Our Nursery Rhyme Focus was Hickory Dickory Dock, and the children enjoyed singing along with actions. The Reception Children took part in Drawing Club sessions, where they drew the character of the mouse and thought about what the mouse might find to eat on top of the clock. Next to each drawing, the children are encouraged to create a magic mark, we pretend that the magic mark will make something surprising happen to their picture, and the children are really starting to use their imagination to share their ideas for what their magic mark will do. 

As artists, this week we were painting vertically. This is not only lots of fun but also helps to strengthen arms and shoulders, in turn supporting the children's fine motor skills so that they can successfully draw and write. 

In our exploration tray, the children have enjoyed scooping and rolling conkers through tubes. We talked about conkers and discussed where they had come from. 

In our malleable area, the children used patterned rollers to create prints on dough and learnt about sharing the dough and equipment with their peers. 

In our construction area, the children have worked together to build train tracks and play collaboratively, creating narratives. And in our small world area, the children have been playing imaginatively with pirates and building pirate islands. 

As readers and writers, the children in Reception have been working hard to embed the sounds we have learnt so far and blend the sounds to read and write simple words such as 'dog' and 'sit'. In addition to practising writing the sounds we have been learning in school each Monday, we issue new phonics homework, which gives the children an additional opportunity to practice their blending at home, and we expect all children to complete this with you at home. 

In our Key groups, we enjoyed lots of songs and stories, and thought about our Golden Rule of the Week, Looking after Property. We had a go at writing our names or initial letter and drew self-portraits, which are proudly on display in our classrooms. 

Reminders; 

We have a lot of water bottles in the classrooms that are not named. Please let us know if you are missing one, and we will return it to you. There are lots of children, so it is imperative that belongings are named. 

Please do not allow children to bring in toys from home, as they can be easily lost or broken.

Coming Up: 

We are looking forward to welcoming you to our classrooms and seeing some of our learning on Thursday morning, 8.10- 9 am. Please do drop in if you can!