Reception

Welcome to Reception Class!

Our Class Teachers are Mrs Watson and Mrs Wiltshire

Our Teaching Assistants are Mrs K Parkins & Ms Field

Show and Tell Rota 

Show and Tell this week was a roaring success! Thank you parents for sending your children in with something to share - the children really enjoyed talking to the class about their special item. As we had such a great response, we have decided to implement a rota going forward. Please see the attached document below which will tell you which week your child should bring in something for Show and Tell. 

Going forward, this will allow the children more time to share and speak in front of the class! 

Friday 26th November

This week in Reception our book of the week was ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’ by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. It was a lovely follow on from nursery rhyme week as we had to ‘spy’ nursery rhyme and traditional tale characters within the story. At the end of the story all the characters enjoyed some plum pie. We decided to get a little crafty in class and make our own version of plum pie, using paper plates, paint and paper. We got to show our ‘pies’ in sharing assembly this week!

We also used the baking inspiration from the book to make some jam tarts this week. The children were so excited to do some baking. They demonstrated excellent listening skills as they had to follow instructions from a recipe. The children used the equipment sensibly and each child decided whether they wanted a marmalade or strawberry jam tart.

In Maths this week we have learnt about sorting, weight and capacity. We thought about how we can sort shapes – by colour, by size, by shape, or whether it is 2D or 3D. We also looked at groups of objects and talked about the odd one out – for example, we talked about why a hippo doesn’t belong in a group of birds. The children used lots of mathematical language!

Next week, we will be reading ‘One Snowy Night’ by Nick Butterworth. We will be thinking about the change in weather as we transition to the winter season. In Maths next week, we will be learning how to add amounts together and write number sentences. 

Friday 19th November

This week was National Nursery Rhyme week so our focus has been on singing and sharing all the nursery rhymes that we know! We have enjoyed singing along, making actions and identifying rhyming words. We even performed our favourite nursery rhymes to the whole school in sharing assembly this Friday. We have learnt lots about rhyming words this week; one of our favourite activities was using the iPads with Mrs Parkins to record ourselves saying silly words that rhyme with our own name. It caused much hilarity when the children then listened to the recording of themselves saying their silly rhyming words. 

In maths this week we have been learning about positional language. We learnt how to describe where an object is in relation  to another object, for example 'the ball is next to the chair' or ' 'the ball is in between the teddy and the chair'. The children then worked in pairs using a basket and a teddy. One child placed the teddy in, on or under the basket and their partner had to describe where the bear is. We also learnt about 3D shapes. The children worked really hard to find 3D objects in their classroom environment, learning that a football is a 'sphere'. 

Next week we will be sharing the story 'Each Peach Pear Plum' by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. We will be using our knowledge of nursery rhymes to try and spot all the traditional tale and nursery rhyme characters within the story! 

We're also pleased to say that many more children are now receiving a golden ticket for reading 5 times in one week. Today 65% of the class had a golden ticket - next week let's aim for even more! 

Friday 12th November 

This week our focus has been on Remembrance Day. The children really enjoyed our book of the week ‘Where the Poppies Now Grow’ and have produced some really lovely artwork to commemorate Remembrance Day. We look forward to sharing some of our artwork with you on our Celebration Evening on Tuesday 16^th November.

We also enjoyed our skipping workshop on Thursday 11th. We learnt some important skills, such as forward skipping, as well as learning how to time our jumps. The children really enjoyed it and it's definitely inspired some to practise skipping at home too! 

In maths this week we have focused on shape and pattern. The children are able to recognise different 2D shapes and can describe their features, such as how many sides and vertices the shape has, along with whether the sides are curved or straight. We learnt the difference between a rectangle and a square and practised ‘seeing’ shapes in other pictures, such as the example below. Can your child tell you what shapes they can see?

We have also focused on pattern this week, learning what a pattern is and how to create their own increasingly complex patterns. The children have learnt how to continue a repeating 2 step pattern, such as ‘blue, yellow, blue, yellow’ and some children have been able to continue more complex patterns such as ‘circle, square, square, triangle, circle…’. Perhaps ask your child if they can identify patterns in their home environments? Patterns your child may be able to find are animal prints, polka dots, stripes and check for example.

Next week, we are focusing on spatial awareness and the language we use to explain the position of something. Our book of the week will be the traditional tale ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and we will be using words such as 'under' 'over' 'next to' to describe where some of the characters are in the story! 

Friday 5th November 

It was lovely welcoming the children back to school this week, we hope all our Reception families enjoyed the half-term holiday together. It’s been a super start to Autumn 2 in Reception this week; we have been learning about Diwali and have learnt about the Hindu story of Rama and Sita. The children have created some lovely Diva lamps, Rangoli patterns and lanterns to celebrate this week. We have also learnt about Bonfire Night and why it is celebrated. The children created some super firework pictures using paint and glitter – we’ve put some pictures up below for you to see! Our book of the week this week has been ‘The Lost Acorn’ along with other books in the Percy the Park Keeper series. We focused on the signs of Autumn we could see, both within the book and in real life. As a class, we discussed the change in weather we are now experiencing and how the days are shorter now the clocks have gone back and we move into winter.

Next week, our topic will be Remembrance Day. We will be sharing the book ‘Where the Poppies Now Grow’ by Hilary Robinson, which is a very sensitive introduction to why we wear poppies for Remembrance Day, suitable for the age of the children. We will also be creating lots of lovely poppy artwork around this topic that we look forward to sharing with you next week!

We also look forward to welcoming you into school on Wednesday 10th November at 9am for our phonics morning. 

Friday 15th October 2021

This week in Reception we have really enjoyed our book of the week, ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. The children have really enjoyed playing with props from the story in the role play area, putting a colander on to use as our ‘space helmet’ and using wellies as our ‘space boots’! The children have been using their imagination, pretending the cardboard boxes are rockets, just like Baby Bear did in the story. We have heard some wonderful new language used throughout the week as the children have retold the story using these props. We have also been focusing on developing fine motor skills this week in Reception, so the children have had lots of play focusing on building up the muscles in their hands and fingers. We have used play dough, scissors, pens and pencils and tweezers amongst other things to help provide the children opportunities to really work those muscles! In maths we have continued our focus on numbers, and finding 1 more and 1 less. The children are becoming much more secure with these concepts and are learning that they can count on or back using their fingers to quickly find the answer. Next week is our last week before half term and we will be reading some Oxford Reading Tree books together.  This is to help introduce the children to the characters Biff, Chip and Kipper, as they will be reading of so many of their adventures in the months to come!

Friday 8th October 2021

This week was World Space Week so much of our learning has been themed around space. Our book of the week was Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freeman and Ben Cort. We noticed that within the book, there are lots of rhyming words. We learnt that rhyming words have the same group of sounds at the end and practised matching words and pictures that rhymed with each other. We designed our own underpants using the book as our inspiration! We have been learning new vocabulary this week, including the names of the planets in our solar system. We thought about the size of these different planets, and learnt that Jupiter is the biggest planet and Mercury the smallest. We imagined what it would be like to live on the different planets, and decided that Mercury would be much too hot and Neptune much too cold. The children also were very creative this week, and used marbles, white paint, glue and glitter to make fantastic space pictures! We're going to develop our scissor skills next week and cut them into circles, then hang our 'planets' on display. In maths we have focused on finding 1 more and 1 less using different strategies, such as counting on or counting back using our fingers, using objects or a number line. 

Next week we will continue with our space theme as the children have been so engaged in it. We will be reading Whatever Next and creating a rocket in our role play area. 

Friday 1st October 2021

What a fantastic and busy week we've had in Reception! Our book of the week was 'Rosie's Walk' and the children greatly enjoyed sequencing the story. The children also created their own mini-books based on Rosie's Walk. In maths we have been focusing on subitising, which is the ability to look at a group of objects and recognise how many there are, without counting. We practised this by trying to automatically recognise the amount of dots on a dice. We have also looked at 2D shapes and are beginning to learn their properties. We then practised making funny faces using 2D shapes!  The children are becoming much more confident in the classroom now. We have begun our 'rolling snack', where milk and fruit is accessible to all children during child initiated learning time throughout the day. The children are encouraged to help themselves when they are hungry or thirsty. In the classroom, many are now beginning to select resources and tools that they want to explore themselves, which is a big step forward. Some children are independently accessing the craft materials and paint to create some amazing pieces of artwork! We also did Forest School together for the first time, and looked for signs of autumn. The children made observations about the natural world around them and drew pictures of what they could see. 

Just wanted to also say a big thank you to all parents for sending in such wonderful pictures of you and your children sharing a story at home. It was so lovely to see such a range of pictures, with either the children reading independently or sharing a story with family members or even pets! We have now put the pictures up in the classroom and they have been a real talking point, with children discussing their favourite book or pointing out their mums or dads! We strive to encourage a love of reading from an early age and our reading area now looks amazing with all the children's pictures. 

Friday 24th September

This week our book of the week was 'Owl Babies'. The children have completed lots of fun activities, such as creating their own cotton wool owl babies using a variety of different resources. We have also created paintings of Sarah, Percy and Bill using lots of different tools, such as sponges, paintbrushes, fingers and pens. We hope you like them! This week we have started learning our first phonemes - s, a, t, p. In sharing assembly today, the children stood up in front of the whole school and sung the songs we have learnt for these phonemes - they did extremely well! This week we have also been learning about the numbers 1-10. The children have practised reciting numbers to 10, counting objects to 10 and recognising numerals. All in all a wonderful and busy week! 

Friday 10th September

Reception class have all had a wonderful first full week. We have learnt about good behaviours in class and how to look after our learning environment. We have also enjoyed learning about each other during circle time! We have discussed our likes and dislikes and what our favourite things to do at home are. We also talked about how we are all unique and special, so we made self-portraits to show this. We thought about our skin tone, hair colour and facial features. Our lovely portraits are now on display for us all to enjoy! 

What a wonderful start to our school year! We really enjoyed getting to know your children this week and they are all settling in so well. 

Our Learning Journey Last Year- 2020-2021

This week we have been learning about the seaside! We read ‘What the Ladybird heard at the seaside’ by Julia Donaldson and enjoyed acting out the story.  One morning we came into the classroom and found magic shells on our tables! We wrote about what our 3 wishes would be.  We found out about lots of creatures that live in rock pools; we wrote about what we would find in a rock pool and drew pictures.  In Maths we read ‘One is a snail, ten is a crab’ by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre.  We had to count the legs of the things we saw in the book and we also made up our own number stories.  We have also explored what the seaside was like long ago and discussed the meaning of past, present and future.  Well done for another fantastic week Reception!

Congratulations to all our children who received certificates this week.  We were very proud to receive the sports award for our efforts in tennis.  Super work Reception!

Our ‘book of the week’ has been ‘The Train Ride’ by June Crebbin.  The children used their knowledge of phonics and understanding of sentences to write about what they could see out of the train window.  We were really impressed with their ideas and writing! We also drew the view out of the window when the train goes through a tunnel- a portrait of ourselves.  In maths we started off with 24 carriages and we investigated how many trains we could make.  Well done to all our children who received certificates!

Sports week - We have had a wonderful week participating in a variety of events including football, sitting volleyball, jumping events, archery, biathlon, hurdles, throwing event, goalball and hockey.  The children were very motivated and gave it their all!  We also enjoyed learning about the Olympics; we made our own Olympic torches and recreated the opening ceremony.  We listened to 'Chariots of Fire' and choreographed a dance made up of sports movements. Well done Reception!

Well done to our children who received certificates this week! We also awarded certificates to children who had shown the Olympic and Paralympic values throughout the week. 

All about animals!  We have had a wonderful week learning about animals.  The animal workshop on Monday was enjoyed by all the children as they were introduced to and held a variety of animals.  The children then wrote about their favourite animal and what they had learnt.  We decided to find out our favourite animal so the children completed a tally chart which we then used to create a bar chart.  We played 'guess my animal' and the children wrote clues about their animal.  Another highlight this week was seeing the butterflies that had emerged from their cocoon and watching them be set free into the meadow!  Well done to all our children who received awards this week.

Our book of the week has been 'The very hungry caterpillar' by Eric Carle.  The children have been busy writing captions to go with pictures from the story and also writing a list of all the foods the caterpillar ate.  In maths we have been learning about money and exploring symmetry and created butterflies to reflect our understanding.  We enjoyed being in the woods early on in the week and were very excited to find lots of minibeasts.  The children worked hard with their talk partners to create a butterfly using natural materials.  We were very interested to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly and explored changing tones of green to make our own caterpillars.  Well done to all our children who won awards this week.

This week we have been learning about spiders!  We started off by reading the book 'Aaaargghh, Spider!' by Lydia Monks.  We were very interested to then find out more facts about spiders.  The children have created their own mini books full of information and illustrations about spiders.  They have created some wonderful webs by threading wool onto paper plates.  In Maths we have been practising adding and subtracting and each group made their own board game to consolidate these skills.  We have included a picture of the backdrop for our role play area- it is full of animals that the children have drawn.    The children have enjoyed their first swimming session this week - all the adults have been impressed with the confidence the children displayed when in the water- great work Reception! 

Well done to our children who won awards this week!

This week our ‘book of the week’ has been Superworm by Julia Donaldson.  The children have been writing character descriptions and lists of ingredients for a potion to give to the Wizard Lizard.  We have also enjoyed making our own superworms! Well done to all our children who received certificates this week.

We hope you all have a wonderful half term!

This week we have enjoyed reading 'Surprising Sharks' by Nicola Davies.  We learnt lots of interesting facts about sharks and wrote about them in our books and painted pictures.  We also enjoyed our time in the woods and have been painting our observations of bluebells.  Well done to our children who received certificates for reading, handwriting and CHAMP of the week and also well done to our sport award receiver- who received his award for long jumping!

The Three Little Pigs

This week Reception have enjoyed a variety of activities themed around the story of ‘the three little pigs’.  They have acted out the story, written the story and thought of a more suitable meal for the wolf.  They have also enjoyed observing their sunflowers. .Well done to the children who received certificates this week!

 Bearded dragon visit

This week we had a visit from ‘Ozzie’ the bearded dragon.  Before he came we discussed what we would like to find out about him.  The children came up with some brilliant questions! They were very attentive during his visit and afterwards they were able to talk about what they had learnt.  
Our book of the week was ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell.  Reception have been working hard to use their phonics when writing and this week have written about their favourite animals, made ‘Dear Zoo’ books and created a checklist for a zookeeper.  In Maths we have been working at doubling numbers.  We created meals for the animals by doubling all the ingredients.

The Elves and the Shoemaker

This week we have really enjoyed desiging our own shoe, decorating a shoebox and making a home for the Elves.  We were good at acting out the story and writing speech bubbles to go with the characters.  The children were very motivated to complete maths investigations involving measuring their feet and shoes and have worked at estimating and counting.

Today is Daily Mile Day; the children have been talking how we can be healthy.  They used their phonics knowledge to write about their ideas and were really proud of their work.  We put our best effort into completing our mile today in tracktine- Well done Reception!

Well done to our children who received reading certificates, a handwriting certificate, and CHAMP of the week! 

Billy Goats Gruff

We have enjoyed the story about the goats and the troll.  In our writing we used our phonics to write about what the goats said to the troll.   In our maths this week we have been estimating and counting, and creating subtraction number sentences.  We enjoyed finding out about objects that float and sink.  We also enjoyed building little bridges in the woods! On Thursday we learnt about Earth Day and we played a game where we sorted objects into the correct recycling containers.

Well done to our children who received reading certificates, a handwriting certificate, and CHAMP of the week!  We were proud of ourselves as this week we also received a sports certificate from Miss Layman- for being so attentive when learning archery skills - well done Reception!

We have had a wonderful first few days back at school.  The highlight of this week was baking our biscuits.  The children worked really well as a team at their tables; they were attentive, patient and followed the instructions.  We really enjoyed making them and showing them to our Nursery friends.  We also enjoyed eating them- they tasted delicious! A few of the children have asked for the recipe so they can make them at home (see below) please do add any pictures of home baking to Tapestry.

We have also enjoyed measuring our beanstalks and continued estimating and measuring during our time in the woods.

Well done to our children who received reading certificates, a handwriting certificate, a Wonka bar and CHAMP of the week!

All about Growing!

This week we have enjoyed reading the story ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen.  We have been learning about how seeds grow. Everyone has planted a bean and is really looking forward to seeing it grow.  In preparation for how tall we hope our beanstalk will grow, we have been learning how to measure items using our feet, rulers and multi link. We were very motivated when designing and making our paper aeroplanes and really enjoyed talking about and measuring how far they flew. We flew them on the playground and then, with the Nursery (but on separate playgrounds) we chalked flowers and beanstalks to create a playground garden.  We have also used our phonics to write a sentence about what we hoped we would find at the top of the beanstalk.  Well done Reception, you have been fantastic learners!

First Week back

We have been having fun learning with our friends! We have been enjoying reading the book ‘The Secret Sky Garden’ by Linda Sarah and Fiona Lumbers. We made our own kites and investigated the best material for kites. The children were all very motivated and worked hard with their talk partner to create their own kites. On Friday we showed our kites to Nursery and admired their kites! We then flew our kites on the playground. After we had flown our kites we went back to our classroom and evaluated their performance.  The children had lots of great ideas - well done Reception! 
The children have settled back into school really well. We are looking forward to another week of learning next week!

* Reading books*  IMPORTANT

Please note that from Monday 23rd November we will be changing your child's reading book as soon as they have read it three times at home (they were previously checked/changed on a Monday and Thursday).  Please remind your child to hand in their reading book and record when it needs changing.  Thank you!

                                               Our Firework Poem By Reception

A pink fizzy rocket,

A yellow sparky sparkler,

A green Kaboom! firework,

A purple whizzy rocket,

A blue popping fountain,

Fireworks are fun to watch!