Week commencing 16th January 2023
This week our focus text is 'How to catch a star' by Oliver Jeffers. The children have sequenced the story and written descriptive words or composed sentences to describe what happens in the story.
In Phonics, the children have learnt the phonemes 'ow', 'oi', 'ear' and 'air' and applied them to their writing task.
In Maths, the children have been exploring mass and capacity. There has been lots of active learning using the water tray and language to describe whether receptacles are 'full', 'empty', 'nearly full' or 'nearly empty'. Reception have used scales to measure the weight of objects and which items might be 'heavier' or 'lighter'.
Week commencing 9th January 2023
We are continuing this week with our topic of Space. The children made their own space rockets last week using kitchen rolls and craft paper which we have used to make a space display in the classroom, using the reading area as a spaceship! This created a fantastic buzz in the classroom and a hook for our text this week 'Man on the Moon - a week in the life of Bob' by Simon Bartram.
The whole class has become immersed in Space! In the classroom, we have had a control centre with 'real' astronauts, an alien invasion and some amazing building of spaceships in the outdoor construction area! Not forgetting moonwalking! NASA would be thrilled to have our Reception class working for them!
The children have demonstrated some exceptional prior knowledge during our history session this week where we looked at the moon landings. Terms such as 'orbit' were suggested when we were talking about the moon! The children were excited to discover that this week the UK were launching their first ever rocket into space!
In phonics, the children have learnt 'ar', 'oo', 'ur' and 'or'. This has tied in brilliantly with our space topic as the children have demonstrated their writing skills, using these newly learned graphemes to produce the words 'star' and 'moon'.
In Maths, Reception have continued their work in the composition of 5, looking at making 5 out of 2 and 3 groups of numbers.
The children are enjoying their PE lesson and their listening skills are improving week by week. They are able to move around the area safely and have been practicing taking turns and keeping score this week.
Spring 1 Term
Week commencing 2nd January 2023
We are pleased to welcome our Reception children back after the Christmas break!
Our Topic for this half term is Adventure is out there! We will be looking at Space, travel (transport) and where we are/have been in the world.
Our focus text this week is 'Whatever Next!' by Jill Murphy. The story was introduced using a story sack and the children were prompted to predict the story. They acted out the storyline, taking on the role of different characters from the book. We have to say that we have some budding actors and actresses! We talked about space and rockets which sparked considerable interest throughout the whole class.
In Maths we follow the White Rose Scheme of learning. Reception are exploring 'Alive in 5' for the first half of this term and this week they have looked at the composition of 5 and equal/unequal groups.
We are currently in a review stage for ELS phonics, where the children practice and apply previously learnt material. The children have amazed all the Reception staff by their marvellous retention and application of the phonemes and graphemes they learnt before Christmas! We can tell they have been practicing at home! Fantastic work Reception!
December 2022
Oh what fun we had in December!
On the 9th, we celebrated Christmas Jumper Day, took part in The Reindeer Run and went for a walk to the local postbox to post our letters to Santa. What a day that was! Everyone had a wonderful day.
Week commencing 12th December 2022
This week we had our Christmas Show. We practised lots of wonderful songs with actions to sing to our grown ups. The hall was full and everyone really enjoyed it.
A special visitor paid us a visit this week. It was SANTA! We couldn't believe it when he knocked on our classroom door. We sang him
some songs and we even got to ask him some questions. He thanked us for our letters and promised everyone that he would visit on
Christmas Eve. Before he left, he gave us all a present. Thank you Santa!
Week commencing 28th November 2022
This week our focus text is Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. Reception went on a walk to the nature garden to collect materials to make their own stick family! There were lots of learning opportunities around this, including dividing up our stick collection to share with one another.
In PSHE we have discussed what the children might do if they found they were lost, like Stick Man and the feelings surrounding such situations.
In Maths, Reception have been learning about night and day and what activities happen at these times of day. We are continuing to practice subitising and revisiting some our previously learnt topics (shape, more than, less than and repeating patterns).
This week in phonics we are reviewing and consolidating the Phase 3 graphemes and phonemes introduced throughout this half term (j, v, w, x, y z, zz, qu, ch, sh, ng, nk, ai, ee, igh, oa). The children are progressing very well with the scheme and we have some superstar readers in Reception! Well done everyone!
In computing and technology, the children have had lots of fun using our listening station to listen to Stick Man and other Julia Donaldson stories on CD! They have thoroughly enjoyed learning how to use the CD player, which was initially quite an alien piece of equipment to some of the class!
We are looking forward to getting involved in our Christmas activities over the next couple of weeks!
Week commencing 21st November 2022
Reception have been continuing exploring Traditional tales with the classic, 'The Gingerbread Man'!
All the children have immersed themselves in our gingerbread man role play, through dressing up as the characters from the
story and we have had so much fun making gingerbread men to take home to share with loved ones!
In Maths we have looked at shape (squares and rectangles) and went on a shape hunt to find these shapes in our school
environment.
In Phonics the children have been introduced to the new phonemes and graphemes ai, ee, igh and oa.
Thank you to all parents who attended Parents Evening. It was great to meet with you and have some dedicated time to discuss
your child's journey so far. Thank you to all parents for your ongoing support at home.
Week commencing 26th September 2022
We have been having a fantastic time in Reception over the last couple of weeks. The children have settled in brilliantly and are continuing to get used to the routines and expectations. Well done Reception!
We have been continuing with the ELS phonics scheme, with the children exploring the sounds 'i', 'n', 'm', 'd' last week. This week they are exploring 'g', 'o', 'c' and 'k'. We sent home our first reading books last week and we are changing them over this week.
A huge thank you to parents who have supported this transition into reading at home!
Focussed mathematics carpet sessions began this week, using the White Rose Maths scheme. The children are
loving this aspect of learning and have thrown themselves into contributing during carpet time.
We certainly have some mathematicians in the class!
In literacy, the children have been thinking about the new friends they have made in Reception. Our focus text is 'All are Welcome' and we have been thinking and talking about what makes a good friend.
Week commencing 12th September 2022
This week we are excited to be introducing the ELS phonics scheme. The sounds we will be covering this week are ‘s’, ‘a’, ‘t’, ‘p’ and ‘i’.
The children will start thinking about and discussing mathematical concepts, such as subitising (identifying an amount of objects without counting them), spotting differences/similarities and matching and sorting objects.
Using the play dough made by the children last week, we are ready to start ‘dough disco’ which is fantastic for strengthening fine motor skills. We are sure the children will be keen to share this aspect of the school day with their grownups!
Week commencing 5th September 2022
The children are settling into Reception life tremendously and are embracing learning our class ethos, routines and getting to know the adults and environment.
Reading
Reading books corresponding to the ELS phonics scheme will be sent home in a few weeks. We will be holding an information meeting for parents and carers about phonics and reading soon, the details of which will be communicated separately.
We cannot express enough the importance of sharing books with your children. Reading to, or with your child at home at least once a day will have such a positive impact on their ‘learning to read’ journey, helping to set them up for their school life and beyond. We thank parents and carers for their continued support with this aspect of your child’s learning!
Welcome to Reception!
We are delighted to welcome our Reception children to Hill Top Primary Academy. The adults in Reception are Mrs Salter (Monday and Tuesday), Miss Bailey (Wednesday pm, Thursday and Friday, Miss O’Leary (Wednesday am), Miss Jones and Miss Richardson.
Please keep an eye on this page for regular updates of what we have been doing in Reception as a whole class. Updates for parents will be made on Tapestry, which will be used alongside School Jotter for communication between parents and the Reception team.
Our topic this half term is ‘Amazing Me!’ where we will be focusing on starting school, new beginnings, friendships, my family and where I am from, what I am good at and managing feelings.