The Kitwell Reception Blog

Sports Day

2010-06-30T16:48:00.000+01:00

A big thank you to everyone who came along to support us and cheer on the children on our sports day. It was a lovely afternoon and the children did really well. A special thank you goes out to the brave mums who took part in the parents race at the end. Well done Mums! We thought you might like to see some of the pictures Mrs Wincott took from the finish line so here they are.

Class R Assembly

2010-06-10T16:48:00.002+01:00

We would like to invite you all to our class assembly. It is on Thursday 24th June at 9.05am in the school hall and will last about 20 minutes. The assembly is linked to our theme this week which is 'Jungle Animals'. We have been learning all about jungle animals and have produced some lovely paintings, some of which we will show you in the assembly. We have also been busy learning rhymes, songs and a dance. Some of the children will be bringing home words to learn tomorrow so it would be great if you could help them practise saying their words in a loud, clear voice ready for the big day! Thanks for your continued support, we look forward to seeing you on the 24th.

We are learning about 'Space'.

2010-05-07T10:27:00.003+01:00

This half term, our topic is space and we have been learning all about planets, stars, the moon and rockets. We have read some stories about space and stars, including 'Whatever Next!' by Jill Murphy and 'The Star That Fell' by Karen Hayles. Last week we made 'Moon Rock Cakes' which were delicious. We've got our very own 'Space Station' role-play area where we can dress up as astronauts, look for planets and fill out the space ship's log. We've been playing with a small world space station and have really enjoyed making rockets and space ships out of lego and other construction kits. We have also made some super pictures of rockets using 2D shapes. Next week, we are going to design and make our own rockets using junk modelling resources. It would be really helpful if everyone could bring in a plastic bottle they could use to make their rocket.

Please help us!

2010-04-30T10:31:00.001+01:00

At the moment we are having a hugely stressful time on P.E. days. The problem is with getting the children changed and the time spent sorting out spare kit, mixed up un-named clothes and helping children to dress themselves. All of these things are eating into lesson time. We would be really grateful if you could help us out in the following ways:

Make sure your child has a full P.E. kit, including pumps, in school every Tuesday and Friday.
Make sure all of your child's clothing is clearly labelled with their name.
Encourage your child to dress themselves at home. We are happy to help with tricky buttons and laces but children should be able to put on their own trousers, skirts, jumpers, socks etc.
Try to send your child wearing clothes that are easy to put on/take off on P.E. days.

Many Thanks

We Can Balance.

2010-04-23T12:09:00.001+01:00

This week in P.E. class R have been learning to balance. On Tuesday we got the mats out and practised balancing in lots of different ways on different parts of our bodies. We learnt that you have to try and hold a balance still for 3 seconds and that a balance looks even better with straight arms and legs and pointed toes. On Friday we had the large apparatus out and we practised doing balances on the apparatus too. Here are some photos of us balancing:

INSPIRE workshop

2010-03-26T12:11:00.000Z

Thank you to all parents who attended our INSPIRE workshop this week. We hope you enjoyed the session and found it useful. Here are some photos:

Don't forget INSPIRE on Thursday

2010-03-23T08:49:00.000Z

Just a reminder that it is Class R's INSPIRE workshop on Thursday 25th March from 9.10 to 11.30 in the hall. The session will start with a talk from Mr Kendrick about how to safely use the internet with your child. We will then join you with the children and will do a short carpet session to show you some of the 'Letters and Sounds' work we have been doing to help the children with their reading and writing. You will then have time to work and play with your child on a range of fun activities including:

Making a word game to take home
Writing words and letters in the shaving foam
Playing word building puzzles and games
Using the magnetic letters to make words

There will be tea, coffee and biscuits provided and a chance to chat with other parents while the children have a break.

We really hope you can join us. If you haven't already returned your reply slip please do so as soon as possible so that we have an idea of how many parents will be attending.

See you on Thursday.

We Love Yogabugs!

2010-03-12T13:28:00.000Z

We've really been enjoying our Yogabugs sessions over the last few weeks. Every Monday morning our Yoga teacher Mrs Bail comes to see us. We always warm up by doing our 'sun salutations', then Mrs Bail tells us an exciting story and we join in with different postures. Some of our favourite postures are the dog, the snake and road runner. We are also getting really good at doing trees and lots of us can balance on one leg really well now. At the end of the session we have relaxation time where we lie very still with a lavendar bag over our eyes. Yogabugs has really helped us develop our imagination as well as our coordination, balance and concentration. Here are some pictures of us doing Yogabugs this week:

Brilliant Breakfasts

2010-03-05T12:09:00.003Z

Our topic this half term is food and this week we've been talking about breakfast. We have learnt how important it is to have a healthy breakfast every morning before we come to school, and we've made some lovely collage pictures of our favourite breakfasts. Today we made Oatmeal and Blueberry Muffins which could be part of a healthy breakfast. Here is the recipe if you would like to make some at home:

Oatmeal and Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

3/4 cup of rolled oats

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
You will also need cake cases.

Method:

Heat oven to 200C.
Stir together flour, rolled oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre of the mixture.
Combine egg, milk, brown sugar, oil and vanilla in another bowl. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy.) Fold blueberries into the batter. Spoon the batter into the cake cases filling each three quarters full.
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for 5 mins then serve warm. This recipe makes 12 muffins.

PS A big thank you to all parents who send in 50p a week School Fund. Without this we would not be able to do all our lovely cooking activities.

Chinese New Year

2010-02-26T12:02:00.001Z

This week Class R have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We have learnt about the Chinese Zodiac and read the story of how all the animals had a swimming race to decide who the new year would be named after. We know that this year is the year of the tiger and that some of us were born in the year of the monkey (2004) and some of us were born in the year of the rooster (2005). We made chinese lanterns and dragon puppets, dressed up in chinese outfits and played in our role-play area which was a chinese restaurant this week. Our favourite thing was tasting chinese food. Mrs Wincott made us a stir fry and we had lots of fun trying to eat it with chopsticks. We also tasted prawn crackers, curry sauce and sweet and sour sauce. Yum!

We need your knickers!

2010-02-22T16:25:00.000Z

This is a plea for any spare children's knickers, pants, socks and tights that you may have at home. Unfortunately we have run out of these items of clothing and are now really struggling to find anything to change the children into if they wet themselves or get wet and muddy playing outside. We would also be grateful if you could return any of school's clothes that you may have at home.

Many Thanks

We've been baking!

2010-02-12T12:17:00.002Z

This week we've finished off our dinosaur topic by baking dinosaur biscuits. We worked in small groups and all helped to add and mix the ingredients, roll out the dough, cut out dinosaur shapes and decorate the biscuits. Everybody around school said how nice they smelt! Here is the recipe in case any of you would like to make the biscuits at home.

Dinosaur Biscuits

What you need:

100g margarine
100g caster sugar
200g flour
1 egg
half teaspoon salt
200g icing sugar
yellow or green food colouring
hot water
currants or shiny silver balls for eyes

What you need to do:

Heat the oven to 180C.
Cream margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Beat the egg into the creamed mixture.
Fold in the flour and salt.
On a lightly foured surface, knead the biscuit dough and roll our to approx 5mm to 1cm thick.
Cut into dinosaur shapes using biscuit cutters or dinosaur pictures as templates to cut around.
Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15 to 20 mins.
Leave to cool on the tray for 5 mins before transferring to a cooling rack.
Mix together icing sugar with a few drops of food colouring and a little hot water to a smooth paste.
Decorate your biscuits with the icing.
Add currants/silver balls for eyes.
Enjoy your biscuits together!

We need your help!

2010-02-09T14:42:00.002Z

NOTICE

Our topic next half term is food and we need things for our role-play area. Could you please send in any of the following?

Chinese Restaurant – menus, empty packets or empty boxes of Chinese food, chopsticks.

Café – any café menus, empty packets or boxes.

Ice-cream Parlour – any ice-cream scoops, empty ice-cream cartons.

Fruit and Veg shop – empty packets or empty boxes of dried fruit or anything else you can think of that might be of use.

Thank you.

Our visit to the temple

2010-02-03T12:18:00.003Z

Class R went on a really interesting visit to the Balaji Temple in Dudley yesterday. The first thing we saw were two huge concrete elephants outside the main doors. They were amazing! We were met by our guide, a lovely Hindu gentleman called Abhi Ji. We had to take our shoes off as a sign of respect and then we were shown around the temple. The temple is beautiful. It has lovely marble floors and lots of ornate carvings and beautiful flowers everywhere you look. We were shown around several different shrines. Each one had a different god inside. Our favourite was Lord Hanuman who is the monkey god. We heard special bells ringing which signalled when the curtains were going to open to each of the shrines and we watched the priests as they carried out their rituals in each shrine. We watched Abhi Ji take some holy water and food from the priests and some of us had some too. Before we went home we were given fruit, biscuits and a drink and the grown-ups had some special rice to taste. Everyone at the temple was really friendly and welcoming towards us. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the temple but if you click on the link below you will be directed to their homepage and be able to see some pictures there.

Balaji Temple website

Class R - Tuesday 19th January

2010-01-18T21:24:00.004Z

As you are probably aware school will unfortunately be closed tomorrow so I have listed below some activities to keep you busy while you are at home. You could:

Practise your reading by sharing your reading book, story books or a comic with someone in your family.
Practise reading and writing your High Frequency Words.
Do some pages of your Jolly Phonics Book.
Practise your number recognition, ordering numbers and writing numbers.
Practise writing your name with all the letters correctly formed.

You could also visit some of these websites by clicking on the links below:

Cbeebies - lots of games, stories, songs, printable activities
Numbertime - maths games, songs and activities
UptoTen - lots of silly songs and games
Starfall - phonics games
Phonics Play - phonics games

Our topic this half term is dinosaurs so you could also use the internet or go to the library to find out as much as you can about dinosaurs. It would be lovely if you could draw me a picture of your favourite dinosaur and be able to tell me all about it when we are back at school.

Most importantly have fun and stay safe!

See you all soon.

Welcome!

2010-01-18T12:01:00.012Z

Welcome to the Foundation Stage Blog!

Despite the funny start to the year Class R have been having lots of fun. We enjoyed playing in the snow last week and have started a really interesting topic on dinosaurs. It all started with a mystery egg that has now hatched to reveal a baby dinosaur! We are keen to learn as much about dinosaurs as we can so if you have any dinosaur books, games or videos we would love to borrow them.

We also had our first 'Yogabugs' session today. We are going to have a 'Yogabugs' session every Monday morning for the next eight weeks. A special teacher will come and tell us an exciting story every week and teach us lots of yoga positions that go with the story. It's loads of fun and helps us develop confidence, coordination, balance and imagination. We take our shoes and socks off for our session so it would be really helpful if girls could avoid wearing tights on Mondays and instead wear trousers and socks.