Reception (Classes 2 & 3) - 2020/21

Wonderful Wildlife

In Reception this week we have shown an interest in learning all about some of the local wildlife. We learn about some of the birds and animals we might see in the area. We looked at photographs of different birds and we talked about the squirrel who lives in our secret garden. The children came up with the idea of making our very own eco-friendly wildlife feeders. We used string, hoop shaped cereals and fruit slices; the children were very proud that there was harmful no plastic in sight! We hung our DIY feeders all around our secret garden and we are very excited to go back next week to see if all of the food has been eaten.

Mini Picassos in the making

Our artist in Reception this half-term is Pablo Picasso. We have learnt that he was born in Spain but lived in France. We have also learnt that he was very important in the creation of the art style ‘Cubism’. Picasso loved to paint with bright colours and used an abstract style – that mean his artwork looks a little bit funny (Did you know he sometimes draws people with eyes on their chins!). Our teachers were very impressed when we all had a go at painting our own Picasso masterpiece. Over the next few weeks we will be drawing ourselves and turning them into amazing abstract artwork.

Releasing our Beautiful Butterflies

This week we have been in our secret garden releasing our beautiful butterflies back into their natural habitat. We have learnt lots about habitats this week and we have learnt that a butterflies’ habitat is a meadow of flowers or a garden. We enjoyed watching them fly away, we went back to our class and did some lovely observational drawings of our butterflies…some of us have even drawn our own butterfly pictures at home too!

Beautiful Butterflies

This morning in Pet’s corner we have had a very exciting development…We have 4 beautiful butterflies! We have been eagerly awaiting them emerging from their chrysalides. Over the last 14 days we have drawn pictures of what we thought they might look like when they emerged and we have talked about what we need to give them when they emerged to make sure they survived. This morning we enjoyed mixing their food. We have decided that we are going to release our butterflies in our brand new courtyard garden because there are lots of beautiful plants and flowers.

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week was Mental Health Awareness week. The theme for 2021 is all about connecting with nature. In Reception we talked about the many benefits nature can have on our Mental Health. Across the week we took part in a number of different activities in an attempt to connect with nature in as many ways as possible. We went outside to exercise to complete our daily mile. We enjoyed meditating to the sound of the birds singing. We enjoyed a trip to our secret garden where we enjoyed; reading some of our favourite stories, drawing some of the beautiful nature and playing games with our friends.

Caterpillars

After the bank Holiday weekend we have come back to a very exciting development in Pet’s Corner. Our caterpillars have all made their chrysalis, we now have 5 chrysalises hanging from the top of our caterpillar pot. We enjoyed talking about how they have changed over that last 2 weeks. We also made some predictions of what we think they might look like when they emerge as butterflies. We are very excited to release them into our secret garden.

Secret Garden Bug Hunt

As part of our ‘Not Everything Living has Legs’ topic we have been learning about lots of different mini-beasts (we are even going to be growing our own caterpillars in class soon!). We have discussed some of the different features of mini-beasts. We have also talked about the places they like to live and where we might find some insects hiding. We all went out to our secret garden to hunt for different mini-beasts. We used glass pots and insect viewers to look more closely at them; we found so many different insect species. Our favourite was a white slug!

The Daily Mile

Today was National Mile. We all went onto the yard to complete the daily mile; in Reception over the course of two days we managed to complete all 11 laps of the yard. We were all very proud of ourselves and were amazed at how strong it made our bodies and mind feel!

Caterpillars

We have had a very exciting delivery in Reception, we now have 5 pet caterpillars in Pet’s Corner as well as our stick insects. We are very excited to see them transform into butterflies. We have read the stories; ‘The Cautious Caterpillar’ and ‘Christopher’s Caterpillars’ and have learnt all about the life cycle of a caterpillar. At the minute our caterpillars are still very small and are eating lots of food. We are very excited to see them make their chrysalis and then emerge as beautiful butterflies!

Jasper’s Beanstalk

In Reception we have been reading the story of ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ as part of our “Not Everything Living has Legs” topic. We learnt all about what a plant needs to grow; sun, water and soil. We have looked at the life cycle of a bean plant and we have even planted our own beanstalks; we are waiting eagerly for them to start growing, we are hoping to hunt for giants when they have grown tall enough!  We have also been learning about measuring this week. We measured different heights of beanstalks and compared lengths by using the giant’s footprint.

Welcome Back

We have had lots of fun since coming back to school. We have settled back into the classroom very well and have loved seeing all of our friends again. We have continued our topic of ‘Our Wonderful World’ by reading the books ‘The Streets Beneath My Feet’ and ‘The Skies Above My Eyes’. We have learnt all about dinosaur fossils and how they are formed. We made our own dinosaur world in our tuft tray, complete with dinosaur fossils. We have also learn about space and Tim Peake.

Anti-bullying week

This week is a very important week; it is anti-bullying week. In Reception we looked at the different ways we can be a good friend, especially to somebody who is being bullied by being kind and helpful. We also learnt that it is okay to be different from our friends because that is what makes us all special. We read the story ‘Meesha Makes Friends’ and made our own friendly stick puppet toys. 

Children in Need

Classes 2 and 3 have been learning all about the amazing things children in need supports. We have been focussing in particular on how the charity supports those families who are less fortunate than ourselves. We donated lots of things to our local foodbanks. We also learnt lots about Pudsey Bear; Did you know that he is older than our teachers? We enjoyed coming to school with our Pudsey ears on and making our own Pudsey eye patches and Bliss bows.

Remembrance Day

Reception class have been learning that we wear poppies to help us to remember the brave soldiers. We learnt about all the things that brave men and women have had to sacrifice to keep us safe over the years. We looked at what Anderson shelter were and how children would have used them to hide from bombs during the war; we pretended that our reading den was an Anderson shelter and hid with Miss Norton. We made our own poppy wreaths and wore home-made poppies on our jumpers. We were all very quiet during the two minutes of silence to show our respect for all the fallen soldiers.

Amazing Autumn

In Reception we have noticed that while we have been away from school for half term, the leaves on the trees on our garden have started to change colour and fall to the ground. Today we all went to the garden and collected lots of Autumn treasure during a treasure hunt. We used a checklist to find lots of Autumnal items such as; conkers (We even found some that we still in their shell!), orange leaves, berries and we even found a squirrel hiding in one of the big fir trees! We also had a competition to see who could find the largest leaf, we tried very hard to line ourselves up in order based on the size of the leaves we found.  We brought all of our amazing Autumnal treasure back to the classrooms and we have been very busy all week using them to make lots of lovely pictures.

A Goat’s Coat

We read the story ‘A Goat’s Coat’ as part of our colours of the rainbow topic. We enjoyed this story as it is all about how being kind and sharing helps you make friends and gain their respect. Miss Norton and Miss Emmerson think we are particularly good at this in Reception. We did lots of different actives after we read the story, such as; acting it out ourselves with puppets, designing and making our own sweaters for Alfonso the goat.

Halloween

We have all been very excited this week because it is nearly Halloween. We read lots of Halloween themed stories, such as; ‘Room on the Broom’, ‘Pumpkin Soup’ and ‘Pumpkin feels lonely’. We had real pumpkins to explore. We discussed how they looked, felt and smelt and then we cut them open and talked about how they looked, felt and smelt inside. After we had explored with the pumpkins we scooped out the seeds and flesh with spoons and tweezers to strengthen our fine and gross motor skills. We even used the pumpkins to make our own spells and potions like the witch from ‘Room on the Broom’.

Spiders

This week in Reception we have been very interested in spiders. We found a nest of baby spiders in our outdoor area which led to lots of discussion about how spiders make their webs and how they used them to catch insects. We read the story ‘Spinderella’ and played a spiders vs scorpions game in PE.

Phonics

The children in reception have been working very hard in phonics this half-term and have now learnt all of the sounds in Phase 2 of Letters and Sounds Phonics. We have been doing lots of practise to segment and blend words to read them independently. Some of us have even been reading simple captions and sentences. Our teachers are also very impressed that we have been using our phonics independently in play and to help us write. 

Self-Serving Snack

We are working on our independence in Reception and this week we have opened up our self-serve snack area. We have to make sure that we wash our hands before eating, then we have a choice of three delicious fruits and vegetables to choose from every day, we wash our own snack and pour our own milk!

Name writing

Miss Emmerson and Miss Norton have set us a challenge this week and we are all very excited about it! Our challenge is to be able to write our first and second names by Christmas time, without using our name-cards! We have been practising writing our names every morning when we come into our classrooms and we have also started using our very own name cards to practise reading and ordering the letters in our names. We also have name-cards in our classes so that we can write our names on all of our pictures and creations.

PE

In PE this half-term our focus is on using space and making sure that we have enough space to ourselves in the hall to do PE safely. We have played lots of different games with our friends, where we have had to be very careful and negotiate lots of different spaces without bumping into anybody else.

Phonics

We are nearing the end of Phase 2 phonics in reception now and only have one new set of sounds to learn! Miss Emmerson and Miss Norton have been very impressed with our new phonics skills because we have been segmenting and blending to read words and today we even had a go at reading a longer caption! We have also been using our phonics skills in guided reading at school with our friends and at home with our grown-ups.

Colourful stories

In reception this half term all of our stories are centred around the colours of the rainbow. So far we have read; The Rainbow Fish, The Princess and the Wizard, The Colour Monster, The Day the Crayons Quit and Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. Alongside these stories we have been doing lots of mark making and experimenting by mixing different colour together to see what new colours we can make!

Henry the Hedgehog

This week we introduced a very special friend into our classes; Henry the Hedgehog. We learnt that hedgehogs sleep all day so, Henry does not like it when we use big voices and running feet inside our classroom because it disturbs his sleep! We have all tried very hard to keep quiet and Henry has been very impressed. He was so impressed that he has given some of us special certificates for showing respectful behaviour. When you are Henry’s Respectful superstar you get to keep Henry company during story-time as a reward.

Our First Week in Reception

During our first week in Reception we had lots of fun getting to know our new teachers and friends. We have lots of exciting areas across four different learning spaces to explore; a creative area where we can paint to our hearts content, a reading and writing area to practise our fantastic phonics, a role play and construction area for our imaginations to run wild in and an outside area to help us keep active. In our first two days in reception we spent lots of time in all of these areas.

Super Soft Play!

In Reception we are very lucky to have access to our very own Soft Play area, we all look forward to our two weekly sessions. We especially love the big blue slide because we can go down super-fast. We also love the ball pit, and the bumpy log slide too. We always have so much fun with all our friends in soft play!

Phonics

This week in Phonics we have started to learn some of the Phase 2 sounds from letters and sounds. So far we have looked at: s, a, t, p, i, n and m. We have also started to read some simple words that have those sounds in. Our teachers are very impressed with how hard we have all tried!

Numbers

This year in Reception we are focusing on numbers to 10, we are using Ten Town to support the teaching of numbers as they have lovely rhymes to help us remember how to form our numbers correctly. So far we are all well on our way to becoming experts in numbers to 5; we can all tell you what they look like and show you on our fingers!

Exploring in the Secret Garden

Today in Reception we all went out to enjoy the sunshine and explore in the secret garden! We had so much fun looking for pine cones, playing hide and seek in the maze, searching for wildlife in the trees and collecting lots of Autumnal treasure to take back to our classroom; we found: lots of pine cones, some beech nuts, funny shaped sticks, stones, feathers, apples and… we even found a lost ball!

The Rainbow Fish

The first story we are reading in our literacy lessons is; ‘The Rainbow fish’ by Marcus Pfister. We liked reading this story because it is all about how to be a good friend, we learnt that if you are kind to others they are kind back. We each decorated our own Rainbow Fish and came up with our own rules on how to be a good friend for our class charter. We have spent the week doing lots of different activities based on the story.

Reception 2019/20

Bug Hotel

In Reception as part of our RRSA (Rights Respecting School Award) we are trying our very best to be more environmentally friendly. We have a weekly Eco warrior who makes sure that all of our lights are switched off when we are not in the room to save electricity.

This week we talked about other ways we could help the environment and decided that we could make our outdoor area more attractive to wildlife. We decided to make a bug hotel. We all collected sticks and pine cones and put them into our hotel along with some bricks and some bamboo canes.

Autumn Crafternoon

This week in Reception we had our Autumn stay and play. We enjoyed spending some time with our grown-ups showing them how we have settled into Reception over the last eight weeks. We all shared an Autumn story; even our grown-ups! making leafy hedgehogs Then we did lots of fun crafty activities like; making leafy hedgehogs, creating leaf rubbings, making clay hedgehogs and we had a chocolate dipping station.

Brilliant Beebots

In Reception we have been using the bee-bots to learn some basic computer programming skills. We talked about how just like a computer, the bee-bots have their own memory and can remember lots of instructions at the same time. Before we gave it new instructions we had to remember to tell the bee-bot to forget our last instruction. We used our number skills and took it in turns to make the bee-bots move across the mat from 0-10. We had lots of fun!

Our first week

In reception we have had a very busy first week. We have enjoyed making new friends and getting to know our teachers. We have tried very hard all week in our new lessons and we are getting very good at singing the alphabet chant to help us in Phonics. We have particularly enjoyed our first PE lesson where we played some team building games to help us get to know our friend’s names.