changed over the years and thinking about why that is.
• We have been thinking about how to cross the road safely and practising by crossing at the zebra crossing in the school grounds.  We had to look and listen carefully as Miss Jones was driving around the roundabout!
• Our role play area is set up as a garage and we have been building vehicles to fix in it.
• We have been playing lots of games in P.E linked to transport. This week we were police cars and had to catch the robbers. We were also formula one drivers and had to be the first to get to the finish line!
• We have been exploring the number 6, thinking about doubles and halves and different groups of numbers that make 6.
• We have hunted for number 6 in our woodlands.
• We have been thinking about goals and dreams in P S.H.E

   

Autumn Term 2 – Week 4 

• We have loved listening to the story of the gingerbread man this week.
• We have sequenced the story.
• We have enjoyed writing about the gingerbread man and thinking of new characters for the story, such as Stinky Cheeseman!
• We’ve started a drawing club, which we absolutely love!
• We’ve baked gingerbread men and enjoyed them for an afternoon snack.
• We also investigated what would happen to gingerbread men as they crossed rivers made of different things. We tried water, vinegar and oil and had great fun making predictions and observations!
• We have been listening to the Christmas story and discussing the new words that we have learnt, such as ‘Bethlehem’, ‘shepherds’ and ‘inn’.
• We have started learning the songs for our nativity show!
• We’ve been looking at one more and one less in maths.  We noticed that we moved forwards and backwards when looking at a number line and it was the number before or after.
• We have been in school for 50 days! Halfway to our 100 Day Celebration!
• Yes, it’s time to mention the ‘C’ word – we have started to think about Christmas.

Autumn Term 2 – Week 3  

• We have learnt the new letter sounds h, b, l and f.
• We have been looking carefully at the letters ‘b’ and ‘d’, spotting the difference between them and having a go at writing them.  (I have sent home a sheet that we have been using in the classroom). 
• We loved playing Musical Tricky Words to practise reading the words I, to, no, go and the.
• We have been using cubes to make different shapes and spotting that, even though the shape might change, the number of cubes stays the same.
• We’ve also been exploring one more and one less than numbers in maths.
• We’ve been thinking about how many days we have been in school and getting excited about the party we will have when we have been in school for 100 days!
• We made new houses for the little pigs both inside the classroom and outside in the woods.
• We had a go at trying to make a house strong enough to withstand the huff and puff of the Big Bad leaf blower Wolf!
• We dressed up for Once Upon a Time Day.
• We had good fun and a boogie at our first school disco!
• We took part in Dr Ranj’s mindfulness session, as part of Children in Need.

Autumn Term 2 – Week 2 

• We have learnt the new letter sounds e, u and r.
• This week, we have immersed ourselves in the story of the Jack and the Beanstalk.
• We imagined what we could find at the top of the beanstalk instead of a giant’s castle.
• We had great fun counting beans and practising our number recognition whilst doing so.
• We planted a bean to see if we could grow our own beanstalks.
• We painted beanstalks in all colours.
• Most excitingly, we found giant footprints in our class along with a letter from a very friendly giant who needed a new pair of shoes! We measured his feet using blocks and had great fun writing letters to him so that we could help him to buy a brand-new pair of shoes.
• We decided to measure our own feet.
• We enjoyed yoga in P.E.
• We have enjoyed thinking about our strengths in our Jigsaw time.
• We made a giant poppy to display in the Fire Station for Remembrance Day – we would love to see photos if you spot it in the village!

Autumn Term 2 – Week 1 

• We have loved sharing our half term news and hearing about the lovely things people have been doing.
• At the start of each day, we practise writing our names and we are making fabulous progress at this!
• We have danced around to practise our Tricky Words (the and to).
• We have been blending sounds together to make words and have even had a go at writing them.
• We have been painting and decorating our diva lamps.
• We continued to think about Diwali and enjoyed our Diwali Walk of Light.  The children have created beautiful lamps.  These were laid out around the classroom and lit so the children could walk through them.  The atmosphere really was magical.
• We enjoyed some Halloween fun where we made potions, baked pumpkin cookies and counted ghosts.
• We have been planting bulbs in our garden. We can’t wait to see how they grow!
• We’ve enjoyed the story of Little Red Riding Hood which led to some fantastic writing!
• We’ve re-enacted the story in the woods, which ended with the big Bad
• We have been thinking about the Three Billy Goats Gruff and comparing their sizes. 
• The Three Billy Goats Gruff story also gave us the opportunity to build bridges for the goats to cross the bridge. This involved careful thinking and problem solving.
• We also loved making playdough trolls and exploring different textures in the playdough.
• We have also had our first fire alarm practise and we were AMAZING!

Autumn Term 1 - Week 7  

• We learned our first digraph – where two letters make one sound.  We learned that ‘ck’ makes a ‘k’ sound and you don’t sound them separately.  We are looking forward to learning lots more digraphs!
• Whilst learning about ‘ck’ we played hook the duck and had great fun making duck masks!
• We have been blending sounds together to make words.
• We have learnt the tricky word the.
• We have explored triangles!
• We have been on a subitising hunt – looking for groups of dots that represent different numbers.
• We have enjoyed learning about Diwali.
• We have started to make diva lamps, in preparation for Diwali.
• We have made Rangoli patterns, firework art and looked at beautiful Mendi designs.
• We have introduced a new puppet theatre into the Reception classroom to promote lots of lovely language opportunities.

Autumn Term 1 - Week 6 

• When learning g, we crossed a golden river whilst being chased by a green gorilla!
• When learning o, we made a silly soup!
• We made long and short caterpillars out of play dough when we were learning the c sound.
• When learning k, we made a huge kangaroo covered in a collage of letters we have learnt so far.
• We have been practising writing our names.
• We have been looking closely at the numerals 1, 2 and 3.
• We have been spotting smaller groups of objects within bigger groups.
• We have been painting our carrot character for the Crowthorne Trails.
• We have been reading lots of autumn stories and enjoyed learning new and interesting words.
• We worked together to make a giant hedgehog out of leaves.
• We made leaf people
• On Forest Friday we had so much fun making patterns with the leaves. We threaded them on sticks so that we can bring them home to share with you 😊

Autumn Term 1 - Week 5 

• We have been practising our phonics sounds and how to write them.
• We have listened really carefully to spot initial sounds of objects and in words.
• We have been blending sounds together to make words.
• When learning i, we danced like insects to the ‘Flight of the Bumblebee.’
• When learning n, we were squirrels collecting ‘nuts’ and we were fantastic at blending the sounds that we collected.
• When learning m, we played in the mud kitchen and explored our magical garden.
• We played the drums when learning d and performed in a marching band.
• We have been practising writing our names with the correct letter formation.
• We have explored patterns both inside and outside.
• We have printed patterns with potatoes and made patterns out of Lego.
• We have worked so hard at practising our songs for the Harvest Festival!
• We made bread for the Harvest Festival and delivered loaves around the school for everyone to share.

Autumn Term 1 - Week 4 

• Lots of phonics!
• We played Silly Soup when learning the letter sound for s.
• When learning the letter sound for a, we printed with apples.
• We had a toys tea party when learning about the letter t. Our toys were very lucky as they got to sample lots of our playdoh delights!
• We made porridge when learning about p. We had porridge for our snack and also delivered it to the teachers in the other classes. Afterwards, we read the Magic Porridge Pot.
• We’ve really enjoyed singing our new phonics songs! Hopefully you’re enjoying these at home too!
• We have sorted and matched objects using different criteria.
• We’ve been exploring our feelings and emotions with our colour monsters!
• We’ve been thinking about our families this week and who lives in our house with us.
• We have started to practise our songs for the Harvest Festival!
• We’ve explored our woodlands for signs of autumn.
• We’ve been travelling up the ‘Door of Wonder!’

Autumn Term 1 - Week 3 

• We have been improving our listening skills and enjoyed playing lots of fun listening games.
• We have been drawing and painting fantastic self-portraits.
• We have been writing in all different areas of our play, both inside and outside.
• We have been counting anything and everything!
• We have been making Christmas Cards! These will be coming home soon!
• We have adopted a tree! We are going to observe how our special tree changes through the seasons.
• We met a baby squirrel called Bear. We were so thoughtful and quite when the visitor brought her to our class to tell us how she had been rescued.
• We loved playing the Bean game in P.E.
• We have been to a dough disco!
• We have mastered lining up in alphabetical order for our lunch and we have settled well into our lunchtime routine 😊.

What have we been doing in our first full week at school?

• We have enjoyed singing lots of rhymes. The children have impressed us with their ability to find rhyming objects!
• We have toured the school and particularly enjoyed meeting Mrs Fleck who works in our school office.
• We have been working hard to remember which colour group we are in. We loved making colourful, shiny medals to help us remember this.
• We have been learning to work together by playing parachute games.
• We have been creating play dough masterpieces.
• We had our first Muddy Monday session – although it was on a Thursday rather than a Monday 😊.
• We have visited the library and chosen a book to bring home and share with you. These will be changed every two weeks.
• We had our first PE session! 
• We have been to the playground on the bikes and scooters.