The First Christmas Story/Stick Man

We have had a lovely week as we have continued to prepare for the birth of Jesus. We have learned what happened during the first Christmas and we have used puppets to retell and act out the Nativity. We have explored what love is and completed Christmas activities to enhance our fine motor skills. All children took party in our Santa Dash on Friday which was lots of fun. Well done, everyone!

                                                                                                          The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark

This week, we have continued with our theme of owls by reading 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'. We extended the theme by looking at other nocturnal animals, too. It has also been a very busy and exciting week as we prepare for Christmas by taking part in lots of fun activities. We have all had our Christmas Forest School session where we made friendship bracelets, found some little elves who were hiding and ate s'mores after roasting marshmallows! We also welcomed our families for Christmas Stay and Craft. Thank you to everyone who came and joined in! 

Owl Babies

This week, we have been reading the 'Owl Babies' story, and we have been learning how to retell the story through pictures and story maps. We have enjoyed completing lots of owl activities, and have been strengthening our fine motor skills. We also had a very exciting visit from some owls! We learnt about the differences between the owls and what they like to eat. In PE, we loved going on safari! Last week, we were also lucky enough to have snow, so we enjoyed playing out and making snowmen.

Little Glow
This week we have reading the beautiful story Little Glow. We have exploring all the different celebrations that use light. In Literacy we thought of adjectives to describe the sound of fireworks. In maths we have been learning about circles and triangles. In PE we have been exploring the concept of good, strong balancing. We also raised money for 'Children in Need' and did lots of fun activities related to 'Children in Need' throughout the day.

Rama and Sita
This week we have been reading the story of Rama and Sita and learning all about the exciting celebration of Diwali. We have used adjectives to describe one of the characters from our book in Literacy. In Maths we have been finding out about 1 more and 1 less. In our Continuous Provision areas we have been making our own sparklers, rangoli pattens and diya lamps. We also had a special anti-bullying assembly from the LFC Foundation to introduce 'Anti-Bullying Week' next week.

Pumpkin Soup/Harvest 

This week we have been reading the story Pumpkin Soup and learning all about harvest time. We have looked at different vegetables and used our senses to explore them; how they look, feel, smell and even taste when we made our own pumpkin soup! We really enjoyed this story and completing all of our Autumn themed activities. In RE, we talked about the sacrament of baptism being a way to welcome us into God's family, and we looked at the symbols of baptism.

SURPRISE READER!!

This week, we welcomed our first 'Surprise Readers' to Reception. The children were both very surprised and absolutely delighted to see their loved ones join us in class for a story at the end of the school day. We even saw some special costumes and props! Thank you to the families involved. We loved having you read to us. Who will surprise us next for story time?!

Tiddler

In Reception this week, we have continued with our 'Under the Sea' theme, and we have been reading the story 'Tiddler' by Julia Donaldson. Throughout the week, we have compared and contrasted this week's text with last week's - 'The Rainbow Fish'. We also focused on Tiddler's wonderful imagination and used our own imaginations to predict what we thought would happen next in the story. As a class, we used our phonic knowledge to write words to describe the sea. We also created some wonderful artwork in the style of American sculptor Courtney Mattison, using shells and pebbles. In Maths this week, we have been learning about repeat patterns.

Rainbow Fish

This week we have been reading 'The Rainbow Fish' focusing on friendships and kindness. We have been talking about what a good friend is and how we can be kind to others. We have been reading the story and making predictions in the story for what will happen next and what we would do if we were Rainbow Fish. We created our own rainbow fishes using playdough, tissue paper and even created some giant fish with different shimmering scales like Rainbow Fish!

Ruby’s Worry

This week we have been reading Ruby’s Worry. We have continued identifying emotions and learning about what each emotions looks and feels like and thinking of ways we can manage our emotions. This week we have created worry monsters using various media and materials. We have discussed what worry means and anything that may worry us. 

National Fitness Day

The children had an amazing time completing our Reception Circuit. We had timed events and learned lots of new skills such as squats and bench step ups. 

The Colour Monster

We have been reading the lovely story The Colour Monster. We have been discussing emotions and strategies we can use if we feel sad or angry to make us feel better. We have been been using Chatta to explore how different colours can make us feel and used lots if exciting new vocabulary. We have even made our own colour monster using different media.

 We have introduced our Zones of Regulation and children are now accessing this independently to show how they are feeling throughout the day. 

Well done Reception!!!

Our first few days in Reception.

Wow! The children are starting to settle in beautifully. They are adjusting to the new routine and enjoying participating in lots of fun activities. We have made lots of new friends too. This is what we have been up to this week!

 Goldilocks and the three bears 

This week we have been reading Goldilocks and the three bears. We have been writing sentences to describe the state of the porridge and even got to make our own porridge to taste and as a sensory experience in our malleable area to build on our fine and gross motor skills. In our construction area we designed and built a new chair for baby bear and a bed for Goldilocks to sleep in.

Sports Day!

The Gingerbread Man

This week we have been reading The Gingerbread Man. We have been creating our own gingerbread men using various media salt dough, paint, loose parts, colouring pencils and even baking and decorating our own gingerbread men and writing instructions for how we did it. 

The Three Little Pigs 

This week we have been reading ‘The Three Little Pigs’. In our continuous provision we have been using different materials to create a house made of bricks, sticks and straw. We even had an experiment to build our own sturdy house made from sticks and marshmallows and then made paper fans to attempt to blow the house down for the ultimate test. We had a sensory area for the three little pigs to explore in the mud, we printed using various resources to create different textures and patterns. In our writing this week we have made lists of items we would need to build a house, retold the story and even wrote a letter of apology from the big bad wolf.

The Little Red Hen

This week to begin our topic looking at Traditional Tales we read the story ‘The Little Red Hen’. We really enjoyed listening to this story and understanding the concept of being kind and helpful to the people around us. We loved re-telling the story in our writing and role play area as well as creating our own Little Red Hen and building a barn for the animals in our construction area. We even had the chance to bake our own bread this week, it was delicious! We worked as a team to make the dough following the instructions step by step and writing a list of ingredients we needed. 

Tree

This week we have been learning about the four different seasons, what each one looks like and our favourite season. We have specifically been focusing on summer as this is the next upcoming season. We have been discussing what we are looking forward to in Summer and completing various activities in our continuous provision areas from painting tees from different seasons to filling a suitcase with what we would need to take on a summer holiday. 

Careers Day 

Superworm
Continuing with our topic about minibeasts. We have was ‘Superworm’ this week by Julia Donaldson. We have focused on the rhyming words in the story and even thought of and written our own sentences with rhyming couplets. We had a very special visit from various Minibeasts which we go to hold, stroke and learning lots more about. This was the perfect experience to end our topic. 

Mad About Minibeasts/Do You Love Bugs?

During the past two weeks we have been reading the story ‘Mad About Minibeasts’ and a non-fiction information book ‘Do you love bugs?’. We have learned lots about various minibeasts and their habitat. We have done some descriptive writing about Minibeasts and written some interesting facts about them too. We have made our own bug hotels and habitats in the construction area and even been on a Minibeast hunt outside. 

My Butterfly Bouquet 

This week we have continued learning about life cycles, focusing on the life cycle of a butterfly. Our story highlights the four stages of the life cycle of a butterfly, the children have represented these stages in continuous provision using various materials and skills such as using different pasta shapes and paint printing to show the symmetry of a butterflies wings. We now have a depth of knowledge of understanding the world and life cycles which we can carry on to KS1 in our science topics. 

Tadpoles Promise 

This week we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog reading the story Tadpoles Promise. We have learned lots of new vocabulary and explored various ways to show the life cycle of a frog from creating with materials to writing sentences in our Literacy books. We used play dough to create eggs and froglets and used scissors to cut out and order the life cycle of a frog to recall information and consolidate our learning. We really enjoyed all activities linked to this topic and have a sound understanding of the life cycle of a frog and even some facts about frogs. 

Easter

Burglar Bill

 This we have been reading the story Burglar Bill. We used our prior knowledge and unders of people who help us and their job roles to help solve the crimes in this story. We even set up our own crime scene in our classrooms and used clues, finger prints and our knowledge of police and detectives job roles to solve the crime. We had a visit from Merseyside Police who showed us their special equipment to carry our their job and they even let us sit in their police car. We had a visit from a forensic scientist who told us more about their job and showed us how to make different images using our own finger prints. 

World Book Day!

Mothers Day Massage 

People who help us

Over the past two weeks we have been learning about people who help us in our community. We learned about people from all walks of life and people with different job roles enhancing our understanding of the world. We learned specific facts and details about different job roles and how these people help us in everyday life. 
We had special visitors from Merseyside Police, Firefighters and even a special assembly about the importance of dental care and brushing our teeth to keep them clean and healthy. This experience was very exciting and consolidated our knowledge. 
We used junk modelling to work as a team to build our own emergency vehicle, we designed and painted our own uniforms for various job roles from nurses to postal workers. 

Oliver’s Fruit Salad 

Continuing with healthy living our next focus story was ‘Oliver’s Fruit Salad’. This story showed us that fruits and vegetables can be grown by ourselves and not always bought from shops. We discussed how these fruits are grown and then end up in the shops for people to purchase.
We made our own fruit salad in school following step by step instructions and we even wrote about this in our Literacy books. We explored a sensory station filled with fruits that we could smell, touch, feel and taste.

Our artist for this term is Giuseppe, he has art work that uses fruits and vegetables to make portraits and tried this in our creative area, it was lots of fun! We also did observational paintings of different fruits, fruit collage plates and fruits out of play dough. Take a look at some of our pictures and work. 

Supertato

This week we were reading the story ‘Supertato’. We learned a lot about living a healthy lifestyle through having a healthy diet and the importance of regularly exercise. We explored various fruit and vegetables to get creative in our continuous provision activities, we printed with vegetables and paints and used real potatoes to make our own Supertato. We used our fine motor skills using tweezers to try and capture the Evil Pea and put him back into the bowl - this was very tricky! 

Chinese New Year

 This week we looked at a celebration ‘Chinese New Year’. We learned all about the Great Race and the Chinese Zodiac, we learned what Zodiac animal we are and that this year is the year of the Dragon. We used role play to reenact the Great Race and even tried some traditional Chinese foods. We explored the Chinese culture by learning more about this celebration and what it looks like around the world. We used our fine motor skills and practiced using chopsticks, we got creative and made lots of decorations such as dancing dragons and lanterns and we even got the chance to practice writing some Chinese letters and numbers. 

Jungle Animals

•  Over the past two weeks we have been reading the stories ‘Monkey Puzzle’ and ‘There’s a tiger in the garden’. We have been learning about different animals and many things about them - their habitat, their features, their lifestyle and their diet. We explored with different media and materials to investigate what jungle life is like. We created story maps in our Literacy work using role play, actions and key words to remember the story before drawing this and writing captions to re-tell the stories. We focused a lot of rhyming words as this was a clear theme throughout Julia Donaldson’s ‘Monkey Puzzle’. 

Parent Stay and Craft

Forest School

Emperor’s Egg

To welcome our Spring term we have been learning about Antarctica and Emperor Penguins. We have been learning about interesting facts about this topic such as the climate in Antarctica and the life of male and female Emperor Penguins. 

We learned new key vocabulary such as male, female, huddle and chick. We learned about how Emperor Penguins look after their egg and even tried to balance an egg on our feet like Emperor Penguins do - this was very tricky! We got creative making polar bears, Penguins, painting the Antarctic skyline and wrote about what we would as humans to need to go and live in Antarctica. 

To top off this brilliant topic we were even lucky enough to have a snow day in school so it really felt like we were in Antarctica after all ! 

It's Christmas!

The children have really enjoyed getting ready for Christmas! We have been learning about The Nativity Story and the Children performed their own Christmas nativity, which was fantastic! 

We have joined in with lots of fun Christmas activities, such as making reindeer food, salt dough decorations and even meeting Santa himself! 

Owl Babies

This week, our focus text was Owl Babies. We have been learning all about nocturnal and diurnal animals.

During Literacy, the children were able to use their Phonic knowledge to write a list of nocturnal animals. In Continuous Provision, the children have been busy creating their own nocturnal animals, using lots of different materials and making a warm cosy nest of sticks and feathers!

We have also had some very special visitors in school this week! The children were lucky enough to meet and hold some real owls. It was so much fun learning lots of new facts.

Diwali

This week we have learned about the festival of light ‘Diwali’. We read the story Rama and Sita, we could retell the story and describe the characters in the story. We learned about how people celebrate the festival Diwali, we learned about Rangoli patterns, Diya lamps, fireworks and traditional food eaten during this festival. We explored these things in continuous provision using pasta, bright coloured and lots more resources to get creative. Take a look at some of our photographs below. 

Pumpkin Soup

This week we explored the wonderful story of Pumpkin Soup. 

In Literacy we explored the characters from the story and how they felt. We made wonderful maps to predict where Duck had been before he went home. They were incredible. We also discussed instructions and followed instructions to make yummy Pumpkin Soup.

In Maths we explored numbers to three. We went on number walks and found lots of numbers around the school environment. We made sets of numbers and explored what numbers make these numbers.

In Continuous Provision we scooped out pumpkins and explored what was inside and matched pumpkin numbers and letters. We printed and painted with different vegetables and found out where vegetables are grown.

Tiddler

This week we have been reading the wonderful story of 'Tiddler.' 

In Literacy we compared this story to the Rainbow fish and discussed similarities and differences. We explored the ocean and thought of adjectives to describe this and wrote a sentence in our Literacy books. The teachers were so impressed.

In Maths we have been exploring Measures and Patterns. We have compared weight, capacity and carried on and created our patterns. We were amazing.

In Continuous Provision we have been making play dough sea creatures, practising our cutting skills by cutting out sea animals to make a display and making an under the sea habitat in our construction area.

Rainbow Fish

We spent two lovely weeks exploring this wonderful story. We discussed feelings and emotions further.

In Literacy we learned lots of new vocabulary and looked at feelings from others' perspectives. We talked about sharing and how it makes us feel when we share things that are of importance to us.

In Maths we explored sorting to a type, set and group. We did brilliantly.

In Continuous Provision we made wonderful under the sea collages, caught number fish and matched and sorted them to a number along with lots more exciting activities.

Colour Monster

We have been reading the wonderful story of The Colour Monster. We have been exploring our feelings and emotions and talked about different strategies we can use when we are feeling angry or sad. We have been introduced to the zones of Regulations too.

In Maths we have been exploring matching. We matched objects that were the same and sorted objects discussing about how we grouped them. We did brilliantly!

In Continuous Provision we have been using our fine motor skills to sort objects into different colours using tweezers along with threading around colour monsters.

We have painted and collaged our own colour monsters and talked about how we can mix colours to make a new colour. We also used play dough to make our own colour monsters too.

Our first week in school!

We have made a fantastic start to the school year. We have settled in beautifully and made lots of new friends. We have been introduced to the class and school rules and are doing an amazing job following our new school routine! Well done Reception!