Reception

Summer 2

Week 1

We’ve had a lovely first week back. We have been talking about our time in Reception and what things will be like in Year 1. We will be doing a lot more of this over the next few weeks to support the children in their transition. 

This week we introduced our new Talk for Writing story ‘The Storm Whale’. The children have worked really hard to retell the story using our story map, we also used headbands, story stones and small world characters to retell it. 

Week 3

The last children completed their class talks this week. We were so impressed with the effort that everyone put into their talk and the confidence that all children showed. Well done everyone, we are very proud of you all!

Week 4

We’ve had an exciting week this week. About a month and a half ago, we received a pot of caterpillars to look after.  Unfortunately, they got a bacterial infection so sadly didn’t live to transform. We were lucky enough to be sent another pot so we looked after them very carefully. We watched as they grew bigger and bigger, before they transformed into their chrysalis. Then at the end of last week, most of our butterflies emerged so were ready to release this week. We all sat in a circle and carefully took them out of the net before watching them fly away. We’ve loved watching the metamorphosis!

We also loved our Sports Day! We had a great time testing out our different physical skills at each station. We even enjoyed an ice cream afterwards! Thank you to parents for attending!

Week 5

We have already had a busy week! We have been learning about Fairtrade in our Religion lesson and learnt about how to look out for the special symbol when out shopping with our families. We made banana muffins using Fairtrade bananas and talked about how the workers will have been paid fairly for these. 

We have also had some special visitors in to our class this week. Thank you to Mr and Mrs. Broadhead for bringing in some ducklings from their farm for our class to have a look at. The ducklings are only four weeks old but have already grown so much. We really enjoyed learning about them, holding them and feeding them (although they weren’t very hungry!)

Summer 1

Week 1

We’ve been exploring the weather outside this week, using ribbon sticks and chiffon scarves to test the wind. We’ve really enjoyed making different shapes and patterns in the air with the sticks and the scarves. 

Week 2

It has been a short but busy second week! We’ve explored more about earth day, relaying it to our new topic ‘into the garden’. We learnt about recycling and rescued trapped sea animals from rubbish, we created pictures of earth using marble paper and wrote sentences about how we will look after our planet, we recycled milk bottle lids to make necklaces and we planted potatoes. 

We also had a lot of fun when we went exploring on our school grounds. We walked over the fields down to the stream and collected items for our journey sticks which we wrapped around with string. We also had a leaf race by dropping leaves into the stream and seeing who won. 

Week 3

We have delved further into our new topic, learning about butterflies and caterpillars alongside our new talk for writing book, They Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We also really enjoyed our Coronation celebrations, making flags, crowns and carriages before enjoying a picnic outside with our year 6 buddies. 

Week 4

We’ve been learning about money in our maths lessons this week. We looked at how to pay things using 1ps then used our number bonds knowledge of numbers all the way up to 10 to use different coins to pay for things e.g. a 5p and a 2p to make 7p.

Week 5

We had another very busy week. We have been learning about lots of different animals and mini beasts that live in gardens. We had a close look at beetles, grasshoppers, worms, and snails and completed lots of fun activities. We also received a letter from some fairies along with lots of interesting items so we used these to create a fairy garden outside. We have been practising using our manners and being kind to each other to encourage the fairies to come to visit us. 

Reception also had the special job of performing our crowning Mary assembly. Well done to everyone, you were fantastic!

Spring 2

Week 1

We have had a lot of fun celebrating Shrove Tuesday. We looked back on this festival as we missed it during the holidays but feel it’s important for the children to understand about what happens before Lent begins. 

We made our own pancakes in the microwave and added delicious toppings before eating them, we created our own pancake art, we made pancake topping maths sums, we wrote about pancakes and their ingredients and made play dough pancakes. We had a lot of fun taking part in pancake races too!

Week 2

This week we have been working on our understanding of capacity. We used sand and water to explore full, half full and empty. Some children also looked at nearly full and nearly empty. 

Week 3

Although we have not been in school as much as usual, the children have been very busy. They have loved their final week playing in the superhero area before we start our next topic and we wanted to celebrate all of the fantastic masks that they have made at home. Well done everyone!

Week 4

This week we finished off our superheroes topic by making our own super veggies our of vegetables. We decided what their names were and gave them different super powers. Some of us used these in our own story telling to create our own versions of supertato!

We have also been completing lots of work on doubles and most of us can now say what the double is for every number up to 5. Some of us can say the doubles for numbers after this too!

Week 5

Last week we began our new talk for writing story ‘The Little Red Hen’. As part of this, this week, we baked bread and enjoyed tasting it with butter and jam! We really enjoyed this!

Thank you to all parents for the fantastic effort made with the Easter bonnets too. They were fantastic!

Week 6

We have had a wonderful week taking part in our Easter play and watching the other classes perform too. We have had a lot of fun taking part in our own Easter activities this week too and these have been closely linked with the part of the story that we watched on each day. 

Spring 1

Week 1

Welcome back after the holidays. We hope you all had lots of fun during the break. 

Our first week back has been short but busy! On Friday we went to The Lowry theatre to see ‘Room on the Broom’. We really enjoyed the show and are looking forward to learning this story as our ‘Talk for Writing’ focus book this half term. 

Week 2

This week we have been exploring our new Castle role play area. We have been learning about the different parts of a castle and have enjoyed Using our new vocabulary whilst creating stories. 

Week 3

Jack Frost came to visit us this week! We loved exploring the snow and enjoyed working as a team to create a snowman! We even found some of Jack’s footprints in the snow along with other clues in our playground!

We have also been learning to measure the lengths of different things using a range of objects. We made playdough snakes and measured them with cubes, we compared the lengths of different leaves, we measured how far it was from our classroom to the playhouse and we measured our class teddy Parsley. 

Week 4

We celebrated the Lunar New Year this week. The children dressed in red, made paper lanterns, decorated cherry trees, made rabbit cupcakes, made red envelopes with our own gold coins and retold the story of the Great Race. It was a great day. We even had fun doing a dragon dance!

Week 5

We took part in NSPCC Number Day this week. The children all came to school wearing clothes with numbers on, we played different maths games and we made Numicon biscuits. We have been learning our number bonds to 5 so we made biscuits to match the different ways to make 5.

Week 6

We have had a busy week completing lots of assessments this week but we also enjoyed taking part in Children’s Mental Health week. We made breathing wands to help us learn to take deep breaths when we’re feeling anxious, worried or angry. We also made rainbow calm clouds to show things that calm us down and help us to relax. 
 

We also took part in Internet Safety Day. We listened to the story of Smartie the Penguin and his special rhyme to help us be safe on the internet. We then created our own Smartie penguins showing his special rhyme!

Week 7

We’ve had a very busy week for our last week of the half-term. On Tuesday, we celebrated Valentines Day. We really enjoyed getting creative and made cards for our families, bookmarks, love magic wands, playdough cakes and chocolates and clay hearts. We explored lots of different techniques and skills to make our creations. 
 

On Thursday, we read a version of Rapunzel which was set in India. Through this, we explored Indian culture and really enjoyed learning more about how our countries are similar and different. We created pictures using traditional clothing, we made Indian elephants and made our illustrated Indian maps.

On Friday, we welcomed our families in to our Showcase morning. We had lots of fun showing them what we have been learning this half term. We did a performance of our version of Room on the Broom which was fantastic! You can watch a video of us performing this below!

Autumn 2

Week 1

This week, we learnt about Diwali and how it is celebrated. We made our own rangoli patterns, retold the story of Rama and Sita with small world figures and had a great try at Bollywood dancing. 

Week 2

This week, we had fun talking about bonfire night. We made firework pictures, used small world figures to act out a bonfire scene and made chocolate sparklers! We also learnt about Remembrance Day and why it is so important. We created our own poppy pictures and watched a special video entitled ‘Poppies’ which you can watch here.

Week 3

This week, we started working on our next focus book; Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We had lots of fun retelling the story in the role play area!

Week 4

We have continued to work on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This week, Goldilocks sent us some ingredients to make porridge! We worked really hard to follow the recipe book to make the porridge and really enjoyed tasting it afterwards!

Week 5

This week, we went on a bear hunt and found a real bear in Mrs. Boslem’s office! We were very excited! We decided that we wanted to catch the bear to stop him from eating any more of Mrs. Boslem’s biscuits and chocolates so we used lots of junk box materials to create our own bear traps. 

Week 6

We have really enjoyed exploring our new role play area this week. We have all spent lots of time creating stories and acting as different characters including Father Christmas, elves, Rudolph, Mrs. Clause and a chef! It was wonderful to see all of the different language being used by the children. 

Week 7

The children put on two fantastic performances of our Christmas play, ‘Whoops-a-Daisy Angel’ this week. The first was our dress rehearsal for the whole school, followed by a performance for friends and family the next day. The children did brilliantly and were incredibly brave. Well done Reception!

Week 8

Wow, what a busy week we’ve had! We have had lots of fun at the Christmas party, exploring lots of snowmen activities and singing Christmas songs. Now time for lots of rest and to enjoy the holidays!

Autumn 1

Week 1

What a great start to Reception! We’ve had a wonderful week getting to know each other and learning all of the rules and routines in Reception. We’ve had fun playing inside and out and making new friends. 

Week 2

This week, we have been thinking about Queen Elizabeth II. We read books about her, learnt about her life, looked at photographs of her, drew pictures of her and made our own commemorative plates. 

Week 3

This week, we have been learning about our senses. We went on a listening walk to discover what we could hear around our school, we tickled our friends with a feather to find out if our necks, hands or elbows were the most ticklish, we smelt different pots to see which smells we liked and we looked through different coloured lenses to see how the world changed when we added a different colour over our eyes. We will learn about taste next week!

Week 4

This week we had lots of fun exploring our garden area looking for apples. We found a few and took them back to class where the next day we used them to make our own delicious apple cakes. Yum!

Week 5

We have been continuing with our Write Dance lessons this week. We’re really enjoying making large movements in different ways the using these moves on a smaller scale. This week we have been using shaving foam to practise drawing long and short lines.

Week 6

We’ve had a really busy week this week. We spent time with our buddies completing a special caritas treasure hunt. It was lots of fun and we loved getting to know our buddies a little bit better too. We also enjoyed competing lots of follow up phonics activities including writing lots of ‘o’s, drawing oranges, and squeezing out the juice! We loved trying our orange juice too!

Week 7

This week, our families were invited in to school to share a pray, stay and play session with us. We have been learning about harvest recently and completed lots of harvest activities with our parents including a threaded pumpkin, a lentil music shaker, a lentil cross, a scarecrow, a prayer and a sweetcorn craft with a psalm reveal.