Learning Journey

​EXIT POINT 
This week have been a very busy week.  For our Exit point on Houses and Homes we had fun walking to big school from the back gate. On our way to big school we had fun exploring and looking at houses built with bricks and wood and also big buildings, small houses etc…… We discussed which material they have used building their houses. Is it strong?  
We ended our topic, Houses and Homes reflecting on our learning, looking at photos and work we have been doing  throughout the weeks. 

ENTRY POINT
On Wednesday we had our Entry Point introducing our new topic TRANSPORT! We brought in our own bicycles and scooters to share and rode at iCANPLAY. We made a 3D airplane and a bus and had fun taking photos with it.
We used non-fiction books and video clips to find out more information on transport people use around the world. 

Our role play area for this learning block is TRAVEL AGENTS! We will be building it slowly throughout the weeks.  

Literacy
This week for older learners in phonics we have been revising initial sounds of s,a,t,i,p,n and blending and segmenting three letter words. 
Younger learners have been exploring objects and learning the words and identifying the name of the instruments being played.  

We have also been drawing and painting our favourite transport. We focus on the sounds that begings for each transport such as….. b for boat, s for submarine, t for truck etc……… 

Maths
This week in maths we have been learning to count and recognise numbers through various games and activities. We have also been busy sorting different transport into air, water and land. 

Literacy
Learning Facilitators in Reception have noticed a big improvement in all the learners reading and want to take this chance to thank you all for your support at home. It so wonderful to see the learners building in skill and confidence with their reading. 

This week in Group 1 have continued to focus on double letter sounds such as ch, the and ee. 

Group 2 learnt the new sounds j and v this week and displayed their increasing blending and segmenting skills with words such as jam, Jack, van and vet. 

Group 3 have made great improvements in their blending skills and have been building on this in a variety of activities.

Literacy
This week we have been super busy learning to practise writing and reacognising our names. We have also been learning to listen to the first sound in our names through various games and activities. iCANPLAY learners have been making some lovely mark making on sand and flour using their fingers and paint brushes. 
We all had fun exploring musical instruments and performing an action to match a musical instrument.  

 Maths
This week in Maths we have been exploring and learning  2D SHAPES using cooperative learning structures. We played corners and enjoyed making different  shapes in groups using wooden blocks. 

We had fun counting and recogninsing numbers through number rhymes, songs and games.  

Learning Journey

ENTRY POINT
In Learning block 5 we're learning about DINOSAURS! This week we had an exciting Entry Point. On Thursday 7th March Reception visited the Jurassic Kingdom Dinosaur Park. This was a fantastic way to start our new topic and test our knowledge of dinosaur as we encountered gigantic, realistic dinosaur models around the park. Lots of us got a fright when the models began to move and ROAR loudly in our ears. We were lucky enough to take a ride on some dinosaurs and also encounter the   different dinosaurs in various environment areas. We enjoyed assembling the giant dinosaur puzzles in the park in a group working on our personal goals. We had a lot fun, it was a great way to begin our topic; Dinosaur.  Before our trip to Dinosaur Park our learners were very excited as we had a brainstorming session about dinosaur in the beginning of this week and were excited to discuss about paleontologists and what they do. The learners were happily digging for dinosaur bones in the tuff spot. Everyone was very resilient, adaptable and worked cooperatively to find all of the dinosaur bones.  

Learning Journey
We enjoyed sharing the story ' THE GRUFFALO '.  We painted and made collages of the characters in the story to decorate out class door.  We discussed the animals in the Gruffalo are all very different. How are we different from our friends?  We continued   thinking of differences between us. We enjoyed making snake scramble and it was very yummy. We also had fun  making Gruffalo character puppets and had fun role playing the story. We enjoyed moving like different animals from the Gruffalo stories  and looking at rhyming words. 

Maths
This week in Maths  the learners enjoyed counting how many friends the Gruffalo has? We  sorted nuts into different sizes and practised writing numbers on the shaving foam. 

Learning Journey
 What a fun and busy week it has been.We decided that for book week we would focus on Julia Donaldson books. Each day we read a different story and completed activities based on them. We read The Scarecrows Wedding, Cave Baby, The Smartest Giant in Town, Charlie Cooks Favorite Book and Night monkey/Day Monkey.  We started the week off by designing and making our door decorations. The learners coloured, cut and wrote lines of the story. Can you guess the stories we used to decorate? 
Tuesday we had bedtimes stories, Wednesday reading in the garden, Thursday listening to stories in different languages and books swap and  Friday was the best of all - costume parade. 
Atop of all those activities the learners where busy in the classrooms designing clothes, making cave paintings, looking at rhyming words and sharing their favorite books with their peers. 

Maths
This week the learners have been using different skills to add two numbers together. They tried counting on their fingers, using a number line and counting with blocks. They are improving their skills daily and will move onto subtraction next week. ​

Literacy
​This week in phonics......
Group 1 have been revising their ch sound and practicing writing sentences using capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. 
Group 2 Have been practicing their blending and segmenting skills as well as working on tricky words. 
Group 3 moved onto sound set 2 and blending words using these sounds. 

To end our wonderful minibeasts topic the learners took a trip to ISPP's butterfly garden on Monday. They where amazed to see so many butterflies flying around the enclosure, noticing their colour, pattern and symmetrical wings. They even got to see some very hungry caterpillars munching on leaves. As they strolled through the garden they talked about the different stages of the butterfly life cycle and how the butterfly uses its long tongue to drink the juice (nectar) from the flowers. They linked their trip to their knowledge of bees as they passed by some flowers with lots of pollen and commented on how bees use the pollen to make honey. The learners enjoyed using technology , iPad, to document what they saw. It was tricky trying to take pictures of the fast flying butterflies. Before leaving ISPP they again documented their visit and knowledge by drawing what they had seen and the different stages of the butterfly life cycle. 

​The reception learners really enjoyed our minibeasts topic and have so much knowledge about bees, ladybugs, butterflies and spiders. We hope they share this knowledge with you at home and continue to build on their curiosity about minibeasts. 

Learning Journey
We extended our knowledge on different types of houses and homes through looking at pictures and video clips.  We were thinking of questions such as...........

What kind of home do you live in?
What kind of home would you like to live in and why?
Can you think of any other kinds of home?

We made large houses of the three little pigs and discussed the materials they used to build their house.  We made an igloo with cotton and discussed that in some very cold places people live in homes made of ice. We also made buildings using wooden blocks and lego. We used a cooperative learning structure CORNERS to find out more information on different types houses and homes in groups. 

Literacy
In Literacy, we have been  sharing the story The Three Little Pigs.  We continued to practise writing our names using different materials. In phonics we have been practising rhyming words and initial sounds in words. 

Learning Journey
This week we have been continuing our topic of “Minibeasts” by learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. We enjoyed looking at powerpoints, songs, stories and pictures of butterfly. We have been busy making the life cycle of a butterfly using pastas, lentils and dry twigs. We also used our phonic skills to write the initial sounds of the different stages of the life cycle. We shared the story and later watched the video of the very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle. Later we watched the video of the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. We loved drawing the story map of ‘the hungry caterpillar. We enjoyed doing an activity trying to recollect what the caterpillar ate during the different days of the week.

On Monday the 11th January we will be going on a field trip, visiting ISPP's Butterfly Garden.   Please Kindly apply sunscreen lotion and  dress your child  comfortable clothes and trainers to the trip .

Literacy
This week in phonics, we are now in groups and are working on the phase that suits our needs.

​Ms. Nuimai’s group is working on phase 2 recapping the sounds.

Ms. Helen’s group is working on Phase 3 sounds.

Ms. Vijaya’s group is working on blending and segmenting phase 2 sounds

​We have been practising using wow words in sentences for Big Talk

Learning Journey
Over the last few weeks we have been exploring and learning all about seasons around the world! We looked at video clips about changes in the weather and seasonal patterns. For our EXIT point we drew seasonal patterns. We also shared the story The Tiny Seed.
 
On Wednesday we had our ENTRY POINT for our new learning topic ‘HOUSES and HOMES’.  We shared the story ‘THE THREE LITTLE PIGS’ and discussed the different houses the pigs built. The learners enjoyed watching the teacher’s role playing the story THREE LITTLE PIGS.

For the next few weeks we will be looking at homes and houses built around the world!

Literacy
​This week in phonics we have been revisiting initial sounds of s,a,t,i,p,n and blending and segmenting three letter words. 

We have also been practising to write our names  on sand and glitter. 

Learning Journey
This week we have been learning all about winter. We have been looking at video clips on changes of weather patterns and activities people do during the winter. We made snowman writing , hand print snowflakes  and winter tree with twigs. 

Literacy
This week we have been busy in phonics finding words that begin with the letter sound s,a,t,p,i,n. We played various letter sound games such as I spy with my little eyes and silly soup

Maths
This week we have been practising forming numbers with various resources. We have been working hard playing games on number recognition using the interactive whiteboard. We also enjoyed measuring snowman with coloured cubes.

Learning Journey 
As part of learning  we are celebrating the 100th days of school. The celebration ran for one week and culminate on Friday when we brought 100 healthy snacks to share with other friends. The children had real fun celebrating various arts and creative ideas to celebrate the 100 days in school .
We  skip counting of hundreds by making and counting 10 sets of ten poms-poms, Popsicle sticks, insects, finger prints .We created  our own 100 day T-shirt to wear for the celebration on Friday 25th of January.

Literacy
This week in phonics, we are now in groups and are working on the phase that suits our learners’ needs. Ms. Helen’s group is working on phase 3 and Ms. Vijaya’s group is working on blending CVC words. Ms. Nuimai’s group is recapping s/a/t/p/i/n. We have been practising using wow words in sentences for Big Talk.

We are excited to take home our blue bags with our reading books with words from school so we can practise our reading at home. 

​EARLY YEARS SPORTS DAY!
​The Learners in Early Years were absolute sports stars and were brilliant at showing the fantastic skills that they had been learning in PE. The learners also truly showed their resilience and cooperation skills during the events.  It was great to see so many families come along to cheer for the teams. Thank you for your support.

​This week we have been busy learning about Autumn. We looked at video clips and non-fiction books about activities people do in Autumn. We also looked at the weather patterns and leaves changing colours. In our tuff spot tray we had natural  leaves and information books and we  used a magnifying glass to look closely at the leaf patterns and the colours. 

Literacy
In phonics this week, we continued to explore rhyming words. We have also been practising tuning into different sounds we hear in our environment. We had fun making marks on leaves.

Literacy
This week we have been assessing the learners on their phonics knowledge and skills, We  separated them into three groups. This will help us support the needs of each group and ensure the learners feel confident in all areas of phonics. The areas they will be covering are new sounds like j and v, blending skills and sounds set 1/2 (s,a,t,i,p,n,m,o,g,d,ck)

Learning Journey
This week we have been looking at summer. We looked closely at the changes in weather patterns and activities people enjoy around the world during summer time. We enjoyed making  a summer collage, cutting pictures of summer activities people do around the world. We also enjoyed threading sun patterns and made ice-cream decorating it with shapes. We had fun making sandcastles and sunglasses. We also made sunflowers with paper plates. 

Maths
In maths we have been recapping  learning about more and less. We enjoyed playing mucky monsters on the Interactive whiteboard.

Mucky Monsters
http://www.ictgames.com/m

Literacy
In phonics we have been playing mix-pair-share using rhyming words. We have also been  practising Phase 1 aspect 4- rhythm and rhyme and aspect 5- alliteration   through letters and sounds games and activities. We enjoy playing games listening to the initial sounds of our names and objects. 

Learning Journey
​We had a happy and fun welcome first week back by starting Learning Block 4 with our new topic of MINIBEASTS. We had fun trying to walk through a big spider web and a thick wall of tall trees . We are investigating what mini-beasts are this week and we really enjoyed going on a mini-beasts hunt around our garden. We looked all around the school and garden with magnifying glasses and we took pictures of all the mini-beasts that we found.  We were surprised to see so many insects and had a discussion about them after the adventure. We enjoyed making different minibeasts masks and enjoyed playing with the minibeasts in the slime. We also made binoculars using toilet rolls for our minibeasts hunt. We had great fun learning the different movements of the minibeasts. We used insect stencils to create colourful pictures and made mini-beasts using junk materials.

​We will be working on our new personal goal: PRINCIPLED. We have discussed the meaning of PRINCIPLED and take responsibilities for our actions, be honest and make good choices.

Maths
In Maths this week, we have been recapping ordinal numbers and have been matching flowers to the correct number as well as ordering leaves and insects.

Literacy
This week we have been recapping all of phase 2 letter sounds and tricky words. We have been practising using WOW words in sentences for Big Talk and we have been trying to read words in our guided reading lessons with the big books. We were excited to discuss and draw our holidays and have been looking at names and pictures of different mini-beasts and have been trying to write their initial sounds. We drew our favourite mini-beasts in our journals too!

Literacy
This week we have been busy in phonics finding words that begin with the letter sounds s,a,t,p,i,n. We played various letter sound games  such as I spy with my little eyes and rhyming soup. 

Learning Journey
There was great excitement in the reception classrooms this week as we started our Christmas festival topic. The learners shared their knowledge of Christmas and how they celebrate in their homes. They enjoyed many creative projects like hand print Christmas trees, decorating cookies, drawing on cards and decorating trees on the computer. Throughout the week in teams they have been expressing their knowledge of different festivals that have been covered and making information posters. Come and view them in your child's room. We have also been writing Christmas cards, playing with arctic animals in the snow and listening to Christmas songs. 
On Friday the learners had a great time at our exit point Christmas party with iCAN play.
We shared some yummy treats and played different games. To finish off a busy and short learning block, the children baked some Christmas cookies and decorated them (it was sticky job). 

Maths
This week the learners have been revising their numbers up to 20. They have ordered them, written them and matched them with their value. Some children also enjoyed  skip counting in 5s and making paper chains for our party. ​