Reception Week Beginning 27.6.22

This week, Reception have been learning about snails and other gastropods. They started off the week reading the story of The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson.

One tiny snail longs to see the world and hitches a lift on the tail of a whale. Together they go on an amazing journey, past icebergs and volcanoes, sharks and penguins, and the little snail feels so small in the vastness of the world. When disaster strikes and the whale is beached in a bay, it’s the tiny snail who saves the day! 

In response to the story, the children have:

• discussed what it would be like to live with your house permanently on your back
• written about where they would travel to on the tail of the whale
• found rhyming couplets in the book
• made maps detailing where in the world the snail and the whale travelled to
• wrote their own slimy messages
• made collages inspired by the story and The Snail by Henri Matisse
• explored spirals
• recreated places in the book using small world

After some heavy rain on Wednesday, the children were amazed to find snails everywhere!! In fact, the total snail count was around 45!! The children carefully placed the snails onto the class Snail World and  spent lots of time observing them.

Immediately after finding the snails, a frog was suddenly spotted, causing lots of excitement. Mrs Gymer managed to carefully catch it for a very short while, so the children were able to have a good look at it. While this was happening, a butterfly landed on Mrs Gymer’s shoe and wouldn’t fly away! So much excitement!

In Maths this week, the children have had lots of fun solving problems based on the book Mr Gumpy’s Outing. Activities included: making a boat and predicting how many marbles it could hold before sinking, ‘How many legs?’ problem solving, where the children in pairs, had to select a number and explore which combinations of characters would total that number of legs. They were also given the task of working out who could be in Mr Gumpy’s boat, if there were 6 legs in there altogether, then 10, then 12. The children had fun trying to work it out through role play too.

We are all very excited for our class trip to the zoo on Tuesday. Currently, the weather is predicted to be around 23.C and sunny. Please ensure that your child has a bottle of water with them and a hat. Ideally, a rucksack should be brought to carry lunches or a paper bag that can be recycled. The children will be carrying their own bags all day, so nothing too big and bulky please.

Have a lovely weekend,

The Reception Team