Reception

Spring 2

Week 8

We have had a lovely last week of half term. We’ve been completing lots of Easter activities as well as finishing off our learning for the term in our maths and phonics lessons. All of the children have worked incredibly hard this half term and we are really proud of them. Now for a well deserved rest! Have a lovely break and we will see you for the start of a new term on 28th April!

We also celebrated Easter by spending time with our Year 6 buddies and taking part in an Easter egg hunt. 

Week 7

We have had a busy week getting ready for our Easter performance which will take place next Monday (14th) at 9am. We are all working hard to learn our lines! 

Thank you to everyone for bringing in their St Joseph penny boxes. We created our own piece of art with the coins, working together as a class team to do this. 
 

We have also been continuing with our Lego Discovery lessons. This week we worked in small groups to create a submarine and sea creatures for the submarine to see. We are really enjoying these lessons!

Take a look at our fantastic Easter bonnets!!

Week 6

This week we have continued with our learning about the farm. We created our own life cycle of a chicken craft and were all able to confidently talk about the different stages that happen. We have also been enjoying learning about sheep shearing, milking cows and the names of baby farm animals.

Week 5

In our maths lessons, we have been learning about 3D shapes. We have looked at the names and properties of cubes, cuboids, cylinders, spheres, cones and pyramids. We tested the different shapes to see which could roll and talked about how the shapes can only roll if they have a curved face. We sorted 3D shapes, drew around 3D shapes and printed with 3D shapes, looking at the 2D shapes that were hiding in the 3D shapes as we did so. 

Thank you also to all of the special ladies in our lives who came for our Mothers Day Stay and Play!

Week 4

This week, we have been learning about the life cycle of a chicken. We were really interested in learning more through books, videos and fact sheets. We created our own life cycles using paper plates. The children have done really well to understand and remember this!

Week 3

We enjoyed taking part in British Science Week this week. We took part in a whole school experiment looking at the average heights of each class. Each child was measured then we drew around one of our class members who was as tall as the average height in our class. In reception, the average height was 113cm! We compared our average heights in a whole school assembly. 

Week 2

We’ve had a very busy week. We loved taking part in our pancake activities as part of Shrove Tuesday. We made and ate pancakes, we decorated pancakes, played pancake shop, did pancake maths, wrote about pancakes and decorated pancakes with creative materials. 

We also had a wonderful time celebrating World Book Day. Thank you to all of the parents for making such an amazing effort with everyone’s costumes. We also spent time reading with our y6 buddies, listened to readers from St Patrick’s High School and enjoyed listening to our Secret Reader - thank you to Aria’s mum and Lucio’s dad for volunteering for this!!

Week 1

We loved taking part in our first gymnastics lesson with Mrs Gilmore. We had so much fun learning how to use the equipment correctly and safely and we are all starting to build on previous skills learnt. 

Spring 1

Week 6

It has been a very busy last week in Reception. In our maths lessons, we have been learning about ‘long’ and ‘short’ and tall’ and ‘short’ and we have had lots of fun comparing the lengths of objects, creating tall towers and measuring each other. We’ve been finishing off our learning on castles this week. We looked at the story of Rapunzel, however this was a different version of the traditional story which was set in India. Through this, we learnt more about India and created our own India maps, made elephant art pictures, painted pictures of the Taj Mahal, learnt more about Indian food and traditional clothing and created a dance routine (see below). We also loved celebrating Valentine’s Day, we learnt about St Valentine, created cards for our families and our friends, threaded valentines hearts, completed transient art hearts, made valentines play dough creations, completed valentines maths themed activities, painted Kandinsky style hearts and made heart wands to spread the love around our classroom! 
 

Parents, thank you very much for all of your support this half-term with your child’s learning. We hope you have a wonderful and restful break. 

As part of our learning on India, we learnt some Bollywood dance moves which we had great fun putting together into a dance routine. 

Week 5

We’ve had another great week in Reception. This week, we have been making potions and writing potion recipes as part of our talk for writing. We’ve been learning about 1 more, 1 less and doubles as part of our maths lessons. We went on a doubles hunt in the playground, made doubles ladybirds and much more! We also really enjoyed Number Day and made numicon number 5 biscuits which we all had fun decorating too!

Week 4

We had lots of fun learning about Lunar New Year this week. We dressed up for our special celebration day and were really interested in learning the story of the zodiac as well as the special celebrations that people who celebrate take part in (cleaning the house, wearing new clothes, eating special food etc.). We watched some traditional dragon and lion dances then did our own dragon dances. We made dragon puppets, paper lanterns, painted pictures of the cherry blossom, played with small world zodiac animals, completed a 'cross the river' obstacle challenge and much more. Thank you to everyone for all of the effort you put into the children's costumes. Thank you also to Pippa and her family for the paper envelopes and tasty treats for all of the children!

Week 3

This week we have begun learning about measurements. We started with measuring weight and capacity. The children all worked really well to develop their understanding of the different mathematical vocabulary used to describe the different measurements. 

Week 1

The children have all made a great start back to school after the holidays. It has been wonderful to see them ready and eager to learn. We’ve begun our new Castles topic and the children have been completing some challenges around this in the different areas of the classroom. We also really enjoyed spending some time outside in the snowy, frosty weather. 

Autumn 2

Week 8

We had a wonderful last week of the half term. We completed lots of Christmas activities, enjoyed our Christmas party, took part in the Christmas singalong, spent time with our y6 buddies, tasted different traditional Christmas foods from around the world and much more. We are all very excited for Christmas!

Week 7

We’ve had a lovely week, getting in the festive spirit. On Monday, we performed our Nativity in front of the whole school and on Tuesday, we performed it for our parents. Everyone was fantastic, it was a great success! On Wednesday, we enjoyed eating our Christmas dinner together. 
 

We have had fun completing different challenges including making Christmas wreaths in the playdough, building snowmen with the construction blocks, writing the cvc words we can see and painting winter trees inside the lines. 

Week 6

We have had such a wonderful surprise this week! When we came into the classroom after lunch on Tuesday, our classroom whiteboard had been wrapped up with paper and tinsel!! When we ripped it off, we discovered that Santa was behind it with a special message for us. He said that Holly and Snowflake, our class elves had wrapped up the screen. He asked us what we want for Christmas and everyone was very excited to share. Later on, we received a delivery from Santa which was the book ‘Dear Santa’. We have started to learn this as part of our talk for writing! We also all worked together to decorate our class Christmas tree. Everyone got involved and it was wonderful to see the fantastic teamwork!

We have had a lot more challenges to complete this week. In our play dough area, we were challenged to create a 3D Christmas tree. They all looked amazing! We completed hot chocolate counting with marshmallows (mini pom poms), we wrote CVC words in hot chocolate powder, we investigated and explored Christmas ice, we made our own Christmas cards, made Christmas trees in the construction and painted snowflakes made out of filter paper. We talked about what happened as we painted them.

Everyone enjoyed taking part in the Santa Dash!! We sang Christmas songs as we ran around too!

Week 5

We were very lucky to have a visit from Mr Stix and Peanut this week. They performed a fantastic magic show for all of the early years children. We absolutely loved it!!

We’ve been completing lots of activities and challenges this week. During our trip to the RHS, the children were really interested in the fungi so we developed this in our learning. W learnt about different mushrooms, completed observational drawings of them and created our own clay fungi. The children are really starting to develop their skills when using clay too. 

We also had a special liturgy session with a visitor where we listened to the story of the Lost Sheep and talk about what we are grateful for. 

Week 4

It was Parsley’s birthday this week. We had a great time celebrating. We sang happy birthday and enjoyed the birthday cake that Parsley brought in to share. We made birthday cards, role-played a birthday party and completed lots of birthday themed phonics and maths activities. 

Week 3

We spent time this week reflecting on Remembrance Day and talked about why this day exists. We created poppy crafts and read some poetry. We also took part in lots of Pudsey activities for Children in Need. 
 

We have completed lots of other activities in class, including phonics challenges, leaf art and some maths counting challenges. We also continued our learning on repeating patterns.

Week 2

We've had a fantastic week this week. We loved learning about why we celebrate Bonfire Night earlier in the week and spent lots of time creating firework rockets, bonfire pictures, telling stories and completing some maths and literacy activities around this.

We have also loved continuing our learning around Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I have attached a photograph of our story map of you would like your child to practise telling the story to you at home. 
 

We all had a great time in our PE lesson this week where our theme was ‘windy weather’. We spent time working our throwing and catching with scarves before continuing to work on our rolling skills with balls individually, and in pairs. 
 

Everyone looked fantastic for ‘Talk Money Day’. Thank you parents for making such a good effort! We spent the day learning about different coins and money. Thank you also to Aria’s daddy for coming to talk to us about his job!

Week 1

We've had a fantastic first week back. It has been very busy, with some changes to our usual routines, but the children have adapted brilliantly. On Monday, we tried some porridge as some of the children had been talking about it before the holidays. However, on Tuesday, someone had been into our classroom and gobbled up all the rest of our porridge! They had made a bed in our home corner and knocked over a chair! Later on, we received a letter from the Fairytale Police asking if we had seen Goldilocks as she had eaten all of the three bears’ porridge. We found out that it had been Goldilocks in our classroom so we spent some time making posters of her to put around our school. We also worked on retelling the story of Goldilocks using small figures. 

We have also completed lots of different challenges in the classroom this week, including making a den for a fox, creating a playdough leaf using clay tools, paint an autumn leaf, match the right number of leaves to the number next to the tree, and explore some different autumnal materials. We also had some challenges around reading CVC words. The children really impressed us with their hard work!
 

We have enjoyed learning about Diwali this week too.

Our favourite thing this week was our trip to the RHS. We had a great time planting seeds, making a nature robin, learning about autumn and exploring the grounds. All of the children had so much fun and especially loved the coach and their packed lunches!!!

Autumn 1

Week 7

We had a lovely last week together before the half-term. The children have all really settled into our classroom now and this has been great to see! Thank you to all of the grownups that came to our Pray, Stay and Play event. We all had a great time and it was wonderful to have so much parental involvement!

Week 6

We have had another busy week in school. We’ve been learning the sounds c, k, u and b and have been doing lots of word practise with these sounds too. We have continued with our Naughty Bus work by changing the story to ‘Naughty Taxi’ and we took the Naughty Taxi on a journey around school! 
in maths, we have been looking at the different ways to make 4. We have also continued with our shape learning and enjoyed going on a shape hunt around the school! We have now learnt the names and properties for: triangle, circle, square, rectangle, pentagon and hexagon. 

Week 5

Thank you to all of the parent helpers that came on our trip to Winton Park. We had a great time exploring and searching for Autumn treasures!

Week 4

We’ve has another very busy week of lessons and everyone has continued to work hard. In our phonics lessons this week, we have learnt the sounds ‘t’ and 'i' and we have also started to learn how to create simple CVC words using magnetic letters. We have been practising counting sounds and working on our 1:1 correspondence in our maths lessons and we have started our oral storytelling for ‘Naughty Bus’. 
 

We have also been very lucky to take part in a fantastic Kapla workshop. All of the children loved this and showed fantastic teamwork when working together to build the village part of our whole school creation. Take a look at the photos and video below to see more!

Week 3

This week was our first full week of lessons. The children have worked incredibly hard to adapt to the new routines and expectations of Reception. We have continued to learn more about ourselves through our ‘all about me’ topic. We have also enjoyed taking part in different activities this week including washing and cleaning babies, transporting ping pong balls with ladles to develop our fine motor skills and using the blocks in our construction area to create our own versions of our school building, as well as many others!

We have worked really hard in our phonics lessons this week. We have recapped the sounds m, a, s and d and have done lots of follow-up activities around these sounds. 

Week 2

We’ve had a really busy week this week. The children have all worked incredibly hard to complete the national reception baseline, each one of them trying their very best. You can find out more information about the baseline here.
We also had a special visit from our year 6 buddies. We completed a treasure hunt together around the school grounds and enjoyed getting to know each other better. 

Week 1

Well done to all of the children for being so brave during their first week in Reception, we are already so proud of you all!

We have had lots of fun exploring our new classroom and learning about the different things we do in Reception. We also went on a mini adventure to find apples in our garden area. We used the apples to make yummy apple cakes. All of the children did very well waiting for their turn to add ingredients or mix the cake batter.