Reception Courage
WELCOME TO
RECEPTION
2021/22
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Autumn 2
Our topic for Autumn 2 has been ‘Space’. We began the topic by creating a mind-map together, writing all the facts we already knew about space and the questions we wanted answered to find out more. This was such a fun task as we got to share our knowledge with each other and develop our questioning skills.
We then read lots of space themed stories to further aid our learning and the skills we have already acquired.
The first story we read was ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. We talked about the items Baby Bear brought to the moon and then used our sounds to have a go at writing a list of the items we would like to bring to space with us. We also discussed the rocket Baby Bear made and matched space rockets with various quantities of objects drawn on them to their correct numeral.
The second book we explored was ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ by Claire Freedman. As a class we described the aliens from the story and then designed and labelled our own alien. We also learnt about repeating patterns and had to continue various repeating patterns that were printed on underpants. Miss Monaghan was so proud with how quickly we grasped this mathematical concept!
‘The Blue Balloon’ by Mick Inkpen was the third story Miss Monaghan read to us. We discussed the setting of the moon which is where the blue balloon took the boy and Kipper, and then had to draw and write where we would like the blue balloon to take us. We also explored how to find one less than a number by using blue balloons and popping them. It was very loud but super fun!
The final story we listened to was ‘Laura’s Star’ by Klaus Baumgart. We imagined that we found a star from the sky and wrote a wish on it. Some of us even attempted to write our wish as a sentence. We then used glittery stars to explore the mathematical concept of finding one more than a number.
In our Expressive Arts and Design lessons we used junk modelling to make our very own rockets, aliens, telescopes and spacesuits.
It has been such a busy half-term but so enjoyable. Miss Monaghan and Mrs Themistocleous are so proud of us and everything we have achieved.
Nativity
This half-term we performed in our very first whole school Nativity! We took on the role of the angels and wore beautiful costumes and headbands to develop our characters further. We remembered the lyrics and dance routines to the songs we performed and shone brightly as we took to the stage. Miss Monaghan and Mrs Themistocleous were so proud of us.
RBA Assessments
Welcome to Reception!
We are really looking forward to sharing our learning journey with you on our class page. We hope you enjoy finding out about all the wonderful and exciting activities we engage in to further develop our knowledge, understanding and skills.
We have had a fabulous first half-term at St Andrew's Southgate. Miss Monaghan and Mrs Themistocleous are so proud of us and how quickly we have settled into our new school. We are now confident in the daily routines of the class and follow both the school and class rules consistently.
Our topic this half-term has been, 'All About Me'. We have had great fun finding out about each other and developing positive, respectful friendships with all children in the class. We have played lots of name games (our favourite being 'Bug in a Rug') and are now able to identify and call all our friends by their first name. We are very proud of ourselves as there were lots of names to remember!
In literacy, we read the story, 'I like Me' by Karen Beaumont and shared qualities that we like about ourselves to the rest of the class. We also talked about the similarities and differences between us all and how we should celebrate being 'unique'. We learnt that being unique is special as it means we are all different from each other; we are one of a kind and we should be proud of this! To further celebrate the importance of being unique, we all created a self-portrait and practised writing our names. We discussed how everyone has different facial features and skin, hair and eye colours. We used paints and various materials to create our self-portraits and have displayed them with pride in our shared corridor.
We also talked about our families and explored the meaning of the word 'family'. We know that a family is a group of one or more people that look after, care and love us. With the rest of the class, we shared pictures of who were in our families and explored and celebrated the differences between each family. We then had a go at drawing and labelling our family members using the sounds we already know.
In maths we have been learning to recite, recognise, identify and write numbers up to 10. Miss Monaghan and Mrs Themistocleous stuck our handprints in our books and we had a go at writing our numerals above each finger. This was quite a tricky task but we all completed it to the best of our ability. We also learned about 2D shapes. We know that 2D shapes are 'flat shapes'. We then used the 4 most common 2D shapes (circle, square, oblong and triangle) to create our very own 2D shape person. Miss Monaghan and Mrs Themistocleous were extremely impressed with how confident we were at naming the 2D shapes we used.
Our 'Big Question' in R.E. this half-term has been, 'Who Made The Wonderful World?' As a whole class, we shared our own ideas about how the earth was made and recorded them as a thought web. We then watched the 'Creation Story' and used paper plates and art materials such as paper and colouring pencils to record our personal knowledge and understanding of the story. We also explore our natural environment and discussed its beauty, uniqueness, the purpose of the natural materials within it and how we should take care of it.
We have had such a busy half-term and have achieved so much! We can't wait to find out what next half-term will bring!
Black History Month
This month is 'Black History Month'. At St Andrew's Southgate we have been exploring and celebrating the achievements of people from various backgrounds and cultures.
We really enjoyed taking part in an African drumming session led by the teacher, Mila. We learnt about the rhymes and beats of traditional African drumming and even had a go copying and making up beats and rhythms of our own.
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End of year Reception - 2020-2021
Summer 2
Our topic this half term has been 'At the Seaside. We begun our topic by creating a mind map of everything we know about the seaside. We then wrote a question (remembering to include question marks) that we wanted to ask to further deepen our knowledge of seaside. We read 'The Rainbow Fish' and discussed the actions of the Rainbow Fish. We pretended that we were the Rainbow Fish and wrote sorry cards to the Little Blue Fish. We also read 'Somebody Swallowed Stanley' and talked about the importance of recycling. We then used this story as a basis for our own story writing.
In maths we used pretend crabs to explore the concept of doubling, and various sea creatures to help learn how to share. We explored the concept of weight and had to use balancing scales to weigh various seaside objdects and then put them in order from the lightest to the heaviest.
For Expressive Art and Design we used various collage materials to create our very own 'under the sea pictures.
We thoroughly this half term and are so proud of everything we have achieved.
Summer 1
We have had such a fantastic Summer 1 half-term. Our topic has been 'Into the Woods'. We began our topic by reading 'The Foggy Foggy Forest' by Nick Sharratt. We looked through the silhouttes on each page and had to guess what was lurking behind the trees. We found a fairy queen on a trampoline, three bears on picnic chairs, an orgre doing yoga and many more interesting creatures. We then predicted what we thought we would see in our school forest and went to explore. We found an owl sitting on a tree branch, a hedgehog hiding behind a log and a deer eating some of the grass. We then drew and wrote simple sentences about our observations. It was so much fun! We also explored the rhyming pattern in the book and were able to match rhyming pairs as well as continue a rhyming string. The second book we read was 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson, which we absolutely loved. We explored the vocabulary that was used to describe the Gruffalo and the other creatures in the story. We also used our imaginations to draw our own forest creature. We labelled and wrote simple sentences about it using descriptive language. We thoroughly enjoyed completing this task and finding out about the creatures our peers had invented.
In maths we learnt about positional language. We had to find various forest creatures that were hidden around the classroom and describe their position. We also learnt about estimation, addition and subtraction.
Science Week
Since returning we have also celebrated Science week. The theme of this week was 'Innovating for the Future'. The children had great fun using junk modelling to create their very own 'inventors thinking helmets'. They also listened to the well-known fairy tales, 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' and used bricks, duplo and wooden blocks to build their own castles and bridges. To conclude the week, children were encouraged to plan and invent their very own creations. Reception had such a fun Science week and really enjoyed the activities that were planned.
Welcome back everyone!
It has been wonderful to welcome the children back into Reception. They have all settled in really well and have shown great resilience and a positive attitude towards their learning. Mrs Themistocleous and myself are extremely proud of them.
During the first week back, the children took part in some fun 'getting to know you' games. Reception's favourite game was 'Bug in a Rug'. The children enjoyed asking questions to find out who the 'bug' was hiding under the blanket.
We also read the story, 'All Are Welcome' by Alexandra Penfold. We talked about diversity and how everyone in the world is unique, and that this should be celebrated. The children then shared their talents and decorated paper people cut-outs to represent themselves.
Covid self-Isolation letter
Weekly Timetable - Mon 14th December 2020
Online Learning
click on link below to go to online learning page of the website
African Drumming !!!!
Dancing away ...
We had a listen to some soca music, picking out all the instruments we could here. We then had a go moving rhythmically to the music using our own streamers. We loved how they moved to the rhythm.
CARNIVAL in Reception!
We had great fun learning about the Notting Hill Carnival today. We created our own talking table, some crowns as costumes and created our own streamers ready to dance to some soca. We mentioned how there normally is over 2,000,000 people at the carnival, dancing on the roads to music and celebrating the history and the culture of the Caribbean in the capital.
We spoke a lot about how we need to dress for a Carnival. The colours need to be bright and there should be a lot of embellishments. We couldn't wait to get the glitter on to the crowns and dance away!
We thought about all the people in our lives that help us and how we need to be kind and respectful to everyone!
We mentioned people at home like mum, dad and grandad. People in the community like the Police Force, Firefighters and Shop keepers. We used vocabulary like kind, helpful caring and spoke about why all their jobs are important.
You can be whatever you want to be . . .
We have been talking a lot about what makes us special and all our God given talents and how these are all something we need to celebrate. So we had a think and decided what job we will be best at. We spoke about how it does not matter what colour, what hair or size we are, we can do anything we put our mind to.