Friday 12th December

This week, the children enjoyed learning about the Christmas story and why it is special to Christians. We used props to retell the story and made links with our Twinkly Nativity play.  In maths, we explored the concept of day and night, discussing the difference and the activities that we do.  Our phonics lessons have focused on naming the letters of the alphabet and forming capital letters. There have been lots of fun festive-themed activities going on, such as gingerbread play dough, decorating trees with pom poms, making elves and much more.  Our Christmas Jumper Day was so much fun, especially with the disco to finish the day off. 

Friday 5th December

Hendra class is beginning to feel festive as we start the countdown to Christmas! We have enjoyed some Christmas-themed activities, such as decorating our tree, painting Christmas puddings and building a Christmas tree window display. We loved playing in the sensory tray with winter spiced rice too. On Tuesday we had a visit from the Essex Road safety group who talked to us and our parents about staying safe when crossing the road. We learnt a song to remind us to 'Stop, Look, Listen and Think!'  Our highlight this week was writing letters to Santa and posting these on Friday in the post box on Villa Road. We hope Santa gets our letters in time!

 

Friday 28th November 

This week we have been immersed in our whole school Art Mantle. We were presented with a painting called 'A Regatta
on the Grand Canal', by Giovanni Antonio Canal.

We looked at the painting and listened to a soundscape where we identified boats, water splashes, lots of busy talking and people moving around and shouting. We looked closely at the gondolas in the picture and how they used them instead of cars or carts to transport people and goods up and down the waterways. We had lots of fun using drama to recreate our own gondola trips along the river, being a gondolier and using large loose parts to make out gondolas and waterways.

We painted our own Venician-inspired watercolours of gondolas and waterways. We used collage to make our own boats and had fun outside using the ducting and tinfoil to create waterways for our bottle top boats to travel along. 

We had so much fun this week, and we are very proud to be showing our artwork in the whole school exhibition on Thursday. 

Friday 21st November 

These last 2 weeks we have been zooming off into space! We learnt all about Astronaut Chris Hadfield and how he was scared of the dark as a little boy. He overcame his fear and became a very famous space explorer. We enjoyed his story The Darkest Dark, and we have been making our own space-themed work, creating our own class solar system and twinkly stars.

We have also been working hard on our key skills. We have been doing an activity carousel every day when we practise our handwriting, fine motor skills using scissors to cut and stick accurately, making numbers up to 5 in different ways and tracing our numbers and building space rockets and stations out of building blocks. 

It has been wonderful to see the children becoming more confident each week. 

Friday 7th November

This week we have been exploring all things Fireworks and Bonfire Night. 

We listened to the story of Guy Fawkes and how he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament by rolling barrels of gunpowder under the building whilst the king was inside. Luckily, he was caught and arrested, so he didn't manage to succeed. Every year since then, we celebrate the 5th November by lighting bonfires and setting off fireworks.

We did lots of bright firework art and made our own sparklers and rockets. We saw pictures of the houses of Parliament in London and built them out of mega blocks, adding extra details like the clock tower for Big Ben the bell. 

We explored the dark tent with mirrors, torches and glow-in-the-dark objects, having lots of fun making shadows with our friends. 

We have been working hard to read new words and even short sentences in phonics using all our sounding and blending skills. 

We talked about staying safe this bonfire night and how important it is to always be with adults when using sparklers and watching bonfires and fireworks. 

What a sparkling week we have had!

Friday 17th October

This week in Hendra class we have been visited by a tiger! This tiger loves to eat and has joined the children at the snack table every day.

We have been reading 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr and from this we have been making all sorts of delicious treats for the tiger. We even set up a restaurant in our Mud Kitchen so he can have lots of things to eat.

We have been busy practising writing our names this week to put on invitations to come to tea with the tiger.

We have been exploring how we can move in different ways around a space in PE so we can move like a tiger in the jungle, jumping high and crouching down low.

In drawing club, we have been drawing and labelling what we most love to eat. We then add a bit of magic by using the sounds we know to make our favourite foods appear.

We finished the week by retelling the story using our tiger masks.

What a tiger-tastic week!

 

Friday 26th September 

We’ve had another great week this week exploring the story of Elmer. We have been re-telling the story using puppets and talking about what makes us special. Elmer had his colours, and we have all drawn what makes us special too. It was lovely to hear about all the children’s likes, skills and interests.

We have explored colour mixing this week and had lots of messy fun creating our own colour wheels and using collage to make our own Elmer masks.

In Maths, we have been sorting objects into sets and explaining using maths language how we have ordered them too.

We had great fun in forest school getting the hammock out and swinging in the autumn sunshine.

 

Friday 19th September

Our topic book for this week and next is Elmer by David McKee.

Through the story we have been talking about all things to do with family and friendships. We have talked about who is in our family and what being a family means to us, creating our own family portraits to put up on the wall. We talked about what makes a good friend and how Elmer loved to make his friends laugh. The children have been making some lovely friendships and are enjoying playing together really well.

We have been mini artists this week and have made our own patchwork elephants. 

We have also looked at the artist, Pier Mondrian, seeing how he used blocks of colour to make his art. We made our own Mondrian-inspired pieces which we are really proud of.

We have had lots of fun with Elmer and will be doing more with the story next week.

Friday 12th September

What a great first week of Reception the children have had!

Hendra class have been having lots of fun getting to know each other and making new friends, showing kindness, how we share and listen to each other.  

We have been reading the story of the Colour Monster this week and through lots of colourful art, the children have explored all the different feelings and colours from the story, helping to support them as they explore their own emotions and expressing how they make them feel. 

A great first full week Hendra class.

Me and Mrs Mills are very proud of you all.