RSR: Blog items
The day the ducklings came to play
Date: 31st Mar 2022 @ 7:48pm
Today we had some very special visitors in Reception. Daisy and Luke, the ducklings, came into our class for the morning. They swam in our water tray and got very excited running around in circles. The children loved watching and listening to them tweeting. We were very sad that they had to go back to the farm tomorrow, so we spent the afternoon making them cards and pictures so that they wouldn't forget us.
Date: 31st Mar 2022 @ 7:42pm
Yesterday was our Easter Bonnet competition. We had great fun making and wearing our bonnets all day! The entries were amazing! Well done everyone and Happy Easter!
Date: 18th Mar 2022 @ 7:31pm
Wow ! What a busy week reception have had! We finished off our week wonderfully by celebrating Red Nose Day.
The children made Red Nose Day crowns, silly nose biscuits and even had a nose and spoon race. Their favourite part of the day was definitely telling one another their best jokes and having a good laugh together on the carpet.
Thankyou everyone for your donations!
Here are a few of our favourite jokes so that you can have a chuckle too...
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he wanted to eat ice cream!
Knock knock, whose there, woo? Woo hoo
Why did Elsa have a balloon? She didn't want to let it go!
Date: 18th Mar 2022 @ 7:10pm
This week was science week. To celebrate the children all put on their lab jackets and practiced their science skills. They explored, observed, experimented and most importantly they had lots of fun!
Date: 14th Feb 2022 @ 3:44pm
Happy Valentine's Day from Reception! We have had a great day thinking about all the people we love in our lives and doing lots of lovely activities to celebrate! We've made cards and drawn some beautiful pictures for people we love, made some red roses, baked and decorated some heart shaped cookies and made some floral perfume in our water area!
Its been a great day :)
Date: 11th Feb 2022 @ 3:50pm
We have had a busy maths week in Reception this week. Our classes have been working really learning how we can make different numbers. We started with 5 and thought about all the different ways we can make 5 by using our 5 speckled frogs song. Then we pushed our learning even further and thought about how we could fit 6 aliens onto our spaceships if they only had 5 seats!
Good work Reception!
Date: 1st Feb 2022 @ 3:33pm
Today we celebrated Chinese New Year!
In Reception we spent the day learning all about Chinese New Year celebrations and did lots of activities to celebrate! We made dragon masks and a big red dragon head to follow the tradition of dragon dance, and made tiger masks and puppets to celebrate 2022 being the year of the tiger! We also painted some Chinese numbers and made some beatiful laterns with red and orange tissue paper!
Date: 31st Jan 2022 @ 3:24pm
Today Reception had a special delivery - some new boxes and a story! We read our new story, 'On Sudden Hill', and talked lots about all the amazing things our boxes could be.
Then we spent all day being creative and playing in our boxes, being different characters and turning our boxes into anything we wanted!
We made castles, race cars, houses, unicorns, lions, spaceships, dinosaurs, soldiers, dragons, and pirate ships. It was lots of fun!
Date: 21st Jan 2022 @ 3:56pm
This week Reception have been reading the story 'The Storm Whale in Winter'. We had a good think about how we could help Noi and his Dad get home from the lighthouse and decided that we would make them a boat!
We did lots of fun experiments about which matierals float and which sink which helped us decide what we should use to make our boats.
We spent some time designing our boats and labelling them with the materials we would use, and then we worked together to make our boats and tested them in the water area!
Date: 19th Jan 2022 @ 8:43am
This week we have been experimenting with colour. We loved mixing the primary colours in water and seeing which colours we could make. We made our own colour charts so that we could remember how to make new colours when we play independently in the classroom.
Date: 9th Jan 2022 @ 5:07pm
Happy New Year!
This week in Reception we celebrated the new year by looking back on all of our memories from 2021. We had such a fun start to Reception and we can't wait to use our learning powers in this new year.
This week we launched our new topic all about winter and cold places. We have shown a real interest in penguins and polar bears and can't wait to learn more.
Date: 17th Dec 2021 @ 7:41pm
We've had a very busy week of Christmas crafts! Reception have been making amazing cards, table mats and calendars, as well as Christmas paintings and colourings! We've had lots of fun learning about Christmas and done lots of celebrating to finish our first amazing term in Reception.
We wish you a very merry christmas and a happy new year!
Date: 28th Nov 2021 @ 2:01pm
Hello!
So far in our Talking Top Tips series we have shared the importance of getting your child’s attention before you speak to them and some ways you can help to develop and broaden your child’s vocabulary. We have also looked at mirroring and thinking about commenting over questioning.
Today’s tip is very simple!
When you ask your child any question, research tells us that it can take up to 10 seconds for your child to process what you have asked and to formulate a response.
This week, try to give your child 5-10 seconds after you have asked them a question to respond. It may feel uncomfortable! Try not to repeat the question and show your child that you are listening and interested by maintaining eye contact.
Good luck and please get in touch if you have any questions!
Miss Wilkinson.
Date: 22nd Nov 2021 @ 4:48pm
Hello!
I would like to share with you the 4th installment of our ‘Talking Top Tips!’ series.
So far we have shared the importance of getting your child’s attention before you speak to them and some ways you can help to develop and broaden your child’s vocabulary. Last week’s Top Tip was all about limiting the number of questions we ask of our young learners.
Todays ‘Top Tip’ is all about mirroring.
English is a notoriously difficult language. Children will often make mistakes in their talk! Sometimes it is a mispronunciation of a sound (E.G lellow over yellow), other times part of a word is missing (E.G look, he run over look, he’s running) or sometimes the choice of word is wrong entirely (EG there’s snow on the ground over there’s frost on the ground). These mistakes are developmentally appropriate and should be expected as children explore and play with language!
Though it is normal for children to make some mistakes in their talk, we still have a responsibility to correct them. Stopping a child to explain how to say a word and asking them to repeat it back to you might help them to remember how to use the word next time, but it will also stop your conversation in its tracks! Mirroring is a technique that allows the flow of conversation to continue uninterrupted whilst also showing the child the correct way to use the word. See the example below!
Child: Mummy, I fall at school.
Mummy: Oh no! You fell! You fell at school?
Here the child will hear the correct word to use in this context without interrupting their train of thought. Have a go at using this technique this week!
And as always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do come and have a chat.
Miss Wilkinson.
Date: 17th Nov 2021 @ 4:46pm
Today we got our shopping lists, our walking shoes and our shopping bags and walked to Asda. We looked down the aisles for all of the things on our lists and ticked them off once we had found them. Once we had finished our shopping we paid using the self checkouts, packed our bags and made the short walk back to school.
We had the best time and were all so sensible and safe walking to and from school.
we can't wait for tomorrow when we make our cupcakes and sandwiches and prepare for our tiger tea party!
Date: 15th Nov 2021 @ 4:12pm
Hello all! This is the third installment of our Talking Top Tips blog series. So far we have shared the importance of getting your child’s attention before you speak to them and some ways you can help to develop and broaden your child’s vocabulary.
Today’s ‘Top Tip’ is all about questions.
How many bricks are in your tower? What have you drawn? You like to ride the bike, don’t you? What would happen if we added blue powder to the paint? Are you ok? Do you need a snack?
Both at home and at school children are asked an awful lot of questions! Questions can put children on the defensive and often lead to your child saying or doing less, rather than more. Before diving into questioning, it is important to OWL. This means to observe what your child is doing, wait to see what it is they are interested in and if they initiate a conversation with you through either talking, gesture or by looking at you and listening rather than thinking about what it is you are going to say next. I find waiting to be the most difficult part of ‘owling’!
Once your child has given you a cue to start a conversation (by looking at you or perhaps by showing you a toy), try to simply comment rather than question. If your child holds up a toy tractor, rather than asking ‘What do you have there?’, try ‘Oh look, you have the red tractor!’ Instead of ‘Do you like your juice?’, try ‘Wow! That juice looks delicious!’ Instead of ‘What is that? Is it a bus?’ try ‘That bus looks like it has a lot of passengers today!’
Research indicates that the best way to support young children’s language development is to make 4 comments to every 1 question you ask. This means we need to think really carefully about which questions are important! Try to use questions that match you child’s interests, questions that they would want to answer. It is also worth thinking about questions which require a longer response. For example, asking ‘How are you feeling?’ instead of ‘Are you ok?’ or ‘What can you hear outside?’ over ‘Did you hear the police car?’ There is more information about questions if you are interested to find out more at https://www.famly.co/blog/open-ended-questions-early-years.
Have a go this week at commenting rather than questioning when you are talking with your child! As always if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please get in touch.
Miss Wilkinson.
Date: 8th Nov 2021 @ 4:34pm
Remember remember the 5th November...
On Friday we celebrated all things firework.
We looked at the shapes and noises that fireworks make in the sky and we made our very own firework pictures.
We loved watching videos of people making shapes in the dark with sparklers so we decided to make our very own sparklers and take them outside for a special Ravensbury Bonfire. We made a bonfire and did a special bonfire dance with our sparklers.
We had such a fun day learning about Bonfire night and looking at all of the bright colours that light up the dark night.
Date: 8th Nov 2021 @ 4:29pm
On Friday 12th November the children will be having individual and sibling photographs. Please ensure that your child is dressed in their normal school uniform and NOT PE clothes. We will still be doing PE this Friday, however, it will be in normal school clothes to allow school photos to be taken.
Many thanks,
The Reception team
Date: 1st Nov 2021 @ 1:27pm
Hello all! We hope you had a wonderful, restful and fun half-term break. I would like to introduce the second instalment of our blog series to help to support your child with their speaking and listening skills. This week’s TOP TIP is all about building vocabulary.
Vocabulary is key. Learning and remember new words is tricky but incredibly important. Your child should know around 1000 words by the time they are 4 years old. Your child will use these words to communicate to you what they need, explain their feelings or ask questions to deepen their knowledge. The process of building up a language or lexicon continues throughout childhood and beyond with the average adult using between 20,000 and 35,000 words!
To successfully build vocabulary your child will need to hear words repeated many, many times. Practice makes perfect! The more often a child hears a word used in the correct context, the more likely it is that they will then be able to understand and use this word themselves.
If you are walking to school with your child on a cold winter’s morning, try introducing new vocabulary! You could describe the weather (drizzling, freezing, crisp, bitter..) You could name things you see along the way (post box, van, seagulls…)
Another great way to build vocabulary is to ‘add one word’. When your child uses a word (such as asking for a tangerine) you repeat the word back to them with the addition of another word (you would like a juicy tangerine). This way of teaching language helps children to retain the word as you anchor it to a word they are already confident using.
Give one of these strategies a try this week! Do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or concerns.
Miss Wilkinson.
Date: 18th Oct 2021 @ 4:50pm
Talking Top Tips!
Hello wonderful Ravensbury families. This is the first in a series of blog posts designed to help you support your child at home in developing their speaking and listening skills. Lots of the curriculum in Nursery and Reception relies on children being able to express their thoughts clearly. There are many ways you can support this at home, but this week’s TOP TIP is about getting your child’s attention.
When you want to talk to your child, try getting down to their level before speaking. This will make it easier for the child to hear what you are saying when you begin, as well as giving them the opportunity to see the shapes your mouth makes as you talk. This will help them develop some of the trickier speech sounds that they are not yet able to make on their own. This is especially important for sounds such as th as in think, sh as in shower or ch as in choice.
Before starting to talk to your child, say their name. Children find it difficult to listen whilst engaged in another activity. Wait for them to stop the activity or give you eye contact before speaking to give them the best chance of listening and responding.
Think carefully about the background noise when you are speaking to your child. Young children are unable to distinguish passively between noises they hear and do not ‘pick out’ the speech in noise the way adults do. If you are talking to your child near a busy road, with the TV on in the background or with the radio on in the car, they have to first decode which parts of what they have heard are speech before they are able to understand the words that have been spoken. Where possible try to spend time each day talking to your child in an environment with limited background noise.
Have a go at this over the half term and please come and see me if you have any questions or concerns!
Miss Wilkinson.
Date: 16th Oct 2021 @ 9:53am
We love challenge Fridays in reception, in fact it's our favourite day of the week! The children love challenging themselves to complete all of the challenges set.
This week we had 3 challenges linked to this weeks learning.
The children could choose an Autumn challenge, a number challenge or a ready steady Mo maths challenge. The most popular was definitely the Autumn challenge. The children loves using the leaves that they had found to print red, orange and yellow colours onto the paper.
"look it looks like the floor on my way to school this morning!" Kadie
"the leaves feel so so squashy." Zara
"orange red leaves!" Muhammad
Date: 11th Oct 2021 @ 6:27pm
We have been reading the book Ready Steady Mo in class. We love the story and we especially enjoy retelling the story outside with all of the different actions. Our favourite is run with a cheetah and run with a snail.
We have been thinking about different words that we can use instead of the word run to make the story more interesting.
"Mo can sprint!" Lainey
"Mo can dash !" Tyzae
This week we will be writing speech bubbles for Mo so that he can tell everyone how he moves. We have been retrieving the tricky word I and have been using our knowledge of beginning sounds to help us retrieve our running words.
Don't forget to check back this week to see all of the amazing writing that we have done!
Date: 11th Oct 2021 @ 2:55pm
Last week we enjoyed exploring all things Autumn. The children loved learning about autumn vegetables, especially pumpkins! The children used their drawing skills to independently draw pumpkins. In the end we had so many pumpkins we had to make our very own class pumpkin patch!
Once we had finished drawing pumpkins the children wondered what a pumpkin smelt and tasted like. We cut it open and then the real fun began! The children felt the seeds in the middle and had a smell of the fruit. They decided that they wanted to have a taste so we decided make pumpkin cupcakes the next day. We followed the instructions and made lots of delicious cupcakes!
