Expressive Arts and Design Chatter
Big cook, little cook
This morning, we have made our own sausage rolls! We brushed the milk onto the pastry, and rolled the sausage up! We can’t wait to eat them at snack time!
Chinese New Year
This morning, we have started our Chinese New Year Celebrations! We talked about all the special things that are done during this festival, and we found out the red is a special colour: it brings good luck! We used our fine motor skills to thread gold ribbon through our own red envelope and added a special coin 😋
Poetry performances
Today we performed poems that we have explored this week in our Ready Steady Comprehension sessions. We tried to use a range of expressive strategies to enhance our performance.
Our new sensory hideout!
We are so lucky to have been able to get a beautiful new sensory hideout! We noticed how the colours made beautiful patterns on the floor when the sun shone through 😍 ☀️
Tubes + cars = FUN 🤩
We’ve made our own car tracks and tunnels with some tubes and boxes today! We balanced the tubes on the furniture and drove our cars down to see how fast they could go! We had to work as a team.
Big Cook, Little Cook
Have a look at our ingredients…what do you think is on the menu today? We had to listen really carefully to Mrs Sefton as she told us the steps of the recipe…
Stay and Learn
Thank you to all our families who joined us for stay and learn this morning! It was a huge success and the children really love welcoming their families into their classroom. We made our own dough, made some porridge and tasted it just like Goldilocks, cutting and sticking, and fine motor activities. The children really enjoyed it and we hope you did too 🥰
Big cook, little cook
Today we made shortbread biscuits! We weighed the ingredients, and mixed them together. Once they were ready, we let them cool…but they didn’t last much longer than that! 😋
Celebrating our families
This week in reception we have been discussing our families! We drew pictures of our families and made paper chains to celebrate! Using our fine motor skills we were able to glue and stick to make the chain.
World Book Day
Reception have explored lots of books this week. We especially loved The Colour Monster and The Little Mermaid! We have been inspired creatively by our books. Look at our creations:
Science Week 👩🏻🔬👨🏽🔬🧫🔬🧬
Today we explored animals for science week! We looked at animals which live on farms. We also explored different wild animals and made our very own masks.
Spring 💐🌷🌻
Today Reception explored the parts of a flower!🌺 We have begun to look at how the season of spring is when plants and flowers start to grow and bloom after winter.
Art Week 🎨🖌️
For Art week reception have been exploring Spring animals. We used cotton wool, glue and paint to make a chick or a lamb.
Art Week 🎨🖌️
In reception we have been making our very own superhero’s for Art Week! We have used scissors, glue, card and sticks to make them.
Art Week!
This week for Art Week we made our very own superhero town. We had lots of fun using the water paints.
PJ day for Alder Hay
Today we wore our PJs for Alder Hay hospital. We know how much they help us!
ART Week 🎨🖌️
Reception created their own superhero city using; paint, card and glue. We were inspired by the book Juniper Jupiter!
Year 5 Art
5M are working hard to use primary colours to paint the totem poles we made last week. We’re really happy with the finished product.
Eid Moon and Star decorations
Reception have made Eid moon and star decorations using card, scissors, glue and glitter! 🌙⭐️
Stay and Learn
Reception had a fun afternoon with their adults! We showed our adults our classroom. We took part in different activities such as; colour mixing, flower blooming, Easter egg designing, tulip printing and tower building with 3D shapes!
Making daffodils
We have noticed all the wonderful daffodils 🌼 that are starting to grow. In our tuff tray, we had to use different materials to construct our own daffodil!
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Stay and Learn – Science
Thank you to all our families for joining us for stay and learn! We really enjoyed completing our science experiments with you – making rainbows and potions is so much fun! Thank you for supporting our stay and learn sessions 🥰
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3D Shapes
This week we have been exploring 3D shapes and their properties. We have used paint to print the faces of the 3D shapes.
DT Week 🍓🥝🥭🍍
This week is DT week! Reception have explored preparing food and tasting different fruits. We have practiced our cutting and knife skills.
DT Week 🪚🖌️✂️
For DT week, reception designed and made their own cars! 🚘 We used scissors, card, tape and oil pastels to create our cars!
DT Week
We have been exploring materials this week in understanding the world. We use blocks and foam to create houses that were stable!
Julia Donaldson 📚
This week Reception are exploring the work of Julia Donaldson. The first book we read was Cave Baby. Using natural resources such as; twigs, leaves, flowers and grass, we made our very own cave paintings.
Julia Donaldson
Reception have explored the text Superworm! We created our very own super worms using card and pens!
The Natural World 🌎
Reception have been exploring and understanding the natural world this week!
Julia Donaldson
We have explored Julia Donaldson’s texts The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s child. We have created our own deep dark wood and made the characters!
The Seashore
This week reception are exploring the sea and the seashore. We have explored different textures in our tuff tray. We used rice crispy for sand, jelly for the sea, rocks for rock pools and shells. Around our classroom there are lots of sea activities to explore!
The Seaside
This week reception have been exploring the seaside and animals under the sea. Our new English text The Storm Whale has inspired us! Using pastels we coloured different animals that we find under the sea. We traced the patterns to help us improve our fine motor skills!
Music and Beatboxing
Reception had an amazing time on the Music zoom. We learnt all about beatboxing and tried some ourselves!
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Dobbies Garden Centre
Reception had an amazing time at Dobbies Garden Centre. We made our own flowers and played in the soft play. We all have lettuce seeds, a pot and soil to take home to plant 🪴 . Thank you Dobbies and thank you to everyone who helped us to walk there!
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Cloud dough
We have had so much fun making our own cloud dough today! F said it felt like slime! It’s really stretchy, and smells amazing 🤩 it has definitely helped to wake up our hand muscles today!
When I Grow Up
Reception were excited to show and talk about what they would like to be when they grow up! Throughout the day we heard about lots of different jobs and explained why we would like to do the jobs chosen.
Now I am grown up
This week reception have been exploring growing up. We have been thinking about how we have changed since we were babies. We have used crayons to draw a picture of ourselves as a baby and then as us grown up now!
Art Week🎨
This week we are learning all about an artist called Paul Klee. We have learnt he uses shapes when painting his pictures. Today we made our own self portraits, we used an our maths knowledge of shapes to help us! We are true Artists🎨
Making wraps!
Yesterday, we made our own wraps at snack time! We named smelt the ingredients first, and talked about whether we had already tried them before. We had the chance to taste each ingredient before deciding whether we would like them on our wrap. And then the fun part…we had to make our wrap! It was trickier than we expected 😉
Pirate Week
This week Reception are exploring pirates. Across our classroom are lots of pirate 🏴☠️ activities for us to explore such as; pirate colour by numbers, pirate tuff tray, pirate map making and pirate stories!
Music Week
This week reception are exploring music. Today we have explored lots of different instruments, learning their names and playing them ourselves. We have also followed and repeated a beat!
We have also watched a music zoom with different musicians who showed us how they play different instruments!
Imagine That!
Reception had an amazing time at imagine that! We made snow, slime and a fridge magnet. We had lots of fun exploring the science, art, imaginative and outdoor areas!
Bastille Day
Reception have learnt all about Bastille Day! We have completed lots of activities to help us to understand Bastille Day and France. 🇫🇷 We have made our own flags using paint and our hands, we had our own French Bakery, and learnt some French words!
RE- The Creation Story
The children have explored the Christian creation story. They created their very own jellyfish 🪼 and discussed why the creation story is important to Christians. We used scissors to cut out our jellyfish and glue to stick the tentacles on!
Friendship
This week reception have been exploring what makes a good friend. We said that; kind hands, kind words and kind actions are what make a great friend!
Today we have made a friendship potion where we’ve added: kindness, happiness and smiles to our potions 🧪.
Harvest Festival
In RE, reception explored the Christian Harvest Festival. We explored the foods that are included in the festival. We discussed the season Autumn and the crops and foods that grow during this time.
Emotions Week!
This week reception have explored emotions. We have read lots of stories to help us understand different emotions including; The Colour Monster, The Worry Monster and The Worrysauras. The children have used a range of materials to create their very own Feeling Jars inspired by The Colour Monster!
PSHE-SCARF
In our PSHE SCARF lesson this week, we discussed the word ‘trust’. We thought about the people who we trust and why. We discussed our family and friends. Then we wrote and drew the five people that we trust!
Emotions Week
Reception explore The Worrysaurus by Rachel Bright this week. Using the story puppets and the story cards the children ordered the story and recreated the story in our small world.
Emotions Week- The Very Hungry Worry Monster
This week, Reception explored the text The Very Hungry Worry Monster by Rosie Greening. We discussed when and why we might feel worried. We also discussed what we can do if we feel worried and who we can talk to. Reception created their very own Worry Monster using cotton pads, pipettes and coloured water.
Self portraits 🪞
We have been working very hard to draw our self portraits ✏️. We used mirrors to help us with our drawings. We know that every self portrait will be different as we are all unique.
Making cheese scones
We carefully measured and weighed out the ingredients and made our own scone. We had to wait a while for them to cook and cool, before enjoying our scone for our snack!
Autumn Week
Reception have learnt all about Autumn. 🍂 We have been on an Autumn walk and found lots of different things that show us that we are in Autumn. We found leaves that have changed colour and fell off the tree. We also saw pine cones and conkers.
Autumn Week
Reception used the leaves they collected to create a fine motor tuff tray. Using tweezers and a bowl the children carefully picked the leaves out to sort them! We are working hard to make our hands strong!
Hedgehog bread
Whilst exploring Autumn, Reception have learnt all about the different Autumn animals that we can see. We baked our own Hedgehog Bread. Mixing flour, water, yeast and salt we made our own dough. We let the dough rise and then shaped our hedgehogs ourselves!
Leaf People Pictures
Reception have used the leaves that they collected on our Autumn walk to create their own Leaf People pictures. Using card, leaves and glue, Reception glued and stuck the different leaves to their card to create an autumn picture.
English Writing
Reception have worked hard on their stories inspired by The Something by Rebecca Cob. Today Reception finished writing their story with the help of Elephant Ending!
Black History Month
Today in Reception we explored how we are different and how we are the same! We looked at our hair colour, eye colour and skin colour. We discussed how even if we look different we are the same inside and we should always be kind to everyone!
Maths- Recognising numbers to 5
In Reception, we have been exploring and recognising numbers to 5. Today we completed a colour by numbers sheet to help us to recognise the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
PSHE- Calm Shakers
Today, in Reception we discussed our feelings. We talked about how we can help ourselves when we are feeling sad or angry. We spoke about using our heart breaths, colouring and doing things that make us happy when we are feeling sad. We created calm shakers using; water, cornflour, food colouring and glitter!
Making our own sandwiches
This week, we enjoyed building our own sandwiches! We talked about the health and hygiene aspect of handling food, and made sure we thoroughly washed our hands. We carefully spread the butter, then had to choose between chicken or cheese for our filling…and then our favourite bit…time to eat!
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Diwali – Rangoli Patterns
We have been learning about the festival of Diwali! The children independently made some of their own Rangoli patterns on the carpet using our magnetic shapes 🥰
RE
In RE this week Reception have read the story of the Precious Pearl from the Bible. We discussed what Christians believe this story symbolises and why it is an important parable to Christians. We created a box to put our own precious things inside to keep safe. We used; card, scissors, glue and felt tip pens to create our boxes.
Yellow Day
Reception had fun on Yellow Day. We discussed our feelings and how we can help ourselves when we are feeling sad or upset. We created yellow paper chains to brighten up our space!
Sensory play
We really enjoyed exploring this tuff tray…even if it did make our hands very red 😅 we used some amazing vocabulary to describe it such as slimy, wet, cold, gooey, squishy, sticky and sloppy!
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Autumn colour drop
We built an autumn tree using sticks and branches, and then created our own autumnal leaves by dropping different colours onto our cotton pad leaves! The children made links to our autumn walk, and discussed the different colours we could use. We found it tricky to draw the coloured water up into the pipettes but with some practise, we did it!
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Pumpkin soup 🎃
The children have really enjoyed learning more about autumn and Halloween 🎃 👻 This week, we have read the story Pumpkin Soup, and then made our very own! We helped Mrs Sefton hollow out the pumpkin, and then she carefully carved a spooky face into it. We then weighed and chopped the potatoes and pumpkin and Mrs Sefton cooked it before blending it into a delicious soup 😋
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Maths Party Day 🥳
We are having a brilliant day celebrating maths party day 🎉 we started our morning off with some number songs – our dance moves were just as amazing as our counting! We then got on board the maths train, and made a pattern. We talked about the different colours taking turns to make sure the pattern was correct.
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Diya Lamps 🪔
For Divali, the festival of light, we made our own diya lamps! We had lots of fun decorating them with bright colours like red, gold, blue, and green. We used paint, glitter, and stickers to make them look beautiful. Our lamps looked so shiny and colourful when they were finished. We learned that diya lamps are used to bring light and happiness during Divali. It was a fun and special activity in Reception!
Diwali 🪔🎇
This week, we have been learning all about Divali, the festival of light. We have done lots of fun activities, such as creating Rangoli patterns, decorating henna hands, and making our own colourful diya lamps. We have also been practicing our cutting skills to help with our art and craft work. In the construction area, we built a bright and colourful festival scene to celebrate Divali, filled with light, decorations, and joy. It has been an exciting and creative week!
Stay and Learn – DT week/maths
Thank you to all our families that were able to attend our stay and learn today! The children always enjoy welcoming you into our classroom. Our stay and learn today was all about DT week – the children had to think really carefully about the resources available to them and design and build a trap for the gingerbread man! We had to think about the sizes of the boxes, and choose things that were the right size for our model – some things were too big, some things were too small. We talked about the materials we could use to connect them – wet glue, glue sticks, cello tape, strong wide brown tape, masking tape or even string! Lots of opportunities for discussion and new vocabulary. Thanks again to all our families – we can’t wait to invite you in again soon!
Maths Party Day
Reception had lots of fun on maths party day 🥳. We explored lots of different maths activities that helped us with; patterns, numbers, counting and shapes!
Diwali
Reception have learnt all about Diwali- The Festival of Light! We have had lots of fun exploring different Diwali activities; we made our own diya lamps, paper chains, festival food and Rangoli patterns.
Reception Stay and Learn
Thank you for coming to our stay and learn! Reception had lots of fun showing their adults what they do in school!
DT Week
This week is DT Week! Reception are focusing on our local area. Today, we looked at Runcorn Bridge, we spoke about what a bridge is for and what they look like. Using foam blocks and shaving foam we created our very own bridges!
DT Week – building walls
We had so much fun building different walls in our garden. We found that if we stagger the bricks, it makes the wall so much stronger!
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Making spooky gloop!
We have had so much fun making our own spooky gloop this morning (and made lots of mess in the process – sorry Mrs Clovis!). We used spoons, scoops and ladles of different sizes to scoop the cornflour out onto the tray. Then we used spoons to pour the orange water onto it and watched it change from powder to liquid! The children may be coming home messier than usual, but they have had so much fun 😍
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Baking gingerbread men
This half term, we have been using The Gingerbread Man as our vehicle text – we have even learnt how to retell it from start to finish! To mark the end of this text, we have baked our own gingerbread men! Mrs Sefton was careful to watch the oven the whole time to make sure they didn’t run away…as we know, they are quite fast!
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Black History Month
We used play dough to create faces, and then used pipe cleaners and google eyes to make a smiley face. We talked about how all our faces are different – different colour hair, different colour skin, different colour eyes too! We read a beautiful book called The Colours of Us.
DT Week🌳
During DT week, we used a range of joining skills to create our own trees inspired by the story The Something, which we had been learning about in Literacy. We carefully designed and built our trees, exploring different ways to attach materials securely. To make them extra special, we gave our trees an autumn theme by adding colourful autumn leaves, linking to our learning about the seasons. It was a fun and creative week where we combined our DT and Literacy skills to bring our story to life!
Bonfire Night 🎇
This week in Reception, we have been learning all about Bonfire Night. We found out who Guy Fawkes was and why people celebrate on the 5th of November. We made our own beautiful firework pictures using salt and coloured water to create bright, sparkly patterns. We also talked about how to stay safe when celebrating Bonfire Night, such as keeping a safe distance from the fire and being careful with sparklers.
Bonfire Night
This week reception have learnt all about bonfire night. We have learnt about Guy Fawkes and why we celebrate bonfire night on the 5th of November. We have also learnt lots of important ways that we can stay safe on bonfire night.
Today we created our own fire works using; salt, glue and coloured water!
Bonfire Night
This week, we have been learning about Bonfire Night. We watched videos of fireworks and used our voices and bodies to copy their movements and sounds. Then we had fun making our own fireworks picture! The children enjoyed splattering glue and sprinkling glitter, making their fireworks sparkle!
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Baking cherry scones
We’ve made cherry scones! We carefully followed the steps on the recipe, and we are now patiently waiting for them to cook. Sorry to our families if children come home covered in flour! But we had so much fun.
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Remembrance Day
Today Reception have learnt all about Remembrance Day and the poppy. We have made our own poppy fields to remember all the men and women who have fought in wars to keep us safe.
Using apples, paint and card we printed poppies onto card.
Remembrance Day
Nursery paid our respects to the brave soldiers today at 11am. We made our own poppies using our handprints, and talked about what the poppies represented. We will remember them ❤️
Music
Today reception had fun watching a musician show them their instruments and play them. We sung along and clapped to the different beats!
Big cook, little cook
We enjoyed making our own sausage rolls in our cooking session this week. We had to carefully roll the pastry around the sausage, then brush them with milk! This was trickier than it looks, and some of them kept tricking us by unrolling themselves! We then enjoyed them at snack time (some children enjoyed some delicious meat free rolls too 🥰)
Children in Need 2025
We have had a lovely start to Pudsey day! We have done some PE with Joe Wicks and Pudsey, and have enjoyed some printing – Pudsey’s eye patch was missing its spots!
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PE
This half term Reception are exploring dance in PE. This week they have worked in teams to create their own dance!
RE
This week in RE reception have explored the Nativity Story. They have created Christmas cards which show the Nativity scene. Reception used pencils, coloured pencils and card.
Space Week
This week Reception have explored space. We have completed lots of different space activities, learning all about the; planets, rockets and the stars.
Space Week
This week Reception have explored space. Today we created our own rocket fuel to make our rockets ‘fast’ and make them ‘blast off’. We also used the blocks and connectors to create our own rocket that could take us to the Moon and Mars!
Story dough
The children always enjoy story dough, but this morning they got a little shock at how cold the dough was! We always have to warm it up with our song, but it needed a little extra warming this time! The children were busy making a cheesy wolf 😅😎
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Mark making
The children were so excited to get the magic mat out! All we need is water, and the marks appear like magic!
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Banana muffins
This week, we made banana muffins! We carefully weighed out the ingredients…but mashing the bananas was definitely our favourite bit! They really were delicious 😋
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Julia Donaldson
This week Reception have been exploring the author Julia Donaldson. We have made: Gruffalo pie from ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’, made the highway from ‘The Highway Rat’, put all the characters from ‘Room on the Broom’ onto the witches’ broom, made our own paper dolls from ‘Paper Dolls’ and made our own Stickmen from ‘Stickman’.
Shapes
Reception have been exploring shapes. We have made our own stars by cutting rectangles and triangles out and gluing them together. We have also been on a shape hunt searching for squares and rectangles.
Exploring different textures
We had the choice of different ingredients, and we explored how they felt, smelt (and even tasted!) in our tuff tray.
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More repeating patterns
We further consolidated our learning about patterns, and printed some using cotton reels. This proved trickier than we thought, as we had to really concentrate on which reel we were picking up. Some children then even recreated their own patterns in provision independently!
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Art Week
Our first art week activity: sketching shoes! Our driver text this half term is The Elves and the Shoemaker, so we decided to try sketching our shoes, just like a shoemaker would when they were designing them. We looked closely at the details and shapes we could see.
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Fine motor Christmas tree
We used our strong hands to place ‘baubles’ on the Christmas tree 🎄
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Stick Man – Julia Donaldson
This week we also explored the book Stick Man. We went into our outdoor environment to collect sticks, which we used to make our very own Stick Man models. Using our DT joining skills, we attached the sticks together with string. Finally, we added faces to complete our Stick Man.
Letters to Santa
Today Reception posted their letters to Santa. We wrote down what we would like for Christmas and then put a stamp on the letter to send it to the North Pole. We even got a surprise gift- we think it might have been from the elves?
Hanukkah
This week Reception have been learning all about the Jewish celebration Hanukkah. We made our own menorahs and potato latkes. To make the menorahs we cut a paper plate in half and painted it gold with a big paintbrush.
To make our potato latkes we mashed the potatoes and grated the onions. Then we mixed the flour and salt into the mixture.
Music
We listened to different pieces of music, talking about how they made us feel, and whether they were fast or slow pieces of music. We moved our bodies in response to the music.
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Art week
The children loved taking their pens for a walk…and we gave our core muscles a bit of a workout and lay on our tummies! It was so much fun!
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Music – identifying instruments
In music, we explored the sounds of lots of different instruments. Then, we had to use our listening skills to identify which instrument we could hear.
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Art week
We used different materials to make marks – felt pens, crayons, pencils, graphite, chalk…then we had to decide which one we preferred and talk about why.
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Art Week
Art week continues…our driver text this half term is ’The Elves and the Shoemaker’ so we decided to collage some shoe templates! Spreading the glue was a little messy, but we are learning, so mess is okay! We talked about the colours that we were using.
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Big Cook Little Cook
We made a reindeer this week! Constructing with different foods is a really tricky skill. It requires steady hands, patience, but there is also an element of speed too before the ingredients start to melt! The children did an amazing job, and they tasted pretty good too!
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ART week
For ART week Reception have continued their exploration of our story The Star and The Jar by Sam Hay. They created their own night sky using chalk and black card and their own jars with pictures and labels of their favourite things.
Reception Nativity
Well done Reception you did amazing in your nativity. You learnt all your lines and lots of songs. A big thank you to all the adults at home who helped the children learn their lines and pick their costumes. Thank you for coming and watching the show. A big round of applause for the children’s amazing performance!
Christmas Decorations
Today reception have made their own Christmas decorations out of salt dough. We added salt, flour and water to a bowl. Then we mixed them together and rolled them out using a rolling pin. We used different moulds to create our own decorations.
English- Star in the Jar
Sam the Star is missing. This week Reception are writing a Poster to ask if anyone has seen Sam around school.
Reindeer Food
Reception have created their own reindeer food to help guide Santa’s reindeers. We measured oats and magic into a pot, then we mixed it up and poured it into a small bag.
Me and my friends
In PSHE, we read the story Elmer. We discussed how the elephants were different – some are small, tall, old etc. We linked that to ourselves – we all look a little bit different, and we all like and dislike different things. We then made elephants out of play dough and noticed that none of them were exactly the same – they all had differences!
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Music – identifying instruments
We listened to the sounds each instrument made, and then closed our eyes and used our ears to identify them. We then had to identify a rhythm, which links to our learning in maths about patterns.
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Hanukkah
This week, we have been learning all about the Jewish festival of light – Hanukkah! We learned all about the menorah, and how each day, a new candle is lit using the special candle in the middle (the shamash). We had fun counting the candles on our own Menorah, and even printed one to take home, being careful to count exactly 9 candles. 🕯️ 🕎
Art Week!
During Art Week, we used the story Star in a Jar to create our own jars filled with things that are special and precious to us. We spent time thinking carefully about what mattered most and why we chose each item. Through lots of thoughtful discussions, we shared our ideas and listened to others explain what made their choices meaningful. This helped us understand that everyone values different things and that our stories are important.
Hanukkah
We have been learning all about Hanukkah and have taken part in lots of different activities focused on this special celebration. We had lots of fun while learning through provision and exploring the activities together. We now know many facts about Hanukkah and understand why it is important.
