Year R

Welcome to our Year R blog!

Each week, we hope to share with you some of the learning that has taken place in our busy Reception classrooms. Maybe you could talk about what the children have been doing at school when you are at home with them?

Friday 5th July

This week we had a visit from the toothbrush team who came to see how we are getting on with our teeth brushing in school! We practised brushing our teeth and spoke about food and drink that were good and not good for our teeth.

In maths this week we have been looking at word problems and using drawings and counters to help us solve them. We have loved listening to pirate stories this term and have made some amazing pirate chests, swords and other crafts at home!

In the forest we went on a treasure hunt. We dug for treasure and found some interesting stones and other things. We also pretended we were walking the plank and practised balancing along the tree trunks and swinging on the ship’s ropes!

In literacy this week we have been looking at the story’ Pirates Love Underpants’. We designed our own pants and wrote sentences to describe them. We carried on making treasure maps, binoculars and telescopes to use in role play outside where we made large pirate ships together.

Friday 14th June 2024

In maths this week we have been using positional language to describe where things are. We made models with the Lego and put the man ‘next to the wall’ or ‘on the wall’. We also read the story of Rosie’s walk and talked about where she went. We drew maps of a route we go on and described them e.g. round the roundabout, through the park, into the house.  

In Literacy have been reading Commotion in the Ocean and learning about different creatures that live in the sea. We did some writing about crabs and dolphins and have been making animals out of different craft materials. 

Today we spent a lovely morning on the field practicing for our Sports Day next week – we are really looking forward to a fantastic morning. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for sunshine! 

Friday 24th May 2024

We have all been to Quex animal park this week. We all had a fabulous time! We were able to see all of the animals and were even allowed to feed the goats, ponies and baby lambs! We were even lucky enough to meet the two pigs! During the morning we were able to learn about the maize that Quex grow each year, we then followed this by planting our own plants to take home. We all had an amazing tractor ride all around the grounds of Quex.  After lunch we had time to play on the bouncy pillows and in the sandpit. Everyone was exhausted! 

For literacy and topic this week we have been talking about our school trip to Quex and writing words and sentences about what we did. Our favourite activities were feeding the animals, the tractor ride and the bouncy pillows!

In maths we have been recapping our learning for this term. We have practised our number bonds to 5 and 10 and have been looking at finding one less. We also explored using our subitising skills to find numbers within amounts.  

Friday 10th May 2024

This week in literacy and topic we have been listening to the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We compared the story to our caterpillars we have in class, which have all now transformed into a chrysalis! We looked at how the caterpillar grew in the story and then changed into a butterfly and wrote simple words and sentences about the story.

In maths we have been practising counting out amounts and then adding one more or finding one less. We enjoyed using counting bears and number lines and know that when we add more, our amount gets bigger, but when we have less, our amount gets smaller. Some of us also practised writing a number sentence to show our findings!

In child initiated this week we have been finding many different ways to make butterflies! We used coloured pasta and threaded it onto pipe cleaners to make a patterned caterpillar, we used circles to make caterpillars with different length bodies, we used cotton wool balls and coloured water to make a caterpillar with a different kind of body!

In the forest this week we have been planting different types of seeds. We know from our work on  growing that plants need soil, water and sunshine to grow, so we planted our seeds in compost. We had to scoop just the right amount into a pot before making a hole for the seed to go in. Some of us planted runner beans and some of us planted peas. We also found many different creatures in the forest this week- probably because it was a bit damp from the rain on Monday!

Monday 26th April 2024

In English this week we were talking about the different animals that came to visit us.

We talked about the animals name and what each one looked like and felt like!

We discussed which animal was our favourite and why. We then had lots of ideas to help us write about our favourite animal.  We made different animals out of card and paper.

This week in maths we have been learning all about odd and even numbers .

We used our own socks to help us! We also looked at repeating patterns. We used the outside area to create an odd and even game.

Out in Forest School we enjoyed using leaves and lolly sticks to make butterflies. We currently have some pet caterpillars in class and we are excited to see them transform into butterflies!

On Friday we held a special event called French Day. We came into school wearing the colours of the French flag which are red, white and blue. We enjoyed a French breakfast of croissants, learnt some French words and coloured in our very own French flag. We also used construction blocks to build famous French landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower. We had lots of fun singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in French!

Friday 19th April 2024

This week, to introduce or new topic about animals, we had some special visitors in school. The children really enjoyed meeting and learning about the different pets and how to care for them. We met Basil the cat, Blue the dog, Buzz and Jesse the tortoises, Bibbin and America the African land snails, Ace the snake and Storm the rabbit. The children were very brave and touched some of the animals so they could see how they felt.

This week we have been learning how to double numbers in maths. We have had lots of fun using different manipulatives to explore doubling. We found that to double a number we just needed to add the same numbers together.

In literacy we spoke about the different things we did over the Easter holiday. We then had a go at writing sentences about our 2 weeks off. It was lots of fun to hear what everyone did over the Easter holidays.

Thursday 28th March 2024

We have enjoyed getting stuck into Easter crafts this week during child initiated time. We made our Easter cards and also chose to complete some different crafts, including egg painting and making spring chickens! We also enjoyed playing Easter egg games on the interactive whiteboard in the classroom.

This week we had a visit from some Chartwell House residents who came to see our practise Easter Bonnet parade in the morning. They also listened to us sing some spring and Easter songs. We especially loved performing Spring Chicken!

In forest school this week we took part in an Easter egg hunt. We had to find the different numbered eggs and write down the letter on the bottom of each egg, then use these letters to crack the code! We worked out that the letters spelt out Spring Chicken! We had to look high and low as some of the eggs were very well hidden!

Friday 22nd March 2024

This week in maths we recapped our learning on number bonds to 5. We enjoyed using our new five frames and coloured counters and also practised writing number sentences to show the number bonds we had found. We also began to explore subtraction related facts by noticing that, for example, 5 – 1 = 4, which is the inverse of 4 + 1 = 5.

In Forest School we looked for signs of Spring and found some blossom. We talked about different habitats and looked at the bird and bug houses. We collected sticks and leaves and made habitats for different animals.

Friday 15th March 2024

This week in maths we have been talking about short and long. We have been ordering objects into length by shortest to longest. We had fun with cars sending them down a ramp to see which car would travel on the longest journey.  We made the longest traffic jam with cars and ordered different sizes of string. We even found straws that were longer, shorter and some were the same!

It was a very muddy forest school this week after all of the rain we have had! We spent time looking under logs to see what minibeasts we could find. We found some very long worms and a few small spiders. We also enjoyed finding different sticks and compared their lengths. We found some very short sticks and some that were so long!

In child initiated-time we kept checking on our seeds to see how much they had grown since we planted them. They were tall enough to take home this week. As we have been reading the story of Handa’s surprise this week, we made animal masks so that we could act out the story.

Friday 8th March 2024

This week in forest school we have been making bird feeders.  We used pine cones to fill with lard and then carefully  added bird seed. After the pine cones were filled we had to attach string so that we could hang the bird feeders in the trees. We will be looking to see what bird comes to feed from the new feeders.

In Maths we have been learning about weight. We have talked about the different kinds of scales we might find in our houses, found things that are heavier and lighter than us and used the balances to compare objects. We used the language heavier and lighter and know that if the pan goes down then the object is heavier.

We have had lots of fun celebrating World Book Day this week! We enjoyed sharing our special books from home with older children who read them to us. We also shared our books and reading buddies with other children in our class. In literacy and topic we enjoyed talking about different vegetables we eat at home and school, and wrote a sentence about a vegetable we like.

Friday 1st March 2024

This week in maths we have been looking at height. We have been looking at the words tall and short. The children had fun sorting different items from shortest to tallest and then tallest to shortest. We used all of our maths skills to count how many objects we could order in height. 

In Child Initiated time we have been planting our own cress seeds! Lots of us already knew that plants need sun and water to grow. We sprinkled our seeds on top of some cotton wool, watered them and put them in a sunny place near the window. We have also had a focus on sharing and playing with different children in class and had lots of fun making new friends.

We had a lovely time in forest school this week. We looked at pictures of different nests that birds may make for their eggs and spoke about why birds make nests. With our friends, we explored the forest school to search for different size twigs and leaves to make our own nests. We were able to find some real nests at the top of some trees too!

This week in our Literacy and Topic work we have been learning about plants. We talked about what we know about them already and what we would like to learn. We talked about how to grow plants and we planted our own cress seeds. We will be watching them excitedly for any signs that they are starting to grow.

Friday 23rd February 2024

Welcome to term 4!

In maths this week we have been learning about money. We explored the different coins we use here in England to pay for things. We also spoke about different ways of paying, such as paper notes, credit cards and even tapping using a mobile phone! We took part in coin sorting activities and also practised our counting and subitising skills. We also practised adding different coins together to find an amount. We had lots of fun selling fruit and vegetables to our friends in our class shop!

In Literacy this week, we have been learning all about the season Spring! We’ve enjoyed learning all about the season and what to look out for as the nicer weather begins to come our way. We’ve been writing sentences about what we have learnt about Spring. We have tried our hardest to use a capital letter at the start of the sentence, a full stop at the end of the sentence and finger spaces in-between the words. We have also learnt some topic words about Spring, and have had a go at writing them independently.

We had a workshop about road safety and how to cross the road and stay safe around traffic. We learnt about the 5 rules, to stop, look both ways, listen for any traffic or things that are dangerous, think about how safe the place is to cross, and then hold hands to walk across the road. We practised crossing the road safely with Kip the bear, making sure to look both ways!

We also learnt about pancake day and how people use up all of the ingredients from their fridge before lent starts. We tasted pancakes with lemon and sugar and we loved them! We talked about other things you could put on your pancakes.

Friday 2nd February 2024

This week in literacy and topic we have enjoyed learning about another planet, this time the biggest in our solar system, Jupiter! We found out that Jupiter’s big red spot is actually a huge swirling storm that has been going on for a few hundred years! We also looked at some recent news reports which showed that Jupiter also has Northern Lights and watched the images and videos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Our activities included choosing a fact we liked about Jupiter and we then practised our sentence writing skills.

During Child-initiated time we have been enjoying being astronauts in our space rocket with our friends. We have made some rockets out of different types of construction. Can you see the shapes we used? We have even drawn our own space rockets ready to blast off into space.

Friday 26th January 2024

This week in maths we have been using our knowledge and understanding of numbers. We have been grouping all sorts of objects to count and then writing that number on our whiteboards.  We played different games with rolling a dice and finding that numeral.

We had an exciting visit this week from The Planetarium! We jetted off into space and learnt lots about the moon, Earth and other planets. We also loved watching videos of the moon landing! The sky above our head was also transformed so that we could explore the night sky and spot different star constellations. We spotted a bear in the sky, a warrior and even a unicorn! Back in class during Child Initiated time we spoke about different textures and explored lots of different rocks and shells. We used words such as bumpy, heavy, shiny and smooth to describe them.

We have continued to learn about Space in our Topic/Literacy and this week we learned about Mars. Did you know that it is really cold on Mars even though it looks like it should be hot? We used marble printing and then cut out our own Mars planets. We also wrote facts about this amazing planet!

Friday 19th January 2024

During Child Initiated this week the children have been exploring our topic all about space.  The children have been scientists! They have been using torches to explore light and dark We talked about materials that let light through these are called translucent and materials that are solid and do not let light through are called opaque. We also talked about shadows; the children loved using the torches to make shadows.

This week in maths we have continued our learning on shape by looking at 3D shapes. We explored the names of the shapes, their features, and spoke about what they looked like. We thought a cuboid looked like a cereal box and a cone looked like an ice cream cone! During lessons we have been using building blocks to make models and spoke about the 3D shapes we were using. Finally, we went on another shape hunt to see if we could spot any 3D shapes around the classroom and school.

This week has been really cold but we have wrapped up well for our outdoor activities. Every day we go outside for a walk/run around the playground to do our Daily Mile. In Forest School we kept warm in our house. We found frost outside in different places but only where the sun hadn’t been shining.

This week in topic and Literacy we have been learning about the moon. We found out that the moon orbits the earth, and you can fit 4 moons inside our planet. We also found out that the holes on the moon’s surface are called craters. We had lots of fun making our own craters by dropping rocks in sand. We noticed that the bigger rocks made bigger craters.  

Friday 12th January 2024

Our topic/English this term is all about space, we started the week by discussing the solar system to find out what we already know about it.  We came up with some great facts about Earth. We talked about the deserts, the sea, forests and had lots of discussions about volcanoes!  The children loved exploring the role play area, this had been transformed into a spaceship! The children could complete the ‘Spaceship log book’ or study the rock samples. We read the book ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy. The children really enjoyed re-creating the story using our own cardboard box, wellies and picnic blanket.   

In Forest School this week we enjoyed being out in the sun, despite it being so cold! We spent time looking in the trees to see what we could find and we enjoyed using the 2D shape hunter mats to help us find lots of different shapes hidden around the forest.

In maths, we have been exploring shapes and finding how they can be made up of other shapes. For example a diamond can be made of 2 triangles, or a big square can be made up of 4 little squares. We also made repeating patterns using 2 or 3 different colours.

During Child Initiated lessons this week we have had lots of fun playing in our new roleplay area. The children have been using the area to aid their imaginary play and travel to different planets in our solar system. The children have also enjoyed building rockets out of Lego this week.

Friday 5th January 2024

This week in literacy and topic we began by sharing our holiday news with everyone. We then began looking at our topic for this term, which is space! We really enjoyed sharing what we already know about space and worked together in groups to make mind maps, where we drew pictures and wrote words or sentences to show what we know.

In Forest School we had fun developing our motor skills. We hid behind the log pile and swung on the swing. We collected wood in our wheelbarrow and found some pine cones. When they are wet they are small and closed like this and when they dry they open out.  

Friday 15th December

We have had lots of fun across all of the Reception classes this week, celebrating all things festive! We have got stuck into lots of different craft making, including making Christmas trees, Christmas cards, reindeers, paper chains, decorations and more! We have been continuing to practise our sounds in phonics and are all making so much progress. We have also enjoyed listening to Christmas and winter stories, along with singing holiday counting songs! Merry Christmas to all and we look forward to sharing more of our learning in 2024.

Friday 8th December 2023

As well as nativity performances this week we managed to squeeze in some Christmas themed maths activities! We decorated a tree with pompoms and sequins then counted how many of each colour. We worked out which colour there was most of. We ordered numbered stockings from 1 to 10 and from 10 to 1. And we drew decorations onto trees, finding one more and one less than the amount already there We also made Christmas pictures with 2D shapes and were able to name all of the shapes we used.

We had so much fun taking part in The Nativity this past week and wanted to show off our costumes! In Child Initiated time we enjoyed reading books and we spent time making our Christmas cards. We chose to have either our hand or our foot painted to make a snowman or a reindeer!

We wrote letters to Santa in our Literacy this week, can you see what we asked for? We practised spelling some words on these phonics frames and if we weren’t sure how to write the letters we used our soundmats. We have also been doing our own writing and drawing in our new Doodlebooks during child-initiated time.

We enjoyed creating stories in the forest school this week. There were pieces of wood with a variety of characters on, and we were able to collect them with our friends. Once we’d found some, we would use our imagination to create a story. We also had lots of fun pretending to make Santa and reindeer treats in the mud kitchen. We’re sure they’ll love them!

Friday 1st December

We have been exploring all the areas of our school in Child Initiated learning this week. We have been using all of our muscles to make patterns in the sand tray . We used the water wall to explore how the water moves around the wheel and down the plastic tubes.  We worked with friends to make a long track for the train to move along. Some children really liked using the pencils to create beautiful patterns. It has been a busy week for us in Reception.

We have been practising recognising our numbers to 10. We independently ordered our numbers and then used our subitising and counting skills to match amounts to the correct numeral. We also wanted to share our amazing houses we made for our Three Little Pigs homework! Our houses were so strong that they didn’t blow down, even when we used hairdryers! Finally we wanted to share some posters we made for our Road Safety homework. We are so creative!

In Forest School this week we looked at all the different leaves that have fallen off the trees and chose some to use for our Christmas tree pictures. We stuck the leaves on paper and then decorated them with shiny sequins.

Friday 24th November 2023

For Forest School every week, we need to put on our puddle suits, coats and wellies and are making so much progress doing this independently! We had lots of fun this week in the mud kitchen cooking up meals and also practised our balancing skills on the logs and beams. We found leaves and sticks around the forest school and took it in turns to use the wheelbarrow to transport the items around. We also had a great time on the swing as you can see in the photos!

In Literacy this week we have been learning about the Nativity story as we will be performing this in our Christmas show in just a few weeks! We thought about our character in the story and wrote a sentence about it. We have also been thinking about what presents you would give or receive according to your age, sorting toys and gifts according to who they might be for and thinking about how we change as we grow older. We made a stocking for either a baby, a 4 or 5 year old or an adult putting the correct gifts inside.

In maths we have been finding one less this week. If we find one more than a number then it gets bigger, whereas one less makes the number get smaller. We have used numicon, numberlines and lots of different objects to find one less, and played games to help us remember.

During child initiated this week, we have been exploring our new ‘Christmas post office’. We enjoy mark making and writing familiar sounds on letters or postcards, and posting them into our Christmas post box, while also role playing as a customer or a post office worker. One of our favourite activities in yellow class is construction. Many of us have created models and have had lots of fun using them during our play with peers.

Friday 17th November 2023

This week in literacy we enjoyed listening to the story The Three Little Pigs. Lots of us already knew the story well and we had lots of fun joining in with the repetitive phrases! We used pig and wolf masks to act out and retell the story and also took it in turns to be the different characters and then ask questions! In our learning journals we drew pictures of a pig and used our sounds to spell out words. We also took part in a pig and wolf craft activity.

In our child-initiated time this week, we had fun painting and then cutting out some masks for the 3 Little Pigs. We also did some drawing and made burgers in our home corner. Outside we practised our numbers in the tuff spot.

In maths this week we have been finding one more. We have used our subitising to identify a number and then added one more. We talked about how when we add more, the number gets bigger. We played lots of games and used manipulatives to explore one more.

We were lucky this week that the weather was bright and sunny on Wednesday so we made the most of the forest school! We found lots of small sticks and made some houses for the second little pig, adding leaves onto the roof too. We also used larger sticks to make a bigger house, big enough for a child to fit in! As it had been very wet and soggy at the beginning of the week we also found many creepy crawlies under the logs, we always make sure we put them back where we found them.

Friday 10th November

We had lots of fun in Child Initiated this week retelling different stories we learnt about. This week we found out about The Gunpowder Plot and then chose to build a jail in class for our prisoners! We also used building bricks to build the Houses of Parliament and learnt that it is a big building in London where lots of important decisions are made, and we had fun making firework pictures by dropping bags of cornflour! We found out about Diwali and enjoyed colouring in pictures of Rama and Sita. Finally we also enjoyed making poppies after learning about Remembrance Day.

In Literacy/Topic we have been looking at different events. We talked about Bonfire night and fireworks and made a whole class firework picture using printing and paint splatting. We saw how Diwali is celebrated and compared this to a Christmas celebration. We also talked about how poppies are the symbol of Remembrance Day and made some pictures.

In maths this week we have been exploring five and ten frames. We have been using different objects to show amounts in a ten frame, including a poppy theme for Remembrance day.

We are starting to use addition and equals signs to write number sentences, we can also use ten frames to show 2 groups of objects that go together to make 10.

Friday 3rd November 2023

This week it was too windy and rainy to go to Forest School so we did some spooky activities for Halloween instead. We used apples to print pumpkins and then drew faces on and cut them out by ourselves. We made a potion in our big cauldron and practised our problem-solving skills to find the right shapes to fill in the picture.

This week in maths we have continued our work on subitising by finding number bonds to 5. We found different ways of making 5 and enjoyed practising writing number sentences to show our recording. We have also been matching an amount of objects to the correct number and have been continuing to practise number formation.

We had great fun in child initiated this week. As it was Halloween we made and painted pumpkins. Some children used finger painting to create cats and hats .We had lots of matching sound games with a Halloween theme . Some children used the wooden blocks and Lego to build towers and rockets.

Friday 20th October 2023

Green class had lots of fun this week during child-initiated time. We enjoyed pretending to be doctors in our doctor’s surgery and cared for our toy babies. We built some high towers and chose to play some phonics games on our large screen! We also used Mobilo to build transformer cars.

In our Literacy/Topic lessons we have been learning about people who help us. We talked about when the firefighters and the police officers came into school a few weeks ago. We dressed up in our costumes and did different activities including sentence ordering and making cut and stick police scenes.

In Forest School this week we searched for things to make a good home for a hibernating hedgehog, we found crunchy leaves, long and short branches and twigs and then we made some food for the hedgehogs in the mud kitchen. We also used brown leaves to make a spikey hedgehog by gluing them on to paper. We are getting very confident at climbing trees and balancing along logs too.

In maths this week, we have been practising writing numbers. We have accessed a variety of activities including whiteboards, chalk, crayons and pens to enhance both our fine-motor skills and our accuracy when writing digits. We have also been continuing to look at the Ten Town characters. The characters help us to identify, write and understand the quantity of each numeral from 0-10.

Friday 13th October 2023

During child-initiated time, we choose our own activities. Indoors, we like to dress up and play in the home corner or with different toys. Outdoors, we have been making Autumn soup in our sandpit and playing with our water wall. Sometimes we do craft activities and this week we made hedgehogs with leaves we collected in Forest School.

This week in topic we have been talking about where we live, including what time of home we have and the things we have in our bedrooms. We also looked at a map of Thanet and found out where Cliftonville and Margate are. Inside the classroom we enjoyed drawing our house or cutting out a house and labelling it using sounds we have been learning. We also had lots of fun building different houses using construction toys! Outside we have had fun building homes large enough for us to fit inside.

This week in maths we have been having fun making numbers from zero up to ten. We then used different resources to make each number and practiced writing each number. We have been combining the skills we have been learning about subitising along with writing our numbers.

Yellow class had lots of fun on their weekly visit to the forest school on Wednesday. As Halloween is slowly approaching, the children had a wonderful challenge of creating some witches broomsticks using leaves and sticks! They used their fine-motor skills to carefully use the scissors and the sellotape to create their broomsticks. The children were also able to enjoy the usual gross-motor enhancing activities in the forest school such as the balance beam, the swing, the swing rope, climbing the trees and using the hammocks. Lastly, the children thoroughly enjoyed using the mud kitchen to make messy meals! 

Friday 6th October 2023

This week in our topic and Literacy lessons, we have been looking for signs of Autumn and using our senses to say what we see and hear. In Forest School we found lots of evidence that Autumn has started. The leaves are starting to turn brown and we found some that had fallen off the trees already. We collected some other natural objects and used them to cook some dinner in our outdoor kitchen. We also practised our balancing by crossing over our log bridge.

In maths we continued our work on subitising by working with amounts to 8 and 9. We enjoyed taking part in activities using our large screen in class and activities set out to show our subitising skills. We also enjoyed other activities such as working with and recognising numbers, and counting out and colouring amounts.

During child initiated, we enjoy going on the climbing frame! We have lots of fun balancing climbing, and zooming down the pole. We are able to use the climbing frame sensibly and take it in turns with each other nicely. We have all shown the grown ups that we’re super strong and able to negotiate space around our peers very well.

Friday 29th September

This week in Green class we had a great time out in forest school! We got dressed into our puddle suits and wellies and explored the swings, spider web rope, mud kitchen and hammocks! We also enjoyed climbing trees and playing alongside each other. We even found some small bugs and took lots of care of them.