Welcome to Reception!

Here is our class page where you will find all of the lovely things we do in our classroom & outdoor environment.

The adults in our room are Mrs Clements, Miss Joles, Miss Belcher and Miss Wilson.

14.7.22

This week the children have completed a fantastic sun safety workshop with Miss Joles. 🌞 First, they discussed all the things they needed to have to keep safe, such as a water bottle, hat and suncream. 🧴🧢💦

They used their fine motor skills to add the beads onto the string to make a bracelet. The beads turn different colours in the sun to show the harmful UV rays that can burn our skin! Finally, they designed their own sun safety poster! 

WB 11.7.22

In Maths this week we have been exploring how to make a 3D shape. The children drew on the initial squares, cut them out and then glued the flaps together to make the cube. 

Here we are ordering numbers on a number line and filling in the blank spaces to see if we could remember which are missing. We tried very hard with our number formation! 

Lots of tasty activities have been completed this week! First up was jam tarts and ice-cream to cool us down in such hot weather! 🥵 They carefully cut the blueberries in half to enhance the fine motor skills. 
Next up was a rice crispy cake! They melted the chocolate and mixed the ingredients in a bowl. Finally, they spooned the mixture up and then saw its changing state after it had been in the fridge! 

One of our learning objectives was to create a map. The children drew a map of the areas in Reception to see what they know! 🗺 

8.7.22 A wonderful Sports Day was had by all; the children did amazingly! They enjoyed a penalty shootout, bean bag throw and running and track events which always prove popular! 

Here we are enjoying our fencing and hula-hoop workshops! 🤺 

4th - 8th July - SPORTS WEEK 🏆🤽🏻‍♀️🤾🏻‍♂️🤸🏻‍♀️⚽️🏓

We have kicked off Sports Week with a trampolining session!

29.6.22

We have been spending time in our new classroom up in Year 1! This will help us with our transition. We enjoyed a tour of the area, participated in some class activities set up and listened to a lovely story read by Mr Smith. The children were so excited to experience their new class!

WB 27.6.22

We are continuing our book, ‘The Paper Dolls’. We are learning to draw effectively so designed our own paper dolls and cut them out.

For our learning objective of creating a sculpture figure we have made our own wooden peg doll! We wrapped wool around the peg for its clothes and used felt tip pens to represent the faces on the dolls. 

For our physical fine motor activity, we looked at how to use scissors effectively. We made sure we had the correct grip and proceeded to cut out the items in the magazine, moving the paper as we went. 

WB 20.6.22

Our new book is ‘The Paper Dolls,’ by Julia Donaldson.

In the story, the paper dolls danced around the honey pot. 🍯 

We read and followed the instructions for honey on toast. First, we toasted the bread. Next, we spread the butter. After that, we added the honey and finally we used our knife to cut the toast in half and then into quarters, ready to eat! 

The children made their very own crocodile puppets from envelopes! 🐊 

They activated their fine motor skills, by tearing and scrunching up the tissue paper, manipulating the envelope and then using the scissors to cut out the teeth. 

We continued on with themes from the story by making our very own star mobiles! ⭐️
They had to measure the string and use language such as ‘longer’ and ‘shorter’ and draw stencils around the triangles to make their star shape. They look beautiful hanging from our classroom ceiling!

Here we are learning to sew effectively. We discussed what sewing is and why people sew. Evelyn said, “People can sew to fix clothes.” 
They then manoeuvred the needle and cotton through the holes to create a stitch.

WB 13.6.22

This week we have begun our transition to Year 1! We have had a look in our new classroom environment and met our new teachers! We are showing mature attitudes ready for Year 1. 😊

We have been thinking back to our fantastic zoo trip and writing sentences about it! We are remembering capital letters and full stops.

Here we experimented with food colouring to create our own animals from the zoo. 

10.6.22 We had the most wonderful time at Noah’s Ark Zoo! The children were so excited to see the animals and their behaviour was impeccable on the coach! We had lots of discussion about what the animals looked like. They were so observant and used some fantastic descriptive language! We are so proud of them! 😃🐅🐯🐇🐵🦒🐪

WB 6.6.22 Welcome Back!

We hope you had a wonderful break. Our new story is ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. 🐅 

With our writing we have been thinking of all the delicious food Sophie and her mum gave the tiger when he came for tea. We are really focusing on our letter formation. 

Here we are studying the image of the tiger to see the details of his face and then with the chalks sketching onto the black paper. 

We have been using tools effectively and focusing on our cutting skills to create our own tiger mask. 🐯 The children also attempted using the hole punchers correctly.

We have had a wonderful Jubilee picnic and wish you all a happy half term! 

WB 25.5.22

We are in full swing ready for the Queen’s Jubilee Party on Friday! 🇬🇧 Our new book is, ‘The Queen’s Knickers’. We have designed our own and cut them out. ✂️ 

For our shared reading this week we have read the instructions to make a fruit salad! They carefully peeled and cut the fruit on the chopping boards. 🍉 🍓 🍊 

The children have made a special Royal collage to celebrate her Majesty’s big day! 

Look at our portraits of the Queen! We looked at the detail in her features and coloured in with the crayons.

WB 15.5.22

We are focusing on writing on the line and our letter formation to write our sentences. The children saw the image of the ‘Little Gardener’ and wrote ‘My garden is growing’.

This week we had the opportunity to use our cress that was planted last week and been growing steadily! 🌱

For our shared reading we read and followed the instructions to make a cream cheese and cress sandwich. 🍞 

We are learning to use a camera correctly and create a photo collage. The children were taught to keep the iPad still and press certain buttons. We went outside to take photos of the flowers which we have been watering daily and taking care of. They have bloomed beautifully! 🌸 📷 

We then glued and made a collage. 

First, we discussed what a self-portrait is. We then looked carefully at our features in the mirror and used the colour pencil crayons to draw ourselves.

13.5.22

We have been so thankful for the support of our lovely families in supporting our cake sales! Here we are icing and decorating some of our tasty cakes.

09.05.22

We have been planting our sunflower and cress seeds and nurturing our plants as they grow. As you can see, they are beginning to make an appearance! 🍃 

We have used our phonics skills to label parts of the flower. We have been writing sentences and really focusing on keeping our writing on the line and remembering a full stop after each sentence. 

WB 25.4.22 - Welcome Back!

The children are captivated by our new book, ‘Bloom’. 

The old man gets grumpy and shouts at the flowers and therefore the petals do not open up. The little girl speaks to the flowers daily, telling them how wonderful they are. They open and bloom into wonderful flowers. 🌸 The children had a go at making their own flowers with tissue paper and pipe cleaners for stems to learn how to join materials.

We had a group discussion on how we can be kind and thoughtful. The children saw that the man was not kind and hope he will use some of their ideas. 💡 

We have been understanding how to care for our natural environment. First, we considered what seeds, plants and flowers need to grow. Each colour group then filled a pot with soil and dropped in a seed, covered with more soil and added water. 

What a wonderful final day of term enjoying the Easter egg hunt and Easter bonnet parade!

WB 4.4.22

We have been spending our last week building momentum for Easter by completing a range of activities. 
Here we are enhancing our fine motor skills by snapping the chocolate, breaking up the shredded wheat and stirring the mixture. We also had to read the instructions.

We have been finalising our Easter egg cards by writing a message to our families. 

The children were fascinated by the Easter story and were intrigued to try hot cross buns. We enjoyed a delicious snack time. 😋 

We observed the spring flower, the daffodil, then with the graphite crayons and oil pastels attempted our own version. 

31.3.22

This week we are continuing to practise our writing with activities such as hold a sentence and the animal list. We are really thinking about sounds we can hear in words phonetically. 

We have been starting our Easter activities! 🐣 

Here with are enhancing our fine motor skills by using cotton buds to decorate the egg shape. 

We had so much fun creating an Easter wreath! This was used to make an ABBC pattern.  For example, Red, Red, blue, green and repeat. 🔴🔴🔵🟢

We were looking at 2D shapes for body parts to make our split pin chicks! 🐥 

This required drawing a stencil of the shapes, cutting them out, using a hole puncher to press through the paper and attaching the split pins for the wings. Finally, they ripped tissue paper up to create the feather effect. 
The children showed great attention to detail!

24.3.22

We thoroughly enjoyed inviting our mummies in for a special Mother’s Day performance! 💐 

We made biscuits with the ingredients and then decorated them with the icing. We worked hard on our letter formation when thinking of all the reasons we love our mums! Finally, we sang our song and the children presented their mums with a rose. 

Week beginning 21.3.22

This week we thoroughly enjoyed a visit from Alan from the RNLI.  We learnt all about various ways to stay safe near and on the water.  

We continue to develop our writing skills.  We have been working hard to form our letters correctly.  We are trying hard to remember to leave a space between each word in our writing.  

We have been learning how to add white to poster paint to create a tint.  

We are really perfecting our digit formation.

We are looking forward to seeing all our Mummies in school this week to celebrate Mother's Day!

Here we are using the ingredients to make a special surprise for our mummies! 

We are gearing up for spring by planting some flowers to make our garden area look beautiful! 🌸 🍃 

Look at our new book, ‘How to wash a Woolly Mammoth’. The children are loving playing in the launderette for our continuous provision.

In maths this week we have been making a repeating pattern with the peg boards. They then replicated the pattern on the circle paper. 
 

We have been learning how to create colour shade and that if we add black to a colour it will become darker. Here the children are painting an image of the Woolly Mammoth. 🦣 

10.3.22

The children have been practising climbing and balancing for their P.E sessions. Here they are with Jordan, Sam and Miss Joles on the beams, ropes and ladders.

We have been modelling with the clay to create our own bears like in the story of ‘Cave Baby’.

We have been enhancing our sketching skills by drawing the other half of the image!

Here we are using the sorting hoops to put the animals in groups of more and fewer.

The children were thrilled to receive a special delivery from the Avon & Somerset Fire Service. 🔥 🚒 

They had so much fun dressing up in the role play clothes, acting out different rescue scenarios and playing in the pop up fire engine!

4.3.22

We had a fantastic time for World Book Day dressing up as our favourite characters! 📕 

1.3.22

Welcome Back! The Reception Team hope you had a relaxing half term.

Our new story is ‘Cave Baby’.

The children discussed what they already knew about caves and woolly mammoths.

To experiment with materials, we observed the image of the mammoth and were introduced to charcoal!

We looked at the images of the baby painting in the cave. The children then had a go with thick and thin paintbrushes to use paints effectively. 

16.2.22

🍞 We had a tasty treat in the form of beans on toast this week. This was to practise our knife and fork skills and table manners! 🍴 We remembered to tuck our chairs in, sit nicely and not have our elbows on the table. We worked hard to cut the toast in small pieces. This is essential in developing fine motor skills and a key part of our nationwide EYFS curriculum. See how independent your child can be at home! 🍴  🪑 🍴 

What a treat we had with Mr Molland! We learnt how to play dodgeball and did well to manoeuvre out of the way of incoming balls! 🏈 

The children have been extremely creative this week! 🎨 ✏️ 🖼 

They made wonderful watercolour penguins which were then displayed around our classroom! 🐧 

They also completed a fantastic wave collage with tissue paper, crayons and PVA glue. 🌊 

9.2.22

We have been thinking about how we can keep safe on the internet and watched a video about Smartie the penguin. We had a discussion and remembered if we are ever unsure to ask help from a grown up and to never give our personal information out. 🐧❌

In our continuous provision the children have enjoyed our new winter role play area. ❄️ 

The children wrote a letter to the penguin to help him understand more about our school! Look at our letter formation! We also practised holding a sentence and writing our high frequency words.

We have been drawing from observation our very own self portraits! 🪞 

We looked at our features in the mirror and proceeded to sketch ourselves. 

We have been introduced to the Beebots! We used positional language such as forwards, backwards, left and right and learned how to operate and give instructions to a programmable toy. ⬆️⬇️➡️⬅️
We then attempted number bingo and are now excellent at recognising our numerals!

3.2.22

Look at us enjoying the Chinese New Year celebrations with one of our parents, Mrs Hunt! Mrs Sutton and Mrs Simpson cooked up a storm in the kitchen! We loved our noodles! 🍜 

We are learning to observe and interact with natural processes. We did a mind map to find out what we know and then were excited to see which items were floating and which were sinking in the water tray.

Wow! Mrs Clements brought in a beautiful boat for us to draw! We looked carefully at the detail and proceeded with the chunky graphite pencils.

27.1.22

We have been introduced to the language of longer, shorter and equal. The children used string to measure items and then to find more objects around the classroom. 

This week we have observed and interacted with natural processes! This involved ice!

We talked about how ice was made and used our ideas to create a mind map. In the discussion we predicted what might happen to the ice if we added salt, warm water, cold water and sugar. We then investigated to see which melted the fastest and longest to melt! 🧊 🧊 🧊 🧊 

We are learning to draw from observation. We then completed some beautiful sketches of a lighthouse! ✏️ 

21.1.21

We are going for gold with our high frequency words! This week we have participated in tricky word bingo which has been a huge hit. The children have enjoyed going off after and taking turns independently to be the bingo caller!

We went on a walk to explore the frost and ice this morning! Reception had fun creating their names with sticks and objects. 🥶 🧊 

Miss Joles has had some super results with her boat model activity. 🛶 

The children used cardboard boxes and cut them to the shape of a boat. They then focused on the flange join. The results were seriously impressive! They then proudly put their boats on our classroom display!

The children thought about Noi’s journey at sea. They created a map to pinpoint the various areas and landmarks Noi visited in the story, such as the lighthouse. 

14.1.22

We had a wonderful time watching Cinderella at the pantomime show this morning! Ask your child what their favourite part of the show was! 👠🧚🏼✨

We are continuing our ‘Storm Whale’ theme with a list of whale food and thinking about what they would like to eat.  The children are becoming accustomed using their phoneme fists to help them hear and write the sounds in a word!

We also had a go at re-telling the story by making a whale puppet! This involved using tissue paper to tear and using a range of tools.

The penguins wrote a letter to us! They needed our help! Look at how we used our imaginations and worked as team to create a house for them!

The children have been enhancing their subitising skills by playing Dominoes! They worked really well to match them.

They have also been recognising numbers by playing a track game in pairs. They carefully made the correct number of jumps and looked at what the number on the dice said and also what number they landed on!

7.1.22

Welcome back! We wish you a healthy and happy 2022.

What a fun-filled first week back! We are reading our new book ‘The Storm Whale in Winter’. 🐳 

We have written a list of sea creatures and working hard to perfect our letter formation. 

In addition to this, we have painted our very own lighthouses like the one that appeared in the story! 

The children used the guided reading time to think of what happens in the season of winter. ❄️ 

Amelia said, “I need my coat and hat as it’s cold outside.”

Billy said, “You might see snowflakes.”

We then discussed the three ways we can read a story; through the pictures, reading the words and retelling the story. They then enjoyed a seasonal book, looking at what they could see and what is happening in the illustrations. 

The children attempted to make their own sea scene with the water colours. We remembered to hold our paintbrush effectively and used black pens to make our creatures stand out. 

Look at our number formation! 😃

We used the rhymes to help us and then practised on our whiteboards.

6.12.21

The whole school has been in Xmas mode! We added baubles to our B&Q donated tree and have been rehearsing the Christmas production! 🎄 

They have worked particularly hard on remembering their lines, songs, dance moves and using the stage for the first time! 💃 🎵 

What a fantastic show the children put on for everyone! 👏 

Here are some pictures of them in their festive costumes!

2.12.21 

📕 We enjoyed a visit from Fred the therapy dog! 🐾 We took turns to read our book to him and afterwards Fred had a biscuit and brush for good listening!👂 

25.11.21

🥣 We are learning our new story ‘The Magic Porridge Pot’. The children used their phoneme fingers to hear and say the sounds in the word p o t. They then had a go at writing the word and decorating their porridge pots! 

We also drew a story map to assist us in our learning. This helped us retell the story in the correct order and build our language.

✉️ We received an exciting letter this morning. Mrs Clements read it out to us. The little girl in the story, Rose, required our help! We put our thinking hats on and thought of ways we could help her. 🎩 🤔 

We have also been enjoying making our own recipes in the environment with a magic porridge pot! 

We have been introducing magnetic boards to our learning. This aids our visual memory of the letter names and sounds we have been learning and also help us make words to blend together!

Reception are continuing to work out which has more and which has fewer with a variety of items. We are becoming experts in this!

18.11.21

We are going for gold with our name writing! We have been trying in a variety of different ways! 

We are learning to distinguish between ‘more’ and ‘fewer’. Mrs Clements demonstrated with items in the hoop and we had to work out which hoop had more and which had fewer.

We have been noticing changes when making a hedgehog cake! 😋 

First, we added water to the icing. We then used our food colouring to try and make it brown and observed the changes. We then attempted to snap the chocolate buttons and stick them in the cake to create the spines. Finally, we added white chocolate drops for the eyes and ate our delicious hedgehog cakes! 
 

10.11.21

This week we are focusing on the relevance of the poppy to Rememberance Day. We talked about what it meant to be a soldier at war and what the 3 colours red, black and green symbolised. The children made beautiful paper plate poppies which are proudly on display in the hall. 

We are having a look at recording quantities and introduced to a tally chart. We used the apples from the story to record the amount next to it. 🍎 

We are learning to thread. We looked at how to thread by going in and out of the holes around the hedgehog. The children then had their attempt! 

4.11.21

What a super first week back! We are looking at our new book, ‘The Very Helpful Hedgehog.’🦔 

The children have been using repetition to learn the story by making hedgehog puppets! 

During the story the apples land near the hedgehog and he is helpful by giving them to a friend, the donkey! 🍎 🍏 

For our Maths activity we are beginning to understand the concept of ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ by sorting the fruit and vegetables into two groups. We looked at which had more and which had fewer! 

The children have been exploring a variety of artistic effects. They have been manipulating the clay to create their own hedgehogs! They have also used forks and paint to create the spines for a hedgehog print!

Here is our curriculum map with all the prime and specific areas of learning we will be covering in the Autumn. 

• Curriculum map Autumn 1 2021.pdf

20.10.21

We have been practising our name writing and focusing on forming our letters. Included in your child’s reading journal is a name writing sheet so you can practise at home! ✍️ 🏡 

We are also enjoying becoming excellent story detectives and can read independently through the pictures. 
We can speak about what the characters are saying, what will happen next and if we can relate to the book through our real life experiences. Finally, we had a go at retelling the story! 📕 

We have been learning that if we mix two colours together we can create a new colour! 🎨 

We have also been retelling the story of, ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ through a story map. First, we discussed what a ‘journey’ was. Then we drew pictures of the various places the characters visited in the story. ❄️ ☔️ 🌳 

15.10.21

Today we listened to Miss Joles read us a story called ‘Leaf Man’. 🍁 We then wrote a mind map on what we would make with a selection of leaves. Later, we went outside exploring our environment and going on a leaf hunt!

The children made a wonderful selection of artistic pictures, with butterflies and other insects made with their creations! 🍃 

12.10.21

In Maths this week, we are learning to use objects to represent a number. The children were practising counting out the corresponding number of bears to go with the number on the dice.

We are also enhancing our subitising skills using pieces of numicon. We took turns to roll the dice and find the corresponding numicon.

👩‍🍳 We have had a fantastic time making biscuits and talking about the changes we noticed. We mixed all our ingredients up and then baked our biscuits in the oven. It was then discussed what we thought had changed prior to baking. Afterwards, we decorated them with the icing sugar and topped them with sprinkles! 🌟 

5.10.21 
We have begun our new story ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ 🐻 

The children had a go at retelling the story through pictures. This helped their repetition with communication and language. 

We are exploring the natural world around us. The children had great fun discussing all the things the characters have to walk through. They removed their socks and shoes and explored the sensory trays! ❄️ 🌳 🌾

We also had lots of fun making bear prints! First, we drew around our feet with pens on large paper. Next, we cut around our prints with the scissors. Finally, we added claws for a bear effect! 

30.9.21 

We are beginning to understand that print has meaning. We read the instructions and followed them to make porridge. We sat at the table to eat together & thought about whether our porridge was too hot or too cold like the bears in the story! 🥣  🔥 🥶 🐻 

We have been on a Welly walk to explore the natural world around us.  👣 

First, we had a discussion on what we know about Autumn. Next, we went for a stroll to see what we could spot on the big field. We noticed the leaves are changing colour and we are now aware they are starting to fall off due to the change in season! 🍁 🍂 

22.9.21

This week we have been started our new story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’.

We have been ordering numbers to 5 and trying to recognise the recognise the numerals on the bears. We have also been using language for various sized bears: biggest, medium, smallest.

We have been developing our small motor skills by using our knives and forks correctly and practising our table manners. We had a great time eating the tasty beans on toast! 

We enjoyed making our bears and using a range of tools. The children used paper plates, paint, brushes, scissors and paper to create their masterpieces!

15.9.21

In Maths this week we had a tasty treat! 😋 The children tried really hard to recite to 20 and then lined up some delicious chocolate buttons ready to touch and count as they go. Of course, they were gobbled up after! 

We are beginning to learn our sounds in Phonics! The children are learning a new sound each day and showing great focus attempting to form the letters on their whiteboards. 

10.9.21

Our first week has been amazing! The children are venturing out into their new setting and interacting beautifully with their peers. 
We have been learning about our new routines and rules for school and enjoying lots of playing and settling in.