The children in Reception have been using their senses to find out more about the winter squash that were part of our Autumn investigation table. They enjoyed using the tweezers to remove the seeds and used the Numicon pieces to help them to count the number of seeds they removed. When looking closely with the magnifying glass, Georgia commented that “some are little and some are big.” Danny chose to scoop the seeds using a spoon and said that it felt “slimy” when he touched the inside. Mila thought it smelled “like cucumber” and Reece thought it smelled “like pumpkin.” The children were able to use the correct terms for the seeds, skin and stalk.

We have been exploring signs of Autumn this term.  We asked all of the children to go with their families on an Autumn walk.  They collected wonderful treasures which we investigated by using many of our senses.  We then used the special treasures to make some fabulous transient art.  Can you see the troll, the dragon and the man?

This term in Reception we have been learning to recognise numbers, how to write them and how to count out the correct number of objects.

Today we re-homed our froglets.

The children were very excited to find that our tadpoles had finally grown legs and are now froglets.  They were carefully scooped out and we took a walk down to the burn to release them into the River Don.  The children all waited on the bridge while Mrs Davidson bravely walked down to the waters edge to release our froggy friends

Some of the Reception children visited the beach for our first ‘Beach School’ with West Boldon Lodge.  We made our own beach school necklace, talked about the beach rules, went on scavenger hunt, listened to a story about a singing mermaid and then worked as a team to create our own mermaid using objects found on the beach.  We had a fabulous time and can’t wait for next week!

This term in Reception we have been covering some new concepts, doubling, halving and sharing.  The children have been posed questions and problems to enable them to apply their own ideas and thinking.

We have used objects to solve our problems but we have also moved on to using a number line to help us solve calculations.

in our continuous provision the children have loved using the Shut the Box game.  They have been. The children are becoming skilled at writing the formal calculation and using more effective methods to find answers, e.g. counting on and doubling.

The Reception children have been working hard at our Daily Mile this week. They are building resilience and determination. Despite finding it tough going to keep running or walking for 15 minutes lots of the children have developed a strategy of running on the long lengths of the play ground and walking the short lengths.

Click below for more information about the Daily mile