Reception

3rd March

This week we have been learning about Chinese New Year. We discovered that this year is the year of the rabbit! We have been listening to the story, ‘The Great Race,’ which explains the origins of why each year in the Chinese zodiac is named after a different animal.  We have been exploring Chinese numerals and learning how to write them. We will be continuing this topic next week, as the children are very excited to discover more about this exciting celebration. In maths we have been learning our number bonds to 10 and have been busy exploring lots of different ways to make different amounts. The children thoroughly enjoyed dressing up for World Book Day and looked amazing! They loved talking about their favourite stories and the characters. What a great start to the new term reception!

17 February

In Reception this week we have been exploring our number bonds to 5. The children have been learning how to make 5 in lots of different ways! We have also been exploring different materials, in particular, wood, plastic, metal and glass. We went on a materials hunt and explored these materials in our classroom and outside. We have been comparing different materials and learning lots of new vocabulary to describe the properties of different materials.  The children enjoyed listening to the story, ‘The Toys Party ’ to draw our topic of ‘Toys’ to an end before we start our new topic – Journeys next term.

10 February

We have been thinking about how to keep ourselves healthy – our bodies and our minds! We have had a very relaxing well- being day in reception. The children enjoyed bringing their teddies into class and loved to introduce their bears and talk about them. We enjoyed our teddy bears picnic together and talked about our feelings. We had a lovely day doing the things which made us feel happy! We enjoyed painting, drawing and colouring, building models in construction and singing. Outdoors, we enjoyed a lovely walk, listening for birds and looking out for more birds as part of our bird watch. We hung our bird feeders on the branches of the trees and noticed that daffodils are starting to grow. We also saw that buds are starting to appear on the bare branches. We enjoyed a little bit of gardening in our area and will be looking after our newly planted bulbs. A very calm and relaxed day in reception.

3rd February

This week the children have been continuing to enjoy ‘Old Bear’ stories by the author Jane Hissey. They particularly enjoyed listening to the story of ‘Jolly Snow,’ and acting out the story using soft toys as the characters and props to make the sledge and a birthday cake! We have been writing about Old Bears and learning about what is special about bears from the past.  In maths we have been learning how to add one more and comparing amounts, identifying which has more even when the objects are different sizes.  We have started to talk about looking after our bodies and eating a healthy diet – healthy food choices.

27th January

In Reception this week the children have been learning how to add 2 amounts by counting how many they have altogether.  We have been continuing to learn about the importance of following instructions and have been making our bird feeders by carefully following every instruction. We have also started to write instructions together to make playdough. Again, we followed our instructions and our playdough turned out great!  We are continuing to learn about old and new toys and have been learning about the history of the teddy bear!

20th January

What an exciting Wintery week we have had in reception! The children have enjoyed exploring the snow and learning more about the season of Winter! We have been writing our names and forming letters in the snow and conducting experiments too. We collected two containers of snow and placed a teddy bear inside each of the containers. We then placed one container in a warm place – on top of the heater and one in the windowsill which was a cold place. The children predicted which bear would escape from the snow the fastest. Of course they predicted accurately because the heater was a warm place and we learned that when a solid turns to a liquid that this is called melting and this bear escaped from the snow and ice faster than the bear which was in the windowsill. At the end of the day we placed the containers of water back outside and in the morning, we were thrilled to see that the liquid had tuned back into a solid and we had ice again!

13th January 2023

Thank you so much for sending in your homework this week. The children are enjoying talking about the toys which their parents/grandparents played with when they were young. We have been exploring old toys, learning the names of toys from the past and finding out how children used to play with them. We have been looking at the different types of materials which were used in the past and discovered that most toys from the were made out of wood, metal or even porcelain. In Literacy, the children enjoyed the ‘Old Bear’ story.  We have been taling about our ‘New Year Resolutions’ and setting challenges for ourselves to achieve hopefully over the year! We also went on a Winter Bird watch and discovered that at the moment, there are not many birds around. Where do birds go in Winter and why?  We decided that it might be a good idea to make bird feeders so that more birds might come to visit us. A great start to our new term!

2nd December

We have been very busy practising our Nativity for next week’s performance.  It is all starting to come together now slowly.  In maths we have been recognising amounts to 5 and learning to read the number words to 5 as well. In Literacy we are enjoying ‘Stickman.’ All of the children are working extremely hard on their letter sounds, formation and sounding and blending. We are continuing with our topic of light and dark and beginning to understand how shadows are formed.

25th November

This week the children have been learning about ‘Time.’ We have been talking about our daily routines and sequencing pictures. We talked about days of the week and months of the year. We used a one- minute timer to complete the teddy bear challenge! We had to use tweezers to pick up the plastic bears and then count how many bears we put into the bag in one minute!

We are really enjoying our ‘Light and Dark’ topic and have been exploring how light also gives us heat. Mrs. Clarke brought her lava lamp into school and the children could see what happened to the lava as the light started to get warm. We have been making dens using lots of material and pegs and creating lots of dark and light spaces and have started to explore how shadows are formed.

18th November

This week we started the week with ‘Odd Socks Day’ in support of Anti – Bullying. We talked about being a kind friend to others and how our actions can make others feel happy or sad. We have enjoyed listening to the story, ‘Can’t you Sleep Little Bear,’ and have been thinking about how little bear was feeling inside the dark cave.  Of course, when he realised that it wasn’t dark outside at all because of the stars and the moon he felt much happier! The children have been thinking about where light comes from and the difference between natural light and artificial light.  In Maths we have been learning about more and fewer and have been very busy counting and comparing amounts over the week.  We are very proud of our reception children, well done everyone!

11th November

This week, the children have enjoyed talking about the fireworks which they saw on Bonfire night. We talked about the beautiful colours and lights and this lead us nicely onto our topic of ‘Diwali’ the Hindu festival of light.  We listened to the story, ‘Dipal’s Diwali’ and created our own Rangoli patterns and explored Diva lamps.  We are starting to think about the differences between dark and light and have enjoyed the story, ‘The Owl who was afraid of the dark.’ The children are very keen on collecting Autumn objects and we have been exploring our Autumn collections, talking about them and writing labels.  Outside, we have been busy weeding our garden and planting our bulbs in our area. In Maths the children have been recognising numerals to 5 and counting objects to match.

4th November

Thank you so much for supporting the children with their Autumn walks over the half term. The children are enjoying talking about their walks and all of the Autumn things which they have collected.  Thank you also for the bulbs. We will be starting to plant these over the next few weeks.  This week we have been learning about the changing seasons and have been on an Autumn walk, looking for signs of Autumn.  We will use our collections of objects to create Art work in the style of Andy Goldsworthy.  We have been learning about pattern in maths and have created lots of repeating patterns using natural and manmade objects.  We have enjoyed the story, ‘Room on the Broom’ and also ‘Funny bones.’ The children have been learning how to write lists and have been writing a list of all of the characters on the broom.

14th October

What an exciting week we have had in reception this week. We started the week wearing yellow in support of Mental Health Awareness Day.  The children enjoyed doing lots of activities to promote ‘Mindfulness.’ We talked about the importance of looking after our minds as well as our bodies. We listened to calming music, went on a Mindfulness’ walk, feeling the sun and listening to the sounds we could hear. The children took part in yoga and learned a few yoga poses. They were amazing!  We have been working hard on letter formation and learning our letter sounds and in maths we have been continuing to match, sort and classify objects.  We had a very special visitor too this week. Miss Alice came to talk to us about her special job. She is a Professional dancer and demonstrated her beautiful ballet and tap dancing. The children were very keen to learn how to dance with Miss Alice and I am sure she has inspired lots of children to work hard and follow their dreams!

7th October

In Reception this week we have been doing lots of sorting and matching objects in our Maths lessons. We have been exploring pattern and decorated our ‘bed’ for the ‘dog’ using repeated patterns.  As our British Value is Democracy, all of the children voted for their favourite name, to name our ‘dog.’ ‘Super Pup’ won with 16 votes!  We are enjoying playing lots of ‘Fred’ games as we learn to blend sounds and say words.  We have started to learn our letter sounds and letter formation.  We have continued to talk about how we are feeling and have talked about feeling sad.  As our class value is ‘Friendship,’ we have been talking about what makes a good friend. We read the story of the ‘Miracle catch of Fish,’ and talked about how Jesus had twelve special friends called disciples.  We talked about what Jesus liked to do with his friends and the children discussed who their friends are and what they like to do with them.

30th September

This week the children have been learning about their feelings. We talked about what makes us feel happy and excited in preparation for using our feelings chart every morning. We watched a video  clip of ‘Nemo ‘and talked about how ‘Nemo’ felt when he started school. We are learning our Golden rules with the help of Shirley our class puppet and through stories. This week we read the story of ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and talked about how we can be a good friend. All of the children talked about sharing and we discussed what they could share in class.  The dog’s bed is beginning to look marvellous too! The children explored colour mixing as they painted the bed using the rollers. They then created repeated patterns to decorate the box. The children have such brilliant ideas! Another very busy week in Reception.

23rd September

This week we have been drawing Self- portraits and learning about the work of ‘Frida Kahlo,’ a self- portrait artist.  We have been talking about ourselves and talking to others about what makes us special. We looked at ourselves in the mirror and described what we looked like. We learned that we are all different but that we are all unique and special and that we like doing lots of different things too. We are continuing to learn the school rules and daily routines. We have also started to identify the pictures in preparation for Read Write Inc. Another fantastic and very settled week for our reception children!

16th September

We have had a fabulous first week, full time in Reception.  This week we have been learning lots of new rules and routines along with our class puppets, ‘Shirley’ and ‘Shaun.’  We have all been working hard to follow our Golden rules and work towards our Golden Time on a Friday afternoon.  We have been trying lots of new foods at dinner time and have enjoyed our first PE lessons this week.  All of the children are making lots of new friends and learning how to share, take turns and listen carefully especially at carpet time! Well done Reception children we are very proud of you!

New Reception class 2022-2023

9th September

We have had a fantastic start to the new school year in Reception. All of the children have been amazing and we can’t wait for them to all start full time next week! The children have been getting to know each other and we have been getting to know all of them too.  We are making lots of new friends and learning where everything is in our new classroom.  We are learning how to be good listeners at carpet time and have enjoyed listening to lots of stories and singing nursery rhymes and songs.

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15th July

The children have had another fabulous week. All of the children have loved visiting their new class and getting to know their new teacher Mrs. Pullar. She has already been very impressed with them and can’t wait for them to start in Year 1. I on the other hand will be very sorry to see them go and letting go will be extremely difficult! I know though that they are ready to move on and that their journey in Reception is almost over.  We have been learning our lines for next Tuesday’s Performance which you are invited to attend and our Performance is looking and sounding great!  Thank you so much for helping your child to learn their lines. The children can’t wait to perform for you all! Many thanks, Mrs. Clarke.

8th July

In Reception this week the children have been revising 2D and 3D shapes. We have been exploring shapes outdoors and collecting objects which are 3D shapes. We have been making shapes in the playdough and measuring the perimeter of 2D shapes using cotton reels.  In Literacy this week we have enjoyed the story of ‘Little Red Riding hood.’ The children have been creating a safe route for Red Riding Hood along the path and using tweezers to place the corks long the path carefully.  We went on our trip to church on Thursday. The children enjoyed looking on Google Maps at the local area. We took lots of photographs and the children sequenced the photographs of our journey to create a simple map. We have had a very busy and exciting week!

1st July

In Reception this week, the children have been enjoying the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Gingerbread Man.’ All of the children are loving listening to Traditional Tales and joining in with the repetitive phrases.  In construction the children have been building a castle for the Giant and have been making stick puppets on the ‘Funky Fingers’ table to act out the story.  In Maths the children have been doing lots of measuring and ordering objects by height. We measured each other and estimated how tall we were using blocks as non- standard measures. We also measured sunflowers and worked out the difference between the tallest and the shortest amounts.  We have continued to learn more about Living Things and were amazed to learn that plants give us oxygen which we need in order to breathe! Another busy challenge filled week for our Reception children! Well done everyone!

24th June 

This week, the children have been learning about ‘Living Things.’ We have been on a ‘Living Things’ hunt outside and have found lots of interesting things which are alive and living! We have been learning how to look after living things, especially our Sunflowers which are starting to grow. We have also been learning about life cycles, in particular the life cycle of plants.  In maths we have been learning about Pictogram and Tally charts. The children created a Pictogram chart of their favourite animals and the animal with the most votes was the cat! They also learned how to do tally charts by counting the traffic.  We have enjoyed Jack and the Beanstalk story and we have been very busy making our own beanstalk which will soon be taller than Mrs. Clarke!

17th June

This week in Reception, the children have been very busy exploring seeds, comparing them and finally planting them. So far, we have planted sunflowers, runner beans, peas and cress. The children are doing a fantastic job of looking after them by watering them every day and making sure that they have plenty of sun light. We have also put some of the seeds in a dark area, without any water to see what happens to them!  The children have been learning about the life cycle of a plant and sequencing pictures correctly.  In Literacy, we have been reading ‘The Tiny Seed’ and writing lists of all of the things which the children used when they planted their sunflower seeds.  In maths, we have been learning about money, recognising coins to the value of 10 pence and playing ‘Pretend shop.’ The children have been adding two items together and exchanging pennies for 2pence, 5 pence and 10 pence coins.  All of the children are working very hard, showing great team work and resilience. Well done Reception!

10th June

I hope that everyone had a wonderful half term and enjoyed the Jubilee Celebrations. In Reception this week, we have been very busy celebrating and learning more about the Queen. The children wrote letters to the Queen to say thank you for being our Queen for 70 years and also made crowns and thrones in our Art and Construction areas. We all took part in the sponsored egg and spoon race and Sports day, we are very proud of you all! In Maths this week the children have been learning about Capacity, continuing with our theme of Measuring. In Literacy we are reading ‘The Tiny Seed.’ All of the children are planting their own sunflower seeds and will be bringing them home once they start to grow. We are learning about plants and living things and what plants need in order to survive. We can’t wait to grow more plants and vegetables in our garden area.

27th May

In reception this week, the children have been learning about Weight and Measures. We have explored lots of different types of weighing scales and talked about why scales are important, for example when baking. The children thoroughly enjoyed wrapping parcels and weighing them using the scales. They were able to identify the heaviest and lightest parcels. Next, we balanced our parcels using non- standard measures such as cubes and teddies. In Literacy and Understanding the World the children have been learning about Tim Peake. The children were so excited to learn about a real Astronaut after reading the story, ‘Whatever Next.’ We then thought about what questions we would like to ask Tim Peake if he visited our class. ‘Can you play football in space?’ ‘How do you eat? What do you eat? ‘How do you brush your teeth?’ Our garden area has also been tidied and the children have weeded and cut down the stems of their flowers. We are ready to plant sunflower seeds when we return after half term. School finishes this Friday for half term and we return to school on Monday 6^th June which is also our Jubilee Celebration Day.

20th May

The children in Reception have enjoyed the story ‘Whatever Next.’ We have sequenced the story and engaged in role play using props to retell the story. We have been writing about the story and talking about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. In maths we have been learning about odd and even numbers. The children have been working extremely hard on sharing amounts equally when halving and working out if an amount is odd or even. We have continued to learn about our town Wigan, in particular Mesnes Park and the statue of Sir Francis Powell. We are also learning about Wigan Pier and how coal was transported in the past along the canal to the pier. As we explore what coal is, we have been sketching using charcoal. The children are sketching local landmarks using charcoal. A busy week of challenges for our wonderful Reception children.

13th May

Thank you so much for completing your home learning activities last week. The children enjoyed looking at their ‘Bird’s eye Views’ in class and exploring where we live using Google Earth and Street Maps. This week we have been finding out more about our town, Wigan and learning about local landmarks. In Art we are learning about James Isherwood, a local Wigan Artist and exploring colour mixing to paint our own pictures of Wigan landmarks and building models in Construction to match. In Literacy, the children have enjoyed listening to the story ‘Whatever Next!’ They have been acting out the story using props and also sequencing and writing about the story. In Maths the children have been working extremely hard on doubling and halving amounts and we have started to discuss odd and even numbers.  We have been learning about looking after our bodies and this week talked about the importance of good dental hygiene. Thank you all for your continued support. We are extremely proud of our Reception class!

29th April

This week we have been learning about ‘Doubles’ in Maths and learning how to double amounts. The children enjoyed singing ‘Mr. Double Trouble’ as they made their doubles on each half of the lady bird/butterfly. The children discovered that all of the amounts were even numbers! In Literacy, the children continued to write a message to Saint George, thanking him for slaying the dragon and saving the Princess. The children looked closely at Street maps of Wigan and we located our school on the map. We learned that maps use symbols and words and we talked about what else we could see on the map. We discussed where we live in Wigan and learned that we live in England which is part of the United Kingdom. Next, we will learn our addresses so that we can locate our homes on the map and explore them further using ‘Google Earth.’ The children have also explored colour mixing, as we painted the green dragon using blue and yellow. In R.E, we learned about ‘Special Places,’ in particular that the Church is a special place for Christians. We looked at the main features of St. Paul’s Church both inside and outside. A great week in Reception, continuing our topic of Journeys.

22nd April

This week the children have been learning about Saint George as it is St. George’s day on Saturday. The children have listened to the story of Saint George and the dragon and we have talked about how brave Saint George was when he fought the dragon. The children talked about feeling brave themselves. In construction we have been building castles for the Princess and we have been writing messages to Saint George to warn him that the dragon is in the lake! We are all making flags and measuring the length and width of the red cross to compare which is the longest and has more cubes and which is the shortest and has fewer cubes. A great first week back after half term. Well done Reception!

1st April

In Reception this week, the children have been learning ‘The Easter Story.’ We recreated scenes from the story in Construction, building scenes from ‘The Last Supper’ and making the ‘Easter Cross.’ We decorated the Easter cross using repeating patterns and wrote about the story. We have loved making our Easter bonnets which look fabulous and can’t wait to do an Easter Parade wearing them on Friday! We have been talking about what we can see on our journeys to school and have drawn simple maps of our journeys. We have enjoyed using tweezers to pick up counters and small cubes and race against the one- minute timer. We compared how many we had picked up with our buddy and talked about who had more/fewer counters. We then ordered our scores and compared the amounts.  We have been learning about how to look after our bodies with a healthy diet, exercise and the importance of sleep. I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter and a very well- earned rest for all of the children. Happy Easter everyone! Thank you for all of your support, as always, Mrs. Clarke.

25th March

We have had another fabulous week in Reception and definitely enjoyed the Spring sunshine! The children have been busy making their Easter bonnets, which look amazing! We will be making them next week as well. We have been creating our own obstacle course outside to recreate ‘The Bear Hunt’ story as the children travel over, under and through obstacles. We have been writing warning signs in Literacy to warn the family that there is a bear in the cave! In ‘Magical Maths,’ we are continuing to add one more and one less and exploring the composition of numbers. We have also been painting our beautiful daffodils in our Reception garden area and sketching using pastels and chalks in the Art area.  We have been learning about Healthy foods and the importance of exercise and learning how to keep ourselves healthy. All of the children have once again shown great resilience and perseverance with their challenges! Well done you little Superstars!

18th March

In Reception this week we have been on our Spring walk, looking for signs of Spring! The children were amazed to see their beautiful Springtime flowers which they planted in Autumn. We noticed lots of daffodils and talked about looking after our environment.  The birds were singing and we enjoyed lots of outdoor play, drawing pictures using the chalks on the playground of all of the signs of Spring! In maths we have been continuing to learn how to add one more and one less and recall our number bonds to 5. We have now started our topic on Journeys and in Literacy, we all enjoyed reading ‘The Bear Hunt’ story. We have been thinking about how the Bear may have felt in the story, as he walked back to his cave and talking about how we can help others if they are feeling sad or lonely like the Bear in the story.  We are all working extremely hard in our ‘Fun Phonics’ groups and enjoying our reading activities! We are very proud of all of you, well done Reception!

11th March

This week we have been learning about China as we finish our topic on Chinese New Year. The children discovered that China has famous landmarks such as ‘The Great Wall of China’ and ‘Mount Everest.’  In construction, the children have been building models of these landmarks and we have been locating these on a map. The children absolutely loved searching on ‘Google Earth’ for these landmarks. We have finished our Chinese dragon and will be performing our ‘Dragon dance’ tomorrow in school. We have been measuring our dragons in maths, exploring number bonds and adding one more and one less than. We also learned about Chinese foods and learned that ‘Tea’ comes from china. The children explored what a ‘Tea Strainer’ does to make a lovely cup of tea!

4th March

This week the children in Reception have been learning about Chinese New Year.  We have been drawing pictures of Tigers as this year is the year of the Tiger. The children have been writing menus and learning about Chinese foods. We have been learning how to fold paper in a concertina style to make a Chinese dragon. We are going to do the Dragon Dance when we have finished making it! We have been learning about famous landmarks such as the ‘Great Wall of China’ and have been building this in construction.  We have also celebrated World Book Day and had a fabulous vocabulary parade! Well done Reception!

18th February

In reception this week, the children have been preparing for our ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic.’ We have been learning how to write invitations, inviting our teddies to come to the picnic. In Literacy we have been continuing to learn about instructions. Thank you so much for sending in your homework – Following instructions to make a jam sandwich! The children will be experts when we make our sandwiches in class for our own indoor picnic.  The children finally completed their Winter bird watch and noticed when we counted our tally of Winter birds that the Blue tit was the most popular winter bird to come and visit our outdoor area. I think the bird box really helped and all of the treats which the children have been making for the birds over this half term.  In Maths we have been adding amounts together and further developing our understanding of number. The children have also been learning how to measure using non -standard measures, to design and make a parachute for ‘Old Bear’ to escape from the attic.

Thank you for all of your support over the term. I hope that you all have a lovely half term break and we will see you back on Monday the 28^th February.

11th February

This week we have been writing instructions to help Old Bear to escape from the attic. They acted out the story using props and followed their instructions. Great teamwork!  The children realised that old bear had a very fast and bumpy landing because he didn’t have a parachute. Our next challenge to learn how parachutes work and make one for Old Bear to use so that he can have a slow and safe landing. In construction the children had to build something to help Old Bear to escape. We have had lots of wonderful inventions such as helicopters, ladders, wheelbarrows and aeroplanes. The children have also been designing and making their own toys and have started to make a puppet with moving parts. All of the children are working extremely hard on their challenges, well done reception!

4th   February

This week the children have been exploring the number 10 in our ‘Magical Maths’ lessons. We used double sided counters to explore lots of different ways to make 10. We have been paying for our snack and using pennies to buy the old toys in our toy shop.  In Literacy this week, we have been enjoying the story of ‘Old Bear’ and ordering instructions. The children ordered instructions to help ‘Old Bear’ to escape from the attic and acted out the story using props.  We have been observing Winter birds to find out if they have been eating our ‘Cheerio’ bird feeders which we made last week. We observed more Winter birds this week than last week, so our bird feeders must be a success! We have also made bird feeders using lard and bird seed to observe which foods the birds prefer to eat. Another exciting and busy week with all of our challenges in class too. Well done Reception!

28th January

We have had a fabulous week in reception this week. We have been continuing to learn about old and new toys and explaining how we know which toys are old and which toys are new.  In maths we have been exploring the number 9 and finding lots of ways to make 9!  We have been learning about money and price tags and have been busy setting up our toy shop using the old toys.  As part of our Winter topic we have been continuing with our Winter walk and our bird watch, observing changes in nature. We have been learning about Winter birds and exploring where birds go in Winter. To encourage more birds to visit our outdoor area we are making bird feeders. We will make some bird feeders using cheerios and others using bird seed to compare which bird feeders are the most popular! Let’s hope that we see many more Winter birds coming to visit us now!

21st January

This week in Reception we have enjoyed learning our new letter sounds l, h, sh and r. We have practiced sounding, blending and writing all with the help of our frog Fred. We have loved going on adventures with Fred helping him to sound and blend. In Maths, we have been exploring the number 8. We have played lots of dice games and used a ten frame to figure out how many extra counters we need to make 8. We have also experienced observational drawing, we have been drawing a teddy bear and labelling our drawing and we have even looked at a giraffe teddy to draw. In our writing area we have been writing a list of words we know with the letter sounds we have learned this week, the class favourite was r because we can write rainbow. We have also been exploring books in the reading area and finding the letter r in our stories and copying those words on to paper to sound and blend. We have also enjoyed going on a winter walk, it was very cold but we wrapped up warm and talked about all the things we observed in the natural environment. After our winter walks, we talked about snowflakes and made our own snowflakes with paper and scissors to promote scissor control.

14th January 2022

This week we have had a very busy week in Reception. We have all had our own challenge cards to complete and we did a fantastic job of completing them. In Math we learned about the number 7. We created an alien with 7 arms, 7 legs and 7 eyes. We also did some addition and talked about all the different ways we can make 7. We also did some group work working out number 7 with a part – whole method. In phonics we have been learning the sounds ‘u, b, f and e’. We have practiced our sounding, blending, letter formation, word reading and word writing. We have also loved doing phonics with our new frog Fred, we have loved playing his game Fred says. We have also enjoyed retelling the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we linked this to maths as the children noticed there are 7 days in a week, linking to our number of the week. This week we have also started to look at old and new toys, Mrs. Clarke worked with us to sort our toys into 2 groups. Toys we had then (as a baby) and toys we have now. Our class favourite was the iPad, we looked at a toy baby iPad and a real iPad. We talked about the different materials and how we use them differently. We also played some traditional outdoor games, such as: skittles, hopscotch, hula hoops and bean bag toss. In art, we have done some observational drawings. We looked at a teddy bear and talked about all the different textures and shapes we could see. The children decided we could see lots of circles shapes and soft fur. So, we used our pencil to make soft drawings.

17th December

This week we have enjoyed learning about the celebration Christmas. We have enjoyed sounding and blending CVC words such as, log, hat, cup, mum and dad and have even put them into sentences. In Maths we have enjoyed lots of fun Christmas activities such as feed the reindeer counting, Christmas tree shape bauble decorating and colour by numbers. We have also all joined in with writing our own Nativity story. We are very good at remembering it because we linked it to our own Nativity! We have also spent a lot of time this week reflecting on the year, we spoke about what we are thankful for and wrote thank you notes to our friends and family. We also discussed why we celebrate Christmas and why it’s so important. On Friday we ended our fabulous term with a well-deserved Christmas party, the children are amazing dancers!

10th December

We have had a lovely week in Reception, we celebrated the end of our Christmas Nativity with a hot chocolate and biscuit, we even sneaked a peak of our filmed Christmas Nativity! In phonics we have recapped on our previously learnt sounds and have started to sound and blend simple CVC words like ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘mum’ and ‘dad’. In maths we have been collecting sticks of different sizes, linked to our Stickman story. We have placed them in size order and used the language of size to describe them. We also used our sticks for addition and have made number sentences with them. We have also made kites in expressive arts and design and understanding the world. The children cannot wait to test their kites on a windy day. We have also continued our Christmas theme this week and created our own Christmas Cards and other decorations to share with our families. We have also continued to focus on our class value of friendship, the children have been discussing what is right and what is wrong and how to help themselves and their friends when they are in need.

3rd December

We have had another busy week in Reception. We have spent a lot of our time getting ready for our Christmas Nativity next week we are super excited to show all our grown ups! In fabulous phonics we have learnt two new letter sounds the ‘ck’ and the ‘e’ sound. We have been playing games of eye spy in small groups to spot the letter sounds of the week. In Maths we have introduced the estimation station we have really been enjoying writing down our estimates for the week and are really looking forward to finding out our ‘Estimator of the week’. We have also been taking part in lots of colour sorting activities in magical maths too as well as playing shapes dominoes which we really enjoy playing with our class friends. As part of our Understanding the world we have been learning about the differences and similarities in different countries. We have chosen to compare the similarities and differences between Germany and England where we live. We decided to compare the Christmas decorations in the different countries as we are all very excited for Christmas! We found out that in Germany they put candles on their Christmas tree to give off light but in England we use Christmas tree lights! As part of our Personal Social and Emotional Development lesson we have been reading the story ‘Stickman’ By Julia Donaldson. We have been discussing and understanding Stickman’s feelings and why he may feel the way he did in the story. We have also created our own story map together in our 2 groups of Owls and Squirrels. Another busy week in Reception!

26th November

We have had such a fun week learning in Reception this week. In Phonics we have been exploring the letter sounds ‘c’ and ‘k’, we have been learning how to form the letter sounds as well as sounding and blending to form cvc words.  We have enjoyed making collages of the letter sounds using tissue paper alongside creating a repeated pattern to link into our maths! In Maths we have been learning all about 2 and 3D shapes using the feely bag. We use the feely bag by hiding the shapes inside and then describe the shape we can feel while the children guess what shape we are describing. We have also taken part in many shape hunts with Miss Ashbrook around school we have really enjoyed ticking off the shapes we have found on our list. In our understanding the world lesson we have been carrying on exploring and discussing sources of light. This week we have been talking about natural and manmade sources of light. We enjoyed sorting the picture cards we had into the right boxes as a whole class, we then carried on doing this at the back of class independently as a gluing and sticking activity. We enjoyed spending time together during circle time passing around the seeds and bulbs we brought in as part of our homework. We talked about the names of the flowers as well as describing how the seeds and bulbs looked in the packet. After this we went off to write labels for our flower seeds and bulbs ready for us to put in the garden area once planted. Finally, in PSED we have carried on talking about feelings linking it to our story ‘Can’t you sleep little bear’. We have been discussing what it feels like when someone is scared and how we can overcome this feeling just like little bear did. Overall a fun busy week in Reception!

19th November

This week we have such a fun busy week in Reception. We have started the preparations for Christmas! In class we have learnt all about the Christmas story ready to act it out in our Christmas nativity in church. We have enjoyed learning our songs and parts for the Christmas nativity we have picked it up quickly. In phonics we have been learning the letter sounds ‘g’ and ‘o’ we have enjoyed learning how to form these letters as well as sounding and blending cvc words with these letter sounds. In maths we have been learning about greater than by comparing many objects to the small number of objects and finding out which is greater than. We have been carrying on our art class project of Andy Goldsworthy. We have been enjoying working outside as a team to create pieces like Andy Goldsworthy created. In PSED we have been reading the story ‘Can’t you sleep little bear’ By Martin Waddell we have enjoyed discussing together what our favourite bedtime stories are as well as drawing a picture of our favourite stories to put up around class. The story ‘Can’t you sleep little bear’ also links to our theme of light and dark in Reception. We have enjoyed circle time together when we have been discovering different man made sources of light and then having a vote of which is our favourite light source. 

12th November

We have had a very fun and busy week in Reception! We have enjoyed learning our letter sounds ‘m’ and ‘d’ as well as doing fun activities in phonics around the sounds we have learnt. We have also been learning about Remembrance Day and why we celebrate it each year, the children enjoyed making poppies for our Poppy Garden (we think they look amazing!) In maths we have been exploring the number 5 and all the different ways we can make 5. We have also enjoyed exploring outside, we collected lots of different natural objects in 5’s. We have also explored why we celebrate Bonfire Night, the children loved learning about Guy Fawkes and thought he was a ‘bad man’ because of his plan. Finally, we have been reading Room on the Broom in Reception over the last few weeks and this week we have explored why the characters are so special to the witch. This then led to the children stating who is special to them and we also discussed why Jesus is so special to us. The children all wrote their name on a photo of Jesus to commemorate their special friendship. As the children in Reception know that Jesus is always there for us.

15th October

We have had a very fun week in Reception this week. We have been enjoying learning our letter sounds ‘I’ and ‘n’ as well as doing fun activities around the phonics we have learnt. We have been learning all about harvest festival in which we have been taste testing all different harvest foods such as cereal, bread, fruit etc. We have really enjoyed learning the song ‘The farmer plants the seeds’ for harvest festival in which we sang beautifully in the harvest ceremony this morning. In maths we have been exploring all the different 2D shapes using the feely bag to describe and then guess the shape. Finally we have been on a colour hunt around our school to search for all the different colours there are! We have had such a fun busy week! We are really looking forward to our last week of the term when we can start our Halloween decorations for class.

8th October

We have had really busy week in Reception this week. We have made a great start to our letters and sounds in class and are really enjoying learning the letter sounds. This week we have been learning the letter sounds ‘t’ and ‘p’. We have been going for hunts around the classroom for objects beginning with those letter sounds as well as practicing our formation using tissue paper to create a collage and also using 2 colours to create a repeated pattern! We have been carrying on with the Rainbow Fish this week by sequencing the story together in class along with discussing how can we share together? What can we share and then we have done our own piece of writing to go into our writing books! We have had a really fun time learning our harvest song ‘The Farmer Plants the Seeds’ together we are doing really well learning the actions and lyrics together. Finally we really enjoyed celebrating Census day too in the dinner hall we had balloons and cupcakes to celebrate. Overall a really fun week in Reception!

1st October

This week in Reception we have been looking at the letter sounds ‘s’ and ‘a’. We have practised forming the letters in a variety of ways, such as in the sand, by printing and using pens and whiteboards.  

The number that we have focussed on this week is number 1. We have looked at physical items in sets of one and practised forming the number one. Well done to Reception who took part in a ‘Number Hunt’ as a home learning activity. 

The story that we have been looking at this week if ‘The Rainbow Fish’. The children have enjoyed learning the story and discussing their views and opinions. We have made Rainbow Fish collages as well as large scale fish pictures using fabrics and materials.  

24th September

This week we have been learning the names of the different parts of our bodies. We have been working together as small teams to label giant sized body outline we are all trying really hard.We have also been talking about our families and why they are special to us as well as showing our class the pictures of our families! We all really enjoyed showing our friends the pictures of our families which are now on our family pictures display. Finally we have been learning about the importance to share with our friends in class and we are trying super hard when choosing in the outdoor and indoor areas. Overall a super busy fun week in Reception