It has been another great week of learning and playing together. Outside, the children have been especially engaged in learning how to make their own paint with chalks and water. They showed their innate curiosity, their ability to problem solve and how creative they are. 

During our Key group time each morning, we have continued to explore and understand our various feelings and emotions. The children shared their experiences of feeling angry, calm and scared.  

Each week, we teach the children a new rhyme and poem. We use actions to help the children learn and understand the language. This week's rhyme was the classic Nursery Rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty.' From the poetry basket, our poem was 'Falling Apples' 

As artists, we created paintings by dipping cotton buds in paint. This also promoted the development of the children's fine motor skills as they had to use a pincer grip to hold the cotton bud 

In our tuff tray, the children further developed their motor skills by spreading shaving foam on wooden bricks, simulating the application of cement to build walls. 

The children have worked together to complete puzzles and play board games. And enjoyed building and creating with Lego. 

We developed our hand strength by moulding and manipulating playdough to music at our 'Dough Disco' it's a fun activity to do at home too, and you can find some videos on Kids Tube that you can follow.  

The reception children have continued to learn the letter sounds during our daily phonics. This week's sounds were t,d,i,n. The children also began to blend the sounds to read words such as 'mat, mad, at, sad'. They used magnetic letter tiles to support them. Please make sure your child is completing their phonics homework in their green phonics books. 

In Maths, the children in reception have been using their noticing skills to spot amounts of conkers without counting, saying where they can see 1, 2 or 3 conkers. This is called subitising and is a skill that we are all born with. Children must practise this skill before they learn to count. We introduced addition and learnt that one conker add another conker made two conkers altogether. The children also learnt about pairs and enjoyed comparing and sorting to find matching pairs of some mixed-up objects, and were encouraged to use sentences to explain why the items were pairs. 

Next week: 

We will be focusing on the Nursery Rhyme 'Hey Diddle Diddle', learning the words and actions to this well-loved rhyme.

Our poem will be  'Sounds of the Farm' 

We will be developing our gross and fine motor skills through some 'Squiggle While you Wiggle sessions; this is where the children make large movements with their arms to music and then recreate the movements on paper- its lots of fun! 

We will be visiting Forest School and the reception children will be taking part in Karate, whilst the Pre-School will be going to Tatty Bumpin Yoga. 

Reminders

A polite reminder that your child's belongings must be named, including water bottles and lunchboxes. 

We also have a box full of unnamed lost property already! 

All children need a pair of wellies that can be worn in our garden and to forest school. Wellies can stay at school. 

We discourage big bags and backpacks going to and from school. These can stay safely on your child's peg. Reception children only need to bring their school bookbag and waterbottle, and a lunchbox if they are not having a school lunch. 

Have a lovely weekend

The Barrier Reef Team