We always need some fine motor activities to help strengthen the muscles in our forearms and hands for writing, doing up buttons and other such fiddly work. The children also particularly enjoyed ‘ pass the number around the circle game’ where we simply said the next number to the person next to us. Lots of lovely learning from a simple activity. We always enjoy numbers and this week used the multi-link cubes to make porridge for the 3 bears ( featured in our Jolly Postman stories) How many cubes for baby bear? How many more for Mummy Bear, Daddy Bear? etc. Our sound work has been in action with the children using their knowledge to create and read these word puzzles… We had so much mail that we had to make an extra postbox … many apologies for the children who came home covered in red paint… they do put aprons on … they just don’t seem to be that effective – I’ve added more substantial aprons to the next school order… Our role play area is now a very busy post office with cards and letters being written, parcels being wrapped and mail being stamped and delivered.
The children are becoming more and more confident and able in PE and this week enjoyed ball skills and balancing acts! It’s the season of advent and we too in Reception have our advent calendar to help us mark the preparation for and celebration of the birth of Jesus The children really enjoyed making the links from these stories to those they had read featuring the same characters. They are wonderful books ( a super Christmas present from a grandparent or similar if you need any ideas!) with real letters related to each page of the story, as the postman makes his way around the houses of all the characters from traditional fairy tales and nursery rhymes.
This week we have based our learning around The Jolly Postman stories by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.