Reception

We began our term learning all about growing and what plants need in order to grow healthy and strong. In our STEM sessions we put this to the test by potting seeds with no water, no sunlight, no air and in a pot of sand instead of soil. Children have been observing any changes to these pots, along with monitoring their own cress plants that they have planted with the essentials – soil, water and sunlight! We also had an exciting delivery of caterpillar larvae, which we carefully placed into individual pots with nectar. We have been observing the changes daily to the caterpillars and recently these have developed into cocoons! We have moved them to the large butterfly net and are eagerly awaiting their transformation to butterflies!  In maths we have been exploring the symbols for addition and subtraction and applying them to number sentences within 10. Children have been practising a range of strategies they can use to solve number sentences both practically and mentally.  

In our second week of term we developing our learning around growing and planting by reading the book Oliver’s Vegetables. We discovered a whole tray of vegetables in our classroom and had lots of fun tasting all the different vegetables from the story! Through Maths we learnt how to share information through tally charts and pictograms, and spent lots of time comparing the most and least popular vegetable choices through these tools.  

In week 3, our learning moved onto fruits as we read the story ‘Oliver’s Fruit Salad’. We again got to taste a whole variety of exciting fruits, such as raspberries, bananas and even pineapples! We focused on the adjectives we could use to describe these fruits using our 5 senses, and came up with lots of fantastic sentences to share with our friends. This week we also learnt about safe food preparation skills, and prepared our own fruit salads to enjoy. In our maths we focused on measure, and learnt about the language we use to talk about measurements (long, short, tall, heavy, light) and to compare measure (longer than, shortest, heavier than etc.). We also learnt how to use cubes to measure a variety of different objects, and how to compare the measurements we had taken using our maths knowledge.  

In week 4 we had our exciting trip to Windmill Hill City Farm to look forward to! Luckily the weather (mostly!) held out for the day and we enjoyed a lovely sunny and blustery walk to the farm, before meeting (and feeding!) some of the animals and taking part in a ‘Pick it, Cook it, Eat it’ workshop. This was a super consolidation to the learning we have been doing about planting and growing this term, and brought our in class learning to life for the children. They did a fantastic job of chopping the vegetables from the garden, and enjoyed cooking (and eating!) the vegetable stir fry we made afterwards. A huge thank you to all the parent helpers who joined us on the day who made this trip possible! 😊  

In our final week of term we have been learning all about how to keep our bodies healthy through the ‘Healthy Six’ – 1) exercise 2) getting lots of sleep 3) washing our bodies and brushing our teeth 4) eating healthy foods 5)drinking lots of water and milk 6) looking after our mental health. We will be focusing particularly this week on Oral Health, and ensuring children know how to brush their teeth well and would encourage you to talk to your child about what they have learnt at home. We are going to be conducting an exciting experiment about oral health using eggs (to represent tooth enamel) in different liquids – make sure to talk to your child about what they notice happening here! Our final maths learning of the term has been around exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, and learning the language we can use to describe them.  

What a busy and jam packed term we have had in Reception! We look forward to seeing the children again on Monday 6th June ready for their final term as Active Ants and Busy Bees and ready to start their gradual transition process to becoming Year Ones. Please note Miss Parsons is planning to start Maternity Leave on Friday 1st July, however Miss Sainsbury and Mrs Crafer will continue to be with the class full time until the end of Summer 2 term.  

We began our Spring 2 term learning about the season of Spring, and how the changes relate to the changes we see in other seasons. We explored the season using our senses, and went on a ‘signs of Spring’ hunt around the playground! In Maths we deepened our learning of number bonds and explored ways of making bonds to 5 and 10. The week ended with a fantastic ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ World Book Day! 

At the beginning of week 2, we had an exciting delivery of frogspawn! This prompted an exploration into the lifecycles of frogspawn as we predicted what it would turn into. We also discovered how other creatures have different life cycles, and looked at the life cycles of chickens and humans. In Maths we learnt about one more and one less and delved into this in a variety of contexts. We also learnt the sounds ‘ear’ and ‘air’! 

In week 3 we extended our life cycle learning to learn about caterpillars, and created our own physical drama sequence to perform! We were then inspired by ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and created our own alternative version of the book as a class, which prompted lots of independent writing! This week we began our learning of counting in 2s in maths, and in Phonics we learnt our final two sounds of Phase 3 – ‘ure’ and ‘er’! 

In week 4, following on from our caterpillar life cycle learning the children were very curious about other types of insects, so we launched into learning about minibeasts! We learnt the names for lots of different insects, and learnt about their body parts and habitats. We then went off on a minibeast hunt, and found all sorts of exciting insects living in our playground!  

Our role play evolved into a shop, and in maths we supported this by learning about money and how to buy items using 1p coins.  We ended our week with a wonderful Mother’s Day afternoon tea – thank you to all who came and made it such a special and memorable day for the children! 

In week 5 we are exploring ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ through The Write Stuff. We have been learning how to follow success criteria to structure our writing, and looking at the plot points of the story in more detail. In Maths we are exploring all of the ways of making different numbers to build children’s depth of understanding around early number.  

In our final week of term we will be learning about Easter, and will be doing some exciting taste testing of different types of chocolate. Our maths and phonics will be focused around consolidation of our learning so far this year through a variety of exciting Easter themed activities, so that we can accurately assess the gaps in children’s learning ready for our Summer term. 

This week in Reception we have been learning all about Valentine’s Day. We’ve been making cards for our friends and learning how to use tissue paper and art straws to make beautiful bouquets of tissue paper flowers! We’ve also been making magical love potions with petals and writing recipes for them. We’re going to end the week by baking some delicious Valentines biscuits!  

In Phonics we have been consolidating our phonics knowledge of Phase 3 so far and conducting informal phonics assessments so we know which sounds need targeting next term.  

In Maths we have been exploring the number 9, including partition and grouping within this number. We’ve continued applying our knowledge of odd and even numbers and are recapping the doubles facts we have learnt. 

This week in Reception we had a dusty old mystery box arrive with a load of broken dinosaur toys in it! When we opened it up, we found the book ‘Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs’ which has become a focus book for the rest of term. We’ve been making missing posters for Harry to find his lost dinosaurs again, and also writing our own instructions for how to take care of dinosaurs.  

In phonics we have learnt the sounds ‘ur’, ‘oi’ and ‘ow’ and the tricky word ‘was’. Next week will be a consolidation week of phonics of all the sounds we have learnt so far, and we will be carrying out informal phonics assessments with the children to understand which sounds we will need to target next term.  

In Maths we have been learning about odd and even numbers and exploring how they relate to the concept of halving.  

This week in Reception we have travelled even further back in time to 240 million years ago when dinosaurs first roamed the planet! We began the week sharing all the facts we know about dinosaurs, before learning about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. We’ve been learning lots of dinosaur facts and new vocabulary and helping a palaeontologist to unscramble the dinosaurs he’s got muddled!  

In phonics we’ve been learning the sounds ‘oo’ (as in book’), ‘ar’ and ‘or’, as well as the tricky words ‘me’ and ‘my’. Please do ensure you are practising these at home with your children.  

In maths we have been learning about the concepts of doubling and halving, and how they relate to each other.  

This week in Reception we have been continuing our learning about what life was like before we were alive and have been discovering about what life was actually like as a knight. We’ve been looking at castles and labelling the features of them, and learning lots of exciting new words to describe parts of them.  

In Phonics we have been learning the sounds ‘igh’, ‘oa’ and ‘oo’ and the tricky words ‘we’ and ‘are’. Please ensure you are practising these with your child at home.  

In Maths our number of the week has been 8, and we have been exploring this in depth. We’ve been looking at part part whole models and how to partition 8, and becoming more fluent with our number facts to 8.  

This week in Reception we have extended our learning about what life was like before we were alive, and ended up in a time machine! We went back in time and were very surprised to discover we ended up 1000 years ago! We saw a man on a horse wearing armour, and we learnt he was a Knight whose job it was to protect the king and queen. We have been learning all about knights this week, and as part of our literacy have been using our phonics skills to label what they wear. We’ve had lots of fun designing our own coats of arms for the shields, and also making moving knights using split pins!  

In Maths we have been focusing on the number 7, and looking closely at how we can partition that number into smaller numbers and the number facts within this number. We’ve been focusing on ordering numerals, and on speeding up our recall of one more and one less within 10.  

In Phonics we have learnt 3 new sounds this week – ‘ng’ as in ‘king’, ‘ai’ as in ‘rain’ and ‘ee’ as in ‘sheep’. We have also learnt the tricky words ‘he’ and ‘she’. Please make sure you practise these at home. 

This week in Reception we have continued our learning about the past and travelled back in time to when our grandparents were children! We focused our learning on the 1950s (although many grandparents of our children will have been born much later – this era had the biggest differences for comparison!). We learnt about the toys children played with in the 50s, the music they listened to, the TV they watched – and were shocked to find out children’s TV was only televised for 1 hour per day on 1 channel! We also learnt about the concept of rationing, and the type of food and technology that was available then. 

In Phonics we have learnt three new sounds – ch, sh and th. Please support your child at home to spot these new digraphs in their books. In Maths we have been deepening our learning of composition of number, and have been exploring number bonds and the concept of part part whole. 

It has been a lovely first week back for Reception! For Literacy we have been learning about the past, and what life was like for our parents when they were children. We’ve learnt about food, TV, toys, technology and music of the 1990s, and next week will continue this further back to look at what life was like for our grandparents!  

In Maths we have been exploring number bonds, which are the automatic recall of number addition facts within certain numbers such as 5 and 10. In Phonics we have been consolidating our Phase 2 and 3 knowledge so far before moving onto some new digraphs next week.

This week in Reception we have been learning about the Nativity Story and the Christian story of Christmas. We have been consolidating our maths learning from the term with some Christmas fun - for example helping Santa’s elves to make a Christmas wrapping paper pattern, delivering numeral representations on envelopes to the correct door numbers for the postman and weighing out Santa’s presents and talking about things that are heavy and light.  

In phonics we have taught the sounds ‘z’ and ‘qu’, and will now be spending the rest of term consolidating our Phase 2 and 3 knowledge before moving on to the more complex digraphs and trigraphs in the Spring term.  

This week in Reception we have been learning about houses and homes around the world! We have been exploring different types of houses, from straw huts through to jungle treehouses and skyscrapers! In Phonics we have learnt the sounds ‘x’ ‘y’ and ‘w’ and have been recapping all of our Phase 2 sounds so far.  

We have been practising hard for the nativity in school, so please make sure you are practising your child’s words if they have any to learn.  

This week in Reception began with a burst of fun with our ‘Local Walk’! This much anticipated event took us all around the streets near to school on a fun treasure hunt of different houses and signs. The children were so sensible on their first trip out of school, and listened very well to the safety instructions given. We have been learning about different words connected to homes, such as ‘flats’, ‘houses’, ‘balconies’, ‘garages’, ‘driveways’ and so on, and understanding what these words refer to when describing homes. Next week we are going to move our learning on to finding out about houses in different parts of the world and how they are the same and different to the houses we live in.  

In Maths we have been exploring the composition of numbers – for example that 4 can be made up with two 2s, four 1s, a 1 and a 3 and so on. This is helping to deepen children’s understanding of early number and to develop their fluency with number facts.  

We have begun learning Phase 3 this week with the sounds ‘j’ and ‘v’, which has involved lots of jammy fun! Make sure to ask your child after Thursday what delicious food we made for phonics! We’ll give you a clue – it starts with ‘j’!  

We have been practising hard for our nativity play and you should all now know what part your child will be playing. As a reminder, please send in costumes in a named bag into school by no later than Wednesday 8th December. We will be sending home lines for children who have speaking parts to learn this Tuesday, so please make sure to practise these at home – especially reading the line before to cue your child in so they know what to listen out for!  

This week in Reception we have been learning about ‘People who Help Us’. Our Monday started off with a bang with a visit from two Police Officers! They brought their police van along and we got to climb inside it – we even locked Miss Kitchen in the mini jail cell! She was allowed out at the end luckily 😊 The children got to try on police helmets, jackets and shields, and even got to turn on the flashing blue lights! This week we are also learning about vets, firefighters and doctors and nurses – and have another special visitor planned for this Friday!

We have now reached the end of our Phase 2 phonics, so are conducting some fun play-based assessments with the children this week to understand the sounds we need to tailor our future teaching to before beginning Phase 3.

An email will be going out this week about our Reception Nativity which is on Tuesday 14^th December at 9.30am and 2.15pm. Information will be available soon about how to book your tickets, and also about the costume for your child. We can’t wait to share our performance with you!

This week in Reception we have been looking at Autumn! We’ve been learning all about seasons and how the world changes around us in Autumn time, and have loved exploring all the Autumn treasures children have brought in! We’ve been using them to write about, and also to do leaf rubbings, leaf printings, and even to make beautiful autumnal necklaces with!

We’ve also really enjoyed meeting a special visitor in show and tell last week – Pokey the chicken brought in by Michael in the Busy Bees! Michael’s mum kindly brought Pokey in and we got to learn all about how to look after her and what she likes to do in a day, and even got to have a smooth of her feathers! Pokey also left a cheeky surprise for us on the carpet, see if your child can remember what happened! 😊

It has been a wonderful return to school this week in Reception! The children were very excited to discover the spooky activities that had been set up in their classrooms over the holidays. We have now begun carpet sessions of Literacy, where we are developing children’s reading and writing application skills. We all worked together to create a spooky potion on Monday, and the children chose lots of yucky things to put in, such as rats, bats and eyeballs! We began learning about writing a list of the ingredients, and the children used their initial sounds they have been learning to label them. This week we have also been describing the smell and taste of our potions, culminating in an exciting ‘tasting’ activity on Friday!

In phonics we have learnt the sounds ‘ck’, ‘e’ ‘u’ and ‘r’ – all introduced through fantastic high quality story books. Make sure you ask your children what sound the Phonic Fairy has delivered each day!

This week in Reception we have been learning the sounds ‘o’, ‘c’ and ‘k’. We had so much fun mark making with ketchup for ‘Ketchup on your cornflakes’ and for pretending to eat our cornflakes with a big dollop of ketchup! The children enjoyed pretending to be crunching munching caterpillars with the book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ when we were learning the sound ‘c’. Now children have learnt a repertoire of 12 sounds they are becoming increasingly confident with attempting to write short words such as ‘cat’ and ‘pin’. As a reminder, your child has a chart at the front of their reading record where we highlight during their reading session the sounds they have learnt with us so you can support with this at home.

You should all now have received an invite to join SeeSaw, so please do download this app and start sharing any fun you have in the holidays that you child would like to show their friends back in school! If you have lost the QR code please let your child’s teacher know and we will print you a new one.

This week in Reception we have had lots of fun learning the sounds ‘n’ ‘m’ ‘d’ and ‘g’. On Monday we were pretending to be firefighters learning the sound ‘n’ – like ‘nnnee-naw nee naw’, and spraying our chalk writing on the playground. For ‘m’ we helped a cheeky monkey pack his lunch with things beginning with ‘m’ – lots of marshmallows, malteasers and marmalade! We’ve been embedding our new sound ‘d’ by ‘d-d-digging for doggy bones’ and we had so much fun today learning ‘g’ with the ‘g-g-grumpy frog’ in his pond.

In Maths we have been practising and reinforcing the skills of careful counting – firstly to say only one number name when you touch each item, secondly to recite numbers in order when counting and thirdly recognising that the final number we say when we are counting represents how many there are in the set.

This week in Reception we have begun learning sounds! Each day the Phonic Fairy has visited our classroom and delivered a new sound, alongside a beautiful high quality book to help us learn the sound. We’ve been having lots of fun and games with learning to read this week; for ‘S’ we read the book Jake the Snake by Michelle Larbey and practised writing the letter S on the playground in chalk, for ‘A’ we had some huge ‘a-a-achoo!’ sneezes with a pig up our noses (There’s a Pig up my Nose by John Doherty) and for ‘T’ we had a tea party filled with things beginning with the sound ‘t’ for the ‘Tiger who came to Tea’ by Judith Kerr. The children have been fantastic in their new phonics lessons, and have been excited to bring home their new phonics reading books to share with their grown-ups. 

To develop children’s motor strength we have begun our ‘Squiggle while you Wiggle’ sessions, which include large scale gross motor movements to music, then relaying the same movement into fine motor ‘squiggling’ with ‘squiggle sticks’ (pens!). This is all done to lively music, and is a real highlight of our day! In Maths we have been focusing on the skill of subitising, which is the ability to instantly recognise a small number. Subitising helps children to build images for numbers, to visualise and to learn number facts. For example, many children learn to recognise five dots on a dice, which helps them to understand the cardinal value or 'how-many-ness' of five, which they can link to the word and symbol for 5. Structured images like this also help children to begin to see numbers inside numbers, for instance seeing four and one within five. 

Please remember next Thurs 14th at 9am or 5pm we have our Reception Parent Workshops, which we strongly recommend you attend to understand what happens in the Reception year for your child and how you can support their learning at home. We hope to see all of you there! 

In Reception we have now finished our initial ‘baseline’ period and have a greater understanding of the levels of development of the class. This week we have begun 1:1 reading with the children, who will each be bringing home their new ‘Reading Record’ this week along with a letter explaining the day they will be reading and what is expected at home to support with reading. As children have not yet begun learning sounds, they will likely either have a Level 1 book with pictures only or they may have a sheet with some initial sound and blending activities on them. The purpose of Level 1 books is to build children’s vocabulary and storytelling language before they start to build a repertoire of sounds they can begin reading simple words with. We will be having a parent workshop on 14th October which will look in greater detail at the ways of supporting your child at home with reading. 

This week we received an exciting teeny tiny fairy letter from the Phonic Fairy, who flew into our book corner and left a magical trail of sparkle dust! She is going to start delivering books to teach us the sounds of phonics towards the end of this week – we can’t wait!  The children were so excited to receive the tiny letters and there has been a lot of fairy dust spotting after her arrival. We have also begun teaching early Maths, building depth of early number. Again, this will be explained in more detail at our parent workshop. 

If you have any questions please feel free to speak to Miss Parsons or Miss Kitchen at the end of the day. To make you aware – Miss Parsons is not school based on Wednesdays as she has a role as a National Lead for Early Years for Oasis. On a Wednesday the Active Ants are taught by Miss Brooks.