"What would be in your Winter Wonderland?"

This term, we will be answering the question above through various activities. We will be learning about various celebrations and creating pieces of written and artistic work. 

We will be holding a stay and play session, which gives parents the opportunity to come into school to support the children to create things for our Winter Wonderland. You should have received a letter about this. 

The Reception children have been learning about bonfire night including why we celebrate and how to stay safe during bonfire night.

We watched a video of a firework display and the children identified the different shapes and colours that they observed. The children then created their own firework piece of art by using PVA glue, salt and watered down paint. They were able to observe the effects of the combined media.

This activity also involved using our fine motor skills to control the pipettes. 

The children received a special visit from JB dog today. They listened to the story about bonfire night and then created some great dance moves to relate to the story. 

The children received a letter and a book from Jack Frost asking us to make our room more Wintery. So we worked together to create a mind map of what we think would make a good Winter Wonderland in our classroom. The children then worked individually to create their own plans, using their phonics knowledge to identify sounds within words. 

The children invited their families into to join them in a Winter Wonderland themed stay and play session. The children had support from their adults to create some wonderful crafts to decorate our room for Winter Wonderland!

It was amazing to see everyone so involved and we received some very kind feedback. 

To promote anti-bullying week, the children wore odd socks to school. We spoke about the importance of kindness and the impact on people if we are not kind. We watched a video clip and spoke about what we noticed was unkind and what should be done instead. 

The children have been focusing on different celebrations his term and one that we have focused on is Diwali. The children have listened to stories and watched video clips about why and how it is celebrated. 

The children have used ModelAir to create their own Divas. This required using fine motor skills and a variety of techniques to get the shape right. The children decorated the divas using bright colours. 

The children then participated in a Diwali dance workshop. 

(More pictures to follow). 

The children were so lucky to be offered a Diwali dance workshop offered by the West End in school company. The children retold the Diwali story through movement. It was a great way to teach the religion through a physical way. 

The children received another letter from Jack Frost explaining that Santa had tried to give his sleigh a test run but unfortunately it was not working very well. Jack Frost asked us to create a design for a new sleigh for Santa. The children could use drawings or construction resources to create their design. They had to think about how it would move and other features that might make it even better. The children gave some amazing explanations to support their design, including; boosters, wheels, seatbelts for safety, pillows and blankets to make it comfy, fridges to store his milk and we even had a suggestion of Elsa's frozen magical powers to help the sleigh move. 

The kindness elves have arrived in Reception class. They will set the children daily kindness missions to promote kindness. They have even brought an advent lorry with them as a special treat. 

This term we have focused on oral health and how to take care of our teeth. The children have shown great understanding of good teeth brushing and how to keep our teeth healthy through healthy eating and visiting the dentist regularly. 

The kindness elves have delivered us our very own toothbrush and toothpaste so that we can keep our teeth clean and use them to smile at everyone.