Class Teachers: Mrs Towriess
Teaching Assistants: Mrs Cassidy, Mrs Burnett, Mrs McGrath, Mrs Wilkinson and Miss Whiteside
Welcome to Reception, also known as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which is part of Key Stage 1.
Please check this page regularly to see updates of what we are learning.
As we are experiencing some very warm weather at the moment, please ensure that your child has a sun hat to wear and brings in sun cream in a named bottle.
Please also make sure that your child has a water bottle with them at all times. We do encourage the children to drink regularly and, as you are aware, we have water dispensers in school to re-fill the bottles.
We are continuing with our topic for summer term which is ‘Under the Sea’. We are now reading a series of stories by the same author and these books are by Ronda and David Armitage. They are all about Mr Grinling the lighthouse keeper.
Mr Grinling has a very responsible job which is to keep the light on the lighthouse shining at all times to warn ships of danger. However, Mr Grinling has a few problems! Our first story is called ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Catastrophe’ and poor Mr Grinling has a very scary journey to make to the lighthouse in dangerous weather conditions!
Our topic for summer term is ‘Under the Sea’ and we are reading an exciting book all about Dougal who leaves his mundane day job and enjoys deep sea diving whilst on his holidays! Dougal finds a mysterious treasure chest containing gold coins and a treasure map which leads him to discover the magical underwater city of Atlantis.
We are all looking forward to our trip to ‘The Sea Life Centre’ in Manchester on Monday 20th May, to discover more about life under the sea. All information regarding the trip has been sent home but if you require any more information, please speak to any member of the EYFS team. Thank you to everyone who has returned the permission slip for this trip.
Continuing with our seaside theme, we have been busy setting up our own café in the classroom and have written some delicious menus to tempt customers into our café.
Our topic this term is all about ‘Dinosaurs’ and we have been to our library to look at non-fiction books to find out as much information as possible. After collecting many interesting facts about dinosaurs, we have created our own class book.
A few weeks ago, we spotted something very strange on our school field so we went to investigate.
Inside, we found a triceratops, a golden egg and a letter!
The letter was written by the Mummy Dinosaur who asked us to take care of her precious egg! We took the egg back to our classroom and began to think about how to look after it.
We made a list of things we need to look after the dinosaur egg. We then began to think about what we would need to look after a baby dinosaur.
We are now reading stories about dinosaurs. Our first story is called ‘The Little Green Dinosaur’ and we are learning to order and re-tell the story using Talk4writing actions.
Please continue to practise all of the irregular (tricky words) from Phase 3 and Phase 4. These words are incorporated into the daily phonics lessons.
Phase 3
he she we me be
you all are her was they my
Phase 4
said have like so do some
come little one were out
what when there
Visit Phonicsbloom website to play a game which helps to develop recognition and reading of phase 4 irregular (tricky) words. https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/tricky-trucks?phase=4#
Visit ICT games website for some good games to play to practice reading words containing these trigraphs.
After reading ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ by Julia Donaldson, we have enjoyed looking at another of her stories, ‘What the Ladybird Heard Next’.
Using the Talk4writing approach, we have used actions to help us retell the story incorporating a range of story language.
We are progressing through Phase 3 of Letter of Sounds and have been practising skills of segmenting and blending to help develop writing skills.
We are also learning all of the Phase 3 tricky words and high frequency words.
In Literacy we are learning about stories by Julia Donaldson. The first story we are reading is ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and the children have enjoyed using a creative approach to make and describe the characters from the story.
We will now be making a story map to help us to think about and remember the order of the story. We will use this to help us to include lots of detail when retelling the story.
At the beginning of the term we are looking at finding one more and one less than a given number. We have been practising reading numbers to 20, counting out that number of objects and then finding one more and one less. We are also developing our skills of recording our findings
Shape, space and measure.
We have been looking at 2D (flat) shapes and using these to create pattern pictures. We have also been naming 2D shapes and describing their properties.
When looking at 3D (solid) shapes, we have learnt how to identify a cube, cuboid, sphere, cone and a cylinder. We have also identified triangular and square-based pyramids.
We went on a 3D shape hunt around school and found Year 6’s prayer cube. We discovered that this could be changed into a cuboid!
In number, our focus will be on counting reliably with numbers from 1 to 20 including counting backwards. We will then complete practical activities ordering numbers and learn to say which number is one more or one less than a given number.
Using a range of objects, we are now becoming very confident at counting using 1:1 correspondence. We have been working on saying the number that is 1 more and 1 less than a given number within 20.
Our focus in maths for the beginning of the Spring term has been matching groups of objects and numbers, counting accurately using 1:1 correspondence.
We are also learning how to estimate and compare groups of objects using mathematical vocabulary of ‘more’ and ‘fewer’ when comparing.
We recently received a very important package marked ‘Urgent – Open Immediately’.
When we opened the package, we found five wriggling caterpillars in a container with special food.
We are now going to closely observe the caterpillars and watch them grow and change into butterflies. We have a special butterfly house ready and are finding out how to look after the butterflies once they hatch.
We have enjoyed thinking about all the different people who help us as we begin our new topic.
We were very excited to receive a visit from the local Police Officer and Police Community Support Officer who talked to us about their role in our local community. They parked their Police Car on the KS1 playground and we all had a chance to sit in a real Police car and listen to the siren!
Following the visit from the local Police, we received more visits from some of our local ‘Helpful Heroes’.
To develop our understanding about how and where rubbish is disposed of and the importance of recycling, we contacted our local Councillor to see whether it would be possible to arrange for some representatives from Burnley Council to come to talk to us about recycling. We learnt about different materials that are recycled by the local Council and how to separate the materials into plastic, card, paper, foil, garden waste and compost so that they can be recycled efficiently.
“I learnt about throwing stuff away and saving paper in our houses so our trees don’t get chopped down.” – Libby
“In the bins there were lots of bottles and paper. The lorry takes the recycling to the tip.” – Ayat
“I can put carrots in the compost bin and my bottles in the bottle bin.” – Austin
“I’ve learnt about paper going in the green bin. I’ve learnt about cardboard going to be recycled because we don’t want the world to be full of rubbish.” – Maggie
The highlight of the visit was the arrival of a refuse truck from the Council. The children were shown how the truck picks up the different bins and how the machinery crushes the rubbish once it is in the truck.
Two of the local Paediatric Nurses came to talk to us about their role in the local community helping to keep children safe. We had lots of questions for them!
“How do you learn to give a needle?” – Ayat
“How do you get people on the bed if they have a broken leg?” – Theo
They showed us how a stethoscope is used when listening for a heartbeat and also how to use bandages and slings. We also found out how to use special torches that are used to look inside ears and throats.
We have been busy collecting materials from around our field and school grounds to build a bug hotel in our outdoor provision.
We hope to encourage lots of different insects to live in our hotel and when the visitors arrive,we will use our magnifying glasses to which insects we have attracted.
We would like to thank the local branch of Sainsbury’s who very kindly donated a class set of new wellies for us to use.
We have been able to recycle our old wellies and are using these as planters to hang around the outdoor provision. We each filled a welly with compost and chose a flower to plant inside the welly.
In RE, we are thinking about friendship and started our learning by thinking about what a friend is and who our friends are.
We have explored the story of Ruth and Naomi and found out why Ruth was such a good friend.
Our next story will be about a miraculous catch of fish, one of the times when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection.
In RE we are learning about stories that Jesus told. The first story we have learnt about is the story about the Good Samaritan.
After listening to the story, we thought about the message that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart and love our neighbour as much as we do ourselves. We shared our learning during EYFS/KS1 worship when we used drama to re-enact the story.
The next story we will be reading is ‘The parable of The Great Feast’ – Luke 14: 15-24.
We have enjoyed reading a range of stories that Jesus told and thinking about the message behind these stories. After reading ‘The Great Feast’, we decided to invite our Year 6 Gardener Friends to our own ‘Great Feast’ to be held in our classroom.
We found out that in the parable of ‘The Great Feast’ in the Bible, the invited guests were too busy and made excuses not to attend the banquet. You will see from the photographs that our Gardener Friends were not too busy! We had a great time using role play to share the message of the parable with our friends and then enjoying the feast together.
“It was lovely! Eating and playing out with our Gardener friends.” – Libby
“I was the man in the story who bought the land. I was too busy to go to the party.” – Brody
The children have thoroughly enjoyed developing their skills during the ‘Tots on Tyres’ weekly sessions. They have been learning how to balance, steer and control the bike and use the brake to control the speed.
Following the success of the children, we are now looking at taking part in the next skill level which is to ride a pedal bike.
During the Tots on Tyres sessions, the children were able to apply their understanding of our current Christian value ‘Perseverance’ as they faced personal challenges (Philippians 4:13) and received encouragement to keep going when they found the challenge difficult (Acts 11:24). If they faced difficulties, their favourite saying was “I can’t do it – yet!”
The children from the Reception Classes have been reflecting on the Nativity through art.
They took inspiration from different artists and art styles including Heidi Malott, Eric Carle and Popart to produce their wonderful Nativity artwork.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”
Luke 2: 13-14
What a surprise! When we arrived in our classroom there were carrots scattered everywhere. Then we found straw in all the other classrooms. We went to meet our Year 6 friends and set off to investigate. Imagine our excitement when we found one of Santa’s reindeer on our playground!
“He was so soft!” Jack
“He was bumpy and soft. I loved his antlers.” Libby
“He was fluffy and cute.” Ava
