This week we took a trip up to the pond and visited our class tree on the way.

We spotted some signs of spring.
1 -blossom on the trees
2 – buds on the trees and plants
3 – daffodils
4 – frogspawn

The children compared our apple tree buds to the tree next to ours and noticed that the buds were much larger on the other tree. We will keep our eyes out for what happens next.

The children also enjoyed going up to the hall on Friday afternoon to take part in different science experiments made by the older children. This was called the science fair and was very exciting. We also got to spend some time with our buddies.

Can you spot any other signs of spring this weekend?

This week the sun has been shining but it has still been incredibly cold! The children are sure they don’t need coats on when playing outside but have quickly run back in to get not only their coats but hats and gloves too! It is so nice to have blue sky and it has got the children thinking about Spring time and the upcoming months.

This week as it is Science week we are learning about our 5 senses. We are exploring these through different activities and we are taking one sense to focus on each day of the week.

Monday – smell
Mrs Shipley has set up some smelly pots for the children to smell. Some nice smells, some not so nice! The children have been guessing what may be in the pots. We also thought about some smells that we can remember really enjoying (such as perfume, shampoo, flowers) and some smells that we don’t like (such as poo, rubbish bins, drains).

Tuesday – taste
This was an exciting day as we tasted 4 different foods and used adjectives to describe them. We tasted lemon, salted crisps, raisins and 85% dark chocolate. The children each tried these foods and were so excited for the chocolate…..until they bit into it and realised it was very dry and bitter and not sweet at all…lots went in the bin!!

Wednesday – sight
We use our eyes all day long and walking to the church we were able to see lots of things. Children pointed out houses, clouds, birds, cars, shops, pedestrians, dogs and much more.

Thursday – hearing
We loved playing a game called ‘doggy doggy where’s your bone’ which involves the children listening really carefully to hear where the noise is coming from. We also listened to bird song and thought back to all the different birds we know.

Friday – touch
We have enjoyed dipping our hands into feely bags to touch what is inside and describe what we can feel. Some of us were nervous dipping our hand in without being able to see and some things felt very strange (slime, sponge, raisins).

This week in art we have been doing some sketching and water colour painting. We have learnt how to use the water colour palettes by adding water to our brush before choosing our colour and the mixing the water into the paint. We found out that if you do not add water, they do not work. We also found out that if you add too much water, all the paint colours mix together which makes an interesting shade of brown. We learnt that sketching is what some artists do and it is very similar to drawing but a little bit more relaxed, with soft pencil strokes and lines.

We went back to basic playground games this week and drew out a hopscotch ladder on the floor. This was a great game to play as it encourages the children to hop and jump using lots of muscles in their legs and tummies. It also encourages counting and supports number sense. It also meant we could count backwards when we came back down the ladder! Maybe you could try this at home over the weekend!

We are so creative in Reception and this has been showing in the construction area lately. As we are learning about our local area we have spoken about Leeds being a city. This has meant that some of the children have been building cities with the wooden bricks. They have built roads, train tracks, schools, homes and tall office buildings.

We are learning to make sure our models are safe and secure and aren’t at risk of toppling over!

We have also been talking about the word trust and what this means. We spoke about adults that we trust and why we trust them. We agreed that people we trust look out for us and have our best interests at heart, that they want to keep us safe and healthy. We spoke about trusting adults at school for the same reasons and we proved this by doing trust falls. Hasan was very brave and volunteered to go first and fell backwards trusting that I would catch him!

This week we have loved getting busy in our new Story Village area of provision. The Gingerbread Man, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks are all set up for the children to play with. We have had fun dressing up, using props and characters to retell the stories.

This week has been particularly busy. The children have been creating more amazing structures in the construction area as well as having a go at making pairs with socks on the washing line.

It has been quite difficult to get our heads around there being 2 socks in 1 pair but we each put our legs out in front of us at snack time and everyone told me how many socks they had on. Once we had drawn everyone’s socks on the board, we counted each sock. There were 44 socks in our classroom. We then put a circle around each PAIR of socks as 2 socks belong to 1 person. This helped us see the pair. We had 22 pairs of socks.

We also spent time crafting some love notes for people around us as it is Valentines Day today! It has also been Liam and Frankie’s 5th birthdays so we have also managed to fit in two lots of birthday cards and happy birthdays!

Amazing creations this week.

This week the children have been getting creative with our wooden resources in the classroom and outdoor area. Some children enjoyed creating a traffic light/car ramp with the children being traffic lights for the bikes zooming over the bumpy road. The children listened to the colours: stopping at red, moving at green.

Some children enjoyed helping each other create a castle using the wooden blocks and resources. They imagined turrets and bridges over water, with blasters at the back to deter bad guys!

Adonis and Ian have been incredibly creative with the indoor construction blocks and made this whole city on their own! Some incredible, imaginative play this week!

This week we have bee using scales to compare weight and capacity. The children enjoyed finding two objects in the classroom and being human scales. Allowing their arms to drop down with the heaviest item and lifting the lighter item up into the air – just like the balancing scales!

Key vocab we have been using: heavier, lighter, up, down, weight, balanced, equal, the same, higher, lower

The police visiting us was a massive highlight this week – a huge thank you to our community officers who volunteered their time to come to talk to us today. Not only did the children get to dress as police officers, they got to sit in the van AND had chance to stand in the ‘bad guy’ bit at the back! Our favourite part was the lights and sirens – Zarrar and Luke from RS switched these on for us.

This week it has been so sunny and actually really warm in the sunshine so we have enjoyed being outside after being cooped up for the past week.

We have had lots of gross motor activities going on to support the children with this aspect of their development, without them even realising that they are doing ‘learning’! Using big paintbrushes and water to paint the chalk wall clean, riding bikes and scooters, using the building bricks to be like a builder to make a front door and lots more!

The children have been making mud pies in one of our flower beds so may come home with some mud splattering! Please do send a spare pair of trousers/socks if you know your child is likely to spend time in messy play!