Reception

Welcome to Reception

In Reception we love to learn and play! We have lots of different areas that we can explore and we like to challenge ourselves with our mini-me challenges. 

We have very high expectations and are striving to meet the Early Learning Goals. This includes writing super sentences, learning our numbers, counting and reading a book. We have daily phonics sessions where we follow Letters and Sounds and also use Jolly Phonics actions to support our learning.

Mrs Fox, Mrs Thompson, Mrs Donno, Mrs Berckley, Mrs Aslam, Miss Priestley, Mrs Purba and Mr Manning all help us with our learning. 

If you wish to contact us then please do so via the emails below and we will respond during school hours. Many thanks.

rachel.fox@alwoodley.net

julia.thompson@alwoodley.net

Our class groups are named after the books above, but we read lots others that link to our topics across the year.

Sports Day

We had some lovely weather at last and were able to do our Sports Day! We were such superstars and our teachers were so proud of us. Everyone tried their hardest - well done Reception.

Nell Bank

We had an amazing day at Nell Bank! We were searching for the Gruffalo and did lots of fun activities on the way. First we went pond dipping and found newts, snails and disco dancers. Then we slid through fox's tunnel and checked that the Gruffalo wasn't waiting for him! After that we built a home for the mouse and made some delicious Gruffalo crumble. We also really enjoyed the water play area, it was nice and cooling on a sunny day.

1k memory run

A huge well done to all children and parents who joined in with our 1k run, in memory of Maya's grandma. Everyone tried really hard and all of the children loved their stickers and certificates! Thank you to Mrs Saxton.

Eid

Some of us have been celebrating Eid this week. We have enjoyed talking about our celebrations in class. Mrs Purba gave us all mendhi and we made delicious chapatis!

Ash Classes Forest School Day

The children enjoyed their morning in the local woods. We listened to the birds welcoming us and completed the following activities;

• Feeling the bark on the different trees and describing it.
• Making  bark rubbings using the crayons.
• Making a crown from vines and thin branches.
• Collecting natural objects and sorting  by their colour. 
• Collecting leaves and making a leaf bracelet.
• Finding different items from the hunt checklist. 
• Working in teams to make the tallest stick tower possible. 

Our chicks

Our chicks have started to hatch and we are so excited! We have three so far and another three are hatching in the incubator. We have named them Chirp, Cheep and Chip. We've really enjoyed holding them and feeling their soft feathers.

The Hungry Caterpillar

Catherine came to see us again from Tiny Tunes and she read us the story of The Hungry Caterpillar. We used pom-poms to move like a jiggly caterpillar and material to move like a floating butterfly. We really enjoyed joining in with the story and learning about the life cycle of a butterfly.

Chickens

This week we have been learning about chickens. We made different treats for them to eat and went to see which they enjoyed the most! We think their favourite food was the worms and the seeds.

Forest Schools

RRF had an amazing time at Forest School, even with the wet weather! We went into the woods and collected different natural objects to make ourselves a bracelet. We then looked at the different leaves and made patterns and pictures with them. 

Tadpoles

We have been learning about the life cycle of a frog and we went to the pond to look for tadpoles. We have drawn the tadpoles, written super sentences about them and enjoyed looking at them with magnifying glasses.

Looking at the hens

We were very excited to get some chick eggs in Reception so we went to visit the hens to see what they would look like when they have grown up. We drew the hens, labelled them and wrote a super sentence.

Tiny Tunes

We had a lot of fun with Catherine from Tiny Tunes yesterday. We listened to the story 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush' and joined in with different songs for the different locations. We danced and moved our bodies to the music, using different objects and materials.

Handwriting

We enjoyed having our families in this morning to show them our wonderful handwriting. First we all practised our different letters together and then we had a go at doing different handwriting activities.

Reading with our friends and family

For World Book Day we invited our families in to read with us and share their favourite books. We really enjoyed showing off our fantastic reading skills!

Pancake Day

Today we have been making pancakes! We found out about why pancake day happens and what Christians believe about Shrove Tuesday. We then made our own pancakes and tasted them - they were delicious.

Building bridges

We have been finding out about the architect Isambard Brunel who designed different bridges and we have been looking at Tower Bridge. We were given our own challenge to design and make a bridge that could cross over the 'River Thames' and hold the weight of a car. First we designed our bridges and thought about what we would need to make it, then we made it and tested it. Some of our bridges were not strong enough so we had to amend our models.

Chinese New Year

Today (Tuesday 5th February) is Chinese New Year and we are learning all about it in class. We have had a go at writing our name in Chinese, made Chinese lanterns and flags, painted Chinese pictures (using the lucky colour red) and tasted some Chinese food.

Snow fun!

We were so excited that it had snowed so we wrapped up warm and went outside to enjoy it. We had a go at writing our name in the snow, drew shapes, made snowmen and pulled our friends around on the sledge.

Winter walk

We have been enjoying the cold, frosty weather today! We looked around for signs of winter and found icicles, a frozen pond and frost.

Firefighters

We have been finding out about Firefighters and what they do. We had an exciting visit from some firefighters and they brought their fire engine too! They showed us all of the different equipment, we listened to the siren and were able to sit in it too. Then we asked lots of interesting questions to find out more information.

Winter poem

We have been reading and writing Winter poems this week and using lovely describing words such as glittery, sparkly and soft to describe snow and snowflakes. We also learnt a poem - we hope you enjoy it!

Winter

We are now in the season of Winter and we have been learning all about the Winter weather. We have enjoyed using our new Polar Regions role play area, decorating snowflakes and reading 'Fletcher and the Falling Snowflakes'.

Stay and Play

We had a lovely time this morning when our parents and grandparents joined us for a stay and play session. We made mince pies and biscuits ready for our Christmas fair, decorated crowns and had a go at sprout rolling!

Christmas Crafts

We have really enjoyed doing different Christmas craft activities in our areas. We have had to use our best fine motor skills, including cutting and threading, to make a range of different things.

Christmas lunch

We really enjoyed our yummy Christmas lunch! We pulled crackers, wore party hats and ate all of our scrumptious food up.

Run, run, as fast as you can!

We have been learning the story of The Gingerbread Man and retelling it using Talk for Writing actions. We then followed a set of instructions to make our own gingerbread men, they tasted delicious! We had to carefully weigh out the different ingredients and counted raisins on for the buttons. When we tasted them we wrote a review about them, all of us said they were yummy.

Remembrance Day

We have been finding out about Remembrance Day and why people wear poppies. We then made our own poppies out of different materials. As a home learning challenge we were asked to bring in poppies for a whole school project where we spelt out the words 'thank you'. It looks amazing!

Diwali

On 7th November it was Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. We have made Diwali cards and diva lamps to celebrate. Mrs Purba celebrated Diwali and we enjoyed asking her lots of questions about it.

Signs of Autumn

We have been looking at our local environment and talking about the signs of Autumn, such as leaves changing colour and falling off the trees. We have enjoyed stamping in piles of leaves, scooping up conkers and printing with natural objects.

Our Wonderful Harvest Festival

Thank you for the generous food donations and for coming to watch as we all performed. We were all super stars!

The Three Little Pigs

We have been learning the story of The Three Little Pigs. We used talk for writing actions to help us retell the story, we have ordered pictures from the story, made masks and had a go at problem solving.

National Fitness Day

For part of National Fitness Day we all ran 1k around the school playing field. Mrs Fox and Mrs Saund were so proud of us!

Exploring our school grounds

We went on a walk around our school grounds and talked about some of the things we could see. We also looked at what was next to our school, such as the park. Some of us then challenged ourselves by drawing a map and sorting features into things we have in Alwoodley and things we don't.

Experimenting with teabags

We have enjoyed smelling the different teabags and experimenting with the colours they make. We mixed a red bush tea bag with a lemon tea bag and it made a lovely light orange. We described them as smelling 'sweet', 'minty' and 'delicious'.

Our first week

Some of us have started in Reception and we have had a fantastic week! We have enjoyed getting to know the children and adults in our class, exploring the new areas and learning our new routines.