Reception News 2021-2022
Beach School Session 3
During our final Beach School Session, we enjoyed creating sand art using shells, pebbles, feathers and even our fingers to make marks and patterns. The children were very excited to then do some paddling and rock pool dipping where they found lots of interesting sea creatures and objects to further investigate back on dry land. We finished our Beach School Session with some relaxation time and cloud spotting!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Beach School Session 2
Another successful beach school session today and it was lovely to see a different perspective of the beach with the tide in high and choppy waves due to the wind! The children enjoyed paddling in the sea and rock pool dipping too, collecting and learning about lots of various sea objects before going on a scavenger hunt for various items!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Bye Bye Butterflies!
We have released our beautiful butterflies in to the big wide world today!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
First Beach School Session
After a lovely walk down to our local and very beautiful beach, we discussed what we will see/do, the tide, the weather and possible hazards to be aware of. We then set some boundaries with the help of the children using canes, red ribbon and bunting.
We observed the sea, learnt about tide times and neap tides too before making a fishing rod using a clove hitch knot. We finished our Beach School session by building Sandcastles and then shell hunting to decorate them! The children enjoyed venturing over to the rock pools to collect water for their sandcastles too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
High Hopes Class Assembly
Sports Relief!
As part of this challenge the children took part in a silent reflection to encourage them to think about equality, mental health and wellbeing, and how with help and support people survive and thrive. The Reception children each wrote a power pledge about their hopes for the world before taking to the Astroturf to see how many laps they could do in 10 minutes!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
The Boat Museum
The infants have thoroughly enjoyed their trip to the Boat Museum today, they explored the exhibitions in the historic dock complex before taking part in a craft workshop with lots of creative activities using art to teach the crafts, customs and social history of the boat people.
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Challenge Week
WE CAN, WE WILL, WATCH US...
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Jubilee Celebrations
The children have really enjoyed learning about and celebrating the Queens Platinum Jubilee this week. From Tea Party role-play, to making celebration cakes with play dough, they have loved it all! The children particularly enjoyed writing invitations to their friends to invite them to our very special Royal Afternoon Tea party followed by lots of 1950’s style games! We ended our week with a lovely walk along the Wirral Way to West Kirby library and enjoyed a Storytime session about Queens too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
West Kirby Library
Another successful Library trip today! The children enjoyed walking along the Wirral Way to the library before enjoying a story time session linked to 'Queens' to support our learning about The Platinum Jubilee this week. There was even an Author at the library today who set the children a task to do about their 'happy memories' which he would like to use in his upcoming book!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Outdoor Learning
We love our outdoor learning sessions in the Forest Garden! This week we have been doing some more planting (tomato plants) linking to our learning in the classroom about plant life cycles. The children also enjoyed exploring musical instruments and cloud gazing too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Mental Health Awareness Week
As part of Mental Health Awareness week this week, the Reception children have enjoyed participating in the ‘Daily Mile’ challenge as well as enjoying increased relaxation time in the classroom with soothing music and meditation. We have enjoyed additional Yoga sessions too! Our focus point has been ‘Loneliness’ and the children discussed this greatly after reading the story book ‘Something Else’ about a lonely creature that felt he didn’t belong. We talked about the special people in our lives who we could talk to and ask for help if we ever felt lonely. The children each drew their special people and finished the sentence ‘If I feel lonely, I will...’ with some sensible ideas including “I will talk to my Mum!”
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
The Reception children were really excited to display the fantastic posters they have been creating around our school today to remind all of our friends to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Ness Gardens
What a wonderful day the EYFS had at Ness Gardens! They enjoyed a guided tour, learning about all of the different plants and wildlife as well as collecting any fallen objects such as; pine cones, petals and leaves which we have brought back to the classroom to support our topic of ‘Growth’ and make beautiful collages with. The children had the opportunity to explore the beautiful grounds including the pond and gardens and spot lots of minibeasts and flowers on their journey too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Reception have been learning all about Our Local World and in particular the three R’s, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Today, the children enjoyed using litter pickers to collect litter around our school grounds. What a great job they all did finding and collecting lots of litter and helping to look after our school environment. Well done Reception!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Liverpool World Museum
We really enjoyed visiting the Museum today and the Reception children learnt lots about Dinosaurs, Minibeasts, Space and Time. They particularly enjoyed visiting the Aquarium too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
A Visit to West Kirby Library
A perfect day for a lovely walk down The Wirral Way before visiting West Kirby Library again. We enjoyed an ‘Easter’ themed Storytime session before decorating our own Easter bookmarks and then swapping our previously borrowed books!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
British Science Week
As part of STEAM week, the children have really enjoyed observing a STEM ambassador called Dr Andrew Fogg performing experiments and mixing materials as part of the technicolour theme of the week
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Stay and Play Week – SPACE
We have loved having our grown-ups join us in school this week! We showed them what we know about Space and enjoyed lots of fun activities including; building rockets, exploring ‘Moondough’, flying to Space in our Space Station, Solar-System Small-world play, drawing maps, writing lists of objects to take to Space and even launching rockets during outdoor learning!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Tiddles the Tortoise
A special visit from ‘Tiddles’ the baby Tortoise has really enthused the Children’s learning about ‘Pets’ in Reception. So much so, they are very keen to ask Mrs Callaway if we can have a class pet?
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
World Book Day
We have been celebrating books all week! With a trip to the Library, shared reading sessions with Year 3, playing fun games including ‘Guess Who’s Reading’, parading our wonderful outfits and visiting the book fair! The children have of course enjoyed a great amount of stories this week with a particular focus on ‘The Rainbow Fish’, we even wrote our very first book review and gave this book a 5-star rating!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Local Library Visit
The children did fantastically well at walking to West Kirby Library and behaved beautifully during our story time session with Laura! Afterwards, the children enjoyed hunting for popular characters from various stories to then discuss back in the reading area. Our session finished with the children selecting their own story book to borrow from the Library, we look forward to visiting again very soon to swap them!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Amazing Animals
Reception have thoroughly enjoyed learning lots about animals from hot habitats such as Jungles, Rainforests, Deserts and African Plains.
They have been writing about their favourite animal and even inventing their own unique animal before creating a model using salt dough! The children have enjoyed building animal models using junk materials thus supporting their learning of 3D shapes, threading animal masks, dressing-up as various animals in our Rainforest Role-Play area and exploring our Jungle small-world tray too! The children have also been developing their physical skills both indoor and outdoor by experimenting with their bodies and moving like various animals. We have been very lucky with ‘M and M Productions’ coming in to school and performing the ‘Jungle Book’ this week and we look forward to our Cinema trip at the end of the week to watch Sing 2 – more animals! How exciting
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
3D Shape Hunt!
In Reception we are looking for different 3D shapes, such as;
Cubes / Cuboids / Pyramids / Cones / Prisms / Spheres / Cylinders
Can you spot any of these around your home or garden too?
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Gung Hey Fat Choy!
The Reception children have really enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year this week. We have learnt all about how Chinese New Year is celebrated and lots about the traditions such as spring cleaning, wearing red and going to parades. After reading the ‘Great Race’ story, The children were excited to learn which animal represented the Year they were born in. We learnt about the characteristics of the different animals and the children wrote about them too. The children have enjoyed developing their fine motor skills using chopsticks in the tuff tray to pick up and transfer noodles, creating Chinese symbols in golden sand with chopsticks, exploring a Chinese Restaurant in the role-play area and making various decorations in the creative area including lanterns, dragon puppets and masks. To conclude our learning this week, we had a Chinese New Year celebration with Dragon dancing and a Chinese Banquet. The children enjoyed trying Spring rolls, noodles, egg fried rice and prawn crackers too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Parachute Games
There are many excited parachute games. Reception class have been exploring this and here are some of the benefits of having fun outdoors;
- Teaches children to follow directions.
- Encourages cooperation.
- Reinforces turn-taking and sharing.
- Works the arms, shoulders, and torso.
- Promotes communication and language skills.
- Develops a sense of rhythm.
- Introduces physical activity as fun!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Inspiration Assembly with Nathan Young
An inspirational young man, Nathan Young comes into school today to deliver an assembly to the children about his accomplishments as a young deaf swimmer. He is a young man who attended Calday Grammar School and he is now ranked the fourth best deaf swimmer in the WORLD! Nathan's important message for our children is;
NO matter who you are, what your ability is, you can achieve!
Reception asked Nathan some interesting questions;
How long can you hold your breath for?
How many medals have you won?
3 minutes and 100 medals - WOW!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Exploring the Polar Regions
The Reception children have been exploring the globe over the last couple of weeks and learning about Polar regions. They have been comparing where we live to the North and South Pole and also learning about the differences between the two. The children know all of the Animals that can be found in the Arctic and also a lot about the 17 types of penguins found in Antarctica! Some fantastic learning and lovely activities to go alongside (as you can see!) Well done Reception!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Number Bonds to 10
Look at all of the different ways we’ve been learning our number bonds to 10! Using Numicon, counting bears, cubes, numbered pebbles and even biscuits (which we think was the most popular!)
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Outdoor Learning
The fairies from our forest garden sent the Reception children a letter to let them know that unfortunately, their fishing rods had sadly broken. During outdoor learning, the children used their fine motor skills to tie string onto sticks to make new one fishing rods for the fairies.
Thinking about our winter topic, the children also made winter collages by collecting natural resources. The children used cold colours to create their wonderful pictures. There was also time to enjoy the musical pots and pans!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Exploring and Creating Maps
During our recent outdoor learning sessions, Reception have been introduced to maps and why we use them. The children walked around the forest garden creating their own maps. They are hoping for a visitor soon who can use and follow their maps to the campfire! Reception then took their outdoor learning indoors due to the windy weather...They worked together to follow directions and used the compasses to find their way through school, at the end of their journey, Reception stumbled across a lovely treat waiting for them...hot chocolate and crispy cakes, yummy! What a treat on a wet and windy day!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Christmas Party Day!
Dancing, Freddie Fantastic and tasty refreshments!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Santa’s Been!
After a fantastic Christmas party, the children were VERY excited to be surprised with a visit from the big man himself! As Reception are all on the good list, they each got a special present off him too.
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Letters to Santa!
This week, the Reception children have written some fantastic letters to Santa. They were very excited to walk to our local post box and deliver them too! We cannot wait to receive our reply from Father Christmas soon...
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Elf on the Shelf!
We have a visitor in Reception! Our Elf on the Shelf (appropriately named 'Jingle' by the children) is watching us closely in Reception to make sure that we are always making the right choices!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Winter
Reception have enjoyed all of our Winter themed activities this week! From counting snowballs, to painting winter trees and making wreaths in our outdoor area! We have really noticed a change in the weather too, we explored this by going for a walk around our school grounds and looking for signs of winter, this really encouraged the children’s descriptive writing in Literacy. We have also enjoyed some great winter stories including ‘Jack Frost’ and we have been carefully cutting snowflakes and icicles in our cosy winter den! We think the children will be very excited to develop this further next week when we turn all things CHRISTMASSY!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Chester Zoo
Today the children had a wonderful trip to Chester Zoo! The children helped lead the way towards which animals they wanted to see including; monkeys, lions, penguins, bears, flamingos, giraffes, elephants, sloths and many more! Our particular favourites were the Butterfly Garden and Aquarium. We even managed to squeeze in some play time within the fantastic Adventure Play Area too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Diwali Celebration
Today we enjoyed a special assembly delivered by Mrs Khangura! We learnt about the basics of Sikhi through a lovely story and how and why Diwali is celebrated. The children especially enjoyed having a dance at the end!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Road Safety
In PSCHEE this week, the children have been learning about Road Safety. They enjoyed listening to a story about how to cross a road safely before having a go themselves, remembering to STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN!
Reception also enjoyed listening to a Road Safety song and creating their own posters!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Remembrance Service
Today the Reception children attended a special Remembrance Service in school. They listened carefully as we thought about why/who we remember and also about the significance of the Poppy. The children enjoyed listening to some beautiful poems, singing and they observed 2 minutes silence before placing their beautifully handmade poppies on to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Let’s Celebrate!
This week we have started our new ‘Celebrations’ topic by learning about Diwali. The children enjoyed learning about the story of Rama and Sita and the traditions linked to ‘The Festival of Light’. The children created their own Diya lamps, made Rangoli patterns and celebrated away in our party area! Our writing focus involved the children writing their own invitation to a friend to request their presence at our Diwali Party on Friday. Everyone was very excited to take home a personal and colourfully decorated invitation! On Friday, we danced and celebrated by candlelight, we tried some new foods including Samosas and Bhaji’s and even watched an (interactive) firework display!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Outdoor Learning Day
To coincide with our learning about Diwali, the Reception children made Diya Lamps using clay and natural objects found in our forest garden. We also took our Mathematics session outdoors, going on a number hunt and then ordering numbers forwards and backwards up to 10!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Washing Our Hands
During our PSHCEE session today, the children enjoyed learning how to wash their hands properly whilst singing a song to ensure that they wash them for long enough! After all of the children had finished washing their hands properly, they each created a fantastic ‘Hand Washing Poster’ which we will be displaying around our classroom to ensure that we do not forget to do it!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Stay and Play
It has been lovely to welcome our parents back into the classroom this week - the children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their learning!
Our theme for the week was ‘Harvest’ with a particular focus on ‘Sharing to show we Care’, the children brought in their own donations and we used the fruits and vegetables from our Grocery store to sort the foods into groups of ‘processed’ and ‘fresh’. This led us to think about why it would be better to donate the ‘processed’ foods – “because they will last longer!”.
Around our classroom, we enjoyed fruit and vegetable printing with primary colours, planting and growing vegetables in the tuff tray, exploring frozen Autumn objects in the water tray, building a farm in the construction area, making leaf patterns with playdough, learning from lots of autumn and harvest books in the reading area and searching for numbers amongst lots of obstacles using tweezers only in our Maths Area. In Literacy, the children were visiting the shop but needed to write their shopping list first, great segmenting Reception!
In addition to all of this, the Reception children each made their own bird feeder during outdoor learning time to take home over the half-term holiday! Phew – a restful break for us all in Reception is well deserved!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Autumn Walk to The Woods
After learning so much about Autumn recently, the children could not wait to explore our local woods and collect lots of Autumn objects.
The Great British weather did not disappoint and so we enjoyed a wet welly walk and found beautiful coloured leaves, lots of berries, fir cones, nuts and even some poisonous puffballs (we left those ones in the woods!) The children will enjoy exploring and investigating their findings in the classroom over the next few days!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Well-being Week!
To create a relaxed ambience within our classroom this week, we have listened to fire crackling and autumn themed nature sounds during our learning time. We have had lots of discussions about our feelings and emotions and sharing ‘The Big Book of Feelings’ story helped us to learn about why we feel some of these emotions and how to deal with negative emotions too. We took most of our learning outdoors on Wednesday, exploring our natural surroundings and listening to environmental sounds. ‘Thankful Thursday’ involved Reception thinking about who they are thankful for and why, they drew beautiful pictures on little hearts to express their thoughts and ideas. Friday certainly was a ‘feel good’ day! We danced our way through the morning before enjoying some yellow-themed treats at lunch time.
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
The Start of Autumn
On Monday, many of us came to school having noticed a very big and beautiful rainbow! We started to think about the weather changing and learning about Autumn. The children went for an Autumn walk, looking for other signs such as; conkers, chestnuts, colour-changing leaves, fir cones and much more! The children used their checklists to help them to find lots of different things. Back in the classroom, we talked about what we could see/hear/feel and smell on our Autumn walk and recorded our ideas in our Literacy books. Reception have also enjoyed buying real fruits and vegetables in our Grocery store, investigating the Autumn themed tuff tray, ordering Autumn objects according to size and reading lots of stories about Autumn time!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
We are all different and all special!
Our PSHCEE session this week involved us sharing a story titled ‘We Are All Different’. The children thought about what makes them unique and shared some ideas with their partners. They then studied their faces in the mirror to carefully draw self-portraits considering hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, freckles etc. Lots of detail included – well done Reception!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Exploring Different Activities
In Reception this week, the children have been enjoying lots of varied activities including painting Autumn pictures and making patterns using natural objects. In addition to this, the Health Centre Role-play area has been very popular, encouraging the children to care for one another. We read ‘The Great Big Book of Families’ which helped us to understand that every family is different but all very special and unique in their own way. The children then drew their families, thinking about what they liked to do best and what made them special. Outdoor learning saw the children collecting fallen leaves to create fantastic leaf family members too!
See more photos in the Reception Class Gallery.
Outdoor Learning
Reception experienced their first 'Outdoor Learning' session with Mrs Gardner this week. What a busy afternoon they had, the children created a fire surround to sit around, they played hide-and-seek to explore the forest garden, they planted bulbs, collaged people using natural materials and then after all that, they ended their session with some mindfulness and relaxed listening to various sounds in the environment.
See more photos of our first week in the Reception Class Gallery.
Busy Bees in Reception!
This week, our Reception children have loved exploring our Forest garden, creating beautiful self-portraits and developing their fine motor skills using play dough and threading activities in our ‘Finger Gym’ area!
See more photos of our first week in the Reception Class Gallery.
Our First Week in School!
Well done to all of our Reception children for having such a successful first week in school!
See more photos of our first week in the Reception Class Gallery.
