Recent pics :)
Pirate Day
Pirate Day was a huge success. The children enjoyed walking the plank, making pirate ships, maps and flags! We had an afternoon of pirate games in the hall. Lots of the children worked together to build pirate ships outside. We sang sea shanties, did some pirate phonics and maths and even went on a treasure hunt!
Photo's from the past few weeks....finally!
Friday 6th June
We still cannot upload photographs, sorry!
We have had a busy first week back. The children have been practising for their class worship which is on Tuesday at 3pm. During our RE lessons, we heard the story of St Peter and St Paul. The children did well recalling what happened to them both and how the followed Jesus.
Our first session of Games focused on throwing and aiming at a target. The children had to decided which throw was best, either an underarm or over arm.
For maths and phonics this half term it is consolidation of all our learning. We will be revisiting all Phase 3 sounds and tricky words. In maths we will focus on doubling and odds and evens. In addition to this it is important that the children can arrange objects/ amounts to 20 and be able to count them. They did find that tricky this week so this is something you could practise at home.
We spoke about putting the objects into rows or groups to make them easier to count.
Friday 2nd May
Apologies, the iPad still isn't working. It will be up and running by next week.
In PE this week, the games involved the children running at different speeds and being able to stop on the signal. They did very well!
Each child designed their own den and then we had a go at building them. We even tried to make a class den but that proved to be too difficult. We had lot's of problem solvers and critical thinkers though which was excellent!
We continued our learning around minibeasts. The children had to sort them into 2 different groups e.g insects/ not insects, able to fly/ not able to fly etc. We even found out that a scorpion is a minibeast!
In RE, the children are learning about the Holy Spirit. They are beginning to show a good understanding of how Jesus sent a special friend to help us. We will continue to focus on this over the next few weeks.
Just a reminder that Thursday 8th is VE day and Nursery and Reception children are invited to wear red, white and/ or blue to celebrate.
Friday 25th April
Unfortunately, the iPad won't upload the photographs. I will add them onto next week if I can get it working.
We started off our week by learning about minibeasts. We then went to the eco garden on a mini beast hunt and tried to repair the bug hotel.
The children impressed me with their ball skills and did well with throwing and catching!
We all made a stick man picture using natural materials and then tried to write a sentence about it. The children should now be able to write a simple sentence that can be read by themselves and others. Please do practise writing at home- writing for a purpose is much for fun. E.g- write a diary entry and bring it to school, write out the shopping list, write a letter and posit it.
In Maths, we used the rekenreks for the first time. Ask your child what this is and how it should be used. The piece of equipment will help your child with their counting, addition and subtraction. It needs to be in the starting position with all the beads on the right. They then use their pointy finger to slide the correct amount of beads to the left.
Friday 4th April
A busy final week in Reception.
In PE we practised travelling at different heights using the equipment. The children were creative with how they could travel over, under and through a hoop.
We finished listening to the Easter story. We explored our school grounds for new life and even went on an Easter egg hunt. We have made a display with their Easter art work.
Our maths sessions focused on 'counting on' which some of us found tricky. Please practise playing lots of board games over the holidays to embed this skill.
Yesterday we had a special celebration in class. The children had made beautiful decorations for my wedding which I will cherish forever. Thank you to everyone for your kind words and well wishes.
I hope you enjoy the Easter break.
Reception Class Mother's Day 2025
This is "Reception Class Mother's Day 2025" by eleanor rushton on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
Friday 28th March
There aren't many photo's this week but there was still lot's going on.
We all learnt the poem 'I'm building a rocket' by Kenn Nesbitt. We acted out the poem and then some children wrote the verses from the poem and read them out to the class.
Our maths lessons have focused on arrangements of 10. You can practise this at home- using 10 small objects, ask your child to make as many arrangements as possible e.g. 5 and 5, 9 and 1- all the number bonds to 10!
The children heard the story of Good Friday and we went in search of crosses and crucifixes around school. We also went to church to look at the stations of the cross which show Jesus' journey during Good Friday.
We would like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all our Mummy's. We hope you like the cards the children made and enjoy your special day on Sunday. We sang a song to show how much we love you :)
Friday 21st March
The children have been busy creating their 'Starry Night' master piece. We found out how Vincent van Gogh used small brush strokes to create the effect that the sky was moving. We tried to recreate this on our group project.
In PE, we practised different types of rolls and jumps. We spoke about squeezing our muscles tight to hold our positions.
Our RE lessons have moved onto the Easter story and this week we heard about Palm Sunday. The children made their own palm leaves and we acted this out as a class.
We have continued with our maths learning of 'subitising' and using the stem sentence to explain our understanding. Play simple games at home to further develop this skill. Eg- have a group of objects to 6 and ask your child how many there are, they should use their 'fast eyes' and not need to count. They then close their eyes and you take some away. Ask how many are left, and how many are behind your back, how do they know this? "7 is made of 5 and 2 so 5 and 2 make 7". They can also use thier fingers to represent the objects.
Friday 14th January
This week was Science week. We started off with the Science road show on Monday, exploring different forces. The children thoroughly enjoyed launching the rockets outside! In class, we learnt about different habitats and the children created a new species of animal in the creative area. We also did some sea creature yoga.
In PE, we developed the skill of jumping from a height, ensuring we bend our knees and land on both feet without wobbling. There was lots of progress throughout the lesson!
We have continued learning about Africa. The children tried to carry a bucket of water around the track to see to difficult it was. Most children needed a friend to help them carry it. We watched a video about children in Africa that have to walk miles to collect water.
We have also done some observational drawings of the fruit from Handa's surprise, these are displayed in the corridor. We then got to taste the fruit afterwards, the mango was very popular!
As part of our RE lessons, we listened to the story of the Good Samaritan. The children used small world figures to act out the story. We also dressed up as doctors and nurses to show how we can care for people.
Friday 7th February
The children have been learning about Africa this week. One of the children brought in some traditional clothing and artefacts from home. We have done some drumming, dancing and made African masks.
Mrs Poulton made pancakes for us on Shrove Tuesday. On Ash Wednesday, the children went to the whole school mass and were very respectful. We have begun learning about Lent and the children can recall the story of Jesus going into the desert for 40days and 40 nights.
PE involved lots of stretching and balancing this week. We had to hold our positions on the bench for 5 seconds, which proved to be difficult!
In Maths we have revisited strategies for counting large amounts. Give your child a large group of objects and ask how they should count them. They should be able to tell you to group them, put them in a line, touch them, move them or cross them off if they cannot be moved.
We enjoyed sharing our stories from home for World Book Day :)
Friday 28th February
We had a great first week back.
The children enjoyed making Mardi Gras bracelet's in RE. We learnt about the Catholic festival that is celebrated in different countries during Lent.
We have been writing lists in Literacy this week, we wrote a list of ingredients needed for pancakes and a list of Handa's fruit. Ask your child to write your shopping list at home, remind them they need to use a bulletpoint.
In Maths we focused on sorting large amounts of groups into different categories. The children had to be able to explain how and why they had grouped them in a certain way.
Lot's of us found balancing tricky in our first gymnastics lesson. The children should be able to balance for 5seconds on each leg- see how long your child can balance for at home.
We also enjoyed our dance to the Teddy Bear's picnic in our Music lesson. The children learnt about the tempo and dynamics of the music.
Friday 14th February
Happy Valentines day! There is a 'love bug' in your child's bag that they made today.
We started our week by going for a walk to the old school house. Mrs Poulton told us lots of interesting facts about our school and what it used to be like in the past. There were only 3 classrooms and the toilets were outside! The children then wrote about this when back in class.
In Maths, we continued our learning on 'doubles'. The children have used different resources to create doubles this week e.g. patterns on a butterfly or spots on a lady bird. They then had to write the number sentence underneath.
Our dance unit finished by creating a dance to 'Old McDonald'. The children came up with different actions for farm activities and then used these to create a group dance.
As part of our RE lesson and collective worship, we looked at how Jesus shared with other people and how we might share with others. The children wrote a list of items needed for the local food bank and we will be collecting these after half term.
We hope you have a lovely week with your families and we will see you on Tuesday 25th February.
Friday 7th February
We listened to the story 'The Big Umbrella' as part of our RE lesson. We spoke about being kind and caring towards others. The children painted an umbrella and we have displayed their ideas of how to be caring towards others. We discussed being 'forgiving' in PSHE and that one of the things we can do to forgive is to give a hug. We did a craft activity and displayed these on our washing line.
We have began to work on doubles this week in maths. This is a tricky concept for them to understand. We rolled 2 die to see if we could make a double. The children have learnt different stem sentences to describe doubles eg
' 6 is made of 3 and 3 so 3 and 3 make 6'
'This is a double because 3 is a part and 3 is a part'.
We want the children to recognise the whole amount and explain why it is a double.
We had a lovely walk to the Wetlands yesterday. We spotted different birds, minibeasts and even found a badger track! We will be using the photographs we took to help us with our writing next week.
Friday 31st January
A very busy week with lots of different things going on.
We started the week by learning more about road safety. The children went out in their teams to complete a traffic survey. Over a space of 20minutes, 384 different vehicles passed our school, we were amazed!
In PE, we developed our firework dance using the scarves. We had to skip in a large circle, changing speed and direction.
The children drew maps of Berry Lane, using Google Maps and our photographs that we took on the walk. They then used these maps to build Berry Lane using the construction materials. We stuck the photographs of shops onto cardboard boxes.
On Wednesday we had a full day celebrating the Chinese New Year. We listened to stories, traditional music and made a stir fry. The children helped to write the instructions.
In maths we have been learning about the composition of 7. The majority of the children now understand that 7 is made up from 5 and 2 more, 6 and 1 more etc. We did this by building a tower of 7 cubes, I hid the tower behind my back and then showed them 2 pieces, asking how many were left hiding.
Friday 24th January
We have started creating maps this week. We linked this to our Literacy text, 'What the ladybird heard' and the children drew a map of the farm and labelled it. We will build upon this next week by drawing a map of Berry Lane. The children's writing is developing. Encourage them at home to write shopping lists and letters. They must use their phonics fingers to help them spell. At this point in the year, we expect the children to be able to label their work and write a short caption.
Our RE focus was that Jesus welcomes everyone. We listened to the story of Jesus and the little children and then acted it out. We also made a handprint of everyone that Jesus welcomes. As part of PSHE, we thought about families and we drew our family tree.
In PE, the children developed a 'firework dance', using the scarves. They had to come up with movements to represent 'bang', 'fizz' 'whooosh' etc. It was tricky to remember the footwork and the arm movements but we will work on this.
Friday 17th January
We built on our ocean dance during the PE lesson this week. We moved like different sea creatures to the beat of 8. The children are thoroughly enjoying the dance unit and we have some fantastic dancers!
In PSHE, the children learnt about Jesus being the first role model and setting an example to all. They acted this out by 'washing' each others feet, as Jesus did. During RE, we learned more about the Epiphany and looked specifically at the gifts the wise men brought. We made our own gift tags to show our gifts of kindness and hung them on our tree.
In Literacy, we drew the story map for Mr Gumpy's outing. We used these to act out the story. This will then help us with our writing. In Maths, we focused on the '5 and a bit' method. The children were using the stem sentence '5 and 3 is 8 altogether', using their fingers to represent this. You could ask your child to show you a number between 6 and 9, always having '5 and a bit' then ask them to explain why it is that number. E.g- why is that 7? Because it is 2 more than 5.
Yesterday, we enjoyed our walk down Berry Lane. We talked about the different shops we could see but the best part was definitely the park! We had lots of fun.
Friday 10th January
Reports will be sent home this week and for each area of learning it will state 'expected' or 'emerging'. I will also attach the Early Learning Goals with the reports. For your child to be at the 'expected' level they should be able to do the majority of the ELG.
If your child is 'emerging' in any areas it means they are still working within the Development Matters and have not quite reached the expected level of the ELG yet. We hope that most children get the 'expected' level by the end of the year. I have uploaded the Reception statements onto the class page so that you can see the expectations before the ELG's. Go to the Spring 1 folder and you will find them there :)
We listened to the Epiphany story in RE and discussed the wise men's journey. Lot's of the children understood that the wise men followed a star and went to visit Jesus. We made our own constellation of stars with paint in the creative area.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the introduction lesson to dance. We pretended we were at the beach. We had to listen to the different sounds and follow the movements. From there we learnt the first part of our dance, counting to 8 for each section. The children will perform their dance in teams to the rest of the class.
In Maths we introduced the language of 'more than' and 'fewer than'. We want the children to be confident using a stem sentence, for example, 'Pat has more boats than Sam' or 'Sam has fewer boats than Pat'. We realised the size, shape and property of the toy did not alter the fact who had more or less. To extend this, I challenged the children to explain why Pat had more. We want the children to be able to explain and say ' he has a bigger amount' or 'he has 7 which is more than 5' or 'he has 2 more than Sam'. You can practise this at home with every day objects, give yourself and your child different amounts and ask them 'What do you notice?' and then get them to explain.
We have moved onto Phase 3 sounds in phonics. The majority of the children are now blending and you will see in the reading diaries that we want the children to 'smooth read'. This is the fluency of reading rather than the robotic sounding out. Children do not need to sound out every word if they are now confident with their blending. Encourage your child to 'smooth read' or 'read in their head'.
