EYFS – Newsletter – 28.03.25

Saludos amigos! This week, Reception have been exploring the penultimate continent of our Around The World topic – South America! There was much excitement as the children were greeted by Paddington Bear in class with a special request for postcards from Peru. As we learned about the amazing rainforests of ‘deepest, darkest Peru’ the children were encouraged to hunt down some of the incredible animals that live in the forest (hidden around the class) and then send a postcard to Paddington back in London, telling him what they have seen. 

Our creative tables were a hive of activity as always, with children busy adding their own touches to some Peruvian alpacas, and designing their own ponchos as well as having a try at emulating the vibrant works of contemporary Chilean artist Karen Pinto De La Calle. The children were also delighted to try on a real woven poncho that Cookridge’s own Miss Devine brought back with her from her travels in South America. 

Through our Topic sessions this week the children have loved exploring this varied and vibrant continent.  We have learned about the fabulous carnival in Rio de Janeiro with it colourful costumes, Samba music and dancing; we have explored the stunning peaks of Patagnonia in the south of the continent and the majestic ruined city of Machy Picchu hight in the mountains of Peru via the wonders of Google Earth; we have taken in the highest waterfall on Earth when looking at Angel Falls in Venezuela; and we have seen how Ecuador straddles the equator with a city sitting across both hemispheres in the ‘middle of the world’! The children have been fascinated and each chose their favourite three destinations to add to their own ‘Around the World’ passport.

As we have continued to enjoy some lovely Spring weather this week, the children have been making the most of our outdoor spaces. A lot of children were happy to help out with pulling up the weeds that have recently started to encroach on our vegetable patch and then to water the leeks that are growing within. After the Easter break we will be pulling up our leeks and preparing to plant more summer crops as we begin our next topic of ‘Let It Grow!’

We’ve also had lots of fun making sandcastles, playing ball games and enjoying the water trays. Some children even took it upon themselves to build their very own loungers in which to lay back and sunbathe!

Phonics sessions this week have seen us revisiting the digraph phonemes ‘qu’ (queen) ‘ch’ (chick) and ‘sh’ (sheep). The children have been going over how to write these sounds and where to use them in their writing, plus recognising them when blending sounds to read words and sentences. We’ve also spent time becoming more familiar with capital letters and knowing which ones differ from their lower case counterpart. 

In Maths, we have been looking at numbers beyond ten. The children have really enjoyed investigating how to build and represent these numbers 10-20 in a range of ways using all manner of equipment. By constructing and deconstructing these larger numbers, the children are becoming more familiar with the number system as whole and beginning to spot and understand patterns and the importance of place value. Understanding the meaning of what each column represents will greatly help the children’s confidence when writing and interacting with two (and eventually three plus) digit numbers. 

On Friday we took time to learn about the month of Ramadan and how Muslims all over the world are coming to the end of their period of fasting. We discussed how and why Muslims fast during Ramadan and looked at how the end of fasting is celebrated with the festival of Eid-al-Fitr. The children were invited to have a go at mehndi patterns and cutting and sticking a gift box to house Eid treats. One kind family very generously brought in special gifts for the children in Reception to celebrate Eid – thank you so much! We wish Eid Mubarak to all those that are celebrating this weekend.

We are looking forward to seeing people at next weeks Foods of the World event in Reception class. The children will be serving up delicious, freshly made dishes and sharing some of their learning over the past week of our Around The World topic. As part of this day, we will spend some time in the morning looking at where the foods we buy and consume come from before reaching our supermarket shelves. Therefore, we would be grateful to receive any food packaging that clearly displays a country of origin (this is often clear to see on packaged fruit and vegetables especially – see image below) that we can examine and discuss with the children. 

Have a lovely weekend!

The Reception Team

KEY DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Thursday 3rd April – Easter Eggs competition deadline – children (and parents!) invited to decorate an egg in any style.

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.