Reception Picture News
This week in our class worship we have been looking at Picture News and thinking about the terrible wildfires that are happening in Los Angeles. We talked about how hard it must be for the people who live there to flee their homes and sadly thought about the people who have lost their lives too. Not only this, but the animals who are seeking shelter from losing their habitats. We finished by saying some ‘please’ prayers to ask God for help during this difficult time.
Reception: Class Worship
We started our worship with our trinity. Lisa from Blackburn Diocese then asked us to repeat a prayer after her- God is amazing, all of the time, Amen. We listened to a story from the Old Testament called God sends fire. It made our eyes go wide and our mouth go wow! Bishop Jill explained the meaning of the story. Fire is a strong image in the bible and it represents the fiery love of God. When we ask for God's fire from heaven, we are asking for our hearts to be filled with his love. It is the sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. We prayed and learnt together the Makaton sign for fire. We finished our worship with a song we learnt yesterday in singing worship called 'Who is the king of the jungle'.
Reception: PSHE
Karen from Life Education visited Reception today. She explained how we need food, drink, exercise and sleep to stay healthy. Karen explained how we need to make sure germs don't get in by washing our hands with soap and water. We might need some medicine and we need to ask a grown up. We watched a video of Harold. Before he ate his breakfast, he washed his hands. Karen brought Harold's wash bag to show the children what he uses to keep clean. Harold has a flannel, soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste. Karen explained how it is very important to brush our teeth at least twice every day. Harold felt a little bit sad. Karen explained that if you feel a bit sad, you could cuddle a toy, play with a friend or talk to someone. Talking really helps when you feel sad and it can help you to feel better. Karen discussed a good bedtime. She explained how it is important to get an early bed time. We then took part in a calm and relaxing activity. At the end, we got to meet Harold, what a treat! Harold sang a song to us all about looking after our bodies and mind. Thanks Karen for a wonderful session.
Friday Celebration Worship
Today, we started our Celebration Worship by reflecting on another busy week in school. This week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr's birthday and thought about how we can all make a positive difference in our world. We have enjoyed focusing on the theme of building each other up as part of our Year of Prayer, Reception, Year 1, 2 and 4 have enjoyed dance and gymnastics sessions led by Rothwell Arts. Reception have enjoyed a visit from Rev Ben to learn about the role of a vicar and we have enjoyed various after-school clubs such as basketball, multi-sports, foodie club, Rocksteady and choir. We then congratulated Will, Hollie and Charlie in EYFS and KS1 and Arabelle, Daisy, Charlie and Rosie in KS2 for making a fantastic start to the Spring term by working extremely hard across the curriculum, always striving to improve and demonstrating our Christian Values and the Barny’s 4Bs. Furthermore, we congratulated Year 2 and Year 5 on being our amazing attendance winners this week, India Mill as our overall value award winners this week with 750 points and our Year 5/6 football team who represented our school amazingly well last night in the DPSSA football league against Ashleigh and St James’. We then congratulated Ella for achieving her Stage 2 swimming certificate for swimming across the pool with no armbands, Freddie for being awarded with his 10m swimming certificate, Callie for achieving her Stage 5 swimming certificate, Thomas for swimming an incredible 50m, Lyla for being a super gymnast and achieving a silver medal, Haydn for being awarded a huge gold trophy for his skilful tackling in football, Lydia for being awarded with Olivia at Rainbows for showing super respect and tidying up, Leonora and Iris for participating in a recent gymnastic competition and demonstrating great skill and Brooke for being selected for Blackburn Rovers Girls’ team. To end our worship, we prayed for peace in the world and said thank you for all of the things that we are lucky enough to have. We then sang ‘Build Up’ and thanked those who could attend celebration worship. We thank the rest of our school family for all of your continued support and we wish you all a lovely weekend.
Worship with Rev. Matt
Today’s worship with Rev. Matt began with an engaging vote about which activities take the most time to prepare for. Rev. Matt then shared a parable told by Jesus, illustrating how we pray and connect with God. The story featured two men who went to a temple to pray: a Pharisee, who proudly listed his good deeds and a tax collector, who humbly asked for forgiveness. The children reflected on the contrasting attitudes of the two men, learning that prayer is not about boasting but about speaking honestly and sincerely with God. Rev. Matt emphasised a powerful message from the parable: Those who make themselves great will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be made great. This served as a reminder to approach life with humility and gratitude, encouraging the children to think about how they communicate with God and with others.
Reception Maths -Ordering
This week we have been focusing on the position of numbers from 1-5. We looked at the pattern of the numberblocks and found that they get bigger by one each time. We then practised ordering the numbers on the dinosaur by thinking about the counting sequence and counting out loud.
Whole School Worship - Who Is My Neighbour?
In our collective worship, we were considering the question, “Who is my neighbour?” We discussed what it means to love your neighbour as yourself (as mentioned in parts of the Bible such as Leviticus and the Gospel according to Mark) and that there are times when it can be incredibly difficult. In hearing about the life of Martin Luther King Jr, as today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, we discovered that, even when it feels impossible to love our neighbour, when we are mistreated, ignored or disrespected as he and other black people have been, we must try harder to follow God’s greatest commandment, just like Martin did. Our children considered this and spent some time reflecting on the Christian Values that Martin demonstrated and the ways that they would like to make the world a better place and make a difference. Some of the children’s examples included: protecting nature, making peace when we have disagreements, putting a stop to pollution and eradicating poverty. We finished with prayers thanking God for Martin Luther King Jr and all that he did to the make the world a better place and asked Him to give us the courage to stand up for what is right. Rev Ben finished with a special blessing and we sang 'I can make a difference'.
Reception- Painting the snow with water colours
Whilst the children were junk modelling using water coloured paints, they came up with an idea of painting the snow with the water colours. We decided to get stuck into some child initiated play. The children had so much fun decorating the snow and becoming artists, mixing colours to make new ones and making pictures and patterns on a different texture.
Reception: The Role of the Vicar
Reception class welcomed Rev Ben into class to talk about how a vicar is special to the Church. Rev Ben shared a video with the children showing how Jesus’ disciples were ordinary people just like him. He brought a bible, a chalice and the oil used to baptise people to show how vicars help people to learn from the Bible and how they welcome people into the church family. Rev Ben brought in his stole that he wears in Church. The children all had a turn at trying it on if they wanted to. Thank you so much Rev Ben, we loved your visit!
Reception: Challenge Champions
This week in Reception, we are focusing on the story, Sharing a Shell. The children have been really busy in provision completing challenges. They have been attempting to write sentences, strengthening their muscles in the fine motor area, creating rockpools, drawing fish, painting using the skills of Pointillism, counting shells to play a subitise game and moulding the playdough to create different characters from the story. Well done!
Collective Worship- Year of Prayer
This morning in our Collective Worship we focused on our prayer for this week of the Year of Prayer from Blackburn Diocese. We discussed and shared our responsibilities in school and at home such as cleaning our rooms, loading the dishwasher, helping look after younger siblings, helping with the cooking and cleaning, counting values points (Heads and Deputies) and planning and leading sports events (Sports Leaders) . We then said together a special prayer for our responsibilities and discussed how God is always with us during those responsibilities and having a smile on face whilst carrying them out benefits others. Mrs Ham then shared the responsibility of selecting songs to sing and choosing children to demonstrate the actions at the front. The children chose to sing 'Life is always better when we share it with each other', 'Waymaker' 'My Lighthouse' and 'Build Up'. Build up is also the theme for our class Year of Prayer this week too. Our WOW group members informed each class of the special build up prayers they would be saying this week.
Reception: Junk Modelling
Our Reception class have really enjoyed our new junk modelling area. They have been using their imaginations to create dens, treasure boxes, jewellery boxes, post boxes and bags. They have joined materials together and embellished their items.