Our Reception Class

A very warm welcome to our Reception class page.  In Reception, our children start their journey by settling into school life and begin to develop into confident, independent learners. I hope you find all the information that we send home useful and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask us. The staff are always on hand both before and after school and throughout the day on Seesaw.

 Our Reception Class 2023-2024

Class Information

Who's Who

Mrs Gornall-Deputy Headteacher & Reception teacher

Mrs Baines- Higher Level Teaching Assistant

Miss Thistlethwaite- Part Time Teaching Assistant

Mrs Holmes- Teaching Assistant 

Mrs Bayatti- 1 to 1 Teaching Assistant

Communication, Language & Literacy Development Information

The Reading Schemes we use in Reception are:                              

• Floppy's Phonics & Pearson Phonics Bug (Individual Home Reading Books)
• Read, Write Inc (Guided Reading Books)

The Phonics Scheme we use in Reception is:

• Read, Write Inc                                                                                           
  

Find out more about Read, Write Inc here

Reading books
All children will be provided with a reading book with words once they have learnt half of the RWI Set 1 sounds and are able to segment words and blend sounds independently.

Homework

At the beginning of Reception your child has been given a homework toolkit (Stripy zip bag) which was kindly paid for by Friends of School. This is to be kept at home and is to be used to help your child complete their homework. Please can you ensure that all the items are put safely back in the bag each time they are used as these need to be used throughout their time in Reception.

Please can you make sure that Homework is returned to school by Thursday morning, so that they can be updated and sent out again on a Thursday evening. Thank you.

Seesaw
Seesaw is our observation and assessment app which is used daily in class to record evidence for your child’s learning journey throughout their year with us in Reception.

Don’t forget to send Mrs Gornall observations from home through Seesaw, as it is extremely important that parents are able to contribute to their children’s learning journeys just as much as the practitioners.

Requests
Please can you help!!! We are constantly trying to add to our resources and are always on the look out for the following items: Comics, magazines, prams, dolls, small world toys such as farms/train sets etc. scooters, bikes, jigsaw puzzles, games, dressing up costumes etc. If you are having a clear out  please could you check with Mrs Gornall whether we could use any items before throwing them out. Thank you.

This half term....... Autumn 2 (October-December 2023)

Over the next half term our topics will include:

• Light and Dark: (3 weeks) 
• This topic will begin by looking at the Seasons and how things change at different times of the year. We will look at what this means for different animals and what types of things they do to stay warm, as the weather gets colder.  We will then move onto comparing day and night and look at different sources of light and how these are created. The final week of the topic will focus on Space and finding out about some of the different planets that surround the planet that we live on 'Earth!'           
                                                                                                                                                       
• Dinosaurs and Festivals (2 weeks)
• We will travel back in time on an exciting journey to learn about lots of different dinosaurs and what the world was like when dinosaurs were roaming around the planet. We will discover the differences between different types of dinosaurs and what types of things they liked to eat. We will also be learning about two important world faith festivals- The Hindu Festival of Diwali and the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah.                                                                                                 
    
• Christmas (3 weeks)  
• The lead up to Christmas is going to be extremely busy and most of our time will be taken up learning about the Christmas story through practising our Nativity for this year and learning all the songs. We will also be busy making a selection of different Christmas crafts. 

During our Literacy time are learning will focus around the following texts:

• Hedgehog Howdedo
• Bears in the Night
• Whatever next!
• My First Book of Dinosaurs & The Diwali Story
• Harry and the Dinosaurs make a Christmas wish & The Hanukkah Story
• Excitable Edgar
• The Jolly Christmas Postman
   

We will also be reading lots of other stories that link in with our topics for this half term which include- Leaf Man, Owl Babies, Day Monkey, Night Monkey, Can't you sleep little bear, & We're going on a bear hunt.

In Read, Write Inc  the children will be taught the following Set 1 sounds:

Week 1- l,h,r,j

Week 2- v,y,w,sh

Week 3- th,z,ch,q

Week 4- x,ng,nk

Week 5- Word Time 1.6

Week 6- Word Time 1.7

Week 7- Assessment Week

We will also have 2 new role play areas- one inside and one outside.  Inside we will have a World Cuisine Restaurant and outside we will have a Farm Shop.

In our Maths learning time the children will be introduced to the Numberblocks and Numicon. These will help them as we work our way through the following units:

• 3D Shapes
• Spatial Awareness- Position
• 1 more
• 1 less
• Number bonds within 5- Part/whole model
• Assessment Week
• Active Maths- Christmas themed

In our Topic work we will be learning about:

• Bonfire Night- Finding out why we celebrate it, how we can stay safe & looking at the patterns and colours fireworks make.
  
• Autumn and Seasonal Change- Finding out what happens to the environment, the weather, the clothes we wear and different animals at this time of year.
  
• Sources of Light- Investigating different sources of light and finding out how they work.
  
• Dinosaurs- Discovering the types of dinosaurs that roamed the land thousands of year ago and their different characteristics
  
• Diwali and Hanukkah- Finding out about festivals that are celebrated by other Religions around the World.
  
• Christmas- Discovering the real meaning of Christmas through the Christmas Story.

Our RE focus will be 'Why do Christians perform Nativity Plays at Christmas?'

In this unit, the children will learn the key events from the Christian Christmas story. They will find out about the term incarnation (God come to earth as a human and as God) and learn about the Christian belief that this happened in Jesus. The children will learn about who Christians believe first visited Jesus in the stable and why.  They will find out about the timeline of the story and that most Christians believe that the wise men/Magi arrived when Jesus was one or two years old.  By the end of the unit, children will understand that some stories change over time and that it is important for believers to return to and study the original text. They will find out that some Christians perform nativity plays to retell the story so that others can find out more about the Christian belief of incarnate.

Heartsmart- Don't forget to let Love in.

This unit focuses on Self-worth and the children learn how to love and value themselves well.

We are important, we matter, we're one in a million and above all we're loved. These are the messages that we all need to hear, believe and remember- because sometimes we forget. The healthier the children's internal dialogue, the greater their sense of self worth, which is the cornerstone of character and resilience.

• How kind are our the thoughts we listen to?
• How patient are we with ourselves?
• How often do we find ourselves listening to the Scrapman?

Our Wellbeing theme will be: Wellbeing Flock 

Each week the children will continue to be visited by a different bird from around the world who will bring a special message for the children.  The children will be encouraged to look after their own well-being and mental health by learning tips and techniques they can continue at home. 

During our Music sessions we will be developing our skills of listening and appraising whilst learning the songs from the ‘BBC- Listen & Play’ and our Nativity Songs

• Week 1- Twinkle, Twinkle
• Week 2- Dr Foster
• Week 3- Rockets and Spaceships
• Week 4- Dinosaurs
• Week 5- Old King Cole
• Week 6 & 7- Christmas Songs

Our PE focus this half term will be Dance linked with our weekly topics and our School Sports Games Value will be ’Self Belief’

During this unit of work the children will learn how to:

• Develop the ability to create movements to music.
• Practise movements and join them together to create a motif.
• Practise and improve a dance motif.
• Work as a team to create a short dance.
• Remember and perform a short dance.
• Evaluate and improve a short dance. 

Dates for your Diary:

PE: Monday Afternoons (Outdoor Play) and Friday Mornings

Autumn Term 1 NEWS!

What a busy first 7 weeks we have had in school! We began our Autumn Term 1 by welcoming our new children into school and helped them to settle in and become familiar with our classroom routines.

Our first topic of "Ourselves" helped us to learn all about our bodies, what they look like both inside and out and we explored our 5 senses with lots of fun interactive activities. We learnt about our skeletons by reading the story 'Funnybones' and the different parts of our bodies by looking at a non-fiction book called 'All about me'. We also learnt about how we grow and change and what we will look like as we grow older when we read the story "The Elephant and the Bad Baby".  

During our 'Colours' topic we listened to the story of 'Elmer' which helped us to understand that it is ok to be different. We found out what happens when we mix colours and made repeating patterns with colours and shapes. We even had our own Elmer Day where we dressed up in lots of different colours and celebrated diversity.  The story of 'The Rainbow Fish' taught us the importance of friendship and learning to share with one another and we had great fun making our own yummy Rainbow Fish biscuits.

During our RWI learning time, we learnt over half of the Set 1 sounds and began to blend and segment these to read and write simple words. We will continue to learn the remaining Set 1 sounds after half term and start to enjoy a reading book with words for the first time.

Our Maths learning time focussed on the Numberblocks and learning the different Numicon shapes and numerals for the numbers 1 to 5. We explored lots of different activities in continuous provision which involved us trying to place them in the correct order. We also learnt how to count accurately by using 1 to 1 correspondence. Just before half term we learnt all about 2D shapes and went on shape hunts to find lots of different objects containing these shapes. 

During our whole class carpet times we enjoyed learning lots of new rhymes and songs, which we now sing everyday to help us with our daily routine.

In our RE time, we learnt that we are all 'Special' and that God loves each one of us as an individual. By looking at our fingerprints, we discovered that we are unique and God loves us that much that he has all our names on his hands. We found out that God is everywhere and looks after us everyday, no matter where we are or what we are doing. We know that God has a plan for each and everyone of us and as we grow and change that plan will change to. We also looked at what it means to belong to a religious group and that Christians welcome a baby into their family through Baptism.

During our Heartsmart Unit 'Get Heartsmart' we were introduced to the robot Boris and the nasty Scrapman and even made our own Boris' to live with us at home.

In Well-Being Wednesday, we were introduced to the well-being flock who taught us how to maintain a healthy mind.

As you can see from our pictures we had a great time taking on different roles in our Hairdresser and Hospital role-play areas and loved exploring all the different activities in our continuous provision areas both inside and outside the classroom.