This week in Reception we have been reading the story, ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. It is a story all about a naughty boy called Max who goes on an adventure and meets some wild things.

We have had a go at making some ‘wild things’ of our very own using clay and other reasources. What do you think to them?

On Monday we also did some writing where we pretended to be the dog in the story and we wrote about our feelings. As you can see, our writing is really coming along.

We are very excited in Reception because we have been introduced to a new story telling incentive within the Early Years. It is called ‘Helicopter Stories’. The previous two Tuesdays we have had special visitors who have taught and explained the concept of Helicopter stories to us.

What is a helicopter story?

Simply put, a ‘Helicopter Story’ is where a child tells an adult a story and it is written down word for word. The story is then acted out on a make shift stage by the child if they so wish and the other children within the class.

Helicopter stories allow children to see their ideas come to life in a fun way that involves and engages their peers. It allows children to grow in confidence with their story telling and eventually will encourage the children to write stories independently.

There is a parents workshop to bring “Helicopter stories’ into the home. There are 3 sessions

Come and watch story acting – Tuesday 9th February 11am

Workshop 1 for parents – Tuesday 23rd February 9 – 10.15am

Workshop 2 for parents – Wednesday 2nd March 9 – 10:15am

We are hoping that as many parents will be able to attend as possible, as we strongly belive this notion of story telling will help our children develop with their early literacy skills.

For more information on ‘Helicopter Stories’ please visit the following website:

http://www.makebelievearts.co.uk/early-years-storytelling/

Kind Regards

Mrs Jones and Mrs Coston

Since we have been back from Christmas we have been learning lots and lots. Last week and this week our focus has been on the Antarctic because we have been reading the stories, ‘Penguin and the Pinecone’ and ‘Penguin Small’.

We started the week off learning all about the word ‘curious’ as the penguin found a curious object, which was in fact a pinecone. The children had a go at describing their own curious object by having some items in a feely bag and describing them to their friends. Their friends had to guess which curious object had been chosen.

The children then used the Ipads to investigate more about where the penguins lived. They used the app Google Earth and knew that they needed to find an area that was white as the penguins lived in an area covered in ice and snow. They were successfully able to navigate their way around Google earth and could find where the penguins lived, as well as looking at where they live within the world. They even wrote some facts about penguins.

Over the last two weeks the children have been learning to recognise and order the numbers from 0 – 20. They particularly enjoyed going on a number hunt. Within the garden there were 20 penguins with the numerals 0 – 20 on their tummies. The children then had to find all of the numbers and write them down when they had found them. The children loved exploring the garden looking for the numbers and they felt very grown up walking around with a clipboard and pencil writing down the numbers they had found. Perhaps they could try this activity at home?

Also outside in the garden, the children were practicing their balancing skills. They created their own obstacle course using lots of the outside equipment and made their way across this carefully. They are becoming very confident at moving in different ways and balancing on the apparatus.