reception

Welcome to Reception

In Reception we have two reception classes. Each class has a Teacher and a Teaching Assistant. We have a beautiful learning environment consisting of two classrooms joined together by sliding doors. During our direct teaching times children learn in their own classroom with their own teacher and during our independent learning times, we can open the doors to create a vast learning space where children are free to explore the learning opportunities in each classroom. We also have a fantastic outdoor learning space which children can access throughout the day.

Meet the staff

Class RW is taught by Mrs Walker and their Teaching Assistant is Mrs Wason

Class RO'C is taught by Mrs O'Connor and their Teaching Assistant is Mrs Salt

 

Key Information for Reception classes:

PE is on a Tuesday and Thursday.   Please remember that the children need to come dressed in PE clothes.

Reading books are sent home every Friday. Please spend time with your child reading and record what they have read in their reading log. Please make sure that the books are returned the following Monday. We also send home a library book which your child has chosen on a Friday, please enjoy reading this book to your child.

Please send in a waterbottle each day with your child filled with water.

Children also need to bring in a red Barnfields book bag each day and we will put any letters or information you may need into this.

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Autumn 1 Learning in Reception

We have had an amazing start to the Reception year with lots of inspiring learning opportunities.  Our main focus this half term is phonics, and the children are enjoying being immersed in multi-sensory activities both inside and outdoors to help them remember all the individual letter sounds. For example, to reinforce the letter 'a' we invited the Animal Lady into school and had an exciting morning seeing and holding a variety of animals, we had a party and played pass the parcel and won prizes to reinforce the teaching of 'p' and had a teddy bear's tea party to support the teaching of 't'.

This half term in Maths we are introducing children to early number using Numberblocks, which helps to bring the numbers and ideas to life in the world around them.  We then teach key mathematical ideas that are embedded in the programmes such as key mathematical concepts and mathematical language.  The children then rehearse these skills practically through play.

Our topic this half term is 'Ourselves.' We have shared the story The Colour Monster which the children have loved. This has been a springboard for children to identify and discuss a range of emotions. We have even created sensory jars to represent the colours of the feelings in the book. The children really love holding these and talking about their own feelings. Next we will create our own self-portraits looking closely at our features and then using these to discuss our similarities and differences. We will be learning that we are all unique and discussing what makes us special.

Autumn 2 Learning in Reception

Our topic this half term was light and dark. We began this topic by learning all about Bonfire Night.  The children created some amazing firework themed artwork and produced some wonderful writing about what they could see and hear on Bonfire Night. The children enjoyed learning about Diwali, the festival of lights, which is celebrated by many religions. We enjoyed finding out how this special festival is celebrated and looked at the similarities and differences between this and the special occasions that the children celebrate.

Nocturnal animals were our next area of discovery. The children found out useful facts about a variety of these animals. We then ventured into space and using the book ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy, as our stimulus we imagined where we would go in our rockets. We learnt all about the planets and our solar system.  To end our term the children had a fabulous time learning about the Christmas festival, wrote letters to Santa and enjoyed a winter walk to the post box to send their letters to him.

Spring 1 Learning in Reception

We welcomed the children back and dived straight into learning all about Fairy Tales. We based our learning on fictional tales including Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, and a favourite contemporary story Frozen. Our learning was launched with a ‘wow’, as both the children and adults dressed up as their favourite fictional character. We had a crime scene set up in the classroom where the children investigated who the culprit was in the case of the missing porridge. With their deductive skills and clue hunting they discovered that Goldilocks was the guilty party! This half term the children also had a fun time planting beans and writing fictional stories about what they would like to find at the top of their beanstalk. Science activities were based on the fairy tale Frozen, and the children explored the concepts of freezing and melting.

We all gained more exciting knowledge when we learnt about the Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated. The children had great fun tasting Chinese food and learning all about the similarities and differences in celebrations around the world.

To celebrate the children’s hard work and behaviour we had a well being afternoon where we turned our classroom into a spa! This was in recognition of Children’s Mental Health Week.  The children had an amazing afternoon enjoying facials, head and shoulder massages, foot spa’s, nail bars and yoga. What a fabulous experience it all was.

Within maths, we have continued using the White Rose Maths programme, learning about numbers to five, as well as finding 1 more than, 1 less than, and the same as or equal to. We also continued to dive deeper into learning about the composition of numbers 6, 7, and 8.

Spring 2 Learning in Reception

Our learning this term has been all about Spring and new life. The children had fun taking a walk in our local area to look for signs of Spring and created a record of all the things they had spotted, such as blossom trees, nests and daffodils. They wrote all about what they had seen and learnt.  The children were able to label the parts of a daffodil, name many baby animals and learnt information about a variety of new life in Spring.  Outdoors we have planted lots of flower and vegetable seeds and learnt all about what a plant needs to survive. We also completed our life cycle of a sunflower fact sheet. We were fortunate to have live frogspawn in our classroom for the children to observe and they have witnessed them change into tadpoles.

The children have also been learning about Mother’s Day and how it is celebrated. We have talked about all the things we love about our Mums and the children presented their Mum’s with a beautifully handwritten letter to keep as a memento.

Our last week of learning has been all about Easter, how it is celebrated around the world and the different things families and communities do at this special time. The children had great fun creating Easter cards, Easter nests and wrote about the fictional story of the ‘Bunny who Saved Easter’.

White Rose Maths has been continued throughout this half term with the theme ‘Building 9 and 10. The children are also further developing their ability to subitise and their knowledge of number bonds to 5, as well as beginning to learn our number bonds to 10.

 

Summer 2 Learning in Reception

During our summer term we will begin learning about minibeasts. We will look at caterpillars and their journey into becoming a butterfly as well as studying life cycles and the importance of bees. The children will also have the opportunity to look at bug habitats.

We can't wait to start this learning journey together.

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Partnership with Parents

In Reception, we value working alongside parents and encourage parents to share in our learning. This term we have held a successful literacy evening and explained how we teach Phonics, Reading and Writing in Reception.  This will enable parents to better support their child's learning.  We truly believe that parents play the key role in children's learning. They are experts on their own children and they are a child's first and enduring educators. We encourage parents to be actively involved in their children's learning and welcome home observations detailing what their children have accomplished at home. These can be added to the children's Learning Journey on Tapestry.

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