We have loved looking at photos and talking about our year in Reception Class, here are some of our favourite things to do in reception and the things we remember…

“I love playing in the home corner beech hut”

“My favourite thing is playing otside in the sandpit.”

“Playing in the writing area.”

“I like writing cards for everyone to come to my house.”

“Being in the reading area because I love reading books.”

“I like playing ing the construction area building aeroplanes.”

“I like dipping my feet in the spa.”

“I like drawing with Evie.”

“I like being outdoors with Olivia.”

“I like drawing maps.”

“I like playing with Lucy.”

“I love going to smithies farm.” 

“We had chocolate bingo.”

“Dressing up in costumes for world book day.”

“I love the blue day for the NHS.”

“We had a little celebration for the jubilee and my mummy and daddy came to eat with us.”

“I like phonics.”

“My favourite thing is the reading area reading the rainbow fish.”

“Playing with Stanley finding bugs and make a bug hotel for them.”

“I like practicing my dance moves outdoors for my dance class.”

“I like playing with Jessica in the mud kitchen making chocolate cake.” 

“I enjoy playing with Brooke.”

Summer Term 2

Summer Term 2 - Week 7 - Our Final week in Reception Class
 

Our final week in Reception has been lots of fun and very hot! ☀️☀️ We have enjoyed our final week of exploring our Reception provision with our friends! 
We opened our very own spa in Reception, to help us to relax and keep cool in the hot weather. We have had lots of fun whilst staying safe in the sun.

We enjoyed a calm summer party in the classroom and our favourite game was pass the parcel! 
 

Summer Term 2 - Week 6

Reception class have had great final week in Reception class. We have enjoyed exploring our summer themed provision, writing about the seaside and applying our phonics learning from this term. 

This week, we have had transition sessions which has included us meeting our Year 1 teacher and some of our class have been helpers for the new children starting school; showing where we put our things and where we have fun and play! 

Summer Term 2 - Week 4

Reception class have had a wonderful week.  In Phonics we have been consolidating our recent learning and have enjoyed writing sentences with these sounds in.  During literacy we have been focussed on rhyming; we have been learning seaside rhymes and poems; and we have been trying to find rhyming words linked to seaside objects such as shell, sand and hat. We have enjoyed exploring our indoor and outdoor provision; role playing on the beach; writing sentences from words we have found in the sand; and cutting and sticking to create our own seaside.  

On Thursday it was Relationships Day, for this Reception have been talking about the importance of loving yourself. The children have been showing self-love by drawing themselves and writing what that they like about themselves, special things about themselves and things that they are good at. 

During our Gymnastics sessions this term we have been learning a class routine.  This week we have showcased our routine to the Pre-School children and we were very proud of ourselves. 

Summer Term 2 - Week 2

It has been another very busy and exciting week in Reception Class. 
This week we have begun our ‘seaside’ topic. In literacy, we have began by exploring the text ‘What the Ladybird heard at the Seaside’.  During Maths this week we have been focussed on Doubling numbers and sharing amounts out equally. 

We have also been making cards for Father’s Day and have enjoyed writing the reasons why we love our Daddy’s and special people to us. 
 

Our extra curricular experiences this week have included Wild one forest school adventure and pop-up CPR event. Alongside our specialist teachers providing us with French and Gymnastics sessions. 

Summer Term 2 - Week 1

Reception class have had a great first week back to school, filled with Jubilee celebrations. 
 

On our first day back we have enjoyed sharing and writing about our half term holiday, including our exciting Jubilee celebrations. We have particularly enjoyed being back with our friends at school and have enjoyed our special activities this week which included a Jubilee picnic joined by our families, the Mayor coming into school to open our jubilee garden and our jubilee dress up day!  This week during phonics we have been focussed on the sounds; ee and ai.  During maths we have begun our ‘20 and beyond’ unit and have been exploring numbers from 10 to 20.  We have been writing party food lists, drawing and labelling party food and have written instructions for how to make a jam sandwich (as well as making and eating jam sandwiches).  We have also enjoyed learning through play in our newly enhanced indoor and outdoor classroom provision.

Summer Term 1

Summer Term 1 - Week 6

Our final week of this half term has been filled with exciting enhancements.  On Tuesday we took part in sports day and on Wednesday we had our Forest school morning with Wild One Adventures.  This week we have been completing our curriculum outcomes, helping to create our class book ‘The Queens Hat in our Local Area’ and writing about London landmarks.  We have enjoyed exploring the provision and have been independently implementing our phonics knowledge into our mark making and writing frequently which has been wonderful!

We are very much looking forward to the next and final half term in Reception class and supporting the children in their transition to Year 1.

Summer Term 1 - Week 3 

Reception class have had another wonderful week.  We have enjoyed our weekly show and tell, sharing our photos from home that our families have uploaded onto tapestry, along with our weekend news writing.  During our literacy session we have been retelling the story of The Queens Hat.  We first worked together as a class to orally retell the story, using a story map.  We then worked in groups to write captions for a story map, beginning with the Queen losing her hat through to the end when she finds her hat.  We showed super team work and supported our friends by sounding out words using our sound fingers.  This week in Phonics we have been consolidating our Phase 3 learning and we have really enjoyed writing sentences with these sounds in.  In Maths we have been focused on sharing using the vocabulary more, less and equal. We have also been using the part, part, whole model to find different ways of composing 20.   During provision we have particularly enjoyed colour mixing with water colours, dressing up as The Queen (with her hat on!) and playing with the throwing and catching resources in our outdoor area. 

 
Our curriculum enhancements this week have included our French session, recapping our learning of breakfast foods in French, with Madame Wardle and have followed up our learning with Miss Clayton by drawing and labelling what we had for breakfast, and telling our friends in French.

We have also been enjoying our Gymnastics session, where we have been practising a whole class gymnastic routine. 

This week in Reception, we have also been learning all about Eid and Ramadan. We watched a video and discussed what Eid is and how and why it is celebrated. The children enjoyed asking lots of questions and showed super listening and communication skills. 

The children then enjoyed taking part in some Eid themed activities in provision. When we came back to the carpet we read a story together called ‘Rameena’s Ramadan’ then on some big paper the children where asked to draw things that they thought represented Eid. The children drew pictures of fireworks, families, presents and yummy food and some wrote ‘Happy Eid’ or ‘Eid Mubarak’. 

Summer Term 1 - Week 2

During our Literacy learning, we have started to explore our core text - The Queens Hat by Steve Antony.  We have listened and responded to the text, as well as writing where the Queens Hat had landed in the story and writing speech bubbles for the Queen - we found it very funny reading these out to our partners in a posh 'Queen's' voice.  This week in Phonics we have learnt new sounds: ure & air, we have played games alongside our phonics sessions to embed our learning of these sounds and have been creating tricky word rainbows in provision  In Maths we have been focused on comparing and ordering and number bonds 10-20, we have explored these objectives in the maths area and during group sessions on the carpet.  During provision we have particularly enjoyed reading in our outdoor area, using the physical development equipment outdoors and our Role Play castle where we have been dressing up and princesses and knights. We have begun to explore the artist Jackson Pollock, and have created our own Union Jack drip paintings.  Our curriculum enhancements this week have included our French session, learning breakfast foods in French and our Gymnastics session where we have been practising gymnastic routines. 

Summer Term 1 - Week 1

Reception class have had a great first week back to school, after the Easter break.  

We have been setting back into our routines and have enjoyed being back spending time with our friends.  This week during phonics we have recapped our prior learning and have learnt a new sound: ear.  During maths we have begun our ‘20 and beyond’ unit and have been exploring numbers from 10 to 20.  We have also enjoyed learning through play in our newly enhanced indoor and outdoor classroom provision.

Spring Term 2

Spring Term 2 - Week 6

Our first school trip - Smithill’s farm
To start the day we had a bumpy tractor ride which took us up to the donkey field! We all got a slice of bread and fed the donkeys, it was lots of fun! Then we took turns to ride a donkey! The donkeys were so lovely and friendly - some of us chose to just sit on the donkey and others went for a little ride!  Lunch time in the barn was very exciting, we all sat together at a huge table and enjoyed our packed lunches and milk.  After lunch we had a little play on the tractor and tyres. During the busy afternoon we have visited pets corner, which was wonderful!  We got to feed baby goats their milk. We then pet lambs, baby Pygmy goats, baby alpacas, an eagle owl and a young emu.  We then took a look at some of the other farm animals, such as ponies, cows and pigs as well as the maternity section of the barn where we saw pregnant cows, sheep and pigs. It was very exciting to see newborn piglets and a baby llama too! 

To finish our day we watched the farmers milking the cows, listening to how many times the cows are milked per day, how much milk the cows produce and what happens to the milk once it leaves the cows.  We then got back onto the coach and made our way safely home, we hope you had a wonderful day reception- you have all been superstars today and couldn’t be more proud of you all. 👏🌟

Easter

During our learning about Easter, we have been exploring the importance of the cross. As a treat we have tried hot cross buns. 

Mothering Sunday 

As part of our literacy development this week we have been writing Why we love our Mummy. 
Take a look at our wonderful writing- we are very proud and hope they make our mummy’s smile! 

Spring Term 2 - Week 5
 

After caring for or lovely chicks this week it was time to say goodbye, but not before a little cuddle! 🐥☺️ We were sad to see the chicks go but look forward to seeing the updates as they grow up. 

We have been busy retelling and sequencing the Jack and the Beanstalk story this week and have been exploring 3D shape and further developing our understanding of numbers up to 10.  

Spring Term 2 - Week 4
 

On Monday we arrived at school to find some of our chicks had hatched! We then spent the rest of the day observing the other chicks in our incubator hatch which was a wonderful experience! We have been caring for the chicks, as well as getting to hold the chicks. Some of us have really enjoyed writing messages to the chicks! 
 

This week, in Phonics we have learnt new sounds: ow and ur. We have been playing games and writing sentences with these new sounds in to secure our learning.  We have also been doing lots of independent mark making and writing in provision- showing our wonderful skills.  
In Maths we have been exploring shape, building with shapes and matching 3D shapes. 
 

On Friday for Red Nose Day, we watched the talent show in the hall, baked red nose day jam buns and enjoyed lots of red nose day themed provision activities. We also wrote instructions on ‘How to get ready for red nose day’ and we really enjoyed explaining how we had each got ready with our different red clothes and noses! 

Spring Term 2 - Week 3
 

We have had another busy week of learning in EYFS Class. Our week began with a West End in Schools Workshop, where we listened to the story ‘Where the wild thing are’ and retold the story in dance, using our bodies. We responded to this session during our focussed learning to draw and label our own ‘Wild thing’! 

This week in Phonics we have been reconsolidating our Phase 3 sounds up to now and practising our letter formation. We have also been doing lots of independent mark making and writing in provision- showing our wonderful skills.  In Maths we have been focused on the composition of the number 10, comparing numbers within 10 and making 10.

Our curriculum enhancements this week have included our French session, continuing to learn and practise the days of the week in French and in our Gymnastics session where we have been developing our control and balance through different movements.

Spring Term 2 - Week 2
 

What a busy and exciting week we have had!

During our Literacy learning, we have been making links to the exciting events this week - Pancake day and World Book Day.  We have labelled and written a shopping list of ingredients to make pancakes; drawn and written a caption about the character we have dressed up as for World Book Day; and written about our Forest School adventure last week.  This week in Phonics we have learnt two new sounds: ar & or, we have played games alongside our phonics sessions to embed our learning of these sounds, such as the game SPLAT which we then chose to enhance and continue independently in our choosing time.  In Maths we have been focused on the composition of the numbers 9 and 10, which we have explored in the maths area and during group sessions on the carpet.  In the creative area we have been collaging our own golden hens using paper, scissors and glue. We have also turned branches into beanstalks by painting and collaging.  In our Role Play farmers market we have really enjoyed playing shops; filling our baskets up with items, paying at the till, bagging up items and writing receipts. 

On Tuesday, it was Pancake Day! We enjoyed lots of pancake day themed activities and got to make (and EAT!) our pancakes with all of our favourite toppings on!  SCRUPTIOUS!

Our curriculum enhancements this week have included our French session, learning the days of the week in French and our Gymnastics session where we have been practising our forward rolls. 

World Book Day 

EYFS have had a wonderful World Book Day, which has included a character catwalk, sharing our wonderful books from home and using our early writing skills to write who we have come as for World Book Day and why. What an exciting day! 

Spring Term 2 - Week 1

This week we have settled back into school, enjoyed being back with our friends and learning our new daily routines.

This week we have been very excited to start our new theme of Jack and the Beanstalk. 

In Literacy we have been listening and responding to the story, we have been talking about the characters and their actions in the book and we have then written and described the main characters in the story.  In Maths we have been focused on the days of the week and comparing and measuring length and height. We have especially enjoyed measuring different sizes beanstalks with the multilink cubes and have enjoyed exploring the magic bean tray.  In the creative area we have been collaging our own golden hens using paper, scissors and glue. We have also really enjoyed reading and looking at different Jack and the Beanstalk books and plant non-fiction books in our reading area. It has been great fun building our own beanstalks in the construction area and playing with the Jack and the Beanstalk characters in the small world. We have also started to develop our role play in our farmers market in the home corner! 

On Wednesday, we have had a special visit from the poet Andy Tooze.  Andy came to visit us in our classroom, we joined in with lots of poems and actions. We especially loved the silly poems that we thought were very funny, like splashing in the bath!  Andy Tooze was very impressed with our love and enthusiasm for the poems!

This week we have also had a special deliver of hen eggs!  These are nice and safe in our incubator for us to observe and care for until the chicks hatch - we are super excited! We have been exploring the lifecycles of chickens this week and will continue throughout this half term. :)

Jack and the Beanstalk Forest School Adventure

To spark the children's interest of Jack and the Beanstalk, we have had a wonderful forest school adventure.

First, we had a discussion about why we might carry ropes on an adventure and about the two different ropes that Louise had brought with her, one was a bouncy rope and the other floated on water! Then, carrying the ropes we walked down to the reservoir.

When we arrived at the magical beanstalk, we worked together as teams to stretch out the rope from its knot. Next, half of the group slid down the banking to be Jack, and the other half stayed with the rope at the top to be the Giants. The giants had to throw the rope down to Jack who was then placed into the rope harness and supported by the giants to walk up the beanstalk. We all had a turn at being Jack and being the giant helping Jack up the beanstalk. What a fantastic effort!

After lots of hard work climbing, we headed back to find our camp and went on a golden egg hunt! We found all 7 hidden eggs in the grass, up the trees, and under a fallen tree. The golden hen then appeared! We enjoyed stroking the hens feathers and feeding her corn.

To end our adventure we sat around the fire, watching popcorn cook on the fire pit and then all had popcorn for our snack!

Well done to everyone in Reception class for a fantastic adventure, you have shown so much perseverance today and we are so proud of the confidence you are all building as outdoor explorers!

Spring Term 1

Spring Term 1 - Week 5

We have had a very exciting week which has included celebrating Chinese New Year. We have listened to the Chinese New Year Zodiac Story and have learnt that it is the year of the tiger. We have loved exploring all about tigers which has included creating our own little fact files about tigers and exploring the story of The Tiger Who Came to Tea 🐅. 
 

During phonics we have been consolidating our learning up to now of the the phase 3 sounds, our new phonemes have been oo(long) and oo(short). Our tricky words focus this week have been: some and when, as well as reconsolidating all of our previous tricky words.  We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences and have particularly enjoyed writing about tigers and the tiger who came to tea!  This week's focus in maths has been the composition and arrangements of numbers 6, 7 & 8, as well as 1 more and 1 less from up to 8 items.

Spring Term 1 - Week 4

Well done to all of our reception children for another wonderful week in school.
 

During phonics we have been consolidating our learning up to now of the the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds, our new phonemes have been oa and igh. Our tricky words focus this week has been; are and like,as well as reconsolidating all of our previous tricky words.  We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences and have particularly enjoyed writing, making and giving cards in the provision for our families and peers.  This week's focus in maths has been mass – heavier and lighter than, measuring capacity, full and empty. We have enjoyed exploring the scales in provision and talking about measuring capacity through day to day routines i.e. how full is your cup at lunchtime?  Our Gymnastics session with Mrs Winward has been focussed on developing our gross motor skills through balance, control and coordination across benches and different gym equipment - we have especially enjoyed jumping off the bench, learning to land safely on the mat with both feet, knees bent and our arms stretched out.  Our French sessions with Madame Wardle have continued  - this week continuing to learn the names of fruit in French through lots of fun games and telling Madame Wardle our favourite fruits!  In our expressive arts and design session, we have been painting tigers, ready for next weeks Chinese New Year, Tiger week! We used paint on black paper to create our tigers, first drawing then painting our tigers using photographs of real tigers.
 

Fundamental Movement Skills Workshop - Friday 28th January

This week, on Friday we enjoyed taking part in a fundamental movement skills workshop, we listened well to coach Dom and followed his instructions.  Firstly we explored the yard as if we were in the jungle being different animals using our gross motor skills moving different body parts, jumping, running, hopping and swinging.
We then played shark tag! The children really enjoyed playing this and is our new favourite game!  We had lots of fun and listened really well.  Well done reception 😀

Spring Term 1 - Week 3

Well done to all of our reception children for another wonderful week in school.  In the EYFS provision the children have particularly enjoyed exploring our frozen outdoor area, creating jungle animal masks then using these in role play, building amazing structures in the construction area and reading/retelling jungle themed stories in the reading area. 
 

During phonics we have been consolidating our learning up to now of the the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds, especially ch, th, ai, and igh.  Our tricky words this week have been; are and like.  We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences.  This week's focus in maths has been the composition of numbers to 5 in three groups and working out how many objects are hiding from a set amount.  We had another wonderful Gymnastics session with Mrs Winward, developing our balance, control and coordination across benches and through different movements.  Our French sessions with Madame Wardle have continued  - this week continuing to learn the names of fruit in French through lots of fun games.  In our expressive arts and design session, we have been drawing tigers, using graphite pencils.  We have explored the graphite pencils, creating different marks, before drawing our wonderful tigers with the photographs to help us. 
 

Spring Term 1 - Week 2

This week, as well as practising the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds we have already learned in phonics, we have learnt some new phoneme/grapheme's: ee and ai. Our tricky words this week are all and her.  We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences. We tried really hard to write about our Forest school session this week and also writing the names of animals in the jungle.  This week's focus in maths has been the composition of numbers to 5; creating equal and unequal groups; and spiting items into two groups and saying how many there are altogether.  We had another wonderful Gymnastics session with Mrs Winward and have continued our French sessions with Madame Wardle - this week practising the names of fruit in French.  We had a wonderful time on our weekly welly walk that took us through the woods, over and under fallen trees and into the stream.  In our expressive arts and design session, we have continued to look at the work of the artist Henri Rousseau. We have looked at his paintings of jungle animals surrounded by jungle leaves and trees. We talked about some of the animals being camouflaged.  The children were asked to choose an animal, cut it out and stick it onto their paper and then surround or camouflage the jungle animal in the jungle.  We used the skills of colour mixing greens in last week’s session to create the colours we needed and looked at real photos of jungle trees and leaves to help us paint them.

Forest School Session 

What an amazing time we had at our wild one adventure with Louise, on Wednesday! 

First we had a woodland story time where we listened to the story ‘Monkey Puzzle’ bu Julia Donaldson.  This is one of our favourite books so we joined in with lots of the repeated refrains and predicted the next pages!  We then received our jungle binoculars which we camouflaged using items foraged from the woodland.  Using our jungle binoculars we followed the trail, searching for jungle animals.  At the end of the trail we found a tiger lay in the trees and to see the tiger we had to get up a steep hill. We used a rope and alternated pulling using both our hands to navigate up the hill.  Once we got to the top of the hill, to spot the friendly tiger we used the Jungle mud slide to get us back down the hill!  We trekked back to the campsite to end our jungle adventure with marshmallows around the fire and confidently remembered our fire safety rules around the fire pit. 

A wonderful morning in the woods! 

Spring Term 1 - Week 1

After a wonderful Christmas break, we have started the New Year and Spring term with lots of fun in our EYFS class. We have spent this week settling back into school, learning our new routines and continuing to build relationships with our peers. 
We have started talking about our whole school theme - Amazing Asia, and our focus text The jungle Book and other Asian themed books. We have begun to exploring our newly enhanced provision, with a jungle small world and school role play.

This week, as well as practising the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds we have already learned in phonics, we have learnt some new phoneme/grapheme's: no, th. Our tricky words this week are you and they. 
We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences. In maths we have started our new ‘Alive in 5’ theme, looking at numbers 0 to 5 and different ways we can represent these numbers.  During maths group sessions we have also really enjoyed singing wobbling soldiers and clapping, marching and tapping out different numbers all the way up to 20.  We have also started our Gymnastics sessions with Mrs Winward and have continued our French sessions with Madame Wardle. 
 

Here is what we have most enjoyed this week:

Lucy "I liked playing with my friends"

Jessica "I liked playing Mummy and Daddys in the home corner"

Brooke "I enjoyed doing the lines with Queenie when we write the animals names"

Alex "I like cutting and drawing with Theo"

Evie "Playing lego, building a castle"

Nancy "I like playing in the home corner, schools.

Autumn Term 2

Autumn Term 2 - Week 7

Autumn Term 2 - Week 6

We have had a very exciting and festive week, which has included our Nativity filming (The Whoops-A-Daisy Angel), Christmas jumper day and Christmas Dinner! 

We have had lots of fun in our provision this week. In the writing area we have been creating christmas cards, labelling winter clothing and exploring the resources available. In our creative area this week we have been particularly interested in cutting and sticking to create classroom decorations such as paper chains and snowflakes. We have really enjoyed the nativity scene in our reflection area, acting out using the small world nativity characters. In the malleable area we have been exploring water and ice with small world arctic animals and different tools to support our fine motor skills (such as pipets). 
 

This week, as well as practising the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds we have already learned in phonics, we have learnt some new phoneme/grapheme's: y, z & zz. Our tricky words this week are me, we and be.  We have all done fantastic writing, practicing these graphemes in words and sentences too! 

We can't wait for another wonderful week in school, before we break up for the Christmas holidays next Friday 17th December at 1.15pm!  

Autumn Term 2 - Week 5

Autumn Term 2 - Week 4

We have had another great week in EYFS Reception Class. 
 

This week, in phonics we have focussed on: l, ll, f, ff. We have practised the sounds through lots of wonderful games and we have also applied our phonics learning to our mark making and writing activities. 

In the indoor and outdoor provision this week we have particularly enjoyed: role playing teachers and doctors; collecting autumn leaves using the litter pickers and brushes; cutting, sticking and mark making in the new post office area; painting using the water colours in the creative area; and constructing and exploring the dinosaurs in the construction area. 

We have also been trying really hard during our Christmas Nativity practise and we can't wait to share this virtually with our families! 

Autumn Term 2 - Week 3
 

What an exciting week we have had in EYFS Reception Class. 
 

In provision we have been enjoying: exploring water through our fine motor skills; role playing a doctors surgery; building towers in the construction area; and creating words in playdough using our early letter and phonics knowledge.  During our expressive arts and design session we have been creating candle holders using clay. 
 

On Friday, to raise money for Children in Need we have dressed up in spotty/Pudsey themed outfits and have enjoyed a range of fun activities! 

Autumn Term 2 - Week 2

It has been another busy week of exploring in our EYFS Reception Class. 

In provision we have been exploring making sound and playing musical instruments alongside our peers, we have also re-used rice, lentils and glitter from our sensory tray and our milk bottles to create our own musical shakers - after creating our shakers we decorated them in the creative area. Many of us were very excited about FIREWORKS, after a busy weekend of firework displays and events. We have mark made our own fireworks using different resources and mediums such as paunt and oil pastels in our EAD session with Mrs Dixon. This interest also lead us to some writing opportunities - writing firework sounds and words!  We talked with our partners about the sounds fireworks made as well as words to describe the sounds and worked hard, using our early phonics and letter knowledge to match phones with graphemes, as well as some of us writing words to describe what sounds fireworks make such as ‘pop’ ‘fiz’ ‘crash’.  We have been creating cvc words in phonics, using phoneme frames. We use our sound fingers to sound out phonemes in words and finding the matching graphemes to build the words - some children then practised writing the words!  In our maths area we have been counting objects up to 10, using our fine motor skills we have selected water beads to count by placing them in the numicon holes - we have then counted the amount and matched the number to a numeral turtle! 

We have enjoyed creating poppy pictures for Remembrance Day, using paint and glitter to create our own representations of the poppies. We have spoken about Remembrance day, why we celebrate Remembrance Day and what people do on Remembrance Day to Remember the soldiers who fought for our country.  Together we created our class poppy for the memorial service. 

Wednesday's Welly Walk

We had a lovely walk around the local woodland area, we talked about how to keep safe on our walk, we explored the woodland, we painted poppies on trees for Remembrance Day and ended with our snack outdoors and exploration of the paddock.

Autumn Term 2 - Week 1

We have had a busy first week back at school.  This week we have celebrated Diwali and also talked about bonfire night - why we celebrate this and how to keep safe.  This half term is filled with lots of celebrations and we will be providing the children with many opportunities to explore these events and share their own interests, alongside the ‘Factual Footprints’ whole school theme where we will be focussing on DINOSAURS!  This week in the provision the children have enjoyed mark making rangoli patterns, role playing doctors, creating cities in the construction area and enjoying pretending to book us all holidays at the children’s computer desk! 

Here is what the children have said about their week:

Oliver says: "I loved playing with Ethan, making a giant theme park - in the construction area"

Brooke says "I liked playing in the home corner with Queenie"

Bobbi says "I like playing in the office"

Jessica says "I liked the tunnel where the ribbons were" (Outdoor adventure)

Bodhi says:  "I liked playing in the construction area, we built a tower that the Pterodactyl protected"

This half term we have started our reading sessions - to promote and inspire the children’s love for reading. 

During these sessions we have a group going to the library, a group sitting to read in the reading area, the whole class on the carpet exploring Miss Clayton’s book baskets and individual children reading their reading books with teachers.  What a lovely atmosphere with all the children engaged in wonderful stories. 📖 

Wednesday 3rd November - Outdoor Adventure - THE HIGHWAY RAT!

First, we first arrived into the woods we sat to listen to the story ‘The highway Rat’ bu Julia Donaldson. 

Next we made our own nature sword - just like the highway rat’s! To make our sword we had to search for a stick and a leaf, after we had found the perfect resources we sat to carefully push our stick through the leaf to create our sword. 

We then journeyed along the highway (Hoping not to run into the highway rat)!  The highway was marked out with purple ribbons which we had to look for to help us navigate the highway and even took us through a dark tunnel!   At the end of the highway we found a CAVE, we chose two brave children to enter the cave to search it (hoping to find some delicious treats).  They found some marshmallows!!

We journeyed the marshmallows back to our camp, sat around the fire pit for some calm time in the woodland to roast our marshmallows over the fire pit.  We talked about how to make sure we were safe around the fire, for example not to run near the fire and if it was not your turn to stay sat down and not go past the red bricks. We also talked about when it was our turn we had to go towards the fire on our knees and make sure we held our stick with our marshmallows on out in front of us over the fire and not get to close. 
We all did a fantastic job roasting our marshmallows, being brave and safe around the fire!

Finally, to finish off our Highway Rat adventure we had a dance in the woods. 🌳 

What an amazing afternoon with wonderful outdoor explorers! 🤎💚⭐️

Autumn Term 1

Autumn Term 1 - Week 6

This week we have loved exploring our provision. Every morning we have been visiting the big playground apparatus and trim trail to support our physical development - clambering, climbing, balancing and running.

We have been focussing on African animals this week, listening to the story of The Ugly Five as well as  Non-Fiction animal books. We have talked about the animals, described the animals and have all worked very hard to create a page for our ‘Amazing African Animals’ Class book. 
 

This week, as well as practising the sounds we have already learnt in phonics we have learnt some new sounds: e, u & ck. 

St Paul’s Pumpkin Patch
This week, the children in reception class have enjoyed exploring our own little ‘St Paul’s Pumpkin Patch’. The children have been exploring the pumpkins through their senses, as well as carrying, collecting and rolling the pumpkins around the paddock. This has also presented the children with lots of opportunities for role play, talk and imaginative play with their peers. What a wonderful time we had! 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 5

This week, exploring our indoor and outdoor provision has been lots of fun. We have had a wonderful time outdoors, exploring the water and rain with our peers! We have made bubbles in the puddles, created our own flowing water and floods, and explored the resources in the outdoor area.  We have built shelters from the rain and obstacle courses using the tyres and planks. 
We have especially enjoyed role playing teachers - taking the register and teaching phonics to each other. In maths we are learning to recognise up to 5 items without counting them. This is called subitising. we have been using our autumnal loose parts such as conkers to practise our subitising. 
 

For Harvest we have been exploring vegetables - printing repeating patterns with vegetables in the creative area and exploring vegetables to create observational drawings in the mark making area. Some of us decided to turn our vegetable drawings into vegetable people! 
 

Physical Education 

Our P.E session was lots of fun.  We began by independently exploring the hall floor and benches with our bean bags.  We used our bodies to balance and control the beanbags when walking, hopping, crawling and moving around the room and on the benches.  After this, we continued practising our throwing and catching skills using the bean bag in small groups.  To finish we all had an exciting game of beanbag musical statues where we had to try really hard to control the beanbag to keep it still when the music stopped!  Well done reception - wonderful listening, moving and joining in.👏⭐️

Autumn Term 1 - Week 4

This week we have had another busy week enjoying our indoor and outdoor provision.  

We have loved our daily routine of going to the trim trail in a morning to support our physical development - already our coordination, control and confidence is showing an improvement when going around the apparatus. Our provision has been enhanced this week with themes of doctors, medicine making, princesses and castles because our our shared love for the books ZOG and Zog and the flying doctors! We also had an exciting visitor that was found in our outdoor area - A speckled Frog! 🐸 We put the frog in a box so we can observe from a distance and we also decide to draw observational pictures of the frog! We all took a long time carefully looking and drawing different parts of the frog that we could see and commenting on the frogs colour. 

In phonics we have been practising our previous weeks sounds: s a t p i n. Also we have learnt some new sounds this week: d m g. We have been practising blending for reading and letter formation too!

In P.E we have continued to explore our beanbag skills and control. We have enjoyed throwing and catching with partners, playing beanbag musical statues and follow the leader where we all took turns to lead our group, balancing the beanbag on different parts of our body! 

Monday 20th September - Life Education Visit

Today Life Education has been to our class to help us learn ‘All About Me’. 

We have been talking about our bodies, parts of our bodies, what is inside our bodies and what they do - such as ears for listening, eyes for seeing and heart for pumping our blood around our body. We talked about what helps our bodies to work such as food to give us energy and that adults sometimes give us medicine to make us feel better. 😊

We also had a lovely visitor - Harold the Giraffe!

To finish the Life Education session, Harold sang us his ‘Healthy, Happy Harold’ song. 

Harold is a little theatrical, which we all found very funny - as you can see. 🤣

Autumn Term 1 - Week 3

We have had a brilliant second week in EYFS class. The children have continued to build relationships with peers and have explored the continuous provision with confidence.  
 

This week we have especially enjoyed the story of The Gingerbread Man, drawing our favourite characters from the story, creating our own gingerbread men in the playground area and mark making around our own bodies and decorating to create our own life-sized gingerbread men! 
 

This week in phonics we have been learning our phase two sounds; p, i, n. We have also been recapping our previously learnt sounds; s, a, t. The children have been fabulous in our phonics sessions, doing great listening and following instructions. We have also been practicing forming our sounds and mark making in glitter, sand and chalk to develop out gross and fine motor movements. 
 

This week in P.E we have been developing our CONTROL, moving, travelling and balancing a beanbag on different parts of our bodies and we have also been playing some games such as crocodiles in the river! 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 2 - Our first full week in school

The children have settled well and have come into school with confidence and enthusiasm. Many special friendships have started to form and the children are fantastic at exploring and selecting activities in our indoors and outdoors provision.  Miss Clayton has been so impressed at the children’s listening and involvement in their carpet sessions such as phonics, mark making (pencil control), French and worship.  The children have been absolutely fantastic in the big hall at lunchtime and have loved exploring the big playground and apparatus outdoors on the yard. 
 

On Friday we have all had a fantastic P.E session, showing wonderful listening and physical movements. 

First we started by moving and freezing in different ways around the hall such as big moon steps and tiny mouse steps.  Then we practiced our balancing bean bag skills, using different parts of our body to walk and balance the bean bag. We also had a go at aiming and throwing our bean bags into hoops.  To finish our P.E lesson we expressed ourselves to music through movement around the hall and had a stretch.  Well done Reception for a fantastic P.E session and first full week. 👏⭐️ Superstars! 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 1 - Transition days

The children have enjoyed their first two days in school this week.  The whole class have enjoyed exploring our indoors and outdoors provision, meeting their new peers, eating lunch in the hall and playing on the big playground! 
 

It has been great to observe the children interacting and becoming more familiar with the environment and each other. We can already see some special friendships forming and their great individual characters shining through. We are so proud of our EYFS class!