Reception

Summer 2

Week 1

We have had a lot of fun in our outside area this week!

Week 2

This week, we received an exciting delivery from Mr. Grinling! It was a basket filled with lots of things to help us learn more about lighthouses. One of the items was a message in a bottle which told us all about Grace Darling. Grace and her father, William, had saved nine people from a shipwreck and taken them back to their lighthouse to look after! We had a wonderful time learning more about lighthouses and Grace’s story. 

Week 3

Thank you to all of the family members that came to help us during sports day. Great fun was had by all!

Week 4

We have been conducting science experiments this week to see which objects float and which objects sink. We made a lot of mess but it was very fun! We were shocked that the orange floated!

Week 5

The whole school received a letter from Graham Grimm this week asking for our help (see more here). When we came back to the classroom, we found magical fairy dust on our carpet! We learnt more about fairies, created a magical fairy door using junk box materials, made magic potions and fairy wing bracelets. 

Summer 1

Week 1

This week we have started to learn about money. We learnt the names of the different English coins and explored the colours and shapes of each one. We practised some crayon rubbings and worked on paying for fruit using 1p coins. 

Week 2

We had a wonderful time at our Pray, Stay and Play session this week. Our families came to join us to spend some time thinking about Mary, our mother in heaven, before completing lots of Mary themed activities!

Week 3

This week, we took a trip to our local Lidl. We had a wonderful time picking the fruit we wanted, pushing the trolley and paying for our shopping. All of the children were very excited about using the fruit that we bought to make fruit kebabs later in the afternoon. Yum yum!

Week 4

Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents that came to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee with us. We had a great time!

Spring 2

Week 1

Pancake Day
What a great start to the term! We began by celebrating Shrove Tuesday. We learnt about the origins of Shrove Tuesday and heard about how they celebrate this in different countries. We then used playdough to make pancakes (and flip them!), we used pancake toppings to complete some maths activities, we went to the pancake shop and practised using coins to pay for pancakes and we wrote about our favourite toppings. We also made pancakes from scratch by mixing milk, eggs and flour, pouring it on a plate, putting it in the microwave then once it was cooked, we added our own toppings. Yum yum!

Dentist Visit

The dentist visited us this week. He had a look at some of the Reception children’s teeth then he came into class to speak to us about brushing teeth, what happens at the dentist and to show us some of the tools he uses. We learnt that it is really important to brush our teeth in the morning and before bed at night for 2 minutes each time!

Poetry Week
The children were introduced to their poetry week theme of colour! We started the week by learning a few different colour poems and songs and enjoyed reciting them!

Mystery Readers
We had two special mystery readers this week!

Thank you to Jasmine’s mum for coming in as Winnie the Witch and reading Room on the Broom to us. We loved joining in with the different words in the story and loved your props!

Thank you to Sophie’s dad AKA Burglar Bill who brought in some fantastic props too. We were all engrossed by your retelling of the story!

World Book Day

We had so much fun sharing stories with our Y6 buddies!

Take a look at our fantastic costumes. Thank you to all of the grownups that helped to make these!!

Week 2

We loved our trip to The Lowry. We went to watch 'It's Hot, It's Not', a play about weather. We really enjoyed our coach trip there too. For some of the children, it was their first time going to the theatre!

Week 3

Another busy week in a Reception! This week, we had a great time exploring our Superhero theme through Supertato. We made our own Super Veggies using vegetables and other craft materials, we defeated the evil peas and put them back in the freezer, we made superhero cuffs, superhero stick puppets, we estimated how many tomatoes were in the jar to release them and we did some fun superhero writing!

Week 4

We really enjoyed working on our ball skills outside with Mrs. Gilmore this week. We learnt how to roll a ball along the ground correctly and had a go at trying to hit targets and roll balls through the middle of two lines of cones without hitting them. 

Week 5

We started planting some seeds this week. We planted peppers, beetroot, carrots, tomatoes and gherkin cucumbers. We can’t wait to watch them grow!

Smithills Farm
We absolutely loved our trip to Smithills Farm. When we arrived, we all went on a donkey ride which some of us found a little bit scary! We then went to Pet’s Corner and fed baby goats, saw some baby emus and held rabbits and chicks. After that, we went to feed some of the animals on the farm which was so much fun! After lunch, we went on a very bumpy tractor ride and fed the donkeys at the top, then we went to watch the cows being milked. It was a fantastic day and we learnt so much. Lots of the children didn’t want to leave the farm!

Week 6

Earlier in the term, we had planted some cress seeds. We had completed a science activity, placing one of the plant pots outside with water, one on the windowsill with water and light, one on the windowsill with just light, one in a dark cupboard with water and another in a dark cupboard with no water. It was really interesting to see what happened to the cress in the different conditions!

Week 7

We had lots of fun learning about Easter this week. We took part in the whole schools Easter assemblies telling Jesus’ story, we went on an Easter egg hunt and we did lots of Easter related crafts. 

Spring 1

Week 7

We had a lovely week this week. We started to learn the story of Rapunzel. We used a different version of the story from the ‘Once Upon a World’ collection which is set in India. The children were really engrossed in the story and wanted to learn more about India so we spent the afternoon learning about India, the culture and the people. We made maps of India, painted pictures of the Taj Mahal and created traditional dress outfits. 

We had lots of fun doing a science experiment too. We had hearts made out of bicarbonate of soda and we squirted them with coloured vinegar. We watched the hearts bubble and fizz. It was amazing!

We spent Monday learning about Valentine’s Day. We listened to the story of St Valentine and thought about ways that we show our family and friends that we love them. We made cards, hearts out of clay, threading hearts, transient art heart pictures and valentines bookmarks. We also made heart wands to cast love spells!

Cupid visited our classroom today and filled our sand tray with a love potion! We had to pick out all the gems and hearts with tweezers. It was very fun but very tricky!

Week 6

A few weeks ago, we found a golden egg in our playground. We noticed that it was cold but it did start to grow and change. We wanted to look after the egg so some of the children decided to make nests for the egg to help it grow. We learnt about how nests keep eggs warm and safe, and this helps them to grow. The children used lots of different materials to make their nests including cardboard boxes, ribbons, tissue and feathers.

Week 5

We’ve had another busy week! On Tuesday, we learnt about Lunar New Year. We had a great time learning how different cultures celebrate this festival and took part in our own activities to observe it. We made lanterns, made dragon masks, performed dragon dances, painted cherry blossom trees, made playdough dragons and decorated cakes with tigers to show the ‘Year of the Tiger.’ The children looked fantastic in their red and animal outfits too!

We heard about NSPCC Number Day today. We had a great time making Numicon biscuits and playing some number games!

Week 4

We’ve been learning more about castle life in the past and this week we had a go at doing some medieval style dancing!

Week 2

We went on a winter walk this week. We saw so many signs of winter in our school outdoor area, our favourite was the spider web with ice on it!

Week 1

We started our new topic all about Castles this week. We learnt about the different parts of a castle and looked at some pictures of castles in the past. We have loved playing in our new Castle role-play area!

Autumn 2

Week 8

We had Christmas dinner today. Yum yum! We loved singing Christmas songs and wearing our party hats!

We have been looking at how paint spreads out and mixes on our coffee filter snowflakes. The children had some very interesting ideas about how real snowflakes are made. Some thought they were made by the clouds, others thought that God made them and others thought that they were made out of water!

We tried some different Christmas foods; mince pies, yule log and panettone. Everyone loved the yule log. The mince pies got an interesting reaction!

Today we made our own Christmas pudding krispie cakes. The children loved seeing how the chocolate melted and changed. They all had a go at stirring in the krispies and putting them in their own cupcake case. We finished off our cakes by adding some white icing and topping with edible holly leaves and berries.

We had fun on the Santa Obstacle Course today! We had to go over rooftops, pick up our sack, put presents in to it and collect Rudolph!

We loved our Christmas Sing-a-long!

Week 7

We are really enjoying playing in our Santa’s Workshop! We have been pretending to be Father Christmas delivering presents, dressing up as elves and making Christmas cookies and hot chocolate in the kitchen!

We have been learning about the Nativity this week. We learnt that Christmas Day is Jesus’ birthday so we made Christmas cards with pictures of the baby Jesus on them, we retold the story with figures and read the story in the Bible too. We also made our own Advent wreaths out of pipe cleaners!

We performed our Christmas Nativity play, ‘Whoops-a-daisy Angel’. The children did a fantastic job of singing and remembering their parts. You can watch it by going to the video resource centre section of the website!

Week 6

Some elves came to visit our class this week. They decorated our classroom with a Christmas tree, a Santa’s workshop and they even left us some presents! They are a bit cheeky though because they tied Parsley and Fred up in the Christmas tree!

Week 5

We have been reading ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen this week. We created our own story maps, retold the story with musical instruments and even went on our own bear hunt! We saw a bear in Mrs. Boslem’s office and later on it crept past our classroom!

Week 4

This week we have been learning about birthdays and celebrations in our religion lesson. We had a special celebration for Parsley’s birthday. He was 5 years old! The children gave Parsley a special birthday tea, wrote birthday cards for him and made decorations. 

We also had a special treat. Mr Stix came to perform some magic tricks for us. We had so much fun!

Week 3

What a busy week! We’ve had a lot going on this week in class. On Wednesday, we received a special parcel. When we opened it, there was a letter from Goldilocks inside along with some ingredients. Goldilocks had given us the things to make baby bear’s porridge along with a recipe book. The children mostly enjoyed eating baby bear’s  porridge and they all loved following the recipe to make it! 
 

On Thursday we went to Winton Park on a class trip. We loved exploring the nature trail and collected our own treasures in an egg box. We also did some tree bark rubbings and had a little play on the park. Everyone was very sensible! 
 

This week we also had crazy hair day for Children in Need and Odd Socks day for Anti-Bullying week. We made friendship ‘Peace’ bracelets for our friends as part of Anti-Bullying week. 

Our Leaver

Sadly, a lovely member of our class left today. We will really miss him! We had a special party for him on his last day. We wish him all the best at his new school!

Week 2

The children have worked really hard this week. We’ve had lots of fun learning about Remembrance Day. We learnt about why we have Remembrance Day, we watched ‘Poppies’ on CBeebies and we had a special flag raising ceremony. The children used lots of different mediums to produce poppies. Some of the children were speaking about why we have poppies. One child said “It’s to remember the soldiers that died in the war”. Another child said “The poppies grew on the fields where there was fighting.”

Week 1
 

What a great start to the half term! We’ve introduced our new topic ‘Into the Woods’. Lots of the children said that they wanted to learn about animals and trees at the start of the year so this is the direction we have taken this half term! We began by reading our new book for the week, ‘Owl Babies’. The children have loved this story and especially loved joining in with Bill when he says “I want my mummy!” The children have had great fun retelling the story in the small world area, dressing up as the owl babies in the Owl Den and making their own little owl creations in the creative area. We’ve also played some fun games outside with leaves and had to use our fine motor skills to see who could pick up the most conkers with tweezers. 

Diwali

The children have shown a great interest in learning about Diwali today. They heard all about how Diwali is celebrated and watched some videos of children celebrating at home with their families. They enjoyed hearing the story of Rama and Sita too. The children made Rangoli patterns on paper plates, retold the Rama and Sita story with wooden characters and made Diva lamps. 

Bonfire Night

Today the children learnt all about why we celebrate Bonfire Night. We heard the story of Guy Fawkes and discussed our thoughts about this. The children shared some of their own experiences of Bonfire Night and what they like and dislike about it. We also talked about how to be safe on Bonfire Night. The children then had fun completing different activities including firework painting, making firework shapes in glitter, using small world characters to act out a bonfire scene and making tasty chocolate sparklers to eat at home. 

Autumn 1

Week 1

Welcome to Reception! The children have been having lots of fun during their first few days in their new class, exploring the different areas of our classroom and making new friends.

Buddies

The Reception children met their Year 6 buddies today. They enjoyed going on a treasure hunt and playing inside and outside together.

Week 2

This week, we set up home. We made lists of everything we needed for our new house. We became removal workers and boxed everything up before carrying it in to our house. We unpacked all of the boxes and found a place for everything. Then we had a great time playing in our new home corner!

Week 3

We did our first Write Dance lesson this week. Our theme was ‘Volcano’. Everyone did a great job of performing the volcano dance moves before we used crayons to create our volcano pictures using the write dance moves. 

Week 4

This week, we have been learning about our five senses.
We used feathers to tickle our friends and described the textures of different objects (touch).
We smelt different food items and described our favourite smells (smell).

We played a special listening game on the computer and listened to sounds outside (hearing).

We looked at books, leaves and videos (sight).

Week 5

We did some fruit tasting today. We tried honeydew melon, pomegranate, grapefruit and pineapple. The children all had differing opinions on the fruits. Some loved the melon but thought the grapefruit was too sour! Some loved the pineapple because it was so sweet. A few children even loved the tangy grapefruit. Most children didn’t like the pomegranate!

Week 6

We’ve been having a fun week exploring sunflowers outside. We picked them apart, poured water on them, investigated the seeds and talked about what the sunflowers felt like. 

Week 7

We’ve had such a fun week at school! On Tuesday we had a session with the iPads. We created our own worlds, adding trees, moving along paths and finding animals along the way. 
We’ve also been doing lots of interesting maths this week, looking for groups of 1, 2 and 3. We used whiteboard pens to find groups of 3 pom poms on the table, painted groups of 3 with blocks and found groups of 1, 2 and 3 in real life objects.

Daffodils

We've also been busy planting daffodils in our new planting containers. We learnt about the bulbs, the roots and where the flower comes out and made sure that our bulbs were planted the right way round!

Black History Month

Reception really enjoyed learning about Ella Fitzgerald, Jesse Owens and Alma Thomas. We learnt about their lives and talked about how it was unfair that they had been treated this way. They danced to Ella Fitzgerald's music, completed races just like Jesse Owens and painted pictures inspired by Alma Thomas. 

Pictures from 20-21 are in the archives. Go to class pages & scroll down to the bottom.