Week commencing 14/07/14

This week we have had a very fun week to celebrate all the hard work and progress this year. On Monday we went up to the ALPS to look for some natural materials to make our own musical instruments. We had lot's of amazing ideas!

On Tuesday, we looked at some of the photos we took at Blackpool Zoo and made a lovely class booklet with all the photos. We also wrote about our favourite things at the Zoo and stuck them in. 

On Wednesday we made some musical instruments from the materials we collected from the ALPS. We also climbed the top of the class treat chart, which meant we could have our 'pirate party.' 

On Thursday Miss Dingsdale brought into school lot's of treats and food for the party. In the morning we prepared for our pirate party by putting some bunting and decorations up in the classroom. It looked fab! In the afternoon we played some games and listened to lot's of One Direction and Katy Perry :) We won some prizes and had the best time ever! we were very sad it ended :( 

All of Reception F would like to say a massive thankyou to parents/carers for all your support throughout the year and are very grateful. We hope you all have a pleasant and relaxing summer holidays and look forward to seeing you in September! 

To all the children of Reception F it has been an absolute pleasure to teach you and we wish you good luck in Year One. 

Love from 

Miss Dingsdale, Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley, Mrs Moore and Mrs Guy 

xxxx

Week commencing 07/07/14

Wow! what a busy busy week we've had in Reception F. We can not believe there is only one week left to go till we finish for the summer holidays! it has all gone so quick! 

This week we learnt about 'The Zoo.' in preparation for our trip to Blackpool Zoo on Friday. On Monday morning we looked at some of the different animals that we may see when we go to the zoo and talked about which ones that we would like to see the most :) many of us can't wait to see the sea lions and the lions and tigers... To make the classroom look beautiful we painted our own zoo animals. 

This week we have been reading the book, 'Dear Zoo' by Rod Campbell.  We have looked at some of the animals in the book and the words the author describes them to the reader. We call these describing words, 'adjectives.' and now we will be trying to use them more often in our literacy work. We were able to spot words such as 'tall' and 'scary' as adjectives and used them as ideas to help us write. The writing that we produced was excellent and many of us even managed to put two adjectives in our writing... wow! 

On Wednesday afternoon we all got into our different sports day team to compete in the Reception F vs Reception W football tournament. Again, the weather was fantastic and we were all really excited to have a go in competing against the other class.  In the last match it was down to Reception F's Ivory Coast to beat Reception W's South Korea.  Photos are to follow of our tournament from the day :)

On Thursday we played a 'Dear Zoo' guessing game to see how well we could remember the book. We had to match the animals to the different boxes and all of us could remember the book off by heart! excellent listening skills :) our teachers were very proud of us 

So Friday was the day... that we've all been waiting for many weeks now. It was Blackpool Zoo Day!! whoooo! We all arrived in school on time ready for our adventure to the zoo. The weather was glorious again. 

At dinner time, we all sat on the grass in a circle to eat out dinner. It seemed to be that the animals from the Zoo were very hungry that day as a flock of geese came to have a nosy at what we were eating and the naughty seagulls kept flying really low to try and grab some of the food from us! how cheeky! 

Unfortunately, we missed the Sea Lion Display :( but we did get to have a look at them after dinner time. We also looked at some of the penguins, they were very friendly! and kept tapping at us on the window screen. 

In the 'Big Cats' area we managed to see the tigers and lions. At first they were really shy, but we waited around for a while and they eventually came out to see us boys and girls :)

Week commencing 23/06/14-04/07/14

Welcome back to the Reception F blog. Sorry we haven't updated in a while. Over the last couple of weeks we have been doing many exciting things in class. 

As we have been learning about different countries last week we thought we would take a closer look at England. We learnt about many different places in our country and what kinds of things we would see if we visited there.We know that our country has a very special Royal Family. We looked at the different members of the Royal Family and talked about the important things the Queen does for our country. We also discovered that the Queens head is on all of our money that we spend so she must be a very important lady! As an activity we created our very own crowns. 

Throughout our topic of England we also looked at English food. As we seem to enjoy baking as much as Miss Dingsdale we made our very own fairy cakes and decorated them with an england theme. We had them for afternoon snack and they tasted absolutely delicious :P

In maths we continued to practise our number ordering and looking at 3d shapes. Some of us are now able to sort 2d and 3d shapes correctly even naming the shapes with confidence. We also learnt our days of the week.  Our teachers learnt us a song about remembering the days of the week in order. We can't stop singing it now!

The song sounds like the addams family but we added our own words to it

Days of the week (clap clap)

Days of the week (clap clap)

Days of the week (clap clap)

days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (clap clap)

There's Monday and there's Tuesday, there's Wednesday and there's thursday, there's Friday and there's Saturday and then there's SUNDAY!

Days of the week (clap clap) 

Days of the week (clap clap)

Days of the week (clap clap) 

days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (clap clap)

Our teachers are very proud of us and we are very ready to start Year One. 

Sports Day

This week, we all took part it Sports Day. We were all split up into five different teams; Australia, England, South Korea, Ivory Coast and Brazil. We must remember these teams for when we take part in our Football Tournament in a couple of weeks :)

On the morning, we were blessed. The weather as the sun was shining and the grass was dry, which meant it was perfect for competing. During the morning we all had a fabulous time taking part in the different races and activities. 

There were three different races that we took part in, these were; 100 metre race, egg and spoon race and the sack race. 

Here are some photos of what we got up to during the morning. There will be more photos to follow of us participating in the races. 

Week commencing 16/06/14

This week in Reception F we went up to Year One to look at our new classroom and meet our new teacher, Miss Moorcroft. We loved our time in the classroom as we got to see what our classroom looks like. We also got to know Miss Moorcroft and spend time with her.  

On Wednesday we played some maths games in the playground. This was really exciting and we can't wait to play more maths games like this next year. 

On Thursday we went to the alps and read the book, 'The Gruffalo.'Some of the animals in the book were hidden in the Alps and it was our job to find them. On the way back to class we also discovered the gruffalos pawprints and some us even thought we spotted him! when we got back to class we created some wanted posters to find the gruffalo. Many of us did some super writing and described what he looked like. 

   This is a picture of Miss Moorcroft our new teacher. 

Here are some pictures of the types of activities we did during the day. We really enjoyed ourselves. 

We loved what our classroom looks like. We can't wait to spend time in it. The role play area looks amazing! we enjoyed spending time in the spaceship. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend and come back to school on Monday ready for another fun filled week!

love from 

All of Reception F, Miss Dingsdale, Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley, Mrs Moore and Mrs Guy. 

xxx

Hello and welcome back to the school blog. 

The World Cup begins this week so we have decided to focus on different countries around the world. 

On Tuesday we looked at Italy. We learnt many interesting things about the country and decided to look at the sorts of foods they eat. We designed our very own ice cream sundaes and made them. We were spoilt for choice for what to put on them!  Yummy! 

We had some amazing ideas! 

To continue the Italian theme, on Wednesday we made some pizza and thought about 'healthy' toppings that we could put on. We also counted how many things we put on our pizza.

In the afternoon we looked at Brazil and made a Brazilian instrument to celebrate the World Cup. They look fab! We will take these home with us and everytime England score a goal we will give them a good shake!

On Thursday we went on our journey to France. As France is famous for it's delicious breads and pastries we got to try some of the different varieties. We all tucked into some croissants, pain au chocolat, broiche and baguette. The baguette was a hit! Miss Dingsdale and Mrs Fields also taught us some French words which we remembered really well! 

Over the past few weeks we have loved spending time in the role play areas. In the classroom we have a Manchester Airport were we can pretend to be a person who works at the airport.  Outside we have been also playing in the ice cream parlour and pirate ship :) its great fun!

We hope you have a lovely weekend. Come on England! 

love from all of Reception F, Miss Dingsdale, Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley, Mrs Moore and Mrs Guy

x 

In Reception F we've had another busy week! 

Monday was a very practical and fun day. In the morning we had an exciting PE lesson practising different types of movements accross the hall. In the afternoon we went with our teachers to the ALPS on a monster number hunt. As we've been looking at number recognition lots in class, Miss Dingsdale give us each a post it note with a  number written on it. We then walked ALPS in search for our numbers.  When we found them we ordered the numbers from smallest to biggest. 

On Tuesday we wrote some Monster Invitations inviting our parent/carers into school on Wednesday the 21st May to come and look at all the fantastic work we have done about monsters in the last few weeks. Our writing was absolutely fantastic and we got to use our creative skills by decorating our very own envelopes to put the invites in.  

On Wednesday we practised our reading skills by reading some monster 'tricky' words. We blew all our teachers socks off with how we blended the sounds. Also well done to Laycie for reading 'Za Za's Baby Brother all on your own. Mrs Moore was amazed by how well you read it 

In the afternoon we looked at 'length.' Miss Dingsdale sat us on the carpet and explained how we measure length. A few children were picked to come and lie on the carpet in front of the others to see who was long and shorter. We then got split into groups with our grown ups. Mrs Baggaley went outside with a group of us and we measured one another using chalk. Mrs Fields worked with another group of us looking breadsticks. We had to decide and put in order the shortest to longest. We got to eat them with a dip afterwards! yummmyyy  

Some of us also worked with Miss Dingsdale using our very own rulers to measure objects and learning a little bit about 'cm.' Well done to all the children who knew what cm was, you amazed the teachers.

 In the classroom we had lots of activities related to length. In the literacy area we wrote about long and short flowers with our grown ups. In the maths area we had to sort long and short objects into two different boxes. In the creative area we painted some long and short flowers. 

On Thursday we received a postcard from Miss Quayle over in the Isle of Man. Miss Dingsdale read the postcard out to us in class and we had a little talk about where the Isle Of Man is. We found out some interesting things about the island and we would like to find out some more things. 

As a follow up from the postcard being sent on Friday we decided to create scrap book to send back to Miss Quayle with a little collection of pictures and postcards from us of what we've been upto in school. Once we have finished this book we will go to the post office and post it to her as a thankyou for thinking about us. 

Hello and welcome back to the Summer Term. We hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Easter Break.

In Reception F, since we returned  we’ve had a busy but exciting couple of weeks.  Up till half term we are taking part in a ‘monster maths’ themed month. Everything we do in class will help enhance and develop our maths skills.

So… this week our focus on maths is ‘Shapes and measures’

On Monday we named 2d shapes and their properties. We understood how many sides each shape had and could tell the difference between a square and a rectangle.  Some of us blew the socks off our teachers and could even identify the names of some 3d shapes! Wow! 

We practised drawing some of the 2d shapes independently and wrote next to the shape how many sides they have. When we completed this activity our teachers tested us on how many shapes we could draw in one minute. Many of us showed our competitive side and was able to draw least 5 shapes J well done!

On Tuesday we did a little bit of baking.  We made some ‘ Monster Cookies.’ We  followed a recipe with our teachers and measured each ingredient accurately using scales and other equipment. The biscuits turned out brilliantly and we got to decorate them with icing in the afternoon and have them for snack.

The recipe to make the biscuits is below if any of you would like to make some at home.

125g/4oz butter

55g/2oz caster sugar

180g/6oz Plain Flour

You may want to add some chocolate chips if you want J Don’t forget some monster cutters too!

On Wednesday morning we practised counting  money totals using  1p and 2p coins. Miss Dingsdale gave us some monsters inc characters to buy from the Monster Shop.  In small groups we worked out how many coins we would need to by the monsters… Some of us could even add up the totals of three monsters.

In the afternoon , we moved onto ‘doubling numbers.’ We practised this by going on a ‘monsters picnic.’ At our picnic we had two monsters ‘Fred’ and ‘Bob’ who each had a plate each. We gave Fred them each some bananas, but whatever Fred had on his plate we would ‘double’ the amount for Bob. For example if Fred had ‘1’ banana, Bob would end up with ‘2’ on his plate because we doubled the number. We continued practising this with numbers upto 5.  J We all did fantastic and impressed our teachers.

As our teachers were mega impressed we moved onto ‘halving numbers’ on Thursday morning. We cut a cake in half and shared some kit kat fingers equally between two people to improve our understanding.  In the afternoon we had a go at measuring different objects in the classroom using different sized monsters. The longest thing we measured was the cupboard. The shortest was one of the toys in the small world area. We will continue learning some of the correct vocabulary to use when measuring things.  This activity will help us next week when measuring how tall we are on our ‘Metre Monster height chart.’ J

From all the teaching staff in Reception F we hope you have a lovely weekend and a fun bank holiday. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday. Take care.

Love from

All of Reception F children, Miss Dingsdale,  Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley and Mrs Moore

 X x x

Monday 

We began our week writing letters to the Easter Bunny telling him what presents we would like for Easter. We totally blew our teachers socks off with what we wrote in the letters.  In the beginning of our letters we remembered to use ‘Dear’ and put our names at the bottom of each letter so the Easter Bunny would know who the letter is from. We also sounded out our words to help us write the letters.  Many of us even included adjectives in our work! Wow!
Mrs Houghton visited our class to look at some of the super work. She was really impressed with Ella and Laycies sentences and they were given a special note to take home.  Well done! 

While all the children were busy with their Literacy work in class we had a little egg and spoon race competition happening the in the playground. Congratulations to Elisha, Jessica J and Lewis who won their races against the other children. Fantastic!  

Tuesday

In Maths we have been practising adding totals and number recognition. On Tuesday we added the total amount of Easter eggs in two baskets.  Some of the children amazed Miss Dingsdale and Mrs Fields by adding together upto 20 and being able to recognise numbers larger than 20!

After Easter we will be continuing our maths. Some of our children will be recognising numbers larger than 30 and showing our teachers that we are brainy mathematicians.

On Tuesday Afternoon we did a scientific experiment in the classroom. We wanted to find out which objects would float and sink in water. We got in a circle and passed the objects round to feel how heavy they were. Using our scientific brains we predicted which would float or sink and sorted them out in groups.

Wednesday
We had a very fun filled day on Wednesday. We all brought in a teddy bear from home to have a teddy bears picnic in the afternoon with the children and teachers from Reception F and W.

Thursday

On Thursday morning the teachers were greeted with children arriving in their amazing Easter Bonnets for the competition in the afternoon. The teachers and Mrs Houghton were amazed by all the effort that was put into making the hats. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parents/carers for their hard work and continued support. 

Also on Thursday we also learnt a little bit about symmetry. As we have been learning about spring in previous weeks, we decided we would make some butterflies to put up in our classroom. Miss Baggaley kindly cut out some butterflies for us to paint our symmetry on. When the butterflies dried we stuck them on the walls and our classroom now looks beautiful and bright.

Congratulations Megan Holt for winning the Easter Bonnet Competition. 

 
 
 Friday
Last day! In the morning as a treat we made Easter Egg Cripsy Cakes.  We melted some chocolate and poured some rice crispies in the mixture, then spooned them into cake cases. We then put some mini eggs on top. They tasted delicious!

The last thing we would like to mention is 'Good Luck' to Miss Quayle who is returning to the Isle Of Man and sadly leaving us today. We wish her the very best for the future. 
Also we hope you all have a fantastic Easter Holidays and look forward to seeing you for the Summer term. 
Love from all of Reception F, Miss Dingsdale, Miss Quayle, Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley, Mrs Moore
xx





Friday 21st March 2014

Well firstly let's say a big 'well done' to all the children in our class for their hard work so far this year. It was a pleasure being able to tell you all about your child during our Parents' Evening meetings and how we can continue to help them learn and make more progress.
 
This week we have begun to focus on the changing season ... Spring! The children have been enthusiastic about their new learning and have talked about their own experiences of Spring. We have investigated flowers, their features and have thought about what they need to grow ...

We have immersed ourselves in our own outside garden

We have still continued to investigate the minibeasts too ...

We have focused upon flowers, plants and growth which we will continue next week - and we will be looking closely at animals and their newborns during the Spring season.

We look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Rec F xXx


Friday 14th March 2014
 
This week we have been exploring the creepy crawly world of BUGS! We started off the week by reading the book 'What the Ladybird Heard' by Julia Donaldson. 

During PE we moved around the hall as different creepy crawlies. We then practised our ball control skills by dribbling the ball through the cones.

 George showing his football skills

Jessica kicking the ball

Throughout the week we have looked at the bugs we know and found out about bugs that we have never seen before!
 
We used the junk modelling to create our very own bugs. We looked at the individual features of different bugs and thought about what we needed to add to our own bugs to make it look real!

Laycie gave her butterfly wings

Jack and his bug

Unfortunately our 'bug hunt' to the APLS was cancelled on Wednesday due to too many poisonous spiders making it too dangerous for us to venture out there! Instead, we did a mini-bug hunt in the classroom using magnifying glasses to look at the bugs in finer detail and recording our findings using clipboards and paper.

We then used our fantastic writing to record our findings from our classroom bug hunt.
 
We have also been talking about our feelings this week, and how we can make our friends happy. The children have come up with some fantastic ideas of how to make their friends happy in the classroom and what we need to do if someone makes themselves or their friends unhappy.
 
Next week we will be thinking about Spring! To kick-start our learning this week the children were involved in a cress-growing activity where they planted lots of tiny seeds into their own pot. We will be watching the seeds closely to see when they begin to grow. We have been thinking about the important things that a seed needs to grow to turn into a healthy plant or flower.
 
Maybe you and your child could spot signs of Spring on your way to school and tell the teachers what you have seen.
 
See you next week! Rec F xXx
 
 
 





Friday 7th March 2014
 
Hello! We have had a fantastic week this week! We have been exploring the world of monsters with the focus of our learning this week being the book 'Monstersaurus' by Claire Freeman.

We have thought about monsters all week, about how they move, what they look like and what they might sound like. We have created our own 'balloon monsters', wrote our own 'monster story' and made 'monster jelly'.

We have also enjoyed Pancake Day together! We made our own pancakes from scratch and also had a pancake flipping competition to see who could flip the most pancakes.

Then on Thursday we had world book day. It's been a very busy week! The children all look spectacular in their outfits.

Next week we will be exploring the creepy crawly world of BUGS!!

Rec F x

Friday 28th February
 
Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely break over the half term holidays and we were glad to see the children back in and as eager as anything to learn on Monday morning. This week we have been looking at the story of 'Handa's surprise' by Eileen Browne. Through this text we have been investigating Africa and how it differs to our own home in Wigan.
 
 We started off the week by watching a video on the IWB of the African Serengeti. We looked at the different types of animals we could see and thought about how they moved and also where they might be going. We took this into our PE lesson, moving around as the different animals and then working our way through the obstacle course.

We had our own surprise from Handa on Tuesday morning! She had left a basket full of fruit in our classroom. We sat down with Miss Quayle and looked at some of the exotic fruit left for us. Jessika even thought about Handa carrying the basket of fruit on her head in the story and wanted to try the basket on her own head (with some help from Miss Quayle!).

We then decided to weigh the fruit to see if we could find the heaviest or lightest! The children had lots of fun doing this. On Thursday we then tasted the food - pineapple and mango. Some children said that they really like these fruits.

Here is Bailey and Mandy sharing the story together.

Jack and Lewis pretended to be on an African safari outside, using the hoops as their steering wheels.

Have a lovely weekend. Rec F xx 


Friday 14th March 2014

This week we have been reading the text by Eric Carle - 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. The activities this week have been geared towards the children's interests from our Key Worker discussions last week.
 
We started last week by sharing a video of the life cycle of a butterfly on the carpet before our PE session on Monday. Here is the link if you would like to share this video with your child and discuss further
http://natgeotv.com/uk/great-migrations/videos/growing-up-butterfly
 
We reflected on the video during PE and discussed the different stages of the lifecycle of a butterfly, which we then copied! We then got into our Key Worker groups and had a competition to see which Caterpillar could get the 'nectar' (ball) down its body first by moving it over and under ourselves.

The children have created their own caterpillars this week, independently repeating patterns using the colourful beads.

The children have shown great interest in a range of different forms of the story, through reading the book and an interactive powerpoint.

From watching the lifecycle video and discussing thoroughly, the children showed confidence in sequencing the photographs into the correct order.

Other exciting parts of this week were making our class cake for the Westfield Bake Off and enjoying our last session with Wigan Athletic.

We hope you all have a fantastic half term and we look forward to seeing you after the holidays. Rec F x

31st January 2014

We would like to say - Kung Hei Fat Choi! That is 'Happy New Year' in Chinese. This week we have been learning all about the Chinese celebration of their New Year. The children have shown great interest in this and have been asking lots of interesting questions.

We started of the week by re-enacting the famous story of how Chinese new year began. The children used their thinking skills to work out how to travel in different ways of the 'river', travelling across to the other side using the benches. Here are a few photographs showing their fantastic ideas.

We then worked as a team to create our own Chinese dragon. We moved together in our line and moved up and down as we walked.

The children then discussed in their Key Worker groups where they thought our Chinese resources should go in the classroom. We thought about what each resource could be and where we could use it best in our classroom. 

We immersed ourselves in the Chinese New Year traditions, dancing to Chinese music, using their dancing sticks, watching videos of the Chinese dragons and we also sampled some Chinese food.



The children were involved in making lots of Chinese gifts, creating their own Chinese lanterns and money wallets to take home.

The children were able to recognise some differences between the traditions of Chinese New Year and our own special celebrations.

Next week we are going to be learning about the Gingerbread Man and focusing on stories and words that rhyme.

Rec F x








24th January 2014
Hansel and Gretel

This week we have been reading the traditional tale of Hansel and Gretel. We have been learning through fun and challenging activities based on our 'mind map' session prior to last week. Here are just some of the things that we have been doing.

We thought about the house that Hansel and Gretel visited in the woods and what it was made of. Sweets! We used our cube 'sweets' to make sure that we could get the same colours in the correct pattern. 

We then made our own house made out of sweets! We decorated our cake with icing, sprinkles, love hearts and pic n mix. The thought about the features of our house before we started - for example we knew that we needed to make a roof, a door, windows and a garden path.

As we were thinking about sweets so much we also had a good think about healthy foods, exercise and what else we need to be healthy. We did an activity where we had to think of our favourite healthy food and type of exercise. The children drew some fantastic pictures and labelled them. These will soon be going up in our small group room so parents are welcome to come and have a look.

We also had a very exciting visit from Wigan Athletic! They came to help us keep active and will be with us next week too! The children have really enjoyed being in their own clothes. 

Next week we will be learning all about Chinese New Year. We will link this again to healthy eating.

Have a nice weekend, Rec F x



17th January 2014
Inside the bakery

This week we have been focusing on the song '5 currant buns' and turning our classroom into our very own bakery.

We have been ordering cake numbers 0-20 in our bakery, serving customers, weighing out ingredients, talking about healthy and unhealthy foods, and using our writing to try to persuade the baker why our cakes are the best!

Here are the children making their own jam buns for our class!

Olivia mixing the ingredients

Our jam buns

The girls enjoying their buns

The girls enjoying their buns

Later in the week, we read the tradition tale of Hansel and Gretel to the children. We then discussed with the children what they would like to learn next week and what else we could find out about the story.

Here we are in our Key Worker groups working very hard:

Yellow group with Mrs Fields
 

Red group working with Miss Quayle

Blue group working with Mrs Baggaley

We hope you look forward to hearing about it all next week.

Rec F xx



10th January 2014
Welcome back!

Rec F have had a great first week back after the Christmas holidays. The children have been fantastic - eager, enthusiastic and willing to learn.

This week we have been focusing on Winter. We have been looking at the seasons and what type of weather we expect to see in Winter. The children were fantastic at predicting what we will see on our winter walk - we will be going next week on a journey to the alps to see if their predictions were correct. 

As it is the start of the new term, we really wanted to involve the children in their learning. Due to this, we encouraged the children to work in their Key Worker groups to talk about what they would like to learn this term. Here are the three groups hard at work.

Here is Mrs Fields and her yellow group:

Mrs Moore and her blue group:

Miss Quayle's red group:

Here are just some of the answers that the children came up with;

fairy tales, princesses, superheros, people that help us, robots, bakers, animals and vehicles. 

So from this, we will try to incorporate as many of these topics/themes into the children's learning and environment this upcoming term to stimulate and engage their interest.

We will be giving out the children's reading books on Monday and these are to be kept until the following Monday. Please bring your reading book back into school to be changed if it was not brought in before the Christmas holidays. The children will also receive Read, Write, Inc homework most nights during the week. Please insure that these are brought in the following day so that the children's work can be marked and given back to you and your child.

Rec F xx


20th December 2013
Last Week of Term

Well, the last week is here, we have completed our first term in Rec F! The children have been fantastic and have grown and developed so much. 

This week we were focusing on Christmas, and talking all about our upcoming visits from a very special guest! We made some lovely Christmas decorations, biscuits, gifts and cards to take home to our Mums and Dads and we also had our Christmas party!!

We had a great game of pass the parcel.
Here is Olivia opening the paper. 

And we played some great games!

Merry Christmas everyone.
We hope you have a fantastic Christmas and a happy new year. 
Rec F 
xxx

It's Christmas!!
13th December 2013

This week we went on our trip to Liverpool to visit Underwater Street. The children were so well behaved and all looked like they had a fantastic time. Here you can see some of our children exploring the adventure area and the exciting things that they got up to.

Bailey and Jack P decorating gingerbread men

Elisha and Tia decorating some tree ornaments

During the trip, the children got to meet a very special visitor. Here are some photographs of the children with Santa. 

Receiving presents

Listening to Father Christmas

Throughout the week we have been practising for our Christmas Nativity - which we performed on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. The children were given a great round of applause following both performances and did a fantastic job. We hope you were able to see them in their costumes and singing such fantastic songs. 

(photo to be added shortly)

On Wednesday of this week, Westfield was visited by a very special guest. Susan Gregory, a HMI inspector for Ofsted, came into our school to look at the outstanding practice. Whilst Mrs Gregory was visiting our classroom, Rec F were able to showcase their fantastic writing skills with our 'Winter in Wigan' activity and also our 'Ice cube challenge' - the children had to count how many ice cubes they could move in one minute using the tweezer. We had lots of fun!

Rhys, Lewis and Jack P competing in our 'Ice cube challenge'

Katy and Ella during our Ice cube challenge

Only one week left until we break up for the Christmas holidays!

Have a lovely weekend. Rec F x



06th December 2013

This week we have been fascinated in the 'Aliens love underpants' story book. We have been doing lots of learning through this book by Claire Freedman. We have been writing captions about our favourite page from the story and thinking of our own alien names using alliteration. 

During the week we then began to look at 'Aliens love Panta Clause'. Through this we have been focusing on the upcoming event of Christmas!

Here are some of the children wrapping presents in our Santa's Grotto! They waited patiently for it to open and followed the rules of only five children in at a time - they knew that they needed a santa hat to go in! 

Wearing our santa hats - our rule for being in the grotto

Katy chose to use the celotape to wrap her present

We are looking forward to next week - we have our trip to Underwater Street on Tuesday and our Christmas nativity on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

Love from Rec F x






29th November 2013

This week we have been looking at the 'Foggy Foggy Forest' and have been investigating what is living inside of the foggy foggy forest.

On Monday we got into Key Worker groups to talk about and write down what we thought we were going to see next in the foggy foggy forest.
 

Here is yellow group hard at work!

We looked at the characters within the book and the children enjoyed matching the silhouettes to the next page of the book. They were able to use their language to guess what they thought was going to be next and gave reasons for their answer. 

(photo to be added) 

We talked about what we would like to find in the foggy foggy forest and did some fantastic writing all about it. 

We have had lots of fun reading this book. Next week we are reading 'Aliens love underpants!'

Love Rec F 





16th November 2013

This week we have been focusing on shape!

We have immersed ourselves in 2d and 3d shapes. We have used both our indoor and outdoor environment to support our learning.

Here are some children on our shape hunt:

Laycie found an 'octogon' shape

Nicholas found a 'circle' shape

Casey found a 'triangle' shape

Cameron found a 'triangle' shape

Jessika found a 'rectangle' shape

Later in the week, we had a look at a very special book called:
'The Leaf Man'.

From this book we looked at the different types of shapes we could see within the pictures. This tied in very nicely with our previous theme of Autumn and seasons. The children showed a great interest in this book and were keen to make their own leaf men. Have a look and see what you think! The children used fantastic describing language when talking about their own leaf men.

Amelia and Olivia have worked together to make their own leaf man

Here is Tia's leaf man

And here is Charlie's leaf man.

We have had lots of fun looking at shapes over the past week. We hope you have enjoyed looking at our photographs!

From Rec F xx

08th November 2013

Welcome back!

We have had a great first week back at school, with our main focus this week being Bonfire Night! We have focused our learning around this exciting time of the year and have done many exciting, creative and challenging things. Here are a few photographs of some of the things we have been doing.

PE

We are moving our bodies to the music and using our streamers to create 'rockets' and 'fireworks'


Expressive Arts and Design

The children were encouraged to explore our junk modelling resources to create their own rockets to fly into space! They were able to choose which tools they needed to create their rockets and were encouraged to talk about why they were making their rockets that way. The children showed great pride in their rockets and were all keen to take them home to show off to mums and dads.  

One of our most exciting experiences this week was having our parents in for our 'Reading Morning' today! It was fantastic to see the children so happily leading their parents around their classroom, exploring the reading material and resources together and getting a better look of our classroom. We just wanted to thank all the parents again for joining us. Here are some photographs from this morning.

Katy and her Mum

Birthday girl Neve - Happy birthday Neve!

We would also like to wish Mitchell a very happy 5th birthday too!!

Some of the feedback from our Reading Morning:

"It was a very valued time being able to be led around the classroom by my child, have him show me where everything is, what he does and who everyone is".

"Good to see my child in a class environment, with her friends and playing with toys. She was eager to show me around and get me playing with everything. It's good to see how settled she is".

Have a lovely weekend 
Rec F x



Rec F - 25th October 2013

The past two weeks ...

Over the past two weeks Rec F have been up to lots of engaging and challenging activities. Due to our knowledge of the upcoming Halloween celebrations we have been looking at and creating our own halloween pictures using the computers. Here are a few of our pumpkins:

Bobby-Joe's pumpkin

Olivia's pumpkin

Rhys' 'zombie pumpkin'

We have also been trying very hard to practise our names. Each child has their own name cards and we practise writing these every afternoon after lunch. We are very pleased with the progress of each and every child from this. Following half term the children will begin to write their names in the morning as their signing in system, so they can show you how fantastic they are at writing their name. 

Here are a few photographs of the children in their independent play, absorbed in their own interests.

Amelia following the print in one of our outdoor books

Jack reading one of our 'Big books'

Olivia using our crinkle scissors
 

Katy using the laptop

We hope everyone has a lovely half term. See you all after the holidays. 
Rec F x






Rec F - 11th October 2013

Still having lots of fun learning and exploring

Over the past two weeks we have been getting up to lots of different fun and exciting things. 

This week we have been thinking about healthy eating and have been making some fruit kebabs! The children have used their own knives (small, blunt and under supervision) to chop up the apples, pears and pineapple to make their own creations! Some children even made patterns using the fruit. 

We have had some new recipe cards in our playdough area which has inspired the children to make their own playdough cakes, with Lewis Halliwell even making Miss Quayle a scrumptious fruit salad pie today! Here is megan using her creativity by putting candles on her cake. 

Here is another example of the children using their creativity to support their learning within the classroom. Neve and Casey independently made their own see-saw by using the outdoor balancing beams and shapes. It looks like lots of fun but unfortunately too small for the adults!

Three of our children, Bobby-Joe, Neve and Leon also took part in Westfield's very special 'Speaking Competition' this week. Our three finalists used our class camera to take a picture of their favourite thing from our outdoor area. Here they are with their photographs after taking part in the competition.

The children are continuing to follow their interests within the classroom and are openly exploring the environment. Here is Cody reading a book. 

And finally, we wanted to share how lucky we are to have such great helpers within our class. Here is Bailey helping his teachers to wash up all the cups after our snack. Thank you Bailey!

Lots of love, Rec F - Miss Quayle, Mrs Fields, Mrs Baggaley and Mrs Moore. 







Another fun filled week in Rec F

  
We have been up to lots of exciting things over the last two weeks which I'm sure you're very excited to read about.
 
We have been working very hard with our friends this week to create a range of fantastic pictures using marbles and paint. We enjoyed getting our hands messy and the children were very proud of their pictures.

The children have been displaying their musical talents, using the stage as a platform to create their own music, performing to their friends and the other children from Rec W and Preschool. They have been working very hard to tap out the same beats and rhythms together (especially to our song 'Tiny Tim').
 
There has been an interest in the outdoor physical equipment with the children building their own balancing beam course and their own obstacle course. The children have showed great enjoyment in accessing these resources and were pleased by their own achievement of completing the course.
 
Happy and settled, the children are continuing to access the classroom freely and have been frequently seen absorbed in independent play. We also have some fantastic tidiers!

Lots of love Miss Quayle, Mrs Moore, Mrs Fields and Mrs Baggaley x




Reception F Blog 2013/14

Good afternoon.
Rec F have had a fantastic first full week at Westfield Community Primary School. We were also able to wear our own clothes today due to 100% attendence last week!

Our first PE session on Monday was very successful. The children were keen to explore the PE hall and took pride in dressing and undressing themselves. We played a game of 'Beans' before finishing with some ring games.

The children have shown great enjoyment in exploring their new classroom and finding out which resources are available. They have been fantastic at tidying and have taken part in our daily outdoor ‘safety checks’. These safety checks encourage the children to think about how they can play safely in our outdoor environment.

Rec F tidying during our safety check.

Our class bear ‘Charlie Bear’ went missing in school this week - so we decided to be special investigators and went on a walk to see if we could track him down! We used our ‘walking feet’ and ‘quiet voices’ whilst walking around school and were as quiet as a mouse! We eventually found Charlie Bear outside Mrs Houghton’s office with a note saying that he had been inside having milk and biscuits!

Rec F - setting off on our walk for Charlie Bear.

Our main focus this week has been to ensure that your children have adjusted well to the daily routine and that they can become confident and inquisitive individuals within the classroom. Now that the children appear happy and settled, we will begin to place importance on securing a routine which incorporates all of the areas of learning so that your children can continue to flourish.

From Miss Quayle, Mrs Fields, Mrs Moore and Mrs Baggaley.