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What a fabulous week in Reception! Despite a super hot spell, the children found lovely ways to keep cool and have fun. We took time to make our own ice lollies using fresh fruit — children chose and helped prepare the fruit, practised safe food handling, and enjoyed tasting the colourful results. The activity provided a brilliant opportunity to talk about healthy choices, colours and textures, and to follow simple sequencing language such as first, next and last.

Learning continued through playful, language-rich activities. In our focused sessions we practised positional language and prepositions (under, over, next to, between, behind) with movement games and small-group challenges. The children responded well to prompts, moving objects or themselves to match the language, and their confidence with vocabulary grew across the week. We also used a snakes and ladders game to reinforce turn taking, counting and number recognition; it was lovely to see children patiently waiting, cheering each other on and using polite phrases like “my turn” and “well done.”

Outdoors was full of imaginative play and calm shared moments. Some children explored the wooden car and set off on invented journeys — it was so interesting to overhear conversations about where they were going, how they would get there, and who had which role. This kind of role play supported their speaking, storytelling and collaborative planning. Meanwhile, other children chilled out on the grass and shared books and stories together, demonstrating emerging social skills such as sharing, listening and taking turns in conversation.

Overall, the week was busy, joyful and full of learning. The combination of creative cooking, focused language work, cooperative games and imaginative outdoor play gave children many opportunities to develop communication, social and early numeracy skills. Thank you for another wonderful week in Reception — the children’s curiosity, kindness and enthusiasm made it truly special!