Life in Early Years

AUTUMN TERM 2009

RECEPTION

We are enjoying our reading and starting to learn vocabulary by sight as well as decoding words using phonic skills.

This term we have been reading the story Oliver's Vegetables by Vivian French.  Oliver only eats chips and when he goes to stay at his Grandpa's house his Grandpa agrees to make him chips if he can find some potatoes in his vegetable garden, if not Oliver must agree to eat whatever he pulls out of the ground.  Each day Oliver picks a different vegetable including carrots, cabbage, beetroot and peas which he eats and enjoys.  Eventually he pulls up a potato on his last day and Grandpa makes chips.  Mum arrives to collect him and thinks Oliver has been eating chips again - little does she know the variety of vegetables he has been eating up until that day! 

The children have been looking at a variety of different vegetables and have written their own shopping lists and done observational drawings using oil, pastels and paint.  They even went to Mr Yates' garden to dig up rhubarb and then Miss Shipley took it home to cook and brought it in for the children to try.

Another theme this term has been  festivals and celebrations.  We read Kipper's Birthday and The Toys' Party from the Oxford Reading Tree.   In The Toy's Party Kipper makes a birthday cake using cornflakes, tomato sauce, milk, jam, sugar and baked beans - we wrote out the recipe and then followed it.  Half of the class said they actually liked it!

We made divas and talked about the festival of Divali. Below we are making birthday cards and jelly.  We talked about dissolving and watched the jelly cubes turn from solid to liquid.

This year Reception and Nursery joined together for their Christmas play - "The Little Angel"

NURSERY

The children have settled in well into their new groups and routines.  We have been talking about Autumn - the leaves, hedgehogs and the harvest.  Red Group harvested the crops they have been growing over the summer and the look of surprise on the children's faces when a carrot popped out of the ground was lovely!  We have planted some bulbs ready for the spring.   As we made fireworks and rockets for Bonfire night we talked about bonfire safety and the nights getting darker.  In our session in the gym we pretended to be fireworks whizzing around in a swirly dance.  We are learning about opposites - what we do in the day and what we do at night.

Blue group have been talking about the seasons and have started their christmas activities - making a snow scene, party hats with christmas puddings and reindeer christmas cards.

Both Reception and Nursery children are practising hard for their nativity.  In addition to rehearsals and the activities in the nursery itself, the children continue to go to the gym for softplay, have a music lesson with Miss Griggs and a dance lesson with Miss Cotterill each week.