Hello!

This week we have introduced the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar in our new Talk 4 Writing unit. The children have been reading and enjoying the story, they have come up with actions to help them to retell the story and they have created story maps too. Next week they will be writing the story into their very own story books!

The chicks are now living in their cage and are entertaining us all with their antics! They like to cheep quite loudly too! Earlier this week the children had a chance to hold a chick. They have also been making observational drawings of the chicks along with lots of other chick-based creative work.

In maths we have been comparing numbers within 10, using the language more and fewer. We have also been making 10 in a variety of different ways. We have also been practising ordering numbers, taking amounts away and counting on. You could pose some number problems for your child at home using things around the house. For instance: ‘There are 5 of us in the kitchen, what if 2 people go upstairs. How many will there be left in the kitchen?’ Or ‘I have 4 potatoes on my plate but I’m going to put 3 more on. How many do I have now?’ You can use fingers to help, objects to take away or add on such as buttons or Lego pieces, a number line to 10, draw circles to represent the amount and cross some out or draw some more on.

Next week in maths the children will be learning about 3D shapes and will be exploring their properties using the language faces, edges, vertices, curved and flat. They will be doing some problem solving tasks, grouping the shapes, printing with the shapes to explore the different faces and then they will continue the week with some work about pattern.

This week we have been reading the book The Runaway Pea. We have been enjoying the story, joining in with parts of the story and gathering ambitious vocabulary.

Inspired by this story, we have done some planting in class and there are a number of marigolds and sunflowers planted and ready to be cared for. We hope to see them flourish over the coming weeks and months.

Next week we will be reading Jungle Jamboree and again enjoying and getting to know the story really well and finding super vocab in the story.

The idea of reading a book per week in this way is that the children become familiar with the story, feel confident to pick the book up from a shelf and are able to retell the story. By extracting ambitious vocabulary and explicitly discussing the meaning of words and how we can use them, the children are adding new words to their own vocabulary that they can use within the story but also in other contexts.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

The Reception team