Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Autumn Term 2023
Christmas is coming!
Week 6
4th - 8th December 2023
What an exciting week we have had...
We watched a pantomime in our school hall - Oh no we didn't! Oh yes we did!
With thanks to our wonderful PTA.
We met Santa and he taught us some dance moves!
We wrote our own wish lists to Santa.
We walked, jogged and ran around the school field to take part in the
'National School's Santa Dash'
while wearing our Christmas hats.
Next Week, we look forward to performing our Nativity in front of the rest of the school and to our parents and families!
Transport - Aeroplanes
Weeks 5
27.11.23 - 1.12.23
During this week the reception children have been practising reading and writing words featuring all of the letter sounds they have been learning. They have been taught all of the phase 2 letter sounds and most of the phase 3 letter sounds and digraphs.
In our mathematics lessons we worked together in groups to sort pictures of different vehicles depending on how they transport people, via land, sea or air.
We made repeating pattern paper chains to decorate our classroom.
During No Pens Day we made our own aeroplanes using lolly sticks.
We enjoyed our first visit from our school therapy dog Mabel. Mrs Hinton showed us some of Mabel's tricks.
Transport Week 4
20th - 24th November 2023
Trucks and Tractors
In Literacy we read the story 'Duck in the Truck' by Jez Alborough. We designed our own front covers trying to colour each part of the paper.
We have been learning some more letter sounds and the digraphs; 'ch, sh, th, and ng' and writing words, captions and sentences featuring all the tricky words and letter sounds we have learnt so far.
We have been reading captions using our phonics skills and matching them to pictures.
In our mathematics lessons, we have been learning about flat 2d shapes. We have named the shapes; circle, square, triangle and rectangle and explored the properties of these shapes by making them with pegs and pegboards, matchsticks, lolly sticks and multi-link cubes.
In our creative lessons, we used scrapers to create a muddy field with puffy textured paint. When the paint was dry, we used shapes to build a tractor and stuck these onto our muddy fields.
Next week we will be reading, 'Emma Jane's Aeroplane' by Katie Haworth and Daniel Rieley.
Transport
Week 3
13th -17th November
Trains
This week in Reception the children have been talking about travelling on trains.
In their mathematics lessons the children have been filling in the missing numbers on number tracks, sequencing numbers to 10 and 20 and using shapes to create trains.
In our literacy lessons the children have been practising using their phonic knowledge to write captions, labels, their own names and simple sentences.
They have used their handwriting skills to write the tricky words, 'by' and 'my.'
Beech and Elm classes have been using colour keys to accurately and carefully colour trains by numbers (1,2,3,4,5) and phonemes. (j,v,w,x)
On Friday, we celebrated Children in Need by wearing something yellow or wearing spots and bringing in toiletries for our Christmas hamper raffle.
The children enjoyed colouring and painting spots on Pudsey Bear using cotton buds.
Next week, we will be talking about large vehicles and reading the story,
'Duck in the Truck' by Jez Alborough.
Transport Week 2
Buses
6th - 10th November
In our literacy lessons this week, the children have been writing captions using their phonics skills and knowledge.
The children were asked to draw a red bus and write the caption, 'the big red bus' using some of the phase two sounds they have learnt.
In our phonics lessons, we have started to learn the phase three letter sounds including;
'j, v, w and x' and the tricky words; 'I, to, no, go, into, the, a, me, be.'
The children have been practising their pencil control and tripod pencil grips by tracing over firework patterns to create beautiful firework pictures.
In our mathematics lessons we have been counting and talking about the properties of circles and triangles. We have explored these shapes and made patterns and pictures with them in the style of the artist Wassily Kandinsky.
Remembrance Day
Both Reception classes created their own individual poppy to create a class poppy display for our two minute silence on Friday.
Next week, we will talking about trains and reading the story,
'Oi! Get off our Train' by John Burningham.
Autumn 2
TRANSPORT
In Reception this term we will be learning about different forms of transport and different ways to travel.
Week 1
30.10.23 - 3.11.23
The Reception children have been talking about how they travel to school.
Everyone added a picture to their class graph showing the different ways they travel.
The children in Beech and Elm Class added pictures, letters and words to a simple map showing what they see on their way to school.
In our mathematics we have been sorting and identifying different ways to make
1,2,and 3.
Next week, we will be learning about buses and reading the story,
'You can't take an elephant on the bus' by Patricia Cleveland-Peck
Week 6
9th - 13th October
My Family
This week in Reception the children have been talking about their families and reading
'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell.
Beech and Elm class have printed their own owl baby pictures using a peg holding a pom pom dipped in paint and printing the owl's body and adding a beak, feet and eyes.
In mathematics, the children have been learning some mathematical vocabulary and comparing sizes and talking about 'more' and 'fewer' and identifying pictures that are the 'same.'
In Literacy, the children sequenced pictures from the story, 'Owl Babies' and retold the story in their own words.
The children have been practising writing their own names and writing three letter words using the phase 2 letter sounds they have been learning.
The children have been taught most of the phase 2 letter sounds;
's,a,t,p,i,n,m,d,g,o,c,k,e,u,r,h,b,f,ff'
and will be learning the last few phase 2 sounds next week.
As part of Black History month the children participated in an African Dance Workshop and an African Drumming Workshop.
Next week we will be talking about our pets and reading 'The Great Pet Sale' by Mick Inkpen and 'Six Dinner Sid' by Inga Moore .
Week 5
2nd - 6th October
In Reception this week the children have been talking about their homes and who they live with.
The children have drawn pictures of their homes and their families and tried to write their own names and other family members.
In mathematics the children named and described flat 2d shapes and used shapes to create house pictures.
As part of our topic on 'All about me' the children looked at themselves in the mirror and described their features. They painted self-portraits for a display in school outside the Reception classrooms.
Next week we will be talking about our families and reading the story,
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.
Week 4
23rd - 29th September
This week we have been talking about our own birthdays.
We have drawn birthday cakes and written a short sentence using the tricky word 'I' and our letter sounds.
In phonics, we have been learning some new letter sounds; g,o,c,k and filling in missing letters using our phonics skills from previously learnt letter sounds.
The children enjoyed making their own birthday cakes from play dough and counting and adding candles and decorations.
The children created their own birthday cakes using paper collage.
Next week, we will talking about our homes and who we live with.
We will be reading a story about sharing and working together called, 'This is Our House' by Michael Rosen.
Week 3
15th - 22nd September
This week in Reception the children have learnt the letter sounds, 'i,n,m,d'
and have made their own books about 'Things they like.'
The children used play dough to add facial features to play dough mats.
In mathematics, the children have been creating repeating patterns and practising their counting by adding the correct number of food items to numbered plates.
Next week we will be reading 'Kipper's Birthday' and talking about our own birthdays.
Week 1 and 2
7.9.23 - 14.9.23
The children have settled into the reception classes really well. They are getting used to the routines of the day and making friends.
Our topic this term is called, All About Me. We have read books together linked to our topic and books about different colours which led to discussions about our favourite colours.
So far, we have drawn our portraits and practiced writing our names.
In mathematics, we have been counting and sorted toys by colour and by shape.
We have made faces using 2d shapes and matched Numicon number shapes to a Numicon picture. We counted the Numicon holes to see which number the shapes represent.
We have discussed our favourite colours and created a painting in the style of Kandinsky for a whole class display.
Next week our topic focus will be on things we like and the book we will be reading and sharing is called, Things I Like by Anthony Browne.
