Reception Grainger

2012-01-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

We have had a great week learning and celebrating Chinese New Year! We have been making chinese lanterns, creating chinese blossom pictures and doing some chinese dancing in PE.

See below for some pictures of our week so far.

Tomorrow we will be making and tasting some chinese food.

2012-01-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome back everyone and happy new year!!

I hope you have all had a wonderful christmas break and are ready and well rested to get 2012 off to a great start!

The last two weeks of last term were extremely busy but lots of fun.

Here are some photos of our nativity and class christmas party which were both a huge success!

I am very much looking forward to seeing my lovely class again.

Mrs Grainger

2011-11-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

We have been learning about Diwali in our class- the festival of light.

We painted ladies dressed up in all their finery all ready to celebrate, we made diya lamps from clay and watched videos on how people celebrate Diwali in their families. We also had a go at doing some Indian dancing in our PE lesson.

In choosing time there were lots of activities for children to talk about what they had learnt, and to create Mendhi and Rangoli patterns for our display.

2011-10-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well done to everyone in my reception class for working so hard in the first half term. The progress you have all made is incredible so everyone should be very proud of themselves!

Have a look at the slideshow below to see what we have been up to lately.

Mrs Grainger

2011-09-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Reception!

We have been having lots of fun in our first few weeks in Reception. We have been getting to know our class and teachers and learning all about our classroom.

This week we are learning the letters and sounds for S and A, as well as learning how to write them. We are spending lots of time counting and recognising numbers 1-10 and lots, lots more!

What a creative bunch we are!

2011-07-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

We are definitely a creative class - we performed our class assembly to an enthusiastic audience and also enjoyed creative activities throughout our Arts Week.

Well done to RF for performing one of our favourite stories, Farmer Duck, and thank you to all the parents who came along to see our actors and singers. I'm sure you'll agree the children's enthusiasm for our topic shone through as they were acting and singing.

We had a great Arts Week. Our week began with an African storyteller. She taught us some greetings in Swahili and allowed every one of us to play the drum (even me!). Throughout the rest of the week we have been singing, dancing, storytelling, acting, decorating cakes and painting. As we have been learning about symmetry we painted some beautiful butterflies. We used silk instead of paper and found out how the paint reacted on the cloth. Our butterflies look colourful and pretty, hanging in our classroom.

We also had a visit from children who are qualifying for Arts Award at their secondary school. We had a singing session, where we practised singing clearly by singing 'red lorry, yellow lorry' - very hard to sing fast without laughing. Finally, we learned a new song and dance.

A great end to the week.

RF Storytellers

2011-06-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to be visited by two storytelling artists this week. We enthusiastically welcomed Jon and Laura to Reception. The day began with a musical introduction.

We found out about using technology to record our voices and each had a turn to use the microphone. With Laura's help we began to create a class story. Every child's ideas were listened to and used within the story. With the help of Jon each child recorded part of the story.

After an expert edit during our lunch break we were able to listen to the recorded story - about Twinkle Twinkle the witch who loved to play tricks on people.

The afternoon found the children creating illustrations for the story and also making puppets of the characters.

We had a great day, and can't wait for Jon and Laura to send us the final edit of our story video. Well done, RF!

Our great day out

2011-06-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

What a great day we had at the Discover Centre in Stratford. The excitement began as soon as we boarded the coach.

When we got to Discover we explored their fantastic garden. We could climb, peep, make music, fly spaceships and drive taxis.

After our fun in the garden, we were taken inside to meet Hootah, a space monster. We were told how Hootah's planet survives on stories, and that he needed our help to make some more stories.

So off we went to find ideas for stories...

We found lights that could make music when you jumped on them...

and paper to write notes for our stories...

and mirrors that created a whole new character...

and mysterious ropes. I wonder what happens if you pull it?

And we found bubbles, full of children!

We heard strange whisperings in the spaceship...

Maybe it was these two space explorers...

The spaceship had a quick exit, just in case aliens came...

and the puppets helped us to create stories in their theatre...

and the crocodile carefully guarded the alphabet in the river...

We had to pull ourselves away from giant spiders...

and dressed up as a story character...

and we wrote secret messages on mirrors!

Finally, we met our 'Story Builder', who used all the exciting information from our story hunt to create a story. We even had a chance to be characters from the story.

Finally, we had some time to create our very own puppet characters for our stories.

Hootah's planet is definitely going to survive because of the great stories we created at our day out at Discover. Well done, RF!

Feast of Stories continues

2011-05-22T08:21:00.001-07:00

Our Feast of Stories project has got very exciting. There are pirates everywhere! The children helped to make a Pirate Den from a tent. The den will remain in our garden for the rest of the term. So far, the children have begun to use the resources to create their own pirate stories, including mermaids from the lagoon who have been 'walking the plank'. Next week the children will be encouraged to use their imaginative ideas to tell their stories to each other and the stories will be displayed on our Story Tree.

We also say a big 'thank you' to Lauren, Emma, Ibrahim, Tommy, Nicole and Emily from Y4, who visited our class to help the children create exciting stories using props from our treasure chest. The stories were great!

The storytelling continues with the 'Story bags' brought in from home. We've heard great stories including skateboarding dogs, hibernating hedgehogs and pigs getting stuck in the snow.

Heritage Week

2011-05-07T03:39:00.000-07:00

We started the new term with Heritage Week. This week coincided with the biggest royal event of the decade, the marriage of Kate and Prince William and also St George's Day. The children were immersed in activities that celebrated our heritage. We read about St George and the dragon and found out what he might have worn all those years ago.

We were delighted to see so many royal guests at our Royal Garden Party. I have never seen so many Princes, Princesses, Kings and Queens enjoying themselves at a traditional British fayre.

The day was filled with all the fun and excitement of a village fete, with stalls to entertain the royal guests. The stalls included Pin The Tail On The Donkey,

Splat The Rat,

Coconut Shy,

and Hoopla.

The afternoon was time for feasting. Our Royal Banquet included traditional British food including cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponge, jam sandwiches, scones and tea cakes. For dessert we all enjoyed jelly followed by a cup of tea. During the banquet we listened to music of the Coldstream Guards with the final tune of God Save The Queen.

What a colourful start to our term!

Spring is here at last!

2011-04-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

What a great ending to the term. The sun came out and we really began to notice the signs of Spring. We were lucky to have a special visit from four little chicks, belonging to Miss Stockwell. We could hear them chirping all day! They were so soft and fluffy!

Not only did we have a visit from the chicks, but also from the Easter Bunny. We had great fun searching our garden for eggs. We read the story of Max's Chocolate Chicken and decided it was nicer to share the eggs with our friends than keep them for ourselves. So we put all the eggs into one basket.

We were able to use our maths skills to work out if we had enough eggs to share equally.

We took our eggs home in our special Easter basket that we made.

We ended the special day with a party. Everybody joined in with the party games and lots of prizes were won. We danced to Superman and Cha Cha Slide, but our favourite dance was Y.M.C.A!

Congratulations to Natalie for winning our Attendance Raffle Prize.

Enjoy the Spring break!

Where The Wild Things Are

2011-03-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

We have thoroughly enjoyed our topic of 'Ways to Travel' this week. We read the book 'Where the wild things are', about a boy called Max, who travels in a little boat to where the wild things are.

The book was enjoyed so much, that the children were keen to re-read it themselves.

Some children decided to draw pictures of Max's boat, and also made some 'wild things' using the resources available in the room.

We also felt that the main character, Max, was not very nice at the beginning of the story, so we wrote letters of apology to his mum, on hehalf of Max.

During PE we used our imagination to retell the story through dance and movement.

Our greatest achievement was the retelling of the story through drama. We are lucky to have surroundings that enable the children's imagination to grow, and also the gorgeous weather! The children utilised the garden and conservation area as a backdrop for their stories, and also included our role play area as 'Max's bedroom'. We have decided to make a picture book of the story, and will include it in our book corner.

The Feast of Stories continue...

2011-03-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

What a fun few weeks we've had! World Book Day was enjoyed by all the children. We all dressed as our favourite book character, and what great costumes they were!

... And our class winner was Mother Goose. Well done, Caitlin!

Our 'Feast of Stories' project continued this week. The children created characters for their stories and are looking forward to seeing them on our Storytelling Tree. They also began to record their stories. They ranged from fairy stories to scary stories and also stories in other languages. All the stories will be downloaded onto our class mp3 players for the children to listen to. We even had guest storytellers throughout the week. A big thank you to Mrs Mahboob, Mrs Gupta, Mrs Raval and Miss Cooke for telling us stories in Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati and Spanish. They were great to hear!

Feast of Stories

2011-03-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

This week we began our ‘Feast of Stories’ project. We have been lucky enough to become involved in this exciting project with four other Redbridge schools.

‘This project explores the cultural heritage of the children in the school and their families. Children working on this project will become story ambassadors and will collect stories from around the school. This theme is largely based on personal experience and will develop as the project goes on depending on the nature of the experiences of the school.’

There will be a large fabric tree which will be attached to the classroom wall. Each child will have their own branch dedicated to their investigation into the story of their own heritage, through story sharing, song, discussing food, families, friends and places. The children have already created self-portraits to attach to their branch.

The first session was to explore story ideas through drama and small groups. The children worked with each other to tell stories.

I’m sure the project will inspire the children to become great storytellers. Watch this space as the project continues…

Chinese New Year

2011-02-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

We said goodbye to our Fairytale castle as we changed our Role Play area to a Chinese Restaurant.

This was part of our Chinese New Year celebrations. Our restaurant was very popular and it was essential to book a table. The children enjoyed ordering some mouth-watering dishes from our Chinese menu. The waiters and waitresses wrote down the orders and helped prepare the meals in the cooking area.

The smell of Chinese food filled the room, as we cooked a selection of dishes for the children to taste. Everyone had their own opinion of the food. Can you tell if we liked it?

As part of our fundraising for the NSPCC the whole class took part in a Dance-athon. The children earned 25 points every time they danced to the Chinese music with their ribbons. The children succeeded in earning a total of 100 points. Well done to all the children who danced for the NSPCC, and also thank you for the money raised.

Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?

2011-01-30T04:18:00.000-08:00

Certainly, not us! We have been reading the traditional tale, The Three Little Pigs. The whole class have been busy with a range of 'Three Little Pigs' activities. We created a display for the wall, which included the big, bad wolf and some great collage pigs.

We learnt about the characters in the story by using a 'hot seat' to quiz one of the little pigs, with her house of sticks.

Our mp3 player headphones were used so much for listening to the story, that the children had to charge them frequently!

The children enjoyed the story so much, that they used every opportunity to retell it to each other.

We used our investigative skills to test a range of materials that the pigs could have used to build a strong house. We 'huffed and puffed' each one to see if it would 'blow down'. It seems that bricks are definitely the strongest materials to use, as our lego brick house did not budge!

Fairytale Fun!

2011-01-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and welcome back to school. We are beginning the New Year with a new topic, 'Traditional Stories and Rhymes'. The children have helped to transform our role play area into a 'Fairytale Castle'. They are having great fun acting out stories we are reading, including Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Jack and the Beanstalk.

We have also learnt a spooky song, 'Hairy Scary Castle'. We hope you enjoy it!

Christmas Celebrations!

2010-12-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

Our Nativity was absolutely fantastic! The children looked great in their costumes. We obviously have a class of budding actors and singers!

We will be having a Reception Christmas Party on Thursday, 16th December. We would love donations of food and drink for the children to share. Please could you ask your child to bring these in on the morning of the party. However, can we ask that you do not bring in any meat items, fizzy drinks, nuts or bananas due to allergies, etc. We will be having the party in the afternoon, so children must bring a lunch or have a school meal as normal.

Merry Christmas!

... and the Celebrations continue

2010-12-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

We are still having lots of fun with our topic of Celebrations. We have been celebrating National Road Safety Week. The children have been learning how to keep safe on the roads. We learnt how to use a zebra crossing, what traffic lights are for and the importance of using a seat belt when we are in a car. We even used the computer to create our Road Safety pictures.

St Andrew's Day was great fun, especially as it snowed. We did some Scottish dancing to help us keep warm, and sang along to 'Donald, where's your troosers?' We found out what the Scottish flag looks like, and even made our own.

The Jewish festival of Hanukkah also began last week. We learnt a special song to help us remember the importance of the Menorah. Maybe you can sing it together at home.

1 little, 2 little, 3 little candles,
4 little, 5 little, 6 little candles,
7 little, 8 little, 9 little candles
On my Hanukkah Menorah.

Our biggest celebration this week was the arrival of the snow! We wrapped up warm to make Norris the Snowman. I wonder how long he will last?

Our New Home Corner

2010-11-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

As part of our theme, 'Celebrations', we have been finding out about the Hindu festival of Diwali (the Festival of Lights). We read about Rama and Sita in the book 'A Little Row of Lights'. It told the story of Diwali and explained the importance of 'light'. We made our own Divas, using clay, and decorated them with sparkling paint and glitter. They look lovely on our 'Celebrations' display.

The children were sad to see the closure of John Bramston Medical Centre, but soon forgot about the doctors when we changed our Home Corner to a 'Home celebrating Diwali'. The children dressed up in beautiful saris and lined up the Divas in number order. The celebrating is still going on and the children are cooking for each other and retelling the story of Rama and Sita.

The children have also been finding out about other celebrations this month, including Eid, Guru Nanak's Birthday and Anti-Bullying Week... and more celebrations to come!

Remember, remember the 5th November

2010-11-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

This week we have been learning how to keep safe during Bonfire Night and Diwali. We found out that we should wear gloves when using sparklers, and that we should put the sparkler in a bucket of cold water when it has gone out.

We made our very own sparklers. We mixed glue with metallic paint and used a lolly stick to spread the paint on the paper. Then, we sprinkled glitter to give our sparkler a sparkle. Our sparklers look great!

The Skeleton Dance

2010-10-25T03:10:00.000-07:00

As part of our theme 'Ourselves' we have been learning about the different parts of the body. We are able to name the different parts. We have been doing this through arranging parts of the body in our books, reading books together, making dough faces, painting, P.E. and also through singing and dancing.

Please watch our performance of The Skeleton Dance. We had great fun learning it, and hope you will enjoy it too. Maybe you could sing along and dance to it at home together.

Autumn's here!

2010-10-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

We have been busy finding out about Autumn. We have been out in our garden collecting all the golden leaves that have fallen from our trees. The children were creative and decided to make a giant Autumn Tree collage using the fallen leaves.

We also learned about Harvest Time. We found out about where our food comes from and the hard work of the farmers, who make sure we are able to eat healthily.

We were even lucky enough to have some scarecrows visit our class. Well done to Kalila, Suryamshu, Trinity Angel and Ryan for making fantastic scarecrows for the school competition. Congratulations to Ryan for winning the prize in the Early Years catagory. I'm sure you'll agree that they are all fantastic!

Here is our Harvest Song. Maybe you can sing it together at home.

(to the tune of 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush')

Here's what we do at Harvest Time, Harvest Time, Harvest Time.
Here's what we do at Harvest Time.
At Harvest Time in the Autumn.

Dig for potatoes at Harvest Time ...

Pick all the apples at Harvest Time ...

Pick the blackberries at Harvest Time ...

Share all our fruit at Harvest Time ...

Welcome to John Bramston

2010-09-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

We welcome all the new Reception children to our class. We've been busy making friends and finding out about our new school. Here are some photographs to show some of the fun things we have been doing.

Very soon we will be beginning our P.E. sessions. Please remember to bring in a P.E. kit to keep in school.

Here's to a great first year at school!

Singing, Sports, Stories and Spuds!

2010-07-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

We have been very busy over the last few weeks. The highlight of the term was our performance of 'The Garden'. The children joined Key Stage 1 in a musical afternoon. They sang with enthusiasm and kept their audience entertained. Well done, Reception, for a great show!

We were lucky with the weather for our Reception Sports Day. The rain held off as the children showed off their skills with a range of sporting challenges. These included balancing, throwing, climbing and jumping. A big thank you to all the Year 5 children who lead their teams around the course.

Throughout the year we have been growing our own vegetables. Last week, we were pleased to dig up our very own 'home-grown' potatoes. With the help of Mr Jackson, we collected a basket full of potatoes. We took them back to class and cooked them. They were delicious! Thank you, Mr Jackson, for looking after our vegetables throughout the year!

We owe a big thank you to the Year 6 children who entertained us with their stories. Year 6 have been busy writing stories, illustrating them and producing books for young children. We were delighted to hear the stories, read so confidently by the Year 6 children. They were great to hear!

Arts Week in Reception

2010-06-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

We had a great time when we joined the rest of the school for Arts Week. Our week began with a whole school assembly, where we were entertained by a guitarist and all the staff singing.

During the week we joined in a range of Arts activities. We even recorded our own track for the school CD. The CD is for sale at £7.99 (Don't forget to place your order).

Our 'World Cup' country was USA, and we had great fun Line Dancing to country music.

We read Brer Rabbit stories and used these as a theme for our Drama sessions. We also learnt some American Nursery Rhymes, such as Yankee Doodle and Do your ears hang low? The highlight of the week (apart from the delicious Amercian Chocolate Chip Cookies we baked) was the World Cup Final. USA played a great game, but unfortunately lost to Denmark. Well done to all the footballers!

Our Class Assembly

2010-05-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

Well done to Class RF for a fantastic assembly! Their version of the book 'Dear Zoo' was a great success. Our Storyteller kept the audience amused with his requests for a pet, and we felt his disappointment when the zoo sent him animals that were too big, too scary, too grumpy or too jumpy. Eventually he got the perfect pet - a puppy.

The children demonstrated their excellent knowledge of numbers by singing their favourite number rhyme 'Five Little Monkeys'. It was just a shame that the crocodile ate 5 of the class members.

The finale of our Class Assembly was the performance of a song called 'Mr Noah'. All the children sang and danced with enthusiasm.

Once again, well done to Class RF for your hard work in making sure the Assembly went well. We certainly have some budding actors, singers and dancers of the future!

A grand day out!

2010-05-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

A great, big 'well done' to all of Reception for their excellent behaviour on a day out at London Zoo. The day was very tiring for all of the children, but they all totally enjoyed the experience. I think the highlights for most of the children were the monkeys, who were brave enough to come down from the trees to meet us. The butterfly house also thrilled the children, especially as the butterflies flew so close to our faces. We even managed to find some cocoons hanging from branches. We have been learning about animals and their habitats, so it was easy to find where some of the animals might be hiding. During our visit we were lucky to have a story told to us by one of the zoo keepers. She talked about one of the lion cubs, born at the zoo. Abi the cub has grown now, and the zoo keeper pointed her out to us - she was asleep with all the other lions! The keeper also asked the children to mimic some of the animals found at the zoo. The children did a great impression of the meerkats! A big thank you to all of the parent helpers who dedicated their time to care for the children and make the day a great success.

Are we there yet?

Feeding time at the zoo

Mrs Peters points out one of the butterflies

Keep still! There's a butterfly on your back!

The monkey came down to see us

The monkey gets brave

The children sensibly stand back to let the monkey hunt for food

We found Nemo!

The children listen to the story of Abi the lion cub

Listening to the story

The meerkats kept us amused

A quiet journey home at the end of a long day

The Easter Bunny!

2010-04-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

We were lucky to receive a visit from the Easter Bunny during the last week of term. We found 60 eggs in our Reception garden! We counted them and divided them in half, to share between the two Reception classes. We found that there were enough eggs for everyone to take home in the Easter Baskets we made.

Sharing the eggs we found during our Egg Hunt

Making Easter Baskets, just in case we find any eggs

We also enjoyed an Easter Bunny PE session with Mr Latham. We had fun pretending to be Bunnies jumping to hide Bean Bag Easter Eggs.

Hiding our Bean Bag Easter Eggs during our Easter PE Session

We finished our Spring Term with an Easter Party. Everybody wore their Easter Bonnets, and I'm sure you'll agree they all looked GREAT!

Enjoying our Easter party

Our Easter Bonnets

Shapes are all around us

2010-03-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

We have been busy looking for shapes. We know the names of flat shapes; circle, square, oblong, triangle and kite, and are beginning to find out about 3D shapes. We have hunted around our class and garden and found many of the shapes we have been learning about. We know the balls in our garden are spheres and the dice we use for our games are cubes. We have even found cylinders and cuboids! Keep hunting!

Food, glorious food!

2010-02-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

The children were really excited on their return from the half term break. Our Pet Shop had closed down, but in it's place was the opening of a new Chinese Restaurant. The restaurant employed the best waiters/waitresses and chefs, and attracted diners from all over Reception. Unfortunately, the restaurant is fully booked most of the time, so we had to open a takeaway too. The children are learning how to take telephone bookings, write an order, speak politely to each other and eat with a pair of chopsticks! We have found out what food you can eat in a Chinese Restaurant (most children were disappointed that pizza wasn't available, but rice is very popular!).
The restaurant looks lovely decorated in red and black. The Chinese Lanterns the children made for Chinese New Year look fantastic hanging from the entrance of the restaurant!

Gung hei fat choi

The Gruffalo

2010-01-30T03:43:00.000-08:00

As part of our theme, 'Modern Tales and Rhymes', we have been reading The Gruffalo. The children thoroughly enjoyed making their own Gruffalo masks for our interpretation of the story. They also recorded The Gruffalo Song. We hope you like it. Well done to RF for a great performance.

Welcome to 2010!

2010-01-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Reception for our 2nd Term. It has been an unusual start due to the snowy weather. We had a great time building our snowman in the garden and even found a carrot to use as a nose. I wonder how long it will last.

Please remember to bring back your PE kits, ready for our PE sessions. Also, please remember to bring your reading book and word book every day.

Happy New Year!

Anti-Bullying Week

2009-11-21T06:52:00.000-08:00

We have spent this week discussing bullying. The children have shared their ideas of how we can help each other when we are feeling sad. We read some stories dealing with friendship and talked about our feelings. Every child helped to make our 'Hands of Friendship' circle to display on our classroom door (and we got very messy!). We also had fun making our 'Anti-Bullying Blue Biscuits'. It was lovely seeing all the children wearing blue on Friday and wearing their Anti-bullying wristbands.

Happy Diwali

2009-10-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

We had a great time finding out about Diwali. Some children explained how they celebrate Diwali. We read the story of Rama and Sita and even made our own Divas. The 'home corner' became a place to celebrate Diwali, with the colourful clothing being very popular indeed. We even learnt some Indian dance moves during our PE session. The corridor in the entrance to our Reception classes is now full of brightly coloured, beautiful dancing ladies, photos and Rangoli patterns.
Thank you to all the children for their enthusiasm!

Our first PE lesson!

2009-09-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Our first PE was a great success! All the children changed for PE in a mature and sensible way, which gave us a long, physical session. We made the most of the glorious sunshine on the school field. Every child loved the new games we learnt and have requested that we play them again next week! We warmed up with a game of 'Beans', then showed our co-ordination through a game of 'Traffic lights'. Finally, we sprinted after Mr Bear's honey.

Well done to all the children for their first PE session!

Welcome to all the new children!

2009-09-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

What a great start to their first school experience! Well done to all the children who began school this week. We've had a great first few days and have already made lots of new friends. It's lovely to see all the children arriving (and going home) with big smiles on their faces!

Just to remind you that for the week beginning 14th September the children will be having lunch at school, and then going home at 2 pm. Please remember to bring your lunch, and also a PE kit.

Thank you all for a lovely start to the school year!

We had a wonderful time at Wimpole Hall Home Farm!

2009-05-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday 19th May all the reception children went to Wimpole Hall Home Farm. We will be sharing more of this fantastic day with you but for now we hope that you enjoy some photographs and a short video clip.

What have we recently been up to in our class?

2009-05-04T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We have had a very busy time since our class assembly update so we thought we would tell you about our favourite bits!
We all enjoyed learning about St. George's Day. We listened to the story about how St. George saved the princess from the dragon. The dragon was going to eat her! We especially liked playing with the castle and retelling the story using the little wooden figures. We all made England flags and carefully coloured and collaged a dragon. Our flags and dragons were used to decorate our classroom door. Mrs. Beadle made our door look really special and we were lucky enough to win the competition for the best door. Our prize was some fantastic writing pencils with little erasers on the end. Thank you, Mr. Lee!
We have started learning about flowering plants and plant growth. We have enjoyed listening to lots of stories that have plants in them such as 'Jack and the Beanstalk', 'The Tiny Seed', 'Jasper's Beanstalk', 'Ten Tiny Seeds' 'The Enormous Turnip' and many more! We all planted a sunflower seed and started keeping a 'Sunflower Seed Diary'. We took some of our sunflower seeds home so that we could watch them grow at home and at school. We are very pleased with ourselves as we know what the word germinate means!
Next week we are going to find out how our fruits and vegetables grow and where they come from. (Not from Sainsburys and Tescos stores as most of us think at the moment!) This will link in with our work on farming. Some of the stories that we will be reading will be about fruits and vegetables. 'Oliver's Vegetables', 'Oliver's Fruit Salad', 'I don't like Peas!' and many more.
We won't leave it so long before we'll be back as we have lots of exciting things happening before we reach half term.
Take care!

Our Class Assembly was Fantastic!

2009-03-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hello! Well we did it! We all enjoyed 'performing' in our class assembly - not all quite as planned! However, the children had a fantastic time and, once back in our classroom, wanted to know when they could do it again! Thank you to those of you who came to watch our class assembly. It was lovely to see you and I know how much it meant to your child to have you there. Treasured moments, such as class assemblies, cannot be recaptured. As your child grows up, and they do so very quickly, you will look back on these memories with fondness. The children work very hard to put together an assembly and I am pleased that some of you were there to celebrate and enjoy our achievements with us. We hope you enjoy watching two little parts of our assembly on this Blog.

We said a sad farewell to Miss Armer this week as she has finished her placement with us. Miss Armer has been working with us for two days each week since last September. She has now gone back to college to finish her written work before graduating to become an exceptionally good Nursery Nurse. We would all like to say a big thank you for all her help and support with making our learning so enjoyable. We will all miss her so very much! Good luck, Miss Armer, please come back to see us when you have a little spare time.
We are also saying a fond farewell to Tolu who is leaving us to go to a new house and a new school. Good luck Tolu! Don't forget us.

Watch this space for our next update!

2009-03-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just a quick reminder that our Class Assembly is on Tuesday 24th March at 10.20 am in the school hall. We really hope to see you there!

Wow! We've been busy!

2009-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hello,
Since our last blog, life in Class RC has been very busy! Some of the best bits have been celebrating 'Book Week' and 'Red Nose Day'. During 'Book Week' we enjoyed listening to some really good stories. Tony, a fantastic story teller, came into school and kept us spellbound by telling us a story about a chicken and a hedgehog. We made a book based on the story 'Dear Zoo' and enjoyed acting out our own stories. 'Elmer' stories are always very popular in our class so we joined up with Class RS and the Nursey and celebrated an Elmer Day on the last day of 'Book Week'. The Nursery children dressed up as Elmer and came into our classroom to show us. We made Elmer hats and enjoyed eating some party food! At the end of 'Book Week' we decided that our classroom book area needed to be more inviting and comfortable. Mrs. Coppin dashed to Ikea and Mrs Beadle got out her 'Bob the Builder Bits' to do a bit of drilling and banging! We we now have a fantastic book area, with new cushions and drapes, where we can snuggle down and really enjoy a good book.

We very much enjoyed 'Red Nose Day'. We all dressed up in pyjamas or funny costumes. Mrs. Coppin kept losing her slippers! We must say a big thank you to Bradley, who has just joined our class, because he made some delicious rice crispy cakes decorated with little faces and red noses. Thank you Bradley! We talked about how some children are not as fortunate as us and need help if they are to be happy and healthy. We thought about how lucky we are to have nice things to eat, comfortable homes and people who care for us.

We hope you enjoy looking at our photos. We won't leave it so long before the next update.
Bye for now!

Chinese New Year

2009-02-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

This week we have been finding out about Chinese New Year. We all learnt to say 'Gung Hei Fat Choi!' which means Happy New Year in Chinese!We loved the story about a horrible monster called Nian. He liked eating up people. To scare Nian away, the people started banging drums and gongs. We enjoyed that bit! We also learnt that the colour red is supposed to bring good luck. During the New Year festival, many people watch a famous dragon dance. The dragon swoops and sways along the streets. The Chinese believe that dragons are kind and helpful. They bring good luck. The twelve years in the Chinese calendar are all named after animals. We all enjoyed listening to the story of how the twelve animals were arguing because each animal wanted the New Year to be named after him. You will have to read the story or ask one of us to find out how the argument got sorted out!In class we enjoyed making lucky money envelopes, lanterns and dragons.We also listened to some Chinese music and enjoyed moving our bodies to the music and dancing with a streamer.
Next week we will be learning about pets. Our main text is the fantastic book by Mick Inkpen, 'The great Pet Sale.'Watch this space!

And now a plea

We are very lucky to have a classroom pet. Yes, we have three goldfish. However, we really need a new tank for them. If you have one that is no longer wanted, please would you consider donating it to us.
We would also love any suitable clothes for dressing up such as out grown fairy costumes, princess costumes fireman outfits, police outfits, builder outfits etc.. Also any old hats, handbags, purses necklaces, wallets, dolls, dolls clothes would be gratefully received. Thank you in anticipation!

Happy New Year from Class RC

2009-01-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

It's great to be back at school. We all enjoyed our Christmas holiday, which seems like a long time ago now, and have settled back into school really well.
The best part of coming back to school was the snow. We loved it! We just wish that there had been a little bit more so that we could have built a snowman. However, we made some snowballs and found out, quite by accident, what happens when we try to keep snowballs in our pockets! This led on to investigating what happens when snowballs are kept in the classroom. A lovely way to learn about material changes and how to mop up great big puddles on the floor!
Our main focus has been nursery rhymes. We have very much enjoyed saying, singing and acting out our favourite nursery rhymes. We enjoyed Humpty Dumpty and thought about how he fell off the wall. Taruna said, 'Somebody pushed the wall. The wall tilted and Humpty Dumpty slid off.' We had lots of ideas, probably enough to write a book! Poor Humpty got pushed off by a tiger, blown off by the wind, frightened by a bull and pecked by a bird! We have also read the story about 'Little Lumpty' who climbed to the top of a very high wall. However, much to our delight, he eventually got down safely.
We would love to have some more nursery rhyme books, story props such as a Humpty Dumpty, dressing up clothes and small world figures, soft toys etc. to help with our story telling. If you have any that you no longer want please send them into school for us.
Next week we are going to start work on the Gingerbread Man. Watch this space just in case he runs this way!

Not to be missed!

2008-12-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

The children have been working hard on their performance of 'Welcome Little Baby'. Key Stage 2 children and their teachers thoroughly enjoyed watching our first dress rehearsal today. Parents and carers of our reception children are welcome to join us on Friday morning at 10 am. to see our wonderful performance. Don't miss it! We hope to see you there.

We certainly enjoyed the panto!

2008-12-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we were very lucky to be able to watch a really good pantomime called 'The Woodcutter and the Wolf.' It was such a good day because due to the pantomime taking up a lot of room in the hall, we were allowed to eat our packed lunches in our classroom. We all like doing this! After lunch time play, the register and a toilet visit we lined up and walked to the hall. It was so exciting! We waited and waited and then out of the forest came Gordan the Woodcutter! We all liked Gordan and Horrible Horace. Mrs. Rumbletummy was really funny too!

We have also been very busy rehearsing our Christmas Nativity. We are now looking forward to performing with an audience! Hope to see you on Friday morning at 10am.

The day the firefighters came to visit!

2008-11-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last week was a very busy week. Mrs. Coppin had to go on a course on Monday so Mrs. Broadbent came to teach us. We had a lovely day. Mrs. Broadbent helped us to learn a little bit about measurement. We particularly enjoyed using the Russian dolls. Thank you Mrs. Broadbent!
As it was anti-bullying week, we also shared our ideas on how to be a good friend. We drew some pictures of our friends and Mrs. Beadle helped us to make a decoration to hang on our classroom door. We made some blue hand prints and placed them in a circle of friendship. In the middle we put a copy of our 'friendship' poem.

Always smile and be friendly
Be kind and helpful too.
And never, ever forget to say
You're my friend, I like you!

We have been learning about people who help us, so the highlight of the week (especially for Mrs. Coppin) was a visit from the local firefighters. It all started when another small bear (little Ross) arrived in our classroom, with a little note, saying that he did not know anything about firefighters and would we please help him. We immediately shared all our own experiences, knowledge and ideas. Remel made a small house out of a cereal box complete with pretend 'flames' and 'smoke'. We searched amongst our cars and vehicles and found a fire engine and some little play people firefighters. We talked about the firefighters' visit and made sure that little Ross knew how to behave himself. We counted the days (and the sleeps) to Thursday's visit.
The visit was fantastic and nearly all the boys, and one or two girls, are now keen to become firefighters. The firefighters talked about the dangers of fire and how they have to wear protective clothing to keep safe. Tolu was so interested in this that he just had to try on a firefighter's hat! We also learnt a little bit about the special equipment that they have on the fire engine. We were all able to sit in the fire engine and little Ross behaved himself really well. The best bit was finding out how the hose worked!
We are now going to be busy making our playhouse into a fire station. If you have anything that might help we would love to have it. We need dressing up clothes for firefighters and old mobile phones.
Look forward to sharing our next blogg with you.

2008-11-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Monday 10th November 2008

Hello from Reception class RC!
This week we thought that we would like to tell you about our classroom bear. He's called Sid. Back in September Sid arrived in an old shoe box with a letter telling us how much he wanted to spend some time with us. We were very excited and very quickly showed Sid how well behaved we are in class. We all wanted to be Sid's friend and we all wanted to take him home!
Sid has been home for the night with nearly all of us now. He's had so many adventures and has been given loads of presents. He's travelled on a bus and a train. He's been shopping, swimming and to football. He's met mums, dads, sisters, brothers, nannies, grandads, aunties, uncles, cousins, friends, pet dogs, cats, goldfish and hamsters! He's played with loads of different toys and eaten many, many favourite dinners and breakfasts. He's helped with cooking, cleaning bedrooms and been around at bath times. He's had a ride on numerous tricycles, bicycles, skateboards and roller skates! He's watched television and played lots of computer games. The children have just loved hearing about his adventures and it has been a real pleasure listening to them sharing the things Sid enjoyed in their home!

This week in school we will be making poppies for Remembrance Day, talking about our journey to school - What can we see? What do we pass on the way? - following routes around the school, planting spring bulbs, writing about our weekend news, enjoying a visit from Mr. Ron Davies who is going to talk about his school days and enjoying a visit from the London Fire Brigade! Wow! I expect you wish you were in our class!

Just before we go, something to make you smile - We were talking about Bonfire Night and the children were trying hard to remember the name of the man who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament - after much thinking, according to one little person his name was Knives and Forks!

Have a good week!

2008-11-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

2008-11-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Hello,
Welcome to our Reception class! We have just returned from our very first half term holiday and settled back into the classroom and school routines really well.
It was lovely to see our friends again and to share our holiday news. We tried really hard to listen to each other and to ask a 'good' question. Lots of us enjoyed some fun things for Halloween! Mrs. Coppin would have been really scared.
Today (Monday) was the first time that we were able to go into the 'big' playground after eating our lunch. What an adventure! We all had a really good playtime with no accidents - that's because we remembered to use our ears and eyes to help to keep us safe.
So what exciting activities has Mrs. Coppin got planned for us this week? Well, tomorrow we will be learning a little bit about Bonfire Night. Some of us have already enjoyed seeing some fireworks while celebrating Diwali. Hopefully after Wednesday we'll be able to create some fantastic firework pictures - we've already seen the glitter that Mrs. Beadle has ready for us to use. We are also going to investigate number 7, find out about straight and curved lines and make our own jigsaw puzzles.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Watch this space for an update soon!
Bye for now!