Years 2024-2025

Autumn 2024

Learning to Read and write in Reception

Children have been encouraged to have a go at writing in all areas of the classroom and in the outdoor area. We provide activities where children can write for meaning as part of their play. They have a wide range of books  to choose from and many of our activities are related to the class story. We have started Success for All Phonics which is a highly effective programme, teaching children to read and write. Phonics lessons introduce sounds systematically and children are supported to form the letters correctly. They are choosing to act out their own phonic  lessons and practice letter writing indifferent ways such as  frost or glitter.

Settling in

The Reception children have settled in so well. They have learnt many new routines and class expectations, even thinking of their own class rules to keep everyone safe and happy. The children have already grown lots in independence. They have been enjoying exploring activities both in the classroom and Reception garden and building new relationships with staff and other children. The children are being kind kangaroos by sharing and taking turns. Well done everyone!

 

Years 2023-2024

Autumn 2023

The story of the Enormous Turnip

After the grown-ups discovered an enormous vegetable growing in our garden. Reception enjoyed the story of the Enormous Turnip! We learnt the story off by heart and can re-tell it using actions and puppets. We learnt lots of new songs such as Dig dig dig. We learnt all about harvest and where our food comes from and enjoyed looking at lots of different vegetables. We found out all about farm vehicles and were delighted when a tractor tyre arrived in our garden! We ended the half term by writing shopping lists and making our very own delicious soup!

Animal Experience

The children really enjoyed our visit from the animal experience today. They loved seeing all the animals such as Elmer the tenrec, scooby the meerkat, Shelby the tortoise and milkshake the milksnake . We learnt about which animals were nocturnal and which hibernate.

Settling in to Reception

Children have been making friends and learning new routines at school.

The gingerbread man

The gingerbread man and the fox have been in the Reception garden! What did they see?Reception children looked at the local area on Google Earth and were able to identify key features such as Addenbrookes Hospital. The children enjoyed looking at our Reception garden on Google Earth and talked about the main features of the garden and how it has changed since the photo was taken! The children then drew their own maps thinking about which features should and shouldn’t be included.

Summer 2022-2023

The Three Little Pigs

This half term Reception have been learning the story 'The Three Little Pigs'. We learnt new vocabulary relating to the story. As the story links to construction and materials, we have been be exploring a variety of materials and thinking about their properties We explores floating and sinking.. We have discussed which materials would be good for building a house i.e. jelly or cotton wool. The children will also be thinking about different musical instruments and the sounds they make. Children will be encouraged to be Teamwork Tigers and work together to build and investigate different types of homes. We will also be thinking about our friends and families and encouraging children to be Kind Kangaroos. 

In Reception, writing and reading are at the heart of our learning. The children were very excited to find a newt in the garden so chose to write about it. Having looked at a doll from the 1950’s, the children had a go at writing about her too. Children are able to practise their next steps and phonics skills at the phonics table. Here they are enjoying the outdoor reading area as children have access to a wide range of books to enjoy.

 

 

 

World Book Day

March 2023

World Book Day was celebrated on Thursday 3^rd March and in the days following, pupils have completed a number of fun book based tasks.  On Thursday, we all dressed down in our pajamas to celebrate the importance of reading and especially to encourage bedtime reading. We read a story with our teachers and had milk and cookies to celebrate. Other activities in the past few days have included a classroom door decorating competition, making our own bookmarks, discussing our recommended reads, going to the Book Fair and we even played a game where we had to describe a book character for our friend to draw and see if they could guess who it was! The hugely popular book fair has been in school this week – thank you to those of you who have bought books either in person at our fair or online through our special link.

Door Competition  

March

Miss Simmons set the whole school a challenge to decorate our classroom doors based upon a book. We all had a wonderful time being creative and made some amazing bookish entrances to our classrooms. Which one do you like best?

Spring Term 2022-2023

R1

In R1, children have been learning our own story about The Snow Queen. This has led us enjoy seasonal changes and explore Winter- watching ice melt and finding out how we can make water freeze. The Snow Queen has sent emails, letters and parcels to ask children questions to answer in the week ahead. They researched about polar animals that The Snow Queen might see from her palace and created their own clay models, they found out about castles and palaces and then created their own with a partner, they then looked at the weather and recorded it each day. Lastly, they created their own version of the story and made fruit sorbet for a Snow Queen party!

R2

Reception had a great morning learning all about Lunar New Year and The Year of the Rabbit. We found out all about how the years came to be named after different animals. We then enjoyed going between the two Reception classes to do a range of activities. We were able to act out the story of the animals race, make lanterns and lucky banners, have a go at Chinese writing using a paintbrush and black paint, practise our counting and subitising skills in a lucky money envelope game and lots more fun activities. We also found it very interesting finding out how our friends had celebrated the Lunar New Year.

What a busy morning!

 

Autumn Term (2) 2022-2023

R1

This term we have continued to talk about healthy eating. We have talked about bedtime routines and what happens to the sky at night. We also talked about how we keep healthy by brushing our teeth twice a day and keeping clean. We have worked with Dental Buddy to support children’s understanding of good oral health. Children enjoyed exploring our new dental set and talked about visiting the dentist.

R2

This half term Reception have been enjoying learning, inspired by the story of the Gingerbread man. This started by finding a ‘crime scene’ in our garden! Who had left biscuit crumbs and footprints? We had to be detectives to find out! The children enjoyed exploring different animal tracks and this led on to finding out all about animals that were nocturnal and who hibernate. We loved learning the Happy hedgehog song too, that we sang in our Christmas Performance. We also talked about healthy bedtime routines and had a go at writing about them. Children have enjoyed making and decorating gingerbread men from paper, playdough, clay and even edible ones ready for our Christmas party! We have had lots of writing opportunities learning to write story words such as fox cat man run and then using these in our independent writing. We learnt the story off by heart so that we could re-tell it to our grown- ups. We then  ended the term by changing the Gingerbread man to a character of our own and creating a new version of the story.

Autumn Term (1) 2022-2023

R1

In R1, we have started to learn to read and write using our exciting new phonics programme Success for All Phonics. Children have a short daily lesson encouraging them to learn letter characters and say the alphabet chant! They also learn how to form the letters. During their play, children can have a go at recognising the sounds and reading short words in our phonics area. They also practise writing the letters in lots of different ways both indoors and outside using large chalks and paints. They have time to enjoy books in the book corners and during our quiet reading session where they can look for words that they have learnt. 

R2

This half term Reception children found an enormous cabbage growing in the garden! This led us to our new story The Enormous Turnip! We have had lots of fun doing activities inspired by this story. We have learnt to tell it off by heart using a story map and actions to help us remember it we have learnt about harvest and found out all about where and how fruit and vegetables grow. We have enjoyed songs and stories linked to our theme. We have printed with vegetables and written shopping lists and recipes. We ended the half term making our own delicious healthy vegetable soup!