Welcome to our Reception Class Webpage! Reception class are called Murphy Class after the author Jill Murphy; we will be reading lots of her books over the course of the year and you may enjoy sharing some together at home. Some of our favourites so far have been the books about the Large Family (a family of Elephants).

Reception is a magical time for children where they learn vast amounts in short spaces of time - you won't believe the transformation in your child's skills and knowledge by Christmas never mind the end of the year!  This page will be used to share with you our achievements, celebrations, important messages and information about what we have been learning in school and how you can help us at home.

Favourite Five

Each half term in Reception we will be introducing children to our 'Favourite Five' stories. We will read these five stories lots of times throughout the half term (alongside lots of others as well) so that the children become really familiar with the language and pattern of the story. By reading these 5 stories regularly, children are exposed to lots of new vocabulary. Our 'Grandma Fantastic' collects all of the new vocabulary that we have learnt from each story. We revisit this new vocabulary frequently to support children to absorb the language and explore it in a wider context.

To celebrate Earth Day, Reception have been learning about how we can look after our world 🌍 We have learnt a song to remind us that we must think about the choices we make. 🎶

This week, we used Digimaps to follow a route around our school grounds. We went on a scavenger hunt to find different trees! 🌳 The children used their knowledge of different landmarks to help identify where the trees might be. Some of the children chose to draw their own maps when we returned to class. 

It was lovely to welcome so many families to our Easter themed ‘Stay and Play’. 

As part of our Wanderlust Nature Study, we have been learning about rainbows. The children loved creating their own using the paint pens 🌈 

We had lots of fun creating our special ‘Book in a Box’ which is inspired by one our favourite five stories - Monkey Puzzle. The children are really proud of our box and each child contributed their own colourful and creative touches to bring the story to life! 🎨🖌️

The children were so excited to visit the shop to buy ingredients to make pancakes. We went in small groups and each group had a shopping list to know what to buy. 
The children enjoyed looking for each item on the list. We talked about where we might find it, e.g. the fridge, the shelves. 
We paid for the items at the counter and the shopkeeper gave us some change and a receipt.
On our walk to the shop, we spotted lots of things including: spring flowers, a post box and a bike shop! 
The children are looking forward to making pancakes using the ingredients we bought 😊.

It was lovely to welcome so many families to our hearts and flowers themed ‘Stay and Play’. 

We had such a fun day celebrating Number Day. We started the day by reading the story ‘Ten Black Dots’. This inspired us to create our own pictures using black dots. The children had some really creative ideas. 

We also had different number/ counting games in provision for the children to explore. A particular favourite was the playdough area. The children explored printing the resin numbers in the playdough before  counting the corresponding number of jewels/stars. 

Recently, a group of children have loved playing with the multilink cubes and exploring composition of number. Today, I found another box to add to our collection, which the children were very excited about! They began to make cube shapes like dice. They said, “we have 9 by 9 by 9… that makes 27!” What amazing mathematicians we have in Reception! 

To end the day we played the magic number game. The children stood in a circle and we chose a magic number, e.g. 5. We went around the circle and the children took it in turns to say a number. If a child said the magic number on their turn, they sat down. There was so much anticipation and excitement when there were only a few children left in the game. They all cheered when the winner was revealed! 

What a fun filled day we had! 

This week, our Reception class has loved celebrating Chinese New Year! They have danced to traditional music, created a dragon to parade around the classroom and they have enjoyed food tasting using chop sticks! 🐉🎶 They also got creative with cherry blossom transient art. What a fun and festive week of learning! 🌸🎉

In Reception, we have been inspired to create our own nature artwork in the style of Andy Goldsworthy. 

Andy Goldsworthy is a nature artist who uses his hands, teeth and makeshift tools to work with natural objects. He uses stones, leaves, pinecones, water, twigs, ice, mud, snow and thorns. Goldsworthy does not use man made materials such as glue to put his pieces together. This means they are temporary in their installation.

Andy Goldsworthy takes photographs of his artistic creations. Goldsworthy says, “Each work grows, stays and decays.”

We have also taken photographs of our creations and we are really proud of them!

We are so proud of all the children for their amazing performance of our nativity, Whoops-a-Daisy Angel. We hope you all enjoyed coming to watch! 🌟

We have enjoyed looking the beautifully illustrated book Junk DNA. This book has inspired our children to get creative while building their fine motor skills and imaginative play. Here are some of the super pictures the children have created out of recycled loose metal parts including nuts, bolts and paper clips.

We had lots of fun playing in the snow . ❄️
The children made snow balls and they enjoyed making patterns in the snow.
As the day went on, we noticed the snow started to melt and this led to a discussion about freezing and melting.

In maths, the children have been continuing their learning about composition of number. This week, the children began to explore composition by focusing on the preliminary skills: the concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. By investigating their own bodies and familiar toys, they began to understand that whole things are often made up of smaller parts and that a whole is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
To support their understanding, the children made their own fruit kebab. The fruits were the ‘parts’ and we talked about how the different ‘parts’ made the ‘whole’ fruit kebab. The children enjoyed making them and especially loved eating them! 😊

The children had a really fun day in school! They loved joining in with the children in need dance and decorating some biscuits. We enjoyed eating them at the end of the day, whilst listening to a story.

We have been learning about different people who can help us. This week, we met Firefighter Tom!
The children had so much fun exploring the fire truck and all its hidden compartments. They also learnt about the equipment firefighters use and they learnt how firefighters help us in many different ways. 
The children were excited when they listened to the fire engine sirens and saw the fire engine lights flashing! 

Over the last few weeks, the children have loved making cards in provision and posting them in our class post box. This interest was inspired when we were learning the 'c' phoneme in phonics.  To follow this interest, we read the story, 'The Jolly Postman' and we learnt what happens to a letter when it is put in the post box. 

We have learnt new vocabulary - address, postcode and stamp and we have learnt why these are important to include on a letter to ensure it goes to the right person. 

To really bring our learning to life,  we walked to the post box on Farm Road and the children posted their own letter to send home. During our trip to the post box, the children were bubbling with excitement and one lucky group even had the chance to witness the postman collecting the letters!

The children have been saying they can’t wait for their letters to arrive home! 

Thank you so much for coming to our ‘Stay and Play’. It was wonderful to welcome so many of you; we hope you had a lovely time joining in all our Autumn activities! 

It is always so lovely to welcome lots of families to reading cafe each week. Thank you so much for coming, the children really do look forward to reading with you!

The children explored drawing onto a different material (polystyrene tiles). This was a different experience and the children discovered they had to add more pressure with the pencil to make a mark/ imprint. Once they had made a picture, (autumn leaves were an inspiration but they could choose what to draw) they covered their tile by rolling paint over the top. They then put their paper on the top and were very excited to discover their print! Lots of critical thinking skills being used to discover the best way to create their pictures. The children  really enjoyed this new art process so we will definitely be doing it again!

We have learnt a poem called ‘Chop Chop’ (linked to our learning about carrots and making carrot soup!)

Carrot Soup

Last week, we had carrots for our snack. Sophie asked, “Where do carrots come from?” This led on to a discussion about where the children thought carrots came from.

Coben said, “The shops make them.”
Lola said , “You can put a seed in and make a carrot tree.”
Archie said, “When a van comes, people give them to you.”
Abigail said, “From the ground when you put carrot seeds in.”
Darcy said, “The farmer comes to pick them up and he feeds them to the cows.”
Jensen said “The farmer puts them in the shops.”
Grayson said, “We can eat the carrots!”

We watched a video about how carrots grow and what happens when they are harvested and taken to the factory. The children found this fascinating!

We talked about what the carrots seeds need to grow.

Scarlett said, “Rain and sunshine make them grow.”
Jensen said, “It’s going to grow that big into outer space!”

We had a discussion about what we could make using carrots. We decided to make carrot soup! Today, the children loved getting involved by peeling and chopping all the carrots for our delicious soup. They were very enthusiastic to try it too! 😊

We had a super time on the ‘Story Bus’ from Leeds Library. We listened as Millie the Librarian introduced herself and then we sang a welcome song on the bus. Next, Millie read an exciting story to us. We loved playing with the puppets and snuggling up in the reading den! 😃

This week, the children have done some wonderful observational drawings of pumpkins and squashes for our harvest display. They used black pens to draw the outlines and then oil pastels to add the colour. They will look wonderful on our display! 😊

The children are always very excited to go and collect the eggs from our school chickens. We don’t think they wanted us to take them today because they stood on top of their coop and were very vocal! The children thought this was funny! We then took the eggs to Mr Garden. The children knocked on his door and were so excited to tell him how many we had collected.

Before children are ready to write, we recognise they need time to develop their gross motor skills. Children need to develop coordination in their shoulders before they start to develop coordination in their wrists and fingers. In Early Years, children are provided with a rich outdoor and indoor learning environment, with a range of apparatus and resources, which allow them to develop core strength, balance and coordination. All staff have completed movement play training. They use their knowledge to identify and support the development of children’s proprioception, vestibular and tactile senses.

What a brilliant couple of weeks we have had! We are so proud of all the children and how well they have settled into Reception. They have all been superstars! 🌟 Here are some photos of the children busy exploring the environment and making friendships.