Week Ending 11th April 2025
This week we have enjoyed some Easter activities in school. We also had a lovely Easter themed visit to the library with Easter stories, an Easter treasure hunt and time to look at the books.
Week Ending 4th April 2025
This week school have been finding out about STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and how these subjects can work together to help us to find out more about our world.
As part of the week we had some visitors in school who worked with Reception Class.
On Tuesday, we had such a lovely afternoon in the forest area with Ella from Lovely Learners. Ella set up different activities around the forest for the children to explore and enjoy ☀️
On Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have two visitors from Kielder Observatory. They brought a big blown up observatory. Once inside, we were able to take a closer look at space. We looked at planets, constellations and the Milky Way. It was very exciting and the children were in complete awe. I think we could have a few astronauts in Reception
Week Ending 28th March 2025
In Reception, the day is split up into Whole Class Teacher-led times, Small Group Teacher-led times and Choosing Time.
These pictures show of some of the things that the children have chosen to do during Choosing Time this week.
Week Ending 21st March 2025
Last Friday, during Friday Fun Jobs we celebrated British Science Week. The theme for this year was 'Change and Adapt.' We looked at two particular Scientific concepts involving change - freezing and melting.
To investigate melting, the children melted chocolate to make their own edible magic wand.
To investigate freezing, the children made fruity ice lollies.
On Tuesday, we re-visited the concepts of freezing and melting as we ate the ice lollies during a lovely sunny afternoon!
Week Ending 14th March 2025
This week in maths we have been beginning to look at and learn the 'number bonds to 10'. These are all the pairs of numbers that make 10. (0 and 10 / 1 and 9 / 2 and 8 etc...etc..) We hope that the children know all of these, and the 'composition' of other numbers to 10, by the end of Reception. When a child understands the composition of a number, they understand that numbers are made up of other numbers. They 'see' the numbers inside other numbers. There are some useful games and quizzes on the BBC Bitesize pages:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zr87xbk
Week Ending 7th March 2025
On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day. The children enjoyed wearing their pyjamas ('ready for a bedtime story') or a costume (a character from a book) to school.
We started off our day by designing our own book settings. The children were brilliant at using their imagination and putting it on paper.
We also talked about characters and what character traits are. We talked about how characters could be from films or books and that they could be a person, like us, or a mythical creature.
We then took part in a mini quiz to revisit stories we may be familiar with and this helped us to complete a treasure hunt outside in the sunshine!
We have read lots of different books throughout the day and some even enjoyed making up their own stories ☺️
Week Ending 7th February 2025
To celebrate National Storytelling Week this week, we have continued with our Talk For Writing traditional tale in English of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
The children are beginning to learn the story using the story map and actions. We have also retold the story by ordering pictures and using the language of first, next and finally.
The children have also made some fabulous Billy Goats and Troll puppets and a puppet theatre in choosing time to extend their learning.
On Friday, the children also took part in storytelling activities, using storytelling dice. They had three dice to scaffold and support them to think of a story - a character, a setting and an object. They also drew front covers for their stories and made headbands of their favourite story characters.
Week Ending Friday 31st January 2025
This week in Reception we have learned all about Lunar New Year.
Our activities included listening to the story of The Great Race and then re-enacting our own animal races. We used the language of first, second, third, etc...to talk about who won each race.
We also made some fabulous lucky red lanterns, tricky but great practice for those cutting and sticking fine motor skills.
Our taste buds were challenged with some Chinese food tasting at snack time and then we learnt about dragons and dragon parades. Some children told us about their experiences of watching the Chinese New Year celebrations in Newcastle. The children then went on to make an amazing dragon, with many of the children helping to build, paint, and decorate.
Week Ending Friday 24th January 2025
This weekend the RSPB carry out their annual Big Garden Birdwatch.
We therefore took the opportunity to learn all about garden birds, what they look like, what they are called, what they eat, why we might need to feed them, and what to feed them.
All of the children participated in a busy morning, taking part in 'bird themed' activities; making bird feeders, listening to bird-themed story books, and drawing and labelling some super garden bird pictures.
Week Ending Friday 17th January 2025
This week I had the pleasure of taking some of the children to Gateshead Leisure Centre, to partake in a PE Festival hosted by Gateshead Schools Sports Partnership.
The festival was 'circus' themed and involved ten different activities, all practising different movement based skills, such as throwing, catching, running and balancing.
It was really lovely to see the children's confidence progress throughout the afternoon. They were fantastic at supporting each other in the individual events and worked well as a team in the team games.
Well done Team Emmaville!
Week Ending Friday 10th January 2025
The children have embraced the cold weather this week and it has provided lots of great learning opportunities too about ice, melting, wrapping up warm and Winter.
On Friday, we explored Winter in a bit more detail using the book The Snow Thief.
We talked about what Winter is and what you might see or do in Winter that is different to the other seasons. The children then all drew and wrote about their favourite Wintery things...snowmen featured very strongly!