Welcome to Reception!

Frogs Frogs Frogs!

We explored the school pond this week in our search for frogspawn. We found lots and we are now carefully looking after it in the classroom . We will update you when the tadpoles hatch out of their soft jelly eggs!

Here are some of the lovely character spoons we made on World Book Day.

Can you guess  who they are?

We learnt about the life cycle of a seed and played lots of fruit and vegetable themed activities and games.

Thank you to all the families who could make it to the first of our Reception Family Friday.

We found some enormous dragon eggs in the school grounds! We had to look after them until they hatched! We had so much fun with this! We followed a map to find the eggs and we made a big bucket of dragon soup to feed the dragons. The children were all extremely excited and didn't realise how much they practised their reading and writing skills whilst engaged in this!

As well as being part of the whole school mental health activities going on this week, Reception Class have enjoyed learning about emotions, teamwork and connection. We had fun playing team games that encouraged each person to work together and communicate to reach a goal. We also thought carefully about all the things we love, care for and appreciate. We wrote a beautiful class poem together and learnt and performed a song.

Team Games

We have been learning about Lunar New Year! 2023 is the year of the rabbit! Our class worked together to create a Chinese dragon and a ancient Banyan Wishing Tree.

We have also been thinking about doubling numbers. We noticed that some numbers have a double hiding inside
them e.g. 4 has double 2 inside it. We also found out that not all numbers have a double inside them. We went on a walk to find things that are in doubles around our school.

Over the last two weeks, we have also been learning about the moon the moon landings. We have designed and made some brilliant moon buggies. You can see how we used a saw to cut dowel to make axels for our buggies!

Chinese and Lunar New Year!

Moon Buggies

Double Numbers

'Space, It's  a Place!'

The children in Reception and Year 5 have been learning about Space as part of their topic.  The two classes came together on Friday to share their knowledge about Space! The children worked in groups and discussed what they knew about Space and shared their learning. We then used the 'Chatter Pix' app to record our learning, in the form of a planet. The children worked fantastic together and shared some excellent facts and the Year 5's were smitten.

We read our class book called Look Up! By Nathan Bryon. We enjoyed learning about space, astronauts, the Earth and moon. We learnt about gravity in our science experiment and we used pastels to create meteor showers pictures! 

ALIENS!!!

As part of our computing curriculum, we created some alien pictures using the 3D paint programme. Our mouse control and computing skills are improving, and we have also been learning how to log onto the computers independently.

Astronauts and our space theme....

Reception also visited the new library this week and chose a book with Mrs Beecroft. 

CHRISTMAS SOCK DAY!

The children came to school for the last day of term in a pair or either Christmas or silly socks to raise money for Airedale Hospital to support those in need this Christmas.

Our visit to the Methodist Church.

On Friday 9^th December the children in Reception class visited Addingham Methodist Church for a festive treat. We enjoyed the walk up to Church in the frost and sunshine. Reverend Shannon invited us to sing some Christmas carols and we listened to the Christmas story. We took part in setting up a Nativity using the small world Nativity figures.

Our Christmas Nativity was brilliant this year! Thank you to everyone who managed to come and see it (and to those of you who enjoyed it so much you came twice!!). The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience of rehearsing, singing and performing for you!

POLAR BEARS

The children have continued to visit the computer suite. They have developed their mouse control and skills, by creating an polar bear picture. The children were shown how to click on the image of the polar bear with the mouse, and how to change the shape and position of the image. Additionally, they added detail to their picture, by creating a cold environment for the polar bear, using the paint brushes and cold colours. They completed this activity on the 3D paint programme.

Reception children learnt about Remembrance Sunday last week. We created poppy pictures and learnt the Makaton sign for solider. We had great fun in gymnastics, balancing and sliding along stools and benches. During our road safety topic, the children had a visit from our local Lollypop Lady Maureen. Maureen talked to the children about how to cross the road safely with and without a Lollypop person present. We have also enjoyed our role play mechanics and car wash this week too!

Gymnastics

Lolly Pop Lady Maureen

Mechanics and carwash role play

In Reception we read the story 'Not a Stick' and then collected and transformed our own sticks into something magical. We also explored mark making with water colours. We practised curved lines, dots and marks and used a dry and a wet brush to achieve different effects. This week we have had fun with spooky Halloween activities too!

We also learnt about the Hindu festival Diwali. We made Diva lamps out of clay and Rangoli patterns using coloured rice. 

In Phonics we have learnt lots of new sounds. Over the last two weeks, the children have been continuing to practice different letter formations in a variety of ways through provision.

This week in Computing, we have been practicing our mouse control to make marks and patterns, using the 3D paint programme.

We have read The Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert this week. We were inspired by the beautiful pictures to create our own leaf creatures. The children have enjoyed autumn themed activities including rolling pumpkins down different height ramps and shooting conkers through tubes!

This week all Reception children have visited the Computer Suite. They learnt how to switch on the machine and practised using the keyboard to write their names. They were very good at finding the correct letters! 

The children were introduced to Bertie the school owl. Bertie teaches the children about different cultures, communities and beliefs. This week Bertie helped us to think about our special friends and encouraged us to think about why they are so special.

Our new class of Reception children are settling in brilliantly. We have been busy making friends, playing with the new toys and learning all our class routines! What a super start to our first term!

We are all trying new things and playing together.

Look at all the activities that we have enjoyed already!

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Pond Dipping

The children visited the new school pond this week. We were amazed how many creatures were living in there. We found Water Boatmen, big tadpoles, Pond Skaters and Pond Snails! 

Spring is here!

In Reception we have been looking for signs of Spring and we found some, yay! Read on to see our recent activities and adventures!

We are very much enjoying watching our tadpoles change and grow... 

We have also made a wormery. We filled a fish tank with layers of soil and sand and we placed veg peelings on the top. After that, we collected bucket loads of worms from our Reception garden and carefully transported them into their new home. 

We love looking at natural objects. The children made flower arrangements using beautiful Spring flowers. We carefully selected, smelled and described our finished pieces. Keep scrolling to see what happened to the flowers next...

Next we used the flowers to create magical potions. The smell in Reception was incredible! The children mashed, stirred, drizzled and mixed their own perfumes and potions. It was great fun!!

Our visitors from the Environment group this week showed us the SUD's house. It was very interesting learning what happens to rain water.

After learning about the rain and water, pipes, gutters, water butts and sewers we went out to play with our water equipment.  We transported the water and watched gravity, angles and forces  in action!

We have been on a scavenger hunt looking for natures treasures. Each child had an envelope to fill with seeds, grass, leaves and other natural objects. We then chose how to display our items and made these pictures.

In literacy we have read Leaf Man and Stanley’s Stick and we enjoyed choosing our own sticks to decorate and make them become magical. The conkers have been used in maths to help us with our counting and to compare weights of different objects. We have also loved looking at the changing colours of the leaves and have made our own blackberry paint, leaf prints and spiky clay hedgehogs.

Most recently we have been reading the story Pumpkin Soup, which has been fantastic at helping the children use all their new phonics knowledge . The children had fun weighing an enormous pumpkin and then cut it up to make delicious pumpkin soup which we all tasted. some of the children asked for second helpings!!

The children have also learnt how to use the classroom resources inside and outside and they have completed challenges, tasks and activities in all our areas of learning.

Our maths has seen us describing shapes, counting sets of objects, arranging sets,  grouping objects, comparing numbers and weighing.

 2020

Tadpole news...

Our tadpoles are happily swimming around in their new tank. The children are really enjoying watching them wiggle around their new home! We are still waiting for signs of their legs growing... check back soon for more updates!!

We have been planting seeds this half term. All the children have planted, watered and cared for their broad bean seed and we are very proud to see our first few shoots coming through! We will be sending these home shortly so you can hopefully have a crop of beans in a few weeks time!

Here are some photos of some of the other activities we have enjoyed during our topic this half term...

ur topic this half term has been  Autumn and the children have loved looking outside at all the changes happening at this time of year. We have been on an Autumn walk all the way around the school grounds in our wellies and collected objects to bring back to the classroom. A highlight for the children was getting very muddy and squelching in the puddles! We used all the objects we collected to help with our learning, these included leaves, sticks and conkers.

In literacy we have read Leaf Man and Stanley’s Stick and have got messy decorating sticks to help them to become magical. The conkers have been used in maths to help us with our counting and to compare weights of different objects. We have also loved looking at the changing colours of the leaves and have made leaf rubbings along with collage hedgehogs.

Most recently we have been reading the story Pumpkin Soup, which has been fantastic at helping the children use all their phonic knowledge learnt this half term. The children had fun weighing an enormous pumpkin and then cut it up to make delicious pumpkin soup which we all tasted!

We have been learning how to log onto our school IPADs this week. We know how to enter a special code and navigate to a program. We have been using the IPADs to take photos too!

We are loving learning to read and write. We have been writing about the models we have made. What super progress we are making!

Look at our maths work! We are thinking about ways of making 5 and 6. What two numbers do you know that make 5 or 6?

Remember reading books are changed every Monday and Thursday, please write in your child’s reading record so we are aware they have been reading at home. Thank you!