Reception 2023-2024

Spring 2

Reception have been very busy this half-term! We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring some wonderful stories. We have looked at The Gingerbread Man, Elmer, George and the Dragon and we are finishing off with The Odd Egg. The children acted out the story of The Gingerbread Man brilliantly! The children have been working hard on their writing and we have been really impressed with their independent sentences. 

We had two successful 'Come and Share' sessions. We were really pleased to see lots of parents attend and learn more about how we learn phonics in Reception. 

In Maths, we have been exploring length, height and time. The children loved seeing how many times they could write their name or do star jumps in one minute. We have also been developing our understanding of 9 and 10 by finding different representations of these numbers. We also been looking at adding two or three numbers together to make 9 and 10. 

The children loved dressing up for World Book Day and Red Nose Day and getting involved in lots of activities related to these events.

We have also talked about the themes of Easter and Spring. We have been on a very muddy welly walk around the school grounds to look for signs of Spring. 

Spring 1

Reception have had a brilliant start to the Spring term. We have been exploring the topic 'I need a hero'. We started with some lovely superhero (Superworm and Supertato) stories and then moved on to exploring our real-life superheroes through non-fiction texts. The children were horrified when Evil Pea caused mayhem and mess in our classroom. He even sent us a video message! The children wrote some fantastic descriptions to accompany their Evil Pea wanted posters and designed some brilliant traps in the construction area. It was the talk of the classroom for some weeks!

We were delighted to have a visit from Andy, the firefighter. He talked about what his job involves and the equipment and clothes he needs. We loved trying on some of his protective clothing! 

In maths, we have been exploring mass and capacity. We spent lots of time in the outdoor area, filling different containers with sand and comparing how much they held. We have also been thinking about 6, 7 and 8. We have been representing the numbers in lots of different ways and we've been finding ways to make these numbers with smaller amounts. 

We are finishing off Spring 1 by learning about the lunar new year. We are swapping the Superhero headquarters for a Chinese restaurant and we will be having a go at some Chinese writing. 

Autumn 1

In Reception we have looked at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We enjoyed making a story map and a shopping list for the bears. 

We loved tasting different exotic fruits, linked to the story of Handa's Surprise. The children thought of great adjectives to describe the different fruits. This led us into talking about healthy lifestyles and we talked about healthy and unhealthy food.

We have finished off this half-term with a wonderful welly walk! We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the school grounds and looking for signs of Autumn. We collected lots of leaves and turned these into fantastic works of art. 

In Maths we have been looking at repeating patterns and we have begun to compare and sort items according to their size. We have also been working on subitising and we have started to match quantities of objects with the right numerals.

We have had a fantastic start to the year and the Reception team are very pleased with how well the children have settled into school. 

Welcome to Reception 2022-2023!

We are so proud of how well the children have not only settled into the classroom, but school life as a whole. We can’t stress more how fantastic the children have adjusted to the new setting and routine, they are all shining! We are so excited to continue to watch your children grow at St John’s.

Miss Levey, Mrs Clarke and Mrs Maries

Summer 2023

Next half term, Summer 1, we are looking forward to starting our new topic ‘Let’s Explore!’, thinking about what makes the world around us special. We are really looking forward to thinking about lots of plants and animals and hopefully interacting with some minibeasts on our minibeast hunt. Linking to our topic, our first English topic will be looking at non-fiction Minibeast books, thinking about the life cycle of a butterfly. We will then move onto 2 of Miss Levey’s favourite stories: The Gruffalo and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. We will be doing lots of acting, writing and exciting activities based on our texts and new topic – we can’t wait!  

Spring 2023

Spring 2

We have had a jam-packed half term filled with so much excitement, finishing up with a dip in the swimming pool on the playground! We have loved dressing up for both World Book Day and Red Nose Day and exploring the reasons why we celebrate these days. We have been exploring Spring this half term (despite the surprise snow fall!) and have been thinking about the special celebrations that come with this time of year: Pancake Day, Mothers Day and Easter. The children have particularly loved making cards, exploring the bakery and florist role play areas and exploring lots of different art materials.

In English, we began with ‘The Gingerbread Man’ with the children’s first entry into their writing books – a pancake recipe! We absolutely loved acting out the story together and in small groups – there are some amazing actors and actresses in the class. We then moved onto  George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell, with the children drawing some amazing story maps and writing some super sentences describing the dragon. Finally, we read Elmer, making links to RHE and wellbeing. The children came up with some reflective sentences of how we can make ourselves happier if we are feeling sad.

We have been continuing to deeply understand number in maths this half term, particularly focusing on the number 7. We have also loved looking at doubling, meeting ‘The Terrible Two’s’ and the class are beginning to recall their double facts. Finally we ended with matching and sorting, playing lots of ‘spot the funny one’!

Spring 1

We have thoroughly enjoyed our key topic , 'I need a hero - what makes people special?' We have had a special guest in to show us what a nurse does. (Thank you Miss Levey's Mummy!) We have explored Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day and continuing to look at winter. These topics have been alongside the developing the children’s interests and supporting their child-centered learning through the half term. In English we have had great fun with the texts  Supertato, Super worm, People who help us, A great big cuddle and The Enormous Turnip. The evil pea caused mayhem around the school, luckily the children helped to solve the crimes! The children have produced amazing writing! In maths have continued to explore our numbers: counting, ordering and representing.

Autumn 1

In Reception, we aim for as much of our curriculum as possible, to be lead by your children’s interests. However we have been enjoying exploring our first topic of “Twinkle Twinkle We Are Stars”, thinking about how we are special. We have also looked at: ‘Being Healthy’ ‘Diwali and ‘All About Autumn’ , with some exciting role play areas: a home corner, fire station and doctors surgery. These topics, along with the child-lead topics have been woven through the activities that children have been exploring during Get Learning. The children have loved having free flow around the classroom and having ownership of their learning. In English we have been looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears, exploring the feelings of the characters and having a go at drawing their faces. Next, we moved onto ‘Handas Surprise’, with a highlight being trying all the delicious fruit from the story and acting it out! Our last English focus was looking at Autumn non-fiction texts, with the class going on an Autumn walk to explore the changes to the trees and the weather around the school grounds. In maths the children have covered the areas of matching and sorting, comparing and we have started to look at numbers 1,2 & 3. They have already completed some amazing maths work and we are so impressed with how fantastic their counting is.

Autumn 2

We have had an absolutely amazing half term in Reception. The children have grown so much in character and knowledge and the team are super proud of them!

The fixed themes we explored this half term were Bonfire Night, Diwali and Christmas. We have also started to think about winter and the changes in seasons. The children have loved all the activities we have done surrounding each of these topics, they have completed art work, reflections, role play and class discussions surrounding these topics and have really enjoyed talking with their teachers and friends about all the new things they have learnt. A highlight was watching the Snow White pantomime, we loved singing along and seeing the teachers get up on stage to dance. We are also extremely proud of all the hard work the class put into their Christmas performance. They were absolutely amazing and loved singing and dancing to the visitors who came to watch.

In English, we began by looking at Zim Zam Zoom some poetry by James Carter, we even wrote our own poem! Then we moved on to reading The Snowman and Stickman, doing lots of exciting activities and writing. The children’s literacy skills have developed so much this half term and they have produced some amazing work and are beginning to read. We are so proud!

In Maths we have enjoyed playing lots of games, comparing numbers and having lots of practice getting to know the numbers 1-5. The children have been amazing in both the maths carpet times and getting involved with the maths activities in Get Learning!

Welcome to Reception

Wow, what an amazing first few weeks! We are so proud of how well the children have not only settled into the classroom, but school life as a whole. We can’t stress more how fantastic the children have adjusted  the new setting and routine, they are all shining! We are so excited to continue to watch your children grow at St John’s.

Miss Levey, Mrs Clarke and Mrs Maries

Autumn 1

In Reception, we aim for as much of our curriculum as possible, to be lead by your children’s interests. However some key topics we will be covering are: ‘Twinkle Twinkle We Are Stars”, “Being Healthy” and ‘All About Autumn”. These topics, along with the child-lead topics will be the basis of the theme of the classroom and the activities put out for the children to enjoy each day. The children have loved having free flow around the classroom and having ownership of their learning.

In literacy we have been looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children have enjoyed exploring a crime scene in the classroom, where someone with golden hair broke in and spilt porridge all over the floor! Luckily we have a classroom full of amazing detectives to send evidence to the police, who will hopefully catch the culprit! We will be moving onto the texts ‘Handas Surprise” and Autumn non-fiction texts later in the half term.

In maths the children will be covering the areas of matching and sorting, comparing and pattern. They have already completed some amazing maths work and we are so impressed with how fantastic their counting is.

We are so looking forward to learning with your children this half term, they are always so enthusiastic and make every day so much fun! 

Autumn 2

We have had an absolutely amazing half term in Reception. The children have grown so much in character and knowledge and the team are super proud of them!

The fixed themes we explored this half term were Bonfire Night, Diwali, All about Winter and Christmas. The children have loved all the activities we have done surrounding each of these topics, they have completed art work, reflections, role play and class discussions surrounding these topics and have really enjoyed talking with their teachers and friends about all the new things they have learnt. A highlight was going for our winter walk, which was perfectly timed with a late November snowstorm. We can’t wait for our trip to the Belgrade Theatre in the last week of the half term to top off all our Christmas celebrations!

In English, we have looked at Zim Zam Zoom some poetry by James Carter, The Snowman and Stickman. The children’s literacy skills have developed so much this half term and they have produced some amazing writing and are beginning to read. We are so proud!

In Maths we have looked at shape (circles, triangles, squares and rectangles), positional language, one more one less, times through the day and have looked at how we represent numbers to 5. The children have been amazing in both the maths carpet times and getting involved with the maths activities in Get Learning, including our weekly star challenge!

Spring 1

We have done so much amazing learning this half term! There has been so many exciting events which we have explored including Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Internet Safety Day and Mental health awareness week. The children had an amazing time preparing and performing their very own dragon dance when we learnt about Chinese New Year! We made our own instruments and decorated a dragon head, which Mrs Clarke did an excellent job of wearing during the dance! We also explored the topic of ‘I Need a Hero’, thinking about both superheroes and real life heroes. Lots of the children would make amazing policemen, nurses, doctors and firemen after their work experience in our role play area!

In English we will be looked at lots of exciting texts including Supertato, Super worm, People who help us, A great big cuddle and The Enormous Turnip. The children completed some FANTASTIC writing, ranging from letters to the Supertato after the evil pea caused mischief in the classroom to our own Enormous Turnip stories. 

In maths we looked at numbers 0-8, made pairs, measured objects using cubes and began to explore different timers (ipads and egg timers) and calendars. The children even began adding two numbers together and are now experts at writing their numbers – well done Reception for your hard work! 

Spring 2

Spring 2 began with an amazing World Book Day, we all loved dressing up, sharing our favorite stories and completing the school wide activities. The key theme we explores in Spring 2 was Spring. The children loved seeing the flowers we planted grow and enjoyed a spring walk in the sunshine! We celebrated and explored Pancake Day, Mothers Day and Easter., making some beautiful cards which the children loved sharing with their families. The role play area transformed into a cake shop, flower shop and finally a space station, where we did some amazing writing and developed story lines together. 

In English, the children started using their writing books, which look AMAZING! We explore The Gingerbread Man, with the children writing recipes. Then we will be looked at Elmer, Miss Levey's favorite  story. We made links to PSHE, discussing feelings and how we can make ourselves better if we are sad. Finally we looked at George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell. The children loved re-wiring the stories in their writing books and we were so proud of their work and could see how hard the children had been working on their letter formation. 

In Maths we will be explored numbers 9 & 10 making links to addition and number bonds. The children were also introduced to 3D shapes and loved using the shapes to do some paint printing outside. We also revisited pattern, with the children making their own patterns using colours, shapes and natural resources.

Summer 1

Wow! What an exciting half term!  We have started our new topic of 'Let's Explore', we have been exploring what makes the world around us special. The highlight of our half term was our class trip to Hatton. The children loved exploring the farm and learning about all their animals. They interacted with lots of animals and even held a snake called Ernie! I our wider curriculum, have learnt about Ramadan and Eid and have begun to see the changes from spring to summer. Our final role play area of the half term is dedicated to the Queen's Jubilee, the children have made decorations, crowns and an amazing abstract collaborative piece of art work. The children have loved learning about the royal family and have enjoyed talking about their families too. 

In English we will first looked at minibeast information texts and the children produced some amazing non-fiction writing explaining the life cycles of butterflies! Later on in the term we  explored The Gruffalo and began to think about describing words to help with our sentence writing. We ended off the half term by looking at We're Going on a Bear Hunt! The children have worked hard to learn how to act out the story and have made some amazing story maps and writing. We are so impressed - well done Reception!

In maths we have explored numbers greater than 10, the children are now fantastic at recognising these numbers and are experts at counting. We then moved on to spatial reasoning, exploring how shapes fit together and are broken up to make different shapes. We finished off with addition and subtraction and have been looking at answering maths word problems. 

Summer 2

We can't believe it is the final half term of the year! We are looking forward to continuing with our topic 'Let's Explore' and will be watching some caterpillars turn into butterflies in the classroom! We will be thinking about caring for our environment and for ourselves by keeping healthy. Towards the end of the term the children will enjoy fun events including sports day and transition activities with their new teacher. 

In English we will be looking at 3 key texts: Little Whale, Meerkat Mail and Simon Sock. We will be using these as a starting point for some amazing writing and literacy activities. The children have worked so hard this year and have learnt 50 phonics sounds so far! We are looking forward to the children working their way up the book bands -well done! 

In Maths, our final units will explore doubling, sharing, even and odd and we will revisit spatial reasoning, to set the children up to start in Year 1.