Buckinghamshire Railway Centre

Reception were lucky to visit the railway centre as a part of our transport topic. We saw many different types of trains and learnt about all the different uses these trains had, such as the travelling post office. We enjoyed a real steam train ride and imagined what it would be like to travel many years ago.  We noticed that the train travelled a lot slower compared to the trains we travel in now.

Australia

Reception had a wonderful class performance based on this term’s topic - transport and journeys. We took everyone on a journey to the land down under! The performance showed the school what it would be like to live in Australia. 

World Book Day

Reception had lots of fun on World Book Day!  An Vrombaut, author of the 64 Zoo Lane book series, came in and read us her amazing stories. During our workshop with An Vrombaut, we created a 21 metre long neck for Georgina the Giraffe. We all came dressed up as different characters and we read our favourite books! To end a great day, Mrs D’Souza read us a story!

Local Walk 

Today we went for a walk around the local area to look at different types of houses and buildings.  On our walk, we saw different types of homes like a semi-detached house, flats and a bungalow.   We also we saw a church and different types of shops.

Science Week

During Science week Reception explored the Arctic and Antarctic habitats. We carried out different science experiments to understand why whales don’t freeze in ice cold water, why penguins don’t get wet and why polar bears are white. We learnt some new words such as camouflage, repel and blubber!

At the end of the week the whole school was involved in an egg drop competition.  We decided to use a toilet roll, some cotton wool and sticky tape so the egg wouldn’t fall out. Reception’s ideas worked and the egg did not break, we came 2^nd in the competition!

Build-a-Bear

Reception had their first class trip to the Build-a-Bear workshop at the Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. We took a coach to the shopping centre and loved looking at all the buildings we passed. In the workshop we chose to make a red dragon!  We each had a turn at pushing the pedal to put the fluff from the machine into the bear and were worried it would pop if we put too much fluff in.  We each received a paper heart, made a wish and put it inside our dragon.  We named him ‘Fire’ because dragons breathe fire.

Chinese New Year

This week we celebrated Chinese New Year. We have been learning about how Chinese New Year is celebrated in comparison to New Year in England. We watched fantastic dragon dances, built our own amazing temples, learnt about how and why we celebrate an animal each year and learnt how the Cantonese speakers wish you a happy new year, “Gung hay fat choy!”

We created our very own dragon, roster and lanterns and learnt why these were significant to Chinese New Year.  During the middle of the week, we had a chinese dinner! Everyone enjoyed tasting this fantastic food!  We wore the colour red and learnt that the Chinese believe this colour will bring them good luck and fortune.

Diwali

This week we have been learning about the Hindu festival of light, Diwali. Mrs Sebastian visited us to help us find out about Diwali in India. She told us the story of Rama and Sita and we had a go at acting this out on stage in our own role play theatre.

We  have also made diva lamps, created symmetrical Rangoli patterns and written Diwali cards. We have learned about light and dark and have been testing which materials would make the darkest cave.

Science Investigation: “Shadows”

We have been exploring light and dark. We have discussed objects that give off light and objects that don’t, such as windows and mirrors.  We made shadow puppets and discovered that you needed light to create shadows. We learned that shadows are made by objects that block out light.

Hanukkah

We have been learning about the Jewish faith and in particular the celebrations which take place during Hanukkah. We had a special visitor in class, Mrs Elijah. She read us a story about the Hanukkah miracle. We learned about the Menorah, the special candle holder that holds 9 candles. Mrs Elijah brought in lots of things to show us. Potato latkes and doughnuts are traditional Hanukkah treats. We got to taste some doughnuts! Fried food reminds Jews of the miracle of the oil. We have been playing the dreidel game and we have made Menorahs out of modelling clay which was lots of fun!

Autumn

This week we have been exploring what changes in the autumn.  We went on an autumn walk around our school field. We discovered that many leaves were changing colour and falling from the trees. We noticed that some leaves did not change colour. We learned that the leaves of some trees and bushes stay green all year round! We made a collection of autumn leaves and used this to create leaf pictures and leaf crowns.

We have also been reading information books about the autumn. We learned that some animals gather food in the autumn to get ready for the cold weather and some animals get ready to go to sleep in the autumn and winter. They only wake up when it is spring! 

Firefighters 

This week we have continued our learning about the people who help us. We have been finding out about the job that firefighters do.  We started the week with a visit from the fire service. They even brought their fire engine! We learned the names of different equipment that firefighters use in their jobs and spoke about what they wear to keep them safe. We even heard the siren!

Police Officers

This week we have been learning all about the people who help us, especially police officers.  We started the week with a visit from a real police officer. He told us all the things police officers do to help keep us safe. We got to try on some of his uniform and we even listened to his walkie talkie. He also showed us his police van; the siren was very loud!

We have enjoyed dressing up as police officers and helping our friends to stay safe on the playground. We even had to investigate a real crime: ‘Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?’ We dusted for fingerprints and then enjoyed looking at our own finger prints as we enlarged them on balloons.

The Bones

We have been learning about the bones in our body. We looked at skeletons and found out that if you didn’t have any bones, you wouldn’t even be able to stand up! 

We made our own pretend bones by mixing flour, salt and water to make dough. We weighed our dry ingredients first and then mixed them with water. The dough was very squidgy. We shaped the dough into bones and put them in the oven. When Mrs Page took the bones out of the oven, they had become hard, just like the bones in our body.

Healthy Eating

We have been learning about the foods that keep our body healthy. We read the story ‘Handa’s Surprise’ and listened to some music from Africa, where Handa is from. In the kitchen, we learned the importance of washing our hands before we touch food and we also learned how to chop fruit safely. We made fruit kebabs with repeating patterns of different fruit. We even had a surprise of our own as Handa left a basket of fruit for us to taste! We came up with some good words to describe how the fruit looked, smelled and tasted. We also enjoyed making prints with different types of healthy food.