EYFS – Newsletter – 21.03.25

G’day mates! Reception have been ‘down under’ this week as our Around the World topic has carried us to the other side of the world to the continent of Oceania. The continent, sometimes known as simply Australia or Australasia includes a great many island nations scattered across the Pacific Ocean, mostly across the southern hemisphere. The children have enjoyed looking closely at the Great Barrier Reef off the north-east coast of Australia and seeing some of the amazing underwater biodiversity in books and via the wonders of Google Earth photography. Children had a go at some traditional aboriginal dot-painting and some chose to emulate a contemporary Niuean artist called John Pule and drew their own colourful pictures of the amazing plant life founds across Oceania.

The children have learned of Maori culture which migrated to New Zealand from Samoa and Tonga. Ms Kendrick taught us all about he Maori ceremonial ‘haka’ and we watched a video of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team performing it before having a try ourselves! Some children even took on the challenge of tracing a traditional Maori face tattoo design (called Ta Moko) which took a lot of time and careful concentration. Mrs Andrews also kindly shared some photos and stories of her time living in New Zealand with its varied climates and extraordinary landscapes.

As Oceania is populated with some many amazing island nations across the Pacific Ocean, we decided to take a look at some in more depth and dived into Google Earth to take a look at some areas in Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Nauru and Fiji. This week, we have also held a writing competition by inviting children to take a look at a photograph of a randomly selected location on one of these islands and have a guess at which country we were looking at.

Phonics this week has seen us revisiting the previously learned sounds j, v, w, x, y and z. The children have been practising hearing, recognising and reading these sounds and then writing them in words and sentences of their own.

Our Maths sessions have been a lot of fun this week as we have been revisiting patterns, The children have really enjoyed making their own patterns using blocks, shapes and even sounds made by a selection of musical instruments.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Reception Team

KEY DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Tuesday 18th March – Parent consultations

Thursday 3rd April – Foods of the World Parent Event – 2:00pm – parents and carers invited to join us in Reception to share in our learning and enjoy some delicious foods.

Friday 4th April – Last day of Spring 2 term

Tuesday 22nd April – First day of Summer 1 term

Thursday 24th April – EYFS Writing Workshop – 5:00pm