Reception -Aqua Class and Midnight Class

In class we have been learning to retell the Christmas Story using actions and story maps. Here it is. See if you can remember the retell at home.

The First Christmas

Long, long ago there was a kind, young woman called Mary who lived in Nazareth. Early one morning she woke up and saw a bright shining light. It was Angel Gabriel.

“Do not be afraid” he said. “God has chosen you to have a baby. You will name him Jesus and he will be the King of Kings.” Mary told Joseph the good news but Joseph was worried. So, late that night Angel Gabriel came to Joesph in a dream and told Joseph to worry no more.

Some time later, Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem on a donkey to pay their taxes and sign the census. Unfortunately, there was no room at the inn. Luckily they found space in the stable with the donkeys, mice, cattle and chickens. Later that night, Baby Jesus was born.

Meanwhile, shepherds were watching their sheep at night when suddenly they saw a bright shining light. It was Angel Gabriel and a choir of angels. “We bring you glad tidings of great joy” They said. ” Go to Bethlehem and worship Baby Jesus, the King of Kings”. So off they went to Bethlehem.

Far, far away there were three wise men who saw a bright shining star in the east. They followed the star to Bethlehem, but on the way they met King Herod. King Herod was a mean, angry man with an evil plan. “Find the baby king” he said “then come and tell me where he is so that I can worship him”. Really the King wanted to kill baby Jesus. Luckily, the wise men knew of his evil plan and never returned to King Herod’s palace. They arrived at the stable in Bethlehem offering gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Jesus grew into a very special man and his story is still told today, after 2000 years.

Four leaf clover, my Christmas story is over.

Preparations for our annual Christmas play has begun!

You should all have found a letter in the bookbags to order tickets for our performances which will take place on Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th of December. The play will be called “What is the World Coming To?” and all of our class will be animals in the stable. We have a limited number of donkey, sheep, camel and cattle costumes at school but if you have any other animal costumes (farm animals, cats, dogs, etc) lurking about at home that we could borrow then we would be very grateful. Please let Mrs Saeed or Mrs Nicholls know if you can help with this.

Our topic this term is Shorter Days, Longer Nights, with a focus on seasons, weather and day and night. In the classroom we have been camping out in our autumn woodland. The leaves have fallen from the trees and next week winter will begin to arrive and we may be lucky enough to get some snow (well Christmas is coming!). We have been reading lots of stories about the dark and going to bed. Some of our favourites are While You Are Sleeping by Alexis Deacon

and I Want My Light On by Tony Ross

The story that we are learning to retell this term is Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? by Martin Waddell.

We have talked about the two characters and can describe both Big Bear and Little Bear.  Mrs Saeed is impressed with how quickly we have all learnt to retell the story and next week we hope to share our story with Nursery.
I’m sure that the children would all be able to retell our story at home too!

We are zooming through our phase 3 digraphs.  So far we have learnt ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, oo and oo. Some of us are already writing these sounds with beautiful joined up, cursive writing. Please continue to practise the sounds at home, not forgetting to read the words on the back of the sound cards that we have sent home.  We have also been learning tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out). For a list of these words and other high frequency words that we need to practise please click below.

To reinforce learning why not play some of the games on the following link.

 

On Tuesday we had a fabulous time in our pyjamas.  Some of us even had dressing gowns, slippers and teddies too! We started the day thinking about all of the things we need to do before we go to bed and came up with lots of ideas – having a bath, brushing teeth, getting changed, sorting out teddies, choosing a book, drinking hot chocolate and settling down with teddy to listen to a story.

We then went on to think about our own bedrooms; whether we share with our brothers or sisters or have our own rooms, furniture in our rooms, what is on the floor and the walls (pictures, wall paper, carpets, rugs), our lights and bed covers.  We all drew our rooms and then drew ourselves in our pyjamas to place in the room.  We had some lovely finished pictures.

After lunch we went into Mrs Hugginson’s room which was rather warm. We settled down with cushions, blankets and teddies to drink hot chocolate and listen to some bedtime stories and music. It was a lovely (quiet) afternoon and some of us almost fell asleep but unfortunately it was time to go back to class and get ready to go home.

It was a super day and we look forward to our next pyjama day.

We have almost covered all of the letters of the alphabet – just qu, y and z left to learn this week. I am very impressed with how quickly the children are picking up their new sounds and many are now beginning to blend the sounds together to read words. Please keep practising the sounds, particularly the latest few ie h, b, l, j, v, w and x and continue to read the words on the back of the sound cards that we have sent home.
To reinforce learning why not play some of the games on the following link.

 

Following our trip to the church, we made our own church role play in the classroom and we have had lots of fun in there this week.

We have been giving sermons at the lectern

           

Singing hymns and playing the organ

Cleaning the windows and polishing the woodwork

Reading about Reverend Freddie Fisher and his mischievous cat Puddles

                   

and saying prayers with candles and jewels.

 

In RE we have been learning about Special Places and today we went to a special place for Christians, Holy Trinity Church.

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We had a good look around the church to find all of the features that we had learnt about in class.

We found the pews, font, pulpit, lectern, organ, alter, stained glass windows and the  aisle.

We  listened carefully to Sandy who told us lots of interesting facts about the church.

Did you know that the oldest part of the church is the Ladies Chapel and it is 1000 years old?  Sandy showed us how to ring the bell to call the people to prayer.

Did you know that the eagle shaped lectern in made of solid brass and is very very heavy?

Did you know that one of the stained glass windows has a picture of the church in it? Can you spot it in the photo below? What else can you see in the window?

Thank you very much Sandy for taking the time to show us around the church and answering all of the children’s questions.

Also thank you to the mums, dads and grannies that helped to walk us across the road.

This week we have been learning the phonemes h, b, f, ff.
Homework for this weekend is to hunt for writing around your home or whilst you are out and about. Try to find as many words as you can containing our sounds h, b, f or ff. Look in books, labels on food, household products, road signs, shop signs etc etc. Can you read the words? Try writing a list of words you have found and bring them in to school on Monday.
Good luck!

Here are some I have found in my kitchen;
Rubicon Mango
Flour (printed on a jar)
Coffee (printed on another jar)
Hellman’s mayonnaise

Mrs Saeed

On Tuesday we took our first school trip, to Westonbirt Arboretum and what a super day we had! It rained almost continually all day, but dressed in waterproofs and wellies, the rain just added to the fun. We splashed in puddles, ran through the wet grass, climbed and balanced and swung from branches. We even tried to find the Gruffalo but it just kept running away from us! Adam said he saw the Gruffalo running away across the field and Tom saw it up in the trees. The children were amazingly well behaved and Mrs Saeed and Mrs Nicholls were very proud of them all. Thank you so much to the parents who came and helped. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did.