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'), Thursday and Friday (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 a regular basis.

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 below, You can see previous planning at the bottom of this class page.

This week Reception have enjoyed taking part in ‘Superhero Challenges’ against the
clock. They have competed against each other and in teams to see who can
complete the challenges the fastest or who can record the highest score. At times it
has been quite competitive and 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 and made their own bird feeders to hang outside on our tree and other
branches around our playground. The children love watching the birds feed and
learning all the different bird names. The children have also been looking carefully at
the birds they can see and have been noticing similarities and differences. This week
they have made birds from paper and also drawn some very careful pictures of birds.
In maths the children have been working hard with the numbers 4 and 5 and looking
at all the different ways that these numbers can be made. For example 5 can be
made from 3 and 2, 5 and 0 and 4 and 1. Next week we are going to be looking at
how we measure weight and capacity in maths.

Reception Class have enjoyed playing in the snow this week and have been looking
for signs of winter and change outside. The children have noticed how cold it is and
loved finding icicles around the playground and searching for the bulbs growing
slowly out of the ground. The children keep going to check every day to see what
changes they can see and are looking forward to seeing the bulbs flower 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 design some bird feeders which they will hang
outside and share with the birds.
The children have also started thinking about superheroes and what makes a
superhero a superhero! They have started to think about if they were a superhero
what would their special power be and what they would do if they had this super
power. Reception Class now have a ‘Superhero Office’ in the classroom and there
are lots of exciting adventures happening in this office.
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 practising
these sounds at home with your child.

The children in Reception Class were happy to return to school after their holiday and are already working hard. The children are enjoying taking part in the 'Dough Disco' every morning and warming their hands up to write. The children are now taking home a 'Ditty' to read at home every night and a sentence to practise reading and writing. They are all enjoying reading the 'Ditty' at school and are making very good progress. 

This week in Reception this the children carefully wrote their Christmas cards and
collected all the Christmas decorations they have made to take home. The children
were very proud of their creations.
The children were very excited about their Christmas party and decided as a class
which games they were going to play, including pass the parcel and musical chairs.
The children all made crowns for their party and baked Christmas biscuits to share
with each other at the party.
The children are very good at counting accurately in Reception and have been able
to carefully count out the correct ingredients for their special reindeer food which
they have all taken home to sprinkle on Christmas Eve.
The children have been learning to write simple sentences independently,
remembering to leave spaces between the words so that the sentences make sense!

This week in Reception the children enjoyed experiencing the frost and the snow
outside. The children were able to talk about what they noticed outside and the
changes that were happening and what they could feel. It was very cold and they
had to wrap up warm. They described the frost and the snow and noticed that the
ground was hard and they loved walking, running in the snow and trying hard to
make a snowman. Some of the children brought frozen leaves into the classroom
and we noticed what happened to them when they came into the warm classroom.
This week in maths Reception Class have been looking at the concept of one less in
more detail and have been learning lots of number rhymes based around one less.
The children have also been counting lots of Christmas objects accurately and they
are getting very good at accurate counting and recording the number correctly
independently.
The children in Reception sang beautifully for their parents on Tuesday and all the
staff in Reception were very proud of them.
Next week the children are going to be putting their final touches on their beautiful
Christmas decorations and writing their messages in their gorgeous Christmas
cards.

The children in Reception were so pleased to take delivery of a Christmas tree last
Friday from the Berwick Garden Centre. The children had written a letter asking for a
real tree and they have loved decorating it. The tree will be planted at the end of
term in our grounds and decorated with treats for the birds this winter.
This week in maths Reception Class have been looking at the concept of one more
and one less. The children have found understanding one more a little easier but one
less is proving a little trickier.
The children have started preparing for Christmas and started their week by writing
their very special letter to Santa. The children have also been busy learning about
the Christmas story and practicing their songs in music linked to the Christmas story.
We are looking forward to singing for the parents next week. Christmas cards and
decorations have also been started and they are looking very creative and beautiful.
Next week the children are going to putting their finishing touches to their singing
performance, ‘Whoopsy Daisy Angel’ ready to perform to their parents on Tuesday
13th December. The children are also going to be busy counting Christmas objects
accurately and writing Christmas words.

The children this week have produced some fantastic writing about the sticks they
have created and the adventures they have been on with their sticks. The sticks
have taken the children to the moon, the seaside and even the stars. There are
photos on the website of the children making their sticks and their finished creations.
This week we have focused on concentrating and persevering when the jobs we
have to do are tricky. In particular we have been working hard to form all our letters
correctly. It is so important that the children learn to form their letters correctly at an
early age because bad habits are hard to change!
The children in Reception have been trying hard all week to make shapes with lolly
sticks and straws. They had to think carefully about the properties of every shape
and make sure when they recreated the shape in straws and sticks it was
mathematically correct.
The children are getting very excited in Reception because we are starting to
prepare for Christmas. The classroom now has ‘Santa’s Workshop’ and the children
are busy helping the elves get ready for Christmas. The children are having to sort
the toys, wrap the toys and write the cards. They are very busy!
 

The children started the week in a bit of a muddle about 2D shape but now they are
turning into shape experts and will continue to develop their 2D shape knowledge
next week. We started the week by going on a 2D shape detective walk and they
looked both inside the school and outside in the grounds for 2D shapes. The children
are getting very good at identifying different 2D shapes and have been working hard
to learn the properties of different shapes and use the correct mathematical
language to describe each shape.
The children have loved reading the book ‘Stanley’s Stick’ by John Hegley and have
all now designed what they would like their own stick to be. Next week we are going
to make our sticks and are looking forward to take it on their own adventures.
Thank you to all parents in Reception for completing their homework every night, the
children are getting so good at reading simple words themselves and are working
hard to write them correctly too.
The children continue to enjoy Yoga and Boogie Beats each week and over the next
few weeks they are going to have a Christmas theme.

The children have tried so hard this week to write sentences using their letter sound
knowledge to sound out the words they want to write. All the staff in Reception are
so impressed. The children have also tried so hard to try and make sure the letters
they write are correctly formed, this is tricky! Every night the children in Reception
are bringing simple words home to read and write.
The children have also been looking at a new story book called ‘Stanley’s Stck’ by
John Hegley. Stanley finds a stick and takes his stick on lots of adventures. The
children have all found their own stick in the nursery garden and they are hoping
their stick will take them on lots of adventures. Next week, they plan to turn their stick
into something exciting, ideas so far have included a rocket, a fishing rod and a
plane.
The children have had great fun making the three primary colours lighter and have
enjoyed adding white to a colour and noticing how the shade of the colour becomes
lighter.

The children in Reception Class have loved working with Chloe and have produced a beautiful dance together. You can see their beautiful dancing in the videos below.

The children have had great fun in Reception Class this week colour mixing. The
children learnt about which colours are primary colours, red, blue and yellow and
what happens when we mix these primary colours together. Next week, the children
are going to be looking at how we change the shade of a colour. They enjoyed
listening to a story about three white mice who had great fun in pots of primary
coloured paint.
The dancing the children have been doing with Chloe is really coming together and
we are working hard to put it together into a routine that they will be very proud of.
The children have had to listen carefully to the music and learn different moves that
move in time with the music.
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.

This week in Reception, we have been learning all about bulbs! We looked at a range of bulbs and discussed what they need to grow. We will be planting them around school and in our classroom.
Our learning objective in Maths this week was to identify representations of 1, 2 and 3, comparing
groups of objects in terms of ‘more’ and ‘fewer’. We have been learning to form our letters correctly
and write our names independently. This week, we had a challenge: how many CVC words can we write?
We were also introduced to the first ‘special friend’ - the sound ‘sh’. On Thursday, we looked at how to stay safe on Bonfire Night and why we celebrate it. We also created some lovely artwork.

This week Reception Class have enjoyed learning to use the remote controlled cars
and being able to program the cars to go in the direction that they want them to! The
children were able to navigate the cars around a variety of obstacles and had to think
carefully about how to do this without crashing.
The children are getting more and more confident at using their letter sound
knowledge to read and write simple words. The children are able to Fred Talk the
words and blend the sounds together with increasing independence and it is
fantastic to see. The children are now learning to write these simple words such as
cat, red and tap independently.
In Number work the children have been focusing on the numbers 1, 2 and 3. The
children are able to recognise collections of objects of 1, 2 and 3 without counting
and some children can quickly recognise sets of 4 and 5 too. We encourage the
children to see the amount instantly and we use the phrase, ‘Don’t count, see the
amount!’
The children have also enjoyed learning and thinking about hedgehogs. They
watched a short film about hedgehogs and learnt new words such as nocturnal and
hibernation to use when talking and learning about hedgehogs. The children also
enjoyed making their own hedgehogs and learning a song about hedgehogs.
Golden Quill Orla
Star Cole

This week Reception Class have been using their fantastic letter sound knowledge to
read and make words using letter cards and magnetic letter boards. They are
becoming experts at Fred Talking and sounding out words they want to write.
Thank you to all the parents for filling their child’s individual Autumn bag with Autumn
finds. The children have enjoyed using their Autumn collections to make creative
Autumn art which they are looking forward to taking home, displaying and talking
about.
The children are enjoying their weekly dance lessons with Chloe and are looking
forward to putting their dance together to share with everybody.
Golden Quill Kyle
Star Ole

This week Reception Class have been thinking and learning about Autumn. The
children have been talking about the changes they are noticing outside and on
Monday we went for an Autumn walk. We noticed that the leaves are changing
colour and some leaves are falling off the trees. The children also learnt lots of new
tree names and discovered some trees are evergreen and some trees are deciduous
and lose their leaves. The children enjoyed collecting some autumn leaves and
berries which they used to make lots of beautiful Autumn pictures which were so
creative.
The children are enjoying their weekly music lessons Mrs Stephenson, they are
learning new songs based around Autumn including a song about rain and a song
about a scarecrow. They have also had great fun in Boogie Beats and enjoyed
dancing and singing with a variety of musical instruments. Another busy week in
Reception!
Golden Quill Oskaras
Star Kevin

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.
This week the children have also been learning to Fred talk words and this is very
tricky! Please come to Reception next Thursday at 2.45 pm to find out more about
Fred talk and how you can help your child with reading and writing at home.
Golden Quill Olivia
Star George

This week Reception children have been thinking carefully about their bodies. The
children are now very good at naming different parts of their body and have worked
together to make a life size body using lots of different materials. The children have
also been working very hard to recognise all the different Numicon pieces in maths
and put them in the correct order independently. On Wednesday, Reception children
were also very lucky to have special PE lesson with Regan where they had to
problem solve in order to get across the obstacles. The children had a lot of fun.
Please keep practising writing your child’s name at home and going over the letters
taught so far, making sure all the letters are correctly formed.

The children in Reception Class are settling and adapting well in their new class.
This week we started thinking about our topic this half term, ‘All about me’ and we
began by painting our self-portraits. The children looked very carefully at their faces
in mirrors and made sure they used the right colour of paint to recreate their beautiful
faces. The children have also started learning a new letter sound every day and are
trying so hard to form these letters correctly. It is very tricky! Please keep practising
writing your child’s name at home, making sure all the letters are correctly formed.