Hello and welcome to the Bluebells class page. We have had a brilliant start to our new school year and have loved every minute of our Reception journey so far! We are a kind, caring and hard-working class with a love of learning new things.
Within our busy learning environment, we take part in activities both indoors and outdoors. There are lots of opportunities for us to apply our new learning through a mix of continuous provision activities as well as adult-led sessions. We love to get messy in the Bluebells and especially enjoy the creative and water play activities. Our hands on learning helps us to build relationships with our classmates and challenges us, building our resilience and motivation.
Topics:
Our first topic in Reception, is called ‘Why do squirrels hide their nuts?’, this is linked to the changing seasons and in particular, autumn. We will be learning about all of the different celebrations that happen during autumn too, including Diwali and Bonfire Night. Our second topic is called, ‘What happens when I fall asleep?’, this is all about the night-time world and the things that happen when we are asleep. We will be learning about nocturnal animals, people who help us and space. We will also be looking at significant people from the past such as Neil Armstrong and learning about the things that he did and why they are important. Our third topic is called ‘Do cows drink milk?’, during this topic, we will be learning about animals that live on the farm, life cycles of animals and we will even have some very special visitors in our classroom that will needs lots of love and care! Our final topic in reception is called ‘Are we there yet?’ and is all about the world we live in. We will be learning about different types of transport and how this has changed over time as well as journeys that people have made. We will be looking at Cristopher Columbus as a significant person from the past.
English texts:
In Reception, our texts in English are closely linked to our topics and we have a focus on both fiction and non-fiction texts. Throughout the year, we have a big focus on developing our speech and language skills through the oral rehearsal of texts. This is where we learn a variety of stories and actions to help us retell a whole story. This also helps us to develop our writing skills as we are able to remember the things we need to write through our oral rehearsal.
In the autumn term, the texts we focus on are;
- The Busy Little Squirrel
- The Little Red Hen
- Owl Babies
In the spring term, the texts we focus on are;
- The Way Back Home
- Handa’s Surprise
- Jack and the Beanstalk
In the summer term, the texts we focus on are;
- Whatever Next
- The Night Pirates
Throughout the year, we also have a non-fiction focus on instructions, information writing and trip recounts.
What we enjoy about Reception:
“I like building things in the construction area!” – Oscar
“I like reading books in the reading area. I love reading The Gruffalo because I use the story spoons.’’- Zackary
‘I like painting pictures.’’ –Ruby-Blu
‘’I like playing in the mud kitchen. I make food like soup!” Aston
“I like learning the days of the week and changing our calendar.”- Megan
“I like writing and drawing pictures.”- Natalie
“I like playing with my friends and going on the bikes.”- Alfie
School roles:
Each day in Reception, we have a ‘Star of the Day’ who is chosen at the end of each day for being a superstar learner. The star of the day is then given special responsibilities to carry out throughout the day such as, taking the register, being the line leader and handing out fruit at snack and chat time. We love getting a small note to take home and a special sticker to wear.
Important information about life in Year ….
In Reception, it is really important that we read at home at least three times a week. When we read at home, it helps us to improve our phonic skills and helps us to practise the sounds we are learning in school. It is also a good opportunity to spot those tricky words in our books! When we read five times a week, every week at home, we will get the chance to be entered into a prize draw and we will also get a small prize to award our efforts- this is the Eaton Park Book Worm challenge.
There are lots of things that you can do at home to help us with our learning in Reception and to help us to become independent learners;
- Practise writing our name (first and last)
- Spot numbers in the environment (0-20)
- Let us get dressed and undressed ourselves (including coats, hats, gloves, shoes etc.)
- Practise using a knife and fork effectively
- Locating our own belongings (coats, bags, shoes etc.)
- Talking about changes that we see in the world around us (weather, seasons, animal, appropriate news etc.)
- Identifying shapes in the environment
Useful learning links:
