Reception

In Literacy, Reception have been exploring their exciting new topic, The Natural World. The children used their imaginations to think about the different things they might see, hear, smell, touch and feel when walking through a forest. They then chose something they love about nature and created a front cover using the sentence stem, “I love the…”.  It was lovely to see the different parts of nature that each child love. Over the coming weeks, the children will be writing about the different senses, inspired by the special part of nature they have chosen.

This week, Reception have moved on to Phase 5 Phonics and have been learning the new graphemes ay, ou, ie, and ea. The children have been working incredibly hard to recognise and use these new sounds in their reading and writing. They have also been practising remembering these alongside all of the phonics sounds and skills they have already learned, showing great determination and enthusiasm in their learning.

How you can help at home:

• Complete a sound hunt – hide the sounds and ask your child to go and find the sound and tell you what it is.
• Go on a nature walk, what signs of summer can they see? What do they like about nature?

This week in Reception, we have been discussing the different weather as part of our daily calendar. We have found it very interesting and keep changing our weather window symbol – it has been quite funny swapping it from cloudy, to sunny, to rainy! It has prompted a lot of discussion about how quickly the weather changes and why we need to bring our coats to school everyday!

We have had a super busy week with maths – we have been noticing that maths is everywhere! Each day we sing a Days of the Week song and we’ve started doing a Months of the Year song. We add straws to a cup where we count how many days there are in each month. We have even been grouping the straws to make a ’10’ and then counting on from them. We are getting the hang of this now.

This week is Walk to School Week. We have discussed the different ways we all travel to school and why it is important to try to walk, scoot or cycle if we can. We know that it is important because “It’s good for our bodies to exercise”. We have had a lot of fun collecting the data and counting to see how well we are doing. We hope to turn this week into good habits, even if it is for one or two days a week.

This week we have also thought lots about Bees as we celebrated World Bee Day. We spent some time learning interesting facts about Bees and then used this in our forest sessions. We had a lot of fun. Ask us about our Bee facts! You can learn more here: https://www.bbka.org.uk/news/world-bee-day-may?srsltid=AfmBOornJJ0YVeZPFtn20LBBAzIQ-aQ8KY2QIQo_DvEJADtmzRqy21NS

FOREST PHOTOS HERE

How you can help at home:

• Talk about ways to stay healthy – for our bodies and the environment
• Ask us about our fascinating bee facts
• Go for a walk and take in nature – maybe you could draw a picture or paint what you see
• Take this time to check all uniform still fits, is labelled and ready for next half term.
• Please remember to bring a labelled sunhat after half term.
• Enjoy some well earned family time together if you can.

The children in Reception are continuing to make fantastic progress in phonics and should be very proud of how well they are doing! They are growing in confidence when sounding out and blending sounds to help them write words independently, and many are beginning to use their phonics knowledge naturally within sentences. It has also been lovely to see the children becoming more fluent and accurate when reading, particularly with words ending in “ed” and finding out which ‘ed’ sound it makes. Their willingness to practise every day is really helping them develop into confident early readers and writers! Thank you for your support with this!

The children have really enjoyed learning about habitats and animals this week. At the creative table, they have been busy making beautiful sea scenes inspired by coral reefs and different types of fish, showing lots of imagination and creativity. They have loved exploring colours, textures and shapes while talking about underwater habitats and the animals that live there. Outside, the children have been working together to build dens in the tuff tray using a range of different materials. They showed great teamwork, problem-solving skills and creativity as they explored how to create safe habitats and shelters for animals and themselves.

How you can help at home:

• Go on a walk and see which animals you can spot!
• Keep reading at home
• Practise writing words like ‘stop’ and ‘stamp’

This week in Reception we have been looking at our Earth and how we can take care of it. In our garden, we were learning to take care of it by collecting all the litter we found. We also had to litter pick all the rubbish in the sand pit that had blown in over night. We planted some new flowers to make our garden look and smell lovely. We carefully dug over the ground, made a hole, put the plants in, covered them and then we have been watering them a little bit each day.

Inside the classroom this week, we have been sorting the rubbish into different materials such as plastic and cardboard. We have learnt how recycling protects our wonderful planet and reduces waste.  We have all made a really big effort to recycle our paper waste in our recycling robot. He has been filled up lots which has meant our rubbish bins have been less full – this is a really good start! We have also learned a reduce, reuse, recycle song!

How you can help at home:

• Try to recycle or reuse your rubbish at home
• Make a recycling poster for your family so they can learn how to recycle too
• Can your child remember the reduce, reuse, recycle song?

Welcome back!

This week we kickstarted our learning with some very exciting news! We had a mystery letter arrive that was sent to us from a local hairdresser. The hairdresser was very confused about a visitor they’d had and asked us to help figure out who the mystery visitor was. With a little bit of thinking, we discovered it was Paddington who had been for a haircut! This was particularly exciting because our Literacy text this week is called Paddington’s Post. We also received  some additional  post later in the week which has inspired us all to write our own letters. Some of us wrote to Ms Adams and Mr Johnson to say thank you for helping to look after our school. We also received  post from other grown ups at school and even some from other children! We have spent lots of our explore time writing letters back.

Maths

This week in maths we have  been very   busy during explore time! We challenged ourselves to  find out the favourite fruit or colour in Teals and Kingfishers. We loved collecting the data and carefully recorded with ticks or drawings. We then had to count the total and enjoyed finding out the most popular. Some of us could even explain what we found out: “Apples were the best because there’s so many ticks!” “Bananas  only have 1 so they are not good”

How you can help at home:

• Write  a letter to a member of your family, friend or neighbour with some news. We’re sure they will be delighted to receive some post. Having an authentic audience really inspires the children.
• Practise writing for different purposes: labels for your toys, shopping lists, recipes, thank you cards etc
• Complete your own maths investigation – find ways to record information you collect. e.g. tick chart, pictogram for favourite fruit/animal/sport etc.

Reception have had a wonderful week celebrating Easter in our classroom, filled with a mix of meaningful learning and fun activities. On Wednesday,  Father Burton led a special assembly where he shared the Easter story with the children, helping them to understand why Easter is important and the story behind it.

Throughout the week, the children took part in a range of hands-on activities. They explored measuring by scooping rice into Easter eggs and using language such as full, empty, heavy and light. The children also enjoyed decorating their own Easter eggs using pasta, creating patterns and developing their fine motor skills. They also had an Easter egg hunt to complete in the forest. They showed great resilience in finding all 20 eggs! The children had lots of fun searching for hidden eggs and worked together brilliantly.

The Reception children also learnt about the Jewish festival of Passover. They learnt that Jewish people eat Matza instead of bread during this celebration as there wasn’t enough time for the bread to rise when the Jewish people tried to leave Egypt. The children were so excited to try some Matza, they were surprised by the texture and taste!

We hope you have a wonderful Easter and break 🙂

How you can help at home:

• Can you go on an (Easter) egg hunt? You could write clues for your family and friends.
• Read your phonics book everyday

This week we were very excited to welcome Little City to our school. When we arrived in the hall we could see some wonderful role play stations set up. We had a lovely time exploring all the different areas: vets, post office, fire and police station, supermarket, builders yard, hair salon, car garage, and cafe. Whilst we had a magical time exploring, we were also developing our communication and language skills, as well as understanding more about the world around us.

The staff that led the session said how well behaved we all were and he was very impressed with our tidying up skills too! We are very proud of you all.

Here is a highlight of all the fun we had:

How you can help at home:

• visit the Little City website and further explore
• talk about your child’s experience of the day – what was their favourite station, why?
• 8 continue to develop your child’s curiosity for the world around them by discussing different jobs and occupations as well as visiting places such as the library, local fire station, vets clinic etc which all offer free visits on special occasions.
•  continue reading and sharing books as well as print in the environment together – this really does have a huge impact on your child’s phonics and reading skills
• Enjoy the sunshine whilst it lasts!

This week in literacy Reception began our exciting new topic “Martha Maps Out”, which focuses on journeys and maps. At the beginning of the week, we read the story together and explored the maps that Martha drew in the book. The children looked carefully at where Martha’s journey started and ended, and we talked about how maps help us follow a route from one place to another. Later in the week, we took our learning outside and went on our own adventure to the forest area. The children were given a simple map to follow which led them to a picture from space where they had to draw the picture on the map according to where they found it. They did an amazing job carefully following the map and working together to find the correct pictures.

Over the next few weeks, the children will be creating their own journey books where they will write about a character going on a journey.

The children have also been exploring castles. We have been learning about the different features of a castle, such as towers, walls and gates, and discussing who might live in a castle, including kings, queens and knights. The children have really enjoyed using this knowledge to build their own castles, carefully thinking about the different parts they need to include.

How you can help at home: 

• Can your child make a map of the house?
• Can your child follow a map that they have drawn?
• Can they draw a castle and talk to you about who lives inside?

This week we celebrated World Book Day!

At the beginning of the week, Ms Adams asked us for some help. She wrote us a letter and came into our classroom to read it to us. She asked for some help to make her costume – she wanted us to think carefully about our school theme this year – sustainability. She asked if we could use materials that we have in the classroom to help make some of her costume. We loved this challenge and set to work finding lots of orange things quickly!

We had a wonderful time celebrating all things related to books and reading! We had a lovely whole school assembly which was full of colour and creativity. In Reception we had a lot of fun sharing our costumes and talking about our favourite books and characters. We also loved seeing the grown ups at school all dressed up!

During explore time, we made book marks and designed posters about our favourite books and stories. Some of us also brought in our favourite books to share. We had a lot of fun and it has inspired many of us to read a new book. We look forward to hearing all about them!

How you can help at home:

• Share your favourite stories together
• Let your child see you reading for pleasure – books, newspapers, recipes, magazines
• Challenge your child to choose a new book or a non-fiction book to share together
• Visit your local library
• Explore the world book day website: https://www.worldbookday.com/
• You might like to explore some of the Cbeebies bedtime stories here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001xg36/cbeebies-bedtime-stories
• Spend your World Book Day voucher and enjoy your new book!

This week, the Reception children enjoyed planting their own flowers using old welly boots as plant pots. They carefully scooped soil into the boots, chose a bulb, either a daffodil or a tulip,  and placed it inside before adding more soil and watering their plants.

We talked about what plants need to grow, such as soil, water, and sunlight, and discussed how changes in the weather can affect them. The children are excited to observe their plants over the coming weeks and watch for any changes as they begin to grow!

This activity also supported the children’s gross motor development, as they used large movements to sweep, reach, carry, and pick up materials. We talked about why it is important to look after our outdoor areas, and the children showed great teamwork while getting our garden ready to enjoy in the springtime!

How you can help at home:

• Look for signs of spring, write down what you can see!
• Can you count how many flowers you can see on a walk?
• Can you draw the flower you planted?

Maths

This week we have been busy learning all about shapes. We have played lots of fun games such as ‘guess my shape’, I Spy, shape hunts and sorting. We know that there are lots of different ways to sort shapes according to size, sides, corners and types of shape. We have been using our knowledge of the properties of shapes to describe them to each other. We have learned that a corner is where two sides join together to make a point and that some shapes have straight sides, curved sides or even both! We had a lot of fun during explore time where we were spotting shapes in the environment.

Pancake day

During singing assembly this week, we learned a song all about pancakes. We know that this is the start of Lent which is the build up to Easter. We talked lots about our favourite pancake toppings and had so much fin making them! They tasted great!

Phonics

This week we are reviewing all of the learning we have done so far in Reception. We are focusing on some of the digraphs and trigraphs that we find tricky. There have been lots of games of bingo, roll and read boards and even matching games.

How you can help at home:

• Talk about Pancake day – maybe have a go at making them or writing a recipe
• You might like to watch some of the Chinese New Year celebrations on TV or even live up in London over half term
• Continue reading every day and practising the phonics sounds as well as the harder to read and spell words that we have sent home
• Have a fun filled week!

Our Reception children had a wonderful time this week celebrating Hedgehog Day and learning all about these fascinating little animals. We explored where hedgehogs live, discovering that they like cosy places such as gardens, hedges and piles of leaves. The children also learned what hedgehogs eat, including insects, worms, and other tasty bugs. We shared some fun facts too — the children were amazed to learn that hedgehogs are nocturnal and use their sharp spines to curl up and stay safe.

The children got creative by making their own hedgehogs using clay. They carefully added spikes, using different tools and techniques, and showed great focus and imagination. The results were fantastic, and everyone was very proud of their work!

This week in maths, our Reception children have been busy exploring the parts of 6 and 7. We focused on helping the children understand that numbers can be made in different ways, building strong early number sense. The children used double die frames to show the different combinations that make 6 and 7. They enjoyed filling the frames, counting carefully, and talking about how the numbers could be split and put back together again. There were lots of great mathematical conversations as they compared amounts and explained their thinking.

How you can help at home: 

• Ask your child some fun facts about hedgehogs
• Ask your child to show you parts of 6 and 7 on their hands