This week in Reception we have had a focus on active listening. We have discussed how looking at the person who is talking and managing our distractions help us with this. The children have enjoyed using our listening tent to practise this skill. During our weekly story squiggle session the children were encouraged to listen to their friend and share what they knew about their story.

Today the children have been learning about what a Christingle represents to Christians. The children enjoyed making their own ready for our Christingle services in school.

This week RBD did a fantastic job singing, learning words, dancing and acting in our Nativity performance! Well done everyone. We have also been learning about the Christmas story and using small world resources to tell the story. We have also added a Christmas tree to the classroom which the children can decorate. We have talked about this been an important Christian tradition with the children. They have loved deciding where to put the baubles and tinsel!

In RBD we have been learning about what Advent means to Christians. We have found out that it is an important time for Christians as it is a time to remember and prepare to celebrate. We have also found out that it is a time of waiting and have made links to lots of things that we have to wait for in real life!

Thank you for the books that have been sent in for our Advent calendar of stories. The children have enjoyed listening to the ones we have unwrapped so far at story time. There is still time to send yours in if you haven’t already.

Thank you to our Year 6 buddies for sharing this special event with us! The children enjoyed coming back to school in the dark, wearing their pyjamas. They shared stories with each other, made book marks, created book covers, had hot chocolate and biscuits! For those children who couldn’t make it the Year 6 buddies joined us today to gift the children their books.

We were very excited by the snow and frosty mornings this week. We became detectives in the outdoor area and spotted ice in our water tray and frost on some of our plants. The children enjoyed listening to some stories linked to snow!

This week has been Anti Bullying week. We have been thinking about ways that we can be kind to each other and enjoyed taking part in a ‘Good to be Me’ workshop led by Jenny. Jenny brought some friends for us to meet who were feeling a bit sad. The children used their imagination to become superheroes and come up with some ways to help someone if they are feeling sad. We were very proud of our class who had lots of good ideas. Some of their suggestions included being kind, give someone a hug, play with them. Jenny also talked to the children about doing some calm breathing if you feel sad and the importance of talking to someone you trust.

This week the children arrived back at school to find that someone or something had been in our outdoor area. There were HUGE footprints. The children were feeling brave and we followed them into the woods. As we walked the children discovered a mouse. Then they spotted a fox, owl, snake and eventually (have you guessed?) a … Gruffalo!

Following our adventure through the woods, we were joined at the fire pit by Mrs Whittaker. We enjoyed the warmth of the fire while we ate a biscuit and drank some delicious hot chocolate.

Once we were back in the classroom we had fun doing lots of Gruffalo related activities!

As part of our learning during Black History Month, the children enjoyed finding out about some famous inventors. We found out about Garett Morgan who invented traffic lights, Phillip B Downing who invented the postbox and Dr Bath who invented a machine for improving sight. We thought about why these inventions were so important and finding out about Dr Bath inspired us to design some glasses of our own.

RBD have enjoyed visiting Harlow Carr this week. The purpose of our visit was to find out more about autumn. We participated in a fun workshop about signs of autumn involving an expert from the team at Harlow Carr. We also had fun exploring the grounds! We loved collecting leaves of different shapes and colours in special bags and building nests for hedgehogs.