We have had a fabulous last week of the half term. The children were great when they had their photographs taken and coped really well with the change in their routine. We  practised our best smiles and so I hope you’re really pleased with your child’s photo.

In Literacy this week we have been recalling The Gingerbread Man story. We have been sequencing illustrations from the story and talking about the beginning, middle and end in a group and also individually. The children independently made stick puppets from the story, made collage gingerbread men, iced and decorated gingerbread men and have enjoyed mark making on gingerbread man paper and greetings cards.

In Maths we have been learning about the composition on two and three. We have practise using sentence ‘1 and another 1 makes 2’ and ‘1 and 1 and 1 makes 3’ when giving three bears and item each for a picnic. We went outside and made collections of 2 and 3 items:

In LEX time we have followed the children’s interests in flicking watery paint by drawing numbered targets for them to aim at. Another interest was throwing hoops; this was enhanced by adding cones for the children to aim to throw the hoops over. Some children found cars covered in sand, a bowl with soapy water was provided for as a car wash.

Here are some of our LEX time activities:

In music we used the claves:

We have learned about Divali by watching a first festivals programme. Following on from this the children found stencils to make Rangoli patterns, drew around their hands and decorated them and made Rangoli patterns using powder paint. The following day they recalled what they had seen on the film:

Clee Newsletter and Overview

Clee Autumn 1 Clee Newsletter Autumn Term 1

We have had another fantastic busy week in Clee.

We started our Phonics sessions this week. The children have been amazing and already learned the first four sounds m, a, s, and d:

In Maths we have started a new scheme of work called Mastering Number. The children have been learning about subitising during our whole group carpet time. They have then taken this into their learning with different activities:

In Literacy we have introduced the focus book ‘The Gingerbread Man’. This started with us finding small footprints outside our classroom door which led us to ingredients. We discovered that the ingredients were to make gingerbread people. We used the ingredients to make the dough and everyone had a turn at rolling it and cutting out their gingerbread person. We enjoyed eating them and found ‘The Gingerbread Man’ book on the tray. Following this Mrs Allan discovered on the CCTV that there had been a gingerbread man in our classroom; we saw him on a photograph and also a video when he was running around the classroom shouting ‘Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m a gingerbread man!’ This caused great excitement with the children and so we made ‘Look Out’ posters and hung them around school:

We followed the children’s interest in volcanoes by making our own volcanoes outside. The children were fascinated and thoroughly enjoyed using their senses to explore the textures:

Here are some of the highlights of our LEX time:

On Thursday we celebrated the school Harvest festival by learning about harvest by watching a video. We sang ‘Big Red Combine HarvesterWe then harvested fruit and leaves which we used for different activities such as apple and carrot printing, writing with carrots, leaf painting and printing:

What a fantastic week of learning!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Meddins and Mrs Owen

We have had another busy week joining in lots of fun activities.

In Literacy we have listened to different stories about sending letters and postcards. We continued this into our Literacy learning time along with many more fun activities:

In Maths we have been learning about five frames. We talked about if the five frame is full or not full/empty. The children have been self-registering on a five frame and also using five frames during LEX time to decide which area they wish to explore. These are some of the other Maths activities we have been enjoying this week:

We have talked about Autumn and Libby kindly brought in some acorns and Autumn leaves for us to explore. We also looked at conkers in their shells:

Some of the children have shown an interest in polar bears. We followed this interest by watching a programme about polar bears, reading Polar Polar Bear What do you hear? by Eric Carle and investigating ice:

Here are some of the highlights of our LEX time:

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Meddins and Mrs Owen

We have had another fantastic, busy week in Clee.

In Maths we have been continuing the ‘Getting to know you’ phase of White Rose Maths. We have looked at pictures and talked about ‘what can you see?’ The children have been joining in a variety of Maths experiences:

In Literacy the children have enjoyed learning our second from Poetry Basket. We have listened to stories and talked about the authors. They have been experiencing activities to support pencil grip, letter formation and fine motor skills:

We have been following the children’s interests and making the most of the weather during LEX (Learning and Exploring) time:

The children have been talking a lot about the Queen and the new King. They were very knowledgeable and talked about the Queen’s heart stopping beating, that we have a new King Charles the Third and that there were soldiers with instruments who were marching. We looked at pictures of landmarks in London and pretended to be soldiers marching while we sang ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’. 

We hope you all have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday.

We have had another fun and busy week in Clee. The children are becoming really good at following our class routines. The number of Dojo points we are giving out is reflecting all their positive behaviour, kindness, good listening plus much much more. 

On Monday the children all started their balance bike training during Bikeability. The week started with them learning to put on their helmet and moving slowly on the balance bike. By the end of the training on Thursday they were all confident in using the balance bikes. They have been so enthusiastic all week.

Here are some photos of our week. We followed the children’s interests by introducing ramps. As the pictures show the children spent a long time using the ramps in a variety of ways, working together to change how the ramps work, taking turns and using fantastic positional language:

It’s been fantastic to welcome the children into Clee Class. We are so proud of how well the children have settled during their first week. They have enjoyed exploring our learning environments both indoors and outside, stories, singing, dancing, dough disco, making new friends and developing their independence at snacktime by pouring themselves a drink and choosing their snack and also at lunchtime by choosing their lunch and carrying their own tray. What a super start. Well done everyone!

Here are some photos to show some of the learning during our first week:

Have a lovely weekend, see you Monday.

We have had a fantastic, fun final full week in Reception.

In Literacy we have talked about what happened in the story ‘The Sea Saw’. We talked about what happened at the beginning, the middle and the end to prepare the children for retelling and rewriting the story.

The children chose the Literacy activities they wanted to do this week. These included writing invitations, summer colouring, picnic writing and tricky word colouring.

During LEX time the children have enjoyed making twirlers, playing parachute games and exploring the water wall and how to make the different parts of it move:

We had a wonderful time on our end of year trip on the train. We walked to the Cambrian Railway station where we were met by a volunteer who showed us around the museum. All the children had a turn at pulling the lever to make the signal work. We then went to the platform to wait for the train. We went on the train to Weston Wharf where we ate our picnic lunch in the Buffet Carriage and then played parachute games before catching the train back to Oswestry Station and then returning to school. We had an amazing time. A big thank you to everyone at Oswestry Cambriam Railway for making it so special.

We have had another busy, fun week in Reception.

In Literacy we have read to the end of our book ‘The Sea Saw’. The children predicted what they thought would happen at the end of the book and were very surprised, and happy, at how it really ended! We also talked about the characters in the book and the children wrote a letter to Sofia pretending they were the sea and telling her what they saw.

Following on from the story we had a visit from Mr Card who talked to the children about his job as a Train Conductor. He showed them photographs and items which relate to his job:

The children made trains inside and outside using the loose parts available. They pretended to go to Shrewsbury Beach, the red shop, Blue Planet and London:

In Maths we have been learning about odd and even numbers. The children danced to the music and then we added one more child each time the music stopped to learn which numbers were odd or even. We talked about the even numbers having a partner and the odd numbers having an odd one.We continued this in smaller groups when the children used teddies. 

For lunch on Tuesday we had a special Summer BBQ:

In Understanding the World we met EVO the Robot. The children learned how EVO works and explored what it can do:

We finished the week with a fantastic Early Years Graduation. We had a terrific time celebration the children’s achievements with their families and friends:

What a great week!