Reception LR

Welcome to class RLR!

RLR 2023-2024

This week we enjoyed a trip to Washington Wetlands Centre. First we did some pond dipping where we explored a pond with different objects and found some different animals inside. We looked at them up close and described what we could see, learning that a Waterhog can breathe underwater. We then explored the forest and sorted the forest creatures into having legs and no legs. After that, we saw some gorgeous flamingos before seeing the otters get their lunch. After our lunch, we had some free time to spend looking at more animals before getting to have a play in the park. We all loved our day at the Wetlands Centre and learned so much!

As part of our Spring topic we have drawn some pictures of our favourite things about Spring, including chicks, flowers and sunshine.

We incorporated Spring into our maths doubling topic by using ladybirds to help us calculate double a certain number.

We loved making our pancakes!

This week in Reception we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We have explored different Chinese New Year maths by making dragons from Numicon, comparing the lengths of different dragons and ordering the Chinese animals in the race. We have had lots of practice at writing the numbers 1 to 10 in Chinese. We have used the stories of Chinese New Year and Mr Men and Little Miss Chinese New Year to help us learn how the celebration came about and different traditions and customs. To help us with this we have written our favourite facts about Chinese New Year and drew our favourite animals. We discovered that this year is the Year of the Dragon and that we were born in either the Year of the Pig or the Dog. We have made different traditional Chinese New Year items, like drums, lanterns and red envelopes. To finish our celebrations we have enjoyed a Chinese buffet of noodles, rice and prawn crackers. We have all loved celebrating Chinese New Year!

Alphablocks

This week we have been enjoying building words with sounds we know using the alphablocks we have in our room! We have created both CVC words and tricky words with special friends in too. We got our word before sounding it out using our fred fingers. Everyone enjoyed trying to find the different sounds amongst all of the blocks!

We have read 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr as a class. To help us explore the text we have wrote captions with images from the text and ordered events from the story. We have wrote our own shopping lists for Sophie and her mammy using our sound mats and designed our own tiger teapots.

Our Nativity performance

We performed 'A Wriggly Nativity' in front of the school and also our grown-ups. We enjoyed dressing up in our new costumes, said our lines in loud and clear voices for the whole audience to hear and joined in with all of the singing, dancing and actions. It was a magnificent performance and we made everyone very proud!

A magical trip to West Boldon Lodge

We enjoyed a magical Christmas experience at West Boldon Lodge. We began our adventure in the Elf classroom where we designed our own Santa Claus hat, using stickers and felt-tip pens. 

We then enjoyed a trip through the enchanted forest where we helped our group find the hidden jigsaw pieces. After all of the groups had found the missing pieces and put them back together, we enjoyed a toasted marshmallow around the fire. 

We then headed back into Santa's workshop where we created our own Rudolph tree decorations, using a wooden log for the head, pipe cleaners for the antlers, googly eyes and a big red pompom for the nose. We loved drinking our delicious hot chocolate made by Jingle the Elf! The elves asked us to play a game where we had to get all of the wrapped presents back under the tree...we were so quick!

Santa then welcomed the full group into the magical grotto where he checked his naughty and nice list and we discovered that we were all on the nice list! Our Christmas spirit could be felt all around the forest!

Gingerbread Man puddles 

This week in Science, Sarah the Scientist asked our class to carry out an investigation to see what would happen when we put a Gingerbread man in different liquids. We put a different gingerbread man in oil, water, milk, juice and vinegar and we made predictions before we placed him in the different liquids. We used our observational skills and watched each one closely to see how the Gingerbread man changed. We put forward our own thoughts and ideas to the small group about what we thought was going to happen and what we could see was actually happening.

Making porridge

After reading our story of the week, 'Goldilocks and The Three Bears', we made our own porridge to eat. We measured out three spoonfuls of porridge oats and then we poured the milk in the bowl. We each gave the mixture three stirs to mix the oats and the milk together, making sure it was the correct texture, not too runny and not too lumpy.

What makes porridge yummy?

After the porridge had cooled down, we participated in a Science experiment linked to the story. We all really enjoyed the challenge of using our senses to smell and taste different toppings added to porridge so we could answer our big question set by Sarah the Scientist; ‘what makes porridge yummy’. We were all curious to explore the different flavours and we made comments on our own likes and dislikes. We used the different prompt cards on the table to help us use vocabulary to describe different tastes that our tongue could taste such as sweet, spicy, sour, tangy and bland.

Remembrance Day

We learnt about Remembrance Day and the importance of this special event that is celebrated on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of each year and that we remember soldiers who fought and also died in the all of the wars. We made poppies for a whole school display and learnt that the red poppies are a symbol of hope. We decorated biscuits to represent the poppies as well as designing our own poppies and drawing our own poppies.

Remember Remember the 5th of November...

We enjoyed learning all about Bonfire night. We talked about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot and why we celebrate on the 5th of November. We made our own firework pictures using paint, painting tools, glitter and chalks. We then discussed if we had seen any fireworks over the weekend and described what we had seen and the noises that they had made as they exploded in the night sky.

Halloween fun!

We have enjoyed a fun range of Halloween craft activities this week! We have made spiders using plasticine, skeletons using cotton buds, created fizzing potions in the water tray, printed pumpkins and got our hands messy in the pumpkins! What a fun time we have all had.

Creating a spooky potion

We created a spooky potion using lots of Halloween themed objects. We picked an object from the middle of the table and said what it was. We then had to sound out the word, using our FredFingers to pinch each sound that we could hear. We then found the sounds on the soundmat and wrote them down in order on our magic cauldron, taking extra care with our letter formation. (Click on each picture to make them bigger to see our fantastic spooky potions!)

Hoopstarz!

We were lucky enough to have Hoopstarz in school to deliver an amazing PE session for us this week. Hoopstarz is an exciting, unique and engaging activity for children and you can’t fail to be impressed by the enjoyment it creates and the sense of achievement the children gain from participating. The classes are inclusive, adaptable and build confidence and self – esteem and promote the importance of staying fit and healthy. We had a great time joining in with all of the fun activities and impressed the grownups with our hula-hooping skills!

Harvest Soup 

To celebrate Harvest, we prepared and enjoyed some vegetable soup with our grown ups. We began the celebrations by bringing in vegetables from home. We used the knives to cut up the different vegetables and added them to the big pan, ready for cooking. When the time came, we went to the dinner hall where we met our grown ups and sang some harvest/autumn songs before enjoying some tasty vegetable soup and bread together. What a great celebration together. 

Repeating pattern

After reading the story 'Oliver's Vegetables', we used some of the vegetables that were in the story to create a repeated pattern.

Drawing a giraffe 

In Art this week, we have been showing off our artistic skills! We had to follow step-by-step instructions to draw Gerald the Giraffe from the story. Take a look at some of our amazing artwork!

A visit from the nurses

We have enjoyed a visit from the school nurses. We learnt about the importance of washing our hands to prevent germs spreading.

The nurses then read us a story called 'Dinosaur Douglas and the Beastly Bugs'.  
We listened to this story about limiting sugary snacks and why we need to keep our teeth healthy.

Eating avocado 

Following on from reading the story 'Avocado Baby', we were all keen on trying an avocado. We had a feel of the avocado and discussed the texture. We spoke about avocados being a fruit so they are a healthy choice in our varied and balanced diet. Not many of us were keen on the taste but our teachers were proud of us having a try! 

Sorting food 

Following on from reading the story Avocado Baby, we discussed the different types of foods that we eat. We spoke about the importance of having a balanced and varied diet. We enjoyed sorting food into healthy and unhealthy groups both as a whole class and then independently; demonstrating our understanding of the topic.

A special visit

We have enjoyed a special visit from two of our parents and their babies. They told us all about their babies including what they need and don’t need, their routines and how to care for babies. We all listened so well and could answer lots of questions about what the mammies had told us in the mini quiz at the end!

Ordering objects by size

In Maths, we have been learning about ordering by size. We are learning to use mathematical language such as shortest, smallest, tallest and biggest to describe the objects as we put them in order of their size. We could then identify, when asked, which animal was the biggest and which one was the smallest. 

Exploring Numicon

We have been exploring Numicon shapes in Maths. We counted the number of holes on each Numicon shape and used them to represent numbers. We then matched the numbers to the correct numerals.

Owl Babies drawing 

In Art, we have drawn our own owl from the story 'Owl Babies'. We followed the instructions that were given and demonstrated our good listening skills, observational skills and concentration skills to produce these amazing drawings! 

Exploring the tuff tray 

After reading the story 'Owl Babies', we enjoyed exploring the tuff tray with our peers and used our imagine along with our knowledge and understanding of the story to recreate roles and engage in imaginative play. 

Sequencing the story

After listening to the Owl Babies story, we used the scissors to practice cut out the different key parts of the story. We spoke about the main characters and the key events in the story and put them in order from start to end.   

First week in Reception

We have all had a fantastic first week in our new Reception classroom. We have enjoyed meeting our new friends and learning the new routine of the day. We have spent the week exploring the room and the new areas to play in with our peers. We have all settled in very well and we have all came into the classroom with big smiles ready to start the day!

This week we have enjoyed lots of Autumnal themed activities in preparation for the change of season. 

2022-2023

Whitehouse Farm

Wow! What a fabulous day we had at Whitehouse Farm. When we arrived at the farm, we were greeted by Nancy, our amazing guide. She took us on a tour of the outdoor animals, where we met the goats, emus, reindeers and pigs. We then went to the lambing barn where we bottled fed the lambs and were able to hold them. We then fed the other animals in the barn, including horses, ponies and goats. 

We enjoyed a little break on the jumping cushions where we all jumped so high!

After we had a lunchbreak, we went on the tractor all the way around the field and seen more sheep having their lunch!

We then went to the petting barn and had the opportunity to hold lots of small animals. We loved holding the rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and even the snake! We were all so brave. 

After our fun-filled day we headed back to the bus where we said goodbye to Nancy and started our journey home. We were all so tired and some of us enjoyed a little nap on the ride home!

Celebrating the King's Coronation 

We have had a great week celebrating the coronation of King Charles! We started the week by learning all about King Charles and his history. We learnt lots of facts about his family and how he loves to care for the animals and the environment. Throughout the week, we prepared decorations and wrote invitations for our friends to come to the Coronation Party. We designed and created our own crowns and flags as well as many other King Charles crafts. We drew pictures of Buckingham Palace in our Art sketchbooks, paying close attention to the detail in the photographs. We made our own sandwiches and crispy cakes for the party. We ended our fabulous and exciting week with the whole school Coronation Party, where we danced to the music, enjoyed party games and ate a delicious picnic with our friends!

People who help us

We enjoyed a visit from two Paramedics; Danielle and Paul. They spoke to us about what a Paramedics job is and how they help people. They taught us the steps that we need to take if we find someone at home who isn't responding (shouting their name and then shaking them). We now know the number we phone for an ambulance is '999' and we tell the call handlers "I need help". The paramedics showed us how to put on bandages and we had a try putting them on our friends. We also used the stethoscope to listen to our heartbeats.

Danielle and Paul brought an ambulance with them and we all enjoyed looking around it. They showed us different equipment that can be found in an ambulance and we even had a go lying on the support! 

We have enjoyed exploring the 'People Who Help Us' Vet Corner. We acted out our experiences with our peers and took on a role as a Vet and Veterinary Nurse. We used our knowledge of a Vet's job to fix and look after the different animals who came to the surgery.   

We have been learning about the different People Who Help Us and their job roles. We discussed each person who helps us as we cut them out, practicing our cutting skills. We then correctly matched them up to their vehicle. 

Celebrating ourselves 

We read the story 'Giraffes Can't Dance'. We discussed how Gerald felt at different parts of the story and how he felt when he was finally able to show off his amazing dancing. We then spoke about the things that we are all good at and how we can celebrate our own skills and achievements. We wrote down on a star something that we thought we were amazing at. 

Make Someone Laugh.

To celebrate Red Nose Day 2023 we, as a class, voted on the three best jokes and performed them in the Sea View Comedy Club. Sit back and enjoy the show...

Exploring the outdoor area

We have enjoyed exploring the new outdoor areas in our Reception yard with our friends! We have loved making mud pies in the mud kitchen, reading stories with our friends in the Reading Den, writing and drawing the Writing Hut, painting with the poster paints, building and constructing with blocks, bricks and sand in the construction area and riding bikes and scooters around the yard. We are SO excited to see what other fun activities are going to be happening in our garden very soon...

Muddy Monsters! 

This week, we have enjoyed a visit from Phil and the Muddy Monsters. We were encouraged to explore, create and investigate. We were all very eager to explore the outdoor environment with our peers. 

Phil and his Muddy Monsters told us we were going to be making magic potions and we had to add items that we could find in nature around us. 

We then added different watercolours to try and change the colour of the potions. We watched them change colours and discussed the changes we could see. We then had to decide what our magic potions were going to help us do. We thought of abilities such as making us fly, helping us to run really fast and turning us invisible.

We then explored the outdoor environment with our peers. Phil and the Muddy Monsters had brought lots of amazing areas to explore. We had so much fun using our initiative and showing great perseverance and creative skills when we were exploring our natural environment. 

Rain Art 

In Art, we created rain drop pictures using different coloured paint in pipettes to drip. We enjoyed watching the paint drip down the page and we discussed the colours that the paint made when they were mixed together. 

This week, we are reading the story 'Mr Wolf's Pancakes'. 

After reading the story, we enjoyed making pancakes just like Mr Wolf. We worked together to carefully measure out the ingredients (flour, eggs and milk) that we needed to make the pancakes. After we had cooked them, we chose delicious toppings and ate them up with our friends!

WOW! What another very busy week in RLR. This week, we have been reading the story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. 

In Maths, we have been learning about doubling. We enjoyed using the fruit to solve doubles by counting amounts for the Hungry Caterpillar and his friend. We had to choose a double card (e.g. double 3) then count out three blueberries on the first plate and then count out three blueberries on the second plate. We then had to add the amount on both plates together to find the total. We then said out number sentence e.g. "double 3 is 6, 3 + 3 = 6" and recorded it onto the paper on the tables.

We also used the playdough to find double a number up to double 5 (and sometimes beyond) by putting the correct number of playdough balls on either side of the ladybird then counting them all to find the total. We also recorded these number sentences onto the paper. 

We enjoyed creating a very healthy fruit kebab as a snack. We spoke about all of the healthy fruit and vegetables in story and the importance of including them in our diet. We chose from a selection of fruit and threaded them onto the skewer sticks. We then enjoyed eating our delicious, healthy treat alongside our friends.

After reading the story, we had a turn at independently ordering the days of the week. We then answered questions about the days such as "what is the first day of the week that we come to school?" "what is the last day of the week that we are at school?" "what day comes after Wednesday?" 

We used the interactive whiteboard to play a game where we had to order numbers to 10 on a caterpillar. We identified the numerals that we could see and then put the numbers in order, starting with the smallest number to the biggest. 

In writing this week, we have used our amazing phonics knowledge to record sentences focused on what some of the animals had said during the story. We used our Fredfingers to support us to Fredtalk the words before we wrote it down independently. We were able to recall some words and most sounds from memory. We demonstrated our increasing confidence when using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces in our writing. 

This week we have enjoyed recreating our story of the week 'What the Ladybird Heard' in the tuff tray. We have acted out parts of the story in small groups, using the props to support our imaginary play. We demonstrated we had good recall of the main events from the story. 

WOW! What a very busy week we have had in RLR learning all about Chinese New Year! Take a look at some of the fun things we have been up to this week...

We ended our amazing week with a visit to the fantastic 'Sea View Chinese Restaurant' with our friends. We had a Chinese buffet and the noodles, rice and prawn crackers were very tasty! We really tried our best to use the chopsticks to pick up the noodles. We all left the restaurant with full tummies! 🥢 

We have enjoyed making Chinese red envelopes using card and glue and glitter to decorate the front, before putting a gold coin inside. We learnt that at Chinese New Year, red envelopes are given to friends and family members and are filled with money to symbolise good wishes and luck for the year ahead. 

We have also coloured in our own flag of China, practising our colouring and cutting skills. 

We enjoyed creating pictures of dragons using the Numicon. We matched the Numicon shapes to the templates on the dragon, demonstrating excellent counting skills as we found different ways to make the numbers.

We created our own 'Shape Dragon' collage picture. We had to use a range of 2-D shapes to create the pattern of the dragon. We used our good understanding of shapes to name them and talk about their properties as we glued them onto the card. We think our finished dragons are fantastic! 

In Art, we followed a set of instructions to draw the tiger from the story. 

Christmas party

We enjoyed our Christmas party celebration! We played a lot of fun games including pass the parcel, musical statues, musical bumps and corners. We loved dancing to the Christmas music and showing off our amazing dancing moves!

We had a special visitor in our classroom...SANTA CLAUS! He brought us all a lovely gift to take home and sang some Christmas songs.

We enjoyed eating our Christmas party food with our friends while we listened to the party music! We were all very tired after our Christmas party!

Our Christmas Nativity performance 

We enjoyed performing the Christmas Nativity in front of our grownups. We dressed up in the wonderful costumes and did magnificent singing and actions. It was a fantastic performance!

Snow is falling all around us...❄️

We were so excited to see the snow had fallen over the weekend and created a beautiful winter wonderland in our school yard! 

We spoke about the changing seasons and the differences between the weather that we had seen in Autumn and the weather now in Winter. 
We then enjoyed exploring in the snow outside, using our senses to describe what the snow looked like on the ground, what the snow felt like in our hands and what sound the snow was making under our shoes as we walked across it. We had a lot of fun in the "sparkling snow". 

In group time, we discussed the appropriate clothing to wear in the cold and especially in the snow. We all agreed that the clothing should protect you from the cold weather by keeping you dry and warm. We decided that some of the clothing that would be suitable to wear in the cold and snow would be hats, scarves, gloves, jumpers and a nice warm coat. 

We were all very keen to explore the 'Winter Wonderland' tuff tray after we had been outside in the snow. We were given two challenges in the tuff tray with our peers. Challenge One was building a snowman using marshmallows, wooden sticks and shaving foam to see who could build the tallest and strongest snowman. For Challenge Two we had to use the sugar cubes to build an igloo, making sure that no 'snow' could get inside of it. Each and every one of us loved the challenges in the tuff tray and we are excited to see what the next challenge brings...

'The First Christmas' small world play

We enjoyed exploring 'The First Christmas' tuff tray. We used our prior knowledge of the story and the characters to act out the main parts with our peers, using the small world figurines to support our imaginative play. 

❄️Winter Wonderland❄️

We enjoyed a magical class trip to West Boldon Lodge. When we arrived off the bus, we were met by Mr Evergreen, a special helper sent by Santa Claus. He then took us to the Elf classroom where we began our Christmas experience...

To begin with, we enjoyed designing our very own Santa hat using Christmas stickers and then used the pens to write our names. We then created a beautiful Rudolph Christmas tree decoration using a wooden log for the head, pipe cleaners for the antlers, googly eyes and a big, round red nose. Mr Evergreen was so impressed with our creativity. He then told us there was a special visitor waiting in the forest so we set off onto the next adventure... 

After we finished with our Christmas crafts, we had an adventure searching through the forest for a secret cabin. When we found the big red door, we had to knock three times and wait patiently. Behind the door there was a big, jolly surprise...Santa Claus! He welcomed us into his grotto where we discovered that we were on the nice list (even the teachers!). Santa then read a lovely Christmas story to us before we headed off onto the next adventure....

We then joined Mr Evergreen around the fire, where we enjoyed a cup of delicious hot chocolate and toasted some marshmallows as we sang our favourite Christmas songs. Our Christmas spirit could be felt all around the forest!

Matching different number representations to numerals 

In Maths, the Jolly Postman had a big problem! His envelopes had all been mixed up and he was late for his deliveries. He asked for our help to match different representations of numbers 1-10 on envelopes to the correct numeral on the post boxes so he knew where all of the post was going. We had so much fun showing off our great subitising and counting skills!

CVC action words

After reading the story 'The Gingerbread Man', the class were given the task of looking at pictures of the Gingerbread Man and thinking of action words of what he was doing. We used Fred talk to say the sounds in each of the cvc words e.g. r-u-n and then we pinched our Fred Fingers as we wrote each of the sounds down. 

Lots of Gingerbread fun!

This week, we have enjoyed a range of fun activities linked to our story, 'The Gingerbread Man'. We have been creating our own Gingerbread Men, using the playdough, cutters and craft resources. We have also used the wooden blocks, lego and straws to create bridges for the Gingerbread Man to cross the river without the help of the sly fox! We have also took part in lots of phonics related games, where we had to find the Gingerbread Men in the sand and say the correct sound, aswell as playing 'Splat the Sound' to find which sound the Gingerbread Man was hiding under. 

Anti-Bullying Week

As part of Anti-Bullying Week 2022, we came to school wearing odd socks. In group time, we identified ways in which we are all different and we said that being unique is what makes each and everyone of us so special! We then enjoyed designing our own pair of odd socks, showing our individuality.

Remembrance Day

In class, we spoke about the importance of Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies. Throughout the day, we all enjoyed engaging in a range of creative activities to create our own poppy themed pictures. We also enjoyed using the 2Simple program on the interactive whiteboard to create poppies, choosing the correct colours and tools.

Making porridge 

After reading our story of the week, 'Goldilocks and The Three Bears', we made our own porridge to eat. We counted out three spoonfuls of oats each before we poured the milk in the bowl. We each gave the mixture three stirs to mix the oats and the milk together. After the porridge had cooled down, some of the class added jam to their porridge. Most of us loved our delicious porridge and we ate it up quickly just incase Goldilocks decided she would come and eat ours too!

Spooky Day!

We have enjoyed lots of fun activities and crafts in school for our Halloween Spooky Day!

Harvest Soup 

We brought vegetables into school and learnt how to use different tools to prepare and chop them to make soup. We washed our hands with soap to kill germs before we started. We learnt harvest songs and sang them for our parents and carers. We then enjoyed tasting the soup!

Our favourite vegetables 

We talked about some of the vegetables that we used to make harvest soup and then we made a class pictogram of our favourite vegetables. We took our turn to choose and place the vegetable picture on the graph. We discussed what we could see on the pictogram and we counted how many children had chosen each vegetable. We were confident identifying which vegetable was the most popular and which one was the least popular.

Weighing vegetables 

We have been using the language 'heaviest' and 'lightest' when we compared the weight of different vegetables. We discovered that the heavy vegetables made the balance scales go down and the light vegetables made the scales go up. 

Avocado tasting 

We have been looking carefully at avocado pears just like the ones in our story 'Avocado Baby'. We described what they felt like and what they looked like before and then after we cut into them. We then tasted a piece of avocado on a cracker. Some of us loved avocado and some of us didn’t. We wonder if these avocados will make us as strong as they made Avocado Baby!

Food sorting 

We looked at a large range of food pictures and sorted them into healthy and unhealthy food groups. We know that we need a good selection of all foods in our diet but we should try and eat more food from the healthy food group and keep the foods from the unhealthy group for a treat. 

Sinking and floating

We enjoyed using fruit and vegetables in the water tray to make predictions of whether they would float or sink. We used the language of float and sink during our investigation. We were surprised when we found out that a courgette floats and doesn't sink! 

We labelled parts of the story and wrote down the initial sounds using our phonics knowledge. 

Ordering objects by height

This week in Maths we have been learning how to order objects by height. We are learning to use language such as shortest and tallest to describe the objects as we put them in order of their size. 

Exploring in the role play area.

This week we have all loved exploring our new 'Construction and Garage' role play area and have enjoyed taking on the roles of mechanics and builders. We have especially enjoyed working as a team to build new houses with the blocks and using the shaving foam as cement. We got a little bit messy but had so much fun! 

What makes a kind friend?

During circle time we discussed all the qualities that make a kind friend and how we can show kindness towards others just like George the Giant did in our story. We decided that a kind friend could be someone who shares their toys and takes turns, someone who helps you, someone who makes you smile or someone who listens. We then drew pictures of our kind friends in our class and said what they do to show kindness. 

Exploring Numicon

This week we have been exploring Numicon shapes in Maths. We counted the number of holes on each Numicon shape and used them to represent numbers. We then matched the numbers to the correct numerals.

We followed instructions to draw our own baby owl. 

We enjoyed exploring the Owl Babies tuff tray, using our knowledge of the story to recreate roles.