It was lovely to welcome back all our Otters and Robins this week after their half term break.  We were so proud of how confidently they walked into their classes and how settled they now are in Reception.

This week we have been learning all about the celebration of Diwali. We used the picture book 'The Best Diwali Ever' by Sonali Shah as the focus of our Drawing Club sessions and learnt all about how the festival is celebrated around the world. During child-initiated learning we have been making rangoli patterns and doing lots of firework art. 

On Thursday, we put out some clay during independent learning so the children could explore using it. They rolled, squashed, pinched and smoothed and thoroughly enjoyed using the medium. In the afternoon, they used those skills to make their own diva lamps. I have never seen such concentration! They all particularly enjoyed using water to smooth out any cracks in their creations. The lamps will be left to dry before decorating next week.

In phonics, we have learnt the phoneme j and the digraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound) ss, ff and ll. We have also been practising reading the tricky words put, pull, full and as.

In maths, we have been looking at representations of numbers 1, 2 and 3 and have been making our own number posters.