Nursery and Reception: Half-Term Update
It has been a wonderfully busy and exciting half-term for the Nursery and Reception classes at Windrush Valley Prep School! With so much hands-on learning, creativity, and exploration, the children have thrived in every aspect of their development.
Nursery’s Adventures in Phonics and Stories
Nursery children have continued their journey with Phonics, learning new sounds such as ck, e, h, r, and m. To make their learning memorable, they created artwork for each sound, like crafting hedgehogs with handprints to form the spikes! They also loved singing songs for each phoneme and taking reading books home to practice.
In English, the children immersed themselves in the Super Six stories, including Dipal’s Diwali, Stickman, and Dream Snow. Through artwork and acting, they retold these stories while also reinforcing their understanding of storybook features like blurbs, titles, authors, and illustrators.
Maths in Nursery has been all about exploration and fun. The children delved into repeating patterns, positional language, and route mapping. They sang songs such as “Where is the Monkey” to practice positional vocabulary and used stories to map routes, building their understanding of space and sequence.
Reception: Phonics, Writing, and More!
Reception pupils have made excellent progress in Phonics, mastering all single-letter sounds and Set 1 digraphs. They’ve even started writing short sentences! Using their Super Six texts, the children linked learning to real-world experiences, such as Diwali and Autumn. From tasting Pumpkin Soup to making bread inspired by The Little Red Hen, each activity brought stories to life.
Their role-play area transformed into a bustling post office, where they wrote Christmas cards, measured and weighed parcels, sorted letters, and stuck stamps onto envelopes. Meanwhile, a thrilling Bear Hunt adventure captured their imaginations, as they reenacted the story with enthusiasm.
In Maths, Reception practiced number composition to five with songs like “Five Currant Buns” and “Five Little Speckled Frogs.” They played engaging games like Flappy Fish, where children earned rosettes for their efforts. The class also explored 2D shapes, hunting for them in their surroundings, making pancakes with round ingredients, and tessellating four-sided shapes to understand their properties.
Festivals, Celebrations, and Winter Wonders
The theme of Festivals and Celebrations guided much of the learning this term. Nursery began by exploring Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light, creating their own clay Diwali lamps beautifully decorated with paint and sequins. Both classes moved on to study Winter and the fascinating habitats of animals in the North and South Poles. Reception extended this by learning about hibernation and migration, while playing the Chocolate Game – a hilarious activity where children rolled dice, dressed in Winter clothes, and used utensils to eat chocolate!
The term culminated with a focus on Christmas, where the children learned how it is celebrated around the world. They also worked hard on their Nativity performance, learning songs to accompany the play. The festive fun continued with a trip to Tiddy Hall for a pantomime of Cinderella, which left the children mesmerized.
From creative crafts to exciting adventures, Nursery and Reception children at Windrush Valley prep School have had a half-term full of laughter, discovery, and meaningful learning experience