Welcome to the our website page. Please check this page regularly and you can find out what the Reception Class have been learning about and the fun they have been having.
Reception staff
Miss Caitlin White - Class teacher
Mrs Emma Hargreaves - Classroom Assistant
Please make sure all your child's clothes and belongings are labelled otherwise we will get into a big muddle! Please also make sure that your child has a water bottle, book folder and a coat every day.
PE lessons will be on Monday ('Boogie Beats'), Tuesday and Thursday (Yoga). On these days your child must come to school in their PE kit.
Library books will be changed on Monday and Friday.
Name writing will be sent home on Tuesday and Thursday.
A new letter sound will be sent home to practise every day.
If you have any concerns or questions please talk to one of the Reception staff.
To find out what your child in Reception Class will be learning about, please click the link above. You can see previous planning at the bottom of this class page.
Reception Class have had a busy last week and lots of fun. We have worked so hard this year and we
are ready to move to Year 1. We loved singing to our families and telling them the story of ‘The
Enormous Turnip’ on Thursday and on Friday we are finally going to Holy Island. We also had to say goodbye to Mr Hodgson after 54 years of teaching and Miss Blackhall who is having a baby.
We ventured over to the island as the tide was closing and walked around the village to the school
which has five pupils! We went to the beach, climbed a big hill, called the Heugh, met the boats and the fishermen, ate ice cream and looked for St. Cuthbert beads.
The staff in Reception have had a fantastic year and it has been a pleasure watching the children
grow. Have a lovely summer and let’s hope the sun shines.
This week, Reception have been learning about how art makes us feel and using musical instruments to
express our emotions. Along with Years 1 and 2, we had a lovely morning sharing our favourite songs from Mrs Stephenson’s music lessons. In Maths, we were introducing repeating patterns. We learned how to describe and continue the pattern and were challenged to create one as a whole class. We are now masters of identifying odd and even numbers!
We enjoyed our phonics story, ‘Black Hat Bob’, which inspired us to make some lovely creative ‘wanted’
posters and build pirate ships with our Lego. In Boogie Beats, we enjoyed Sports Day with Giggles
the monkey.
In maths this week we have been learning about odd and even numbers. The
children are now experts and can tell you why certain numbers are odd and certain
numbers are even. The children know that an even number can be shared equally
and an odd number cannot be shared equally.
Continuing on within our keeping healthy and active topic we have started learning
about our teeth and how to keep them healthy. The children have enjoyed brushing
our giant teeth models and learning about our teeth. We have all learned lots of facts
about teeth and the children will enjoy telling you what they know about teeth at
home.
Reception enjoyed a ball skills session with Mr Hodgson in the glorious sunshine and
are looking forward to Sports Day and their families being there to cheer them on!
Star Ezra
Golden Quill Blu
This week the children have enjoyed looking at healthy and unhealthy food and thinking about the
foods that are good to eat and the foods we should just eat as treats. The children are enjoying
watching our potatoes and raspberries grow and thinking about different foods that they like and
deciding whether or not it is a healthy option or an unhealthy option. Some children are trying really
hard to try new foods and healthier foods which is great to see. The children had good fun making different foods with plasticine.
The gym is up and running and the children are taking turns to spend time in the gym and focus on
their fitness levels!
In music the children had great fun dancing and singing a doubling song so good thing they were all
experts from last week. In maths this week the children have been looking at different numbers and
seeing if they can share them equally into groups.
Star Ferne
Golden Quill Harlynn
This half term we are learning about keeping active, healthy and fit. The children enjoyed discussing
what they do to stay healthy and what healthy foods they like to eat. We have enjoyed keeping fit
this week during bike week and riding our bikes and scooters at playtime. We are planning to set up
a gym in our outdoor area so we can get even fitter. The children have started practising their races
and activities for sports day and have shown us how competitive they can be! In maths this week we
have been learning to double numbers 1 to 5 and even beyond. The children are very good at rolling
a dice and then doubling the number that they roll.
Reception children have made fantastic progress in their reading and writing this year and are now
focussing on making sure the words in their sentences are well spaced and correctly punctuated.
The children have loved finding out about the Queen this week and learning about why we are
celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee. The children have learned about her life story and enjoyed looking
at photos of the Queen and her family over the years. The children also noticed that the Queen, her
family and her household wear many different hats. The children looked at different hats and we
discussed how different hats have different purposes. The children enjoyed trying on different things
that we can wear on our heads and their favourite was the crown. The children made crowns with
their parents on Tuesday and they were all very pleased with their creations.
This week in class we have also enjoyed a Jubilee tea in class, with scones and the children made
Victoria sponges to take home. The children also enjoyed designing their own teapots, cups and
saucers with a Jubilee theme.
Star Blu
Golden Quill Jackson
This week has been very busy, all the children have been working very hard. This week in numeracy we have been looking at missing numbers and trying to work out the number that was missing from a number sequence.
All children have made fantastic progress in phonics, the hold a sentence homework is definitely helping them to thrive so a big thank you to parents and grandparents.
This week we have been looking at our raspberry bush in our garden, which inspired us to plant some more seeds in our garden. We have planted cress, sunflowers and other wildflowers to attract the bees and butterflies. The children are going to enjoy watering the plants and every day and watching them grow.
This week during PE we have been practising for our sports day, we have been learning new races and enjoying being on the field, we even had Yoga on the field it was so peaceful and calm.
We began the week thinking about where we live and learnt about the country, county and town we live in. We thought about what we like about where we live and what makes it special. We did some fantastic writing about where we live and what we like about it. We love the beaches, the sea and the river. We also looked closely at Holy Island and loved looking at maps and all the different features of the island. We each drew our own map of Holy Island and they were all fantastic! We are planning a trip to Holy Island next half term and are looking forward to going across the causeway and seeing the castle. In class, we have made our own models of Holy Island Castle.
The tadpoles are slowly changing and the children have noticed that the tadpole bodies are becoming more frog like every day. The children are hoping that very soon that we will see legs growing and tails disappearing. We will keep observing the tadpoles every day and hope for change soon!
The children finished their books based on the story of ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and they are very proud of their creations which they have taken home to share with their families. The children have also looked at lots of different butterflies and have noticed that every butterfly is ‘symmetrical’. The children took mirrors home on Thursday so they could look for lines of symmetry at home and find things that are symmetrical.
Star Myles
Golden Quill Harper
This week, we have based our learning around one of
our favourite stories, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’
Over the Easter holidays, two of our butterflies
emerged from their chrysalises and we have released
them into our class garden. We watched the
third butterfly emerge on Tuesday and discussed its
life cycle.
In Maths, we have learned how many items of food
the hungry caterpillar ate and what 'one less' would
be. We also really enjoyed retelling this familiar story
to our friends in our reading garden and making our
own paper chain caterpillars as props.
The tadpoles are growing so fast and getting bigger every day! The children are hoping when they return after Easter, the tadpoles might even have legs and be turning into froglets. The caterpillars are turning into chrysalides and sadly we think they will hatch over Easter but Mrs Hargreaves is going to try and video the transformation.
The children are all making fantastic progress with their reading and thank you to all our parents who are reading and completing the ‘hold a sentence’ every night.
The children have been very busy this week making Easter crafts and were all very proud of their pompom chicks and Easter cards. The children also enjoyed making Easter biscuits which were delicious!
Thank you to everyone who came to our Easter Bingo, it was a lot of fun.
Golden Quill Annabelle
Star Jack and Marnie
The caterpillars and tadpoles are growing every day and the children are looking for
any changes they notice. The children have counted over twenty tadpoles so we
might have a lot of frogs to look after. The caterpillars are growing very quickly and
the children have noticed that they seem to be getting ready to spin their cocoons.
The children have been using magnifying glasses to look very carefully at the
tadpoles and caterpillars as they grow.
The children are learning ‘red’ words, these are words that you are unable to sound
out and you just have to learn. ‘Red’ words include, I, me, the and of and you will see
these red words start to appear in their reading books more and more.
In class we have been learning about less than in number work. Thank you to
everybody who came to our Number workshop, we hope you all enjoyed learning
and playing with numbers with us. We are looking forward to having you all
Reception parents back next week for Easter Bingo on Friday at 2.15 pm.
The children continue to enjoy watching the tadpoles grow and they are now also
looking after caterpillars. The children are learning about the lifecycles of frogs and
caterpillars and how tadpoles and caterpillars metamorphosise over time. The
children also loved going to visit the chicks in Year 1 and they thought they were
very cute!
The children have been learning to count backwards this week and look at different
numbers and begin to see the difference between numbers. In class we love playing
number games and we would like to invite Reception parents to come in next
Tuesday at 2.15 pm, to play some number games with the children and find out what
we have been learning about in numeracy.
Star Ollie
Golden Quill Jackson
On Monday, as part of Science Week, the children really enjoyed working with Becky
from the The Union Chain Bridge Project. Becky talked to the children about
Margaret Rebecca Dickinson who was a Victorian botanist and plant illustrator. The
children enjoyed finding about what Margaret did and where she collected all her
plant specimens from. They learned about where she lived in locally in Norham and
how she travelled to different places in the United Kingdom by train from Norham, to
gather her plant specimens. The children looked at some her detailed and beautiful
watercolours which really looked like photographs. The children then became
botanists and looked at a variety of plants and noticed similarities and differences
which they then painted in watercolours themselves.
Science Week has been exciting and the children loved dressing up as scientists. In class we now have some tadpoles and every day we have been setting up a new science experiment to observe and discuss what happens. We have lots of photos of the experiments we have carried out including
rainbow skittles, creating bouncy eggs in water and rainbow water! The children have all planted a pea to grow at home, it was lovely to be out in the sunshine planting.
Golden Quill Marnie
Star Ollie
On Monday there was great excitement in Reception Class because the children are
now looking after frogspawn. They have been looking very carefully at the frogspawn
every day and they are waiting patiently for changes to happen!
The children are bringing home this week a paper ladybird and eight spots. The
children have been learning about the numbers 6, 7 and 8 and will show you how
they can make these numbers in different ways, on each side of the ladybird, for
example 6 can be made up of 4 and 2, 3 and 3, 5 and 1 or 6 and 0.
The Commando Joe’s lesson with Regan was another great success and the
children love achieving the challenges and activities set.
Thank you to all the parents for reading every school night with their child and
completing the sentence work at home.
Golden Quill Blu
Star Sophia
Reception have had great fun this week setting up the ‘Freg Frog Office’, where they
are able to use their amazing reading and writing skills. The children are all getting
so much better at reading and writing words with all the following special friends in.
‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘ng’, ‘nk’ and ‘qu’ in them.
In Reception we have also been weighing different objects and weighing the objects
using measuring balances. The children are learning to use the right vocabulary to
describe what happens when they weigh different objects. The key vocabulary they
have been using is heavy, light, heavier than and lighter than.
Golden Quill Jackson
Star Harlynn
Another very busy week in Reception! At the beginning of the week we enjoyed
learning about Chinese New Year and learning about how a new year is celebrated
in China. This year, it is the year of the tiger and we celebrated by eating Chinese
noodles and everyone loved them.
The children also had a great time learning about light when Adam came to talk to us
from the Kielder Observatory. The children learned the difference between natural
and artificial light and how important different types of light are in our world. The
children learned all about stars and how the hottest star is blue in colour and the
coolest star is red. The children have also learned about how rainbows are formed
and we had great fun using special glasses that made us see lots of rainbows when
we looked at different light sources.
Golden Quill Blu
Star Harley
This week Reception enjoyed learning new songs with Mrs. Stephenson, our music
teacher. Mrs. Stephenson also played ‘Superhero’ music and we danced in different
ways to the music, catching villains and saving innocent people! The children have
also pretended to be ‘Superheroes’ in PE and completed some ‘Superhero’
challenges in record times with each other. There are lots of photos of the children
completing the challenges on the website.
The children have continued to think about how to look after the birds and have
designed their own bird feeders to hang outside on our tree and other branches
around our playground. The children have loved watching the birds feed and learning
all the different bird names.
Golden Quill Marley
Star Harper
Reception Class have been looking for signs of winter and change outside and were
very excited to find the bulbs that they had planted are starting to grow! The children
keep going to check every day to see what changes they can see. They are looking
forward to them flowering in the spring. The children have also been thinking about
how they can help feed the birds in the winter and they have begun to decorate their
‘Tesco’ tree outside with food for the birds.
The children are also working extremely hard to be able to read and write the sounds
we call ‘special friends’, these are ‘sh’, ‘th’, ‘ch’, ‘ng’ and ‘nk’. Please keep practicing
these sounds at home with your child.
Golden Quill Jack
Star Harlynn
Reception Class have continued to have lots of Christmas fun this week and they all very excited about the special day! The children all enjoyed their Christmas party and played lots of games and danced a lot! The children made delicious snowman biscuits to eat at their party and there are lots of party photos on our Class Page on the school website. The children have also enjoyed reading a new story by Ross Collins, ‘I am a tiger’ and they have all taken a copy of the story home to enjoy. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Reception Class have had lots of Christmas fun this week. The children started the week by thinking about what they would like for Christmas and they all wrote letters to Santa. ‘Boogie Beats’ had a Christmas theme this week and the children had great fun, dancing and decorating a tree together. The children have also been busy making Christmas decorations and cards to bring home and they are all very pleased with their creations. We have also found time to film our short nativity and had great fun putting all the costumes on. Parents will be able to access this film soon.
The children have also enjoyed using the big apparatus in the hall and explored climbing and travelling on it in different ways.
Reception Class were very excited and lucky to have a real Christmas tree delivered
this week. The children wrote a letter to Tesco saying that they would like a real tree
and Tesco kindly donated a tree. The children had great fun decorating the tree and
after Christmas they are going to put it outside and decorate it with food for the birds.
Reception Class have also continued to learn about two dimensional shapes this
week and are becoming shape experts. The children are learning to talk about the
properties of shape and use the right mathematical language to describe the shapes.
The children have had lots of fun this week learning about colour and they have experimented with the primary colours, red, blue and yellow. They have discovered which primary colours we have to mix together to make green, orange and purple. The children have also explored how we can change the ‘shade’ of a colour and make the colour lighter or darker, using small amounts of black and white paint.
This week the children in Reception Class have also enjoyed learning a dance for the Children in Need danceathon. They have learned the moves for ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry and there are photos of the children dancing below.
On Tuesday, the children got to meet the author and illustrator Ross Collins by
zoom. In class we have been reading lots of his stories and on Tuesday, Ross
read our favourite story that he has written, ‘There’s a Bear on my Chair’. Ross
talked to the children about his work and why he had decided to become an
author and illustrator. The children drew pictures with Ross and enjoyed listening
to an author reading his own stories.
This week we have been learning about Remembrance Day and why we stop to think and be silent on the 11th day, of the 11th month at 11 o’clock. The children enjoyed learning about why the poppy
became a symbol of peace and remembrance as well as finding out how the poppies are made. All the staff in Reception were so impressed by the way the children in Reception Class stood in a circle and silently observed our two minute silence.
The children returned full of Halloween tales and on Monday after half term and wrote about what they had dressed up as for Halloween. The class have all planted a daffodil bulb this week and learned all about how bulbs grow and we also enjoyed investigating bulbs and chopping them up! We decided the bulbs were a bit like an onion. The children are looking forward to watching the bulbs grow in the spring. We have also had a nice time thinking about November 5th and why we celebrate it every year with fireworks and bonfires. The children have enjoyed making their own firework art, rockets and have learned about how important it is to stay safe when celebrating November 5th.
Please click the link below to find out about what we are learning about this half term.
The end of a busy half term. This week in Reception Class we have spent the week celebrating how much we have achieved since September. The children are now so much more independent and are quickly learning new things. The children have enjoyed thinking this week about the sea and all the lovely things we can do at the seaside and the way it makes us feel. Every child has painted the sea and has made their own little sea scene in a bottle to take home and show their families. The children have enjoyed relaxing to the sound of the sea and looking at the sea when it is calm and when it is rough. The children also enjoyed a Halloween themed day, thanks to Mrs Hargreaves and Miss Blackhall yesterday. There are lots of photos below for you to enjoy.
This week the Reception children have been looking carefully at the similarities and differences between each other. The children discovered they all have lots of features that are the same such as hair, ears and eyes but also differences within the similarities. We made bar charts plotting the differences so we could compare and talk about what we had found out.
The Reception children also enjoyed looking at lots of different herbs gathered from the Berwick Community garden. They used their senses to find out the difference between each of the different herb plants and learned some tricky new vocabulary such as oregano and rosemary!
The children in Reception have also been doing lots of careful counting this week and counting sets of objects into tens frames. The children are also getting very good at recognising sets of objects up to 4 by sight and we use the phrase, ‘See it, don’t count it.’
The children all know lots of letter sounds now and are using their letter sound knowledge to read and write simple words.
This week Reception Class have really enjoyed learning about castles. We have looked at castles in our local area in particular Holy Island Castle, Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Norham Castle. All the castles looked different but they had a lot of the same features such as turrets, crenels, merlons, battlements and moats. The children enjoyed looking at the castles carefully and then they built and drew their own castles.
This week we have also become expert sorters and are able to talk about how things are sorted and why we think they are sorted as they are. The children enjoyed sorting animals, bears and buttons. They looked at things that were the same and things that were different.
Every Monday Mrs Stephenson teaches us music. We are learning to play lots of different percussion instruments and know their names. We are also learning to keep a beat and lots of new songs.
Unfortunately not the ones with chocolate chips.
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