Reception blog

• Friday 25 April 2025 Mission Impossible Reception have begun a new topic this half term and are learning all about Space!
• Thursday 3 April 2025 Learning About Easter Reception have been busy learning about Easter this week. We have read the story from the bible and spent time acting parts out, creating our own Easter gardens and beautiful art work to show important parts of the story.
• Friday 28 March 2025 Happy Mothering Sunday Look at some of our spectacular portraits of our mummies! We really enjoyed showing them to the congregation in our church service on Wednesday and talking about why we love our mums. We hope you enjoyed the service.
• Thursday 20 March 2025 We are scientists! During science week we learnt all about worms. We then made our own wormery by layering gravel, sand, soil, dead leaves and, of course, worms from our outside area. We covered it in black paper to keep it dark and put it in a cool place.
• Friday 14 March 2025 Spring has Sprung! Reception have been busy outside looking for signs of spring. We have noticed buds appearing on plants, birds singing in trees and lots of minibeasts in the soil! We have learnt the names of some spring flowers: snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and primroses.
• Thursday 30 January 2025 A Trip to the Greengrocers Reception children went on a walk to JS Webb Greengrocers in town today. We walked past Walsworth Road Baptist Church, the Queen Mother Theatre, Windmill Hill and the River Hiz. We spotted the first signs of spring: squirrels, daffodils and birds’ nests. We spent time looking for shapes in the grounds of St Mary’s Church and visited the lovely greengrocer nearby to buy all the fruit and vegetables on our shopping list. What a wonderful morning out! Back at school we got busy making turnip soup and are really looking forward to using pastels to sketch the fruit and vegetables (and to giving them a taste too!)
• Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
• Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
• Thursday 16 January 2025 Blue Penguin Poetry Reception have really enjoyed listening to and discussing the text, 'Blue Penguin by Petr Horacek. We have developed our vocabulary through listening to and discussing the story and have explored the story setting by thinking about our five senses. We have written our own poem inspired by the illustrations.
• Friday 10 January 2025 Penguins Reception have had a wonderful week learning all about penguins. We have been comparing our height to the height of penguins, learning about different types of penguin and collaging our own penguins to create a classroom display. We even froze some toy penguins and used our scientific skills to melt the ice and free the penguins!
• Thursday 19 December 2024 Advent in Reception Having learnt all about Advent at St Albans Cathedral last week, children in Reception have continued their learning about how Christians around the world prepare for Christmas. We learnt that in Ireland, candles are placed on windowsills, in Australia people have barbecues on the beach(!) and in India colourful paper stars are hung.
• Thursday 12 December 2024 Reception's First School Trip Today was a very special day as we went on our very first school trip. We travelled on a coach to visit St Alban's Cathedral. We visited different parts of the cathedral learning all about Advent and Christmas and how it is celebrated in the cathedral. We made advent wreaths, smelt myrrh and frankincense and listened to the story of Christmas. We behaved beautifully and represented St Andrew's exceptionally. What a super first visit!
• Friday 15 November 2024 Reception Remember Reception talked about the significance of Remembrance Day. We worked together to collage, paint and colour poppies to create our own wreath and class display.
• Friday 8 November 2024 All About 5! Reception have been busy learning all about the number 5 this week! We have made handprints, collected groups of 5 loose parts and looked for groups of 5 in our environment. We have become very good at subitising 5 and learning the different numbers that can make 5.
• Thursday 24 October 2024 Culture Week in Reception Reception have had a wonderful week learning about cultures from all around the world. We have been so lucky to have visits from lots of our parents who have taught us more about the world around us. We learnt to count in French, tried our hand at origami, sung songs in Ghanaian, tasted croissants and hot chocolate and learnt some words in Belgian. We also listened to stories and rhymes from many different cultures and explored making our own flags and art work which was inspired by artists from around the world.
• Friday 18 October 2024 Abstract Art in Reception In Maths this week we have been shape detectives! We have learnt to describe the properties of triangles and circles.
• Thursday 10 October 2024 Let's Investigate! In Reception, we have been busy developing the scientific skill of observation this week.
• Thursday 3 October 2024 Mark Making in Reception After reading, 'The Dot' by Peter Reynolds, Reception explored creating our own collaborative art in our classroom Atelier using dots and lines. We noticed the similarities between our artwork and the work of some famous abstract artists!
• Thursday 19 September 2024 Busy Fingers Reception children have been enjoying lots of activities which will make our fingers nice and strong and ready for writing! We have been popping bubble wrap, writing in shaving foam, feeding 'tennis ball monsters' with pom-poms and sorting gems with tweezers. We have been so good at all these activities that we have even started learning how to hold our pencils correctly by 'nipping, flipping and gripping'! What a wonderful week.
• Friday 13 September 2024 What a super start for Reception! Reception have made a brilliant start to the school term! Children have been busy exploring the classroom and our outside area. They have particularly enjoyed creating ramps and tracks for cars, building with the unifix cubes and getting messy with the paint and water.
• Thursday 13 June 2024 Look What We Grew! As part of our Reception Enrichment, we have chitted, planted grown and harvested potatoes. We had great fun digging them up- it was like discovering buried treasure! We also planted and grew some sweet peas. They are beautiful and smell lovely.
• Friday 17 May 2024 Rockets to the Moon Look at our fabulous rockets! We learnt how to make a cylinder with card and attach it to a cone or tube to create a rocket shape. We used materials from the atelier to give them windows, flames and decoration. They are now proudly displayed in our classroom.
• Friday 26 April 2024 Is the moon made of cheese? When looking at the moon, we noticed that it is covered in darker patches. We learnt these are actually craters (and not holes in cheese!)We wondered how these were formed so we carried out a vey messy, but fun, investigation using cornflour and baby oil to see how rocks and comets have formed craters on the moon's surface.
• Thursday 18 April 2024 Fairytales and Fables Workshop Reception had a magical time with Fizzy the Fairy today who visited us all the way from 'Perform Drama School'. We all enjoyed joining in with her dancing, acting and games during our 30 minute workshop. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip into the Fairy tale Forest where we met Rapunzel, Cinderella and even Rumpelstiltskin!
• Friday 22 March 2024 Easter Artwork To create our Easter cards, we used pipettes and paints to create a colour wash with yellow and red. We loved watching the colours mix to create different shades of orange. It was very exciting to peel the masking tape cross off our artwork to reveal a cross shape. We are looking forward to bringing these home next week to share with our families.
• Friday 8 March 2024 Mothering Sunday We have been very busy creating fantastic portraits of our mothers. We very confidently stood up to show them to the school community in today's church service and talked about why we loved our mummies.
• Friday 1 March 2024 A Spring Walk Reception excitedly explored the school grounds to investigate seasonal changes this week. We spotted buds on trees, daffodils, primroses and crocuses. We also noticed that although it was chilly, it was bright and sunny. We look forward to repeating the walk soon and seeing what other wonderful changes have happened around us. We predict there will be more leaves on the trees, more flowers and it will be warmer.
• Monday 5 February 2024 Chinese New Year A Reception parent came into class this afternoon to teach the children all about Chinese New Year! We learnt about pandas, Chinese horoscopes and the children made lanterns and cut out paper shapes. We also tried watermelon and we thought it was delicious! Thank you very much!
• Friday 2 February 2024 What a Wonderful World! Reception enjoyed reading the book, 'Here We Are' by Oliver Jeffers. We listened to the Louis Armstrong song, 'What a wonderful World' and created our own lyrics to the song to reflect the things we think are wonderful in the world. We are also enjoying creating our own paintings of the world's wonderful animals.
• Friday 19 January 2024 A Trip to the Greengrocers On a very cold Thursday morning, Reception walked to the greengrocers in Hitchin town. We had our shopping list and money ready and bought all sorts of wonderful fruit and vegetables. We learnt how the greengrocer weighs the fruit and vegetables and where some of them grow. We particularly enjoyed tasting them when we got back to school!
• Thursday 11 January 2024 The Gigantic Turnip Reception have had a super week of fun and learning. We have started reading our new focus text, ‘The Gigantic Turnip,’ which we have really enjoyed creating story maps for and retelling ourselves using lots of actions.
• Friday 17 November 2023 Family Learning Week in Reception We have been very lucky to have lots of parents visiting our classroom this week. Together we have further explored our Literacy text, 'Julian is a Mermaid', through a lovely range of artistic activities! We have marbled paper to look like the sea, sculpted clay sea creatures and used watercolours to paint beautiful mermaid tails and fish. The buzz of learning and use of language across the week by children has been a delight!
• Friday 6 October 2023 Music in Reception We love our music lessons in the hall with Mrs Lawrence. We especially love playing the percussion instruments. We are getting very good at keeping the pulse and creating rhythms as a class.
• Monday 25 September 2023 Autumn walk This afternoon the Reception learnt about Autumn and we went for a lovely sunny walk in our school grounds to collect autumn leaves, conkers, pine cones and sticks. We learnt about deciduous and evergreen trees and looked for examples of them in our environment.
• Friday 22 September 2023 Reception Enrichment Reception Class loved their first Enrichment sessions this week. Children discussed birds and made bird feeders with Mrs Knappert, chopped and tasted fruit with Miss Thompson or had a go at mixing paint colours with their fingers! Lots of fun was had by everyone.
• Friday 15 September 2023 Bugs in a Blanket We read a story called, 'Bugs in a Blanket'. We discussed how we are all different in our class- just like the bugs in the story. Despite this, we are all part of our class family. We made our own bugs by winding wool around wooden pegs. Don't they look super!
• Thursday 22 June 2023 Happy harvesting! Today, we harvested all of our beautiful radishes and counted a grand total of 47! We tasted them and thought that they were peppery and spicy, and quite crunchy too! We also started to dig up our potatoes which look delicious!
• Wednesday 21 June 2023 Time to cool down with an ice lolly!
• Tuesday 20 June 2023 Time to Harvest It is time to harvest our crops from our wonderful raised beds. We have been busy watering all the plants to make sure that they grow and are well nourished. We are also really excited about digging up our potatoes this week! We have seen some potatoes ready to dig up and are looking forward to tasting them!
• Tuesday 16 May 2023 Budding Gardeners This week, as part of Outdoor Learning Week, we have been busy planting lots of seeds in our new raised beds. So far, we have planted sweetcorn, sunflowers and carrots. We have been learning how to space the seeds out, prepare the soil and have been diligently watering the ground. We can't wait to see what happens! We have also been writing labels during our exploration to help us to remember what we have planted in the raised beds. Thank you to all the families who have donated seeds for our garden area!
• Friday 12 May 2023 Mysterious Happenings in Reception This week, we have been exploring some mysterious happenings in Reception. We found what looked like a spaceship in the playground as well as some suspicious footprints leading to the Mud Kitchen. Even stranger, we found some writing in a different language on the ground. We wondered whether who might have left such an unusual message for us! We wrote letters to Ms Fenn to explain what we had found out and we wonder what will happen next....
• Tuesday 25 April 2023 Counting to twenty This week, we have been exploring our numbers to twenty as part of our maths learning and also our continuous provision. We have been playing different games to explore these numbers and had great fun!
• Wednesday 29 March 2023 Planting Potatoes Yesterday, we planted the potatoes which we have been chitting in our classroom. The potatoes had grown sprouts which were about 2cm long and were ready to be planted. We filled our wheelbarrows with soil, digging it carefully, and then half-filled our planting bags. We then gently placed in some potatoes, nicely spaced out to give them room to grow, and then covered them with a layer of soil. We will keep watering our potatoes and adding more soil to make sure they remain covered and fed. We are looking forward to a potato party once they have grown!
• Friday 24 March 2023 Standalone Farm Today, we visited Standalone Farm to continue our learning for our unit, 'Farm to Fork'. We saw many different animals, recalled what their young are called and even saw some animals being fed! We especially enjoyed seeing the Shire horse and Shetland Pony, and seeing the piglets being fed. After lunch, we enjoyed some time playing together on the climbing equipment. Thank you to all our adult volunteers for joining us today - it was a wonderful visit and lovely to see the farm animals so close up!
• Friday 3 March 2023 World Book Day in Reception This year, our World Book Day focus was on non-fiction texts and we dressed up as different people or objects from information books which we particularly enjoy! Our costumes show our wonderful range of interests in Reception class and we hope you enjoy seeing them!
• Monday 20 February 2023 Looking for a Bog Baby.... As we launch our new learning all about mini-beasts, we ventured to the pond to look for signs of wildlife and to see whether any mini-beasts live there! We were very lucky and spotted some dragonfly larvae, some freshwater snails and even a newt! We explored the pond life hiding beneath the duckweed, just like the characters in our new book, The Bog Baby by Jeanne Willis. We also foraged in the woodlands to collect some materials to make some small bug hotels during our outdoor exploration. We look forward to creating some habitats to encourage different mini-beasts into our playground. Watch this space!
• Tuesday 24 January 2023 Fee fi fo fum! This week, we are learning the traditional tale, Jack and the Beanstalk. As we learn to retell the story using the repeated refrains and story language during our adult-directed learning, we are also developing lots of other skills in our child-initiated learning. We have been practising our super cutting skills to make a huge beanstalk for the classroom, building the giant's castle in the construction area complete with turrets and bridges, and counting the beans for the beanstalk. We even made a beanstalk and castle using the Numicon!
• Tuesday 20 December 2022 Christmas is Coming! Our letters are ready for Father Christmas, our biscuits have been baked and our wrapping paper made! We have even decorated the trees counting the baubles! We have been practising lots of different skills during our adult-directed and child-initiated learning, and we have enjoyed getting ready for Christmas!
• Tuesday 13 December 2022 A Winter Wonderland We loved exploring the snow outside yesterday! There was lots of awe and wonder as we enjoying seeing where Jack Frost had been. We discussed the seasonal changes and most importantly, had a lot of fun!
• Tuesday 29 November 2022 We are writers We are really enjoying using our writing in our child-initiated learning. We are exploring the letters and sounds in our environment, and taking lots of opportunities to write as part of our play. We have been writing our names on our learning, writing signs for our construction area and writing CVC words in our writing station! We especially love to spot digraphs in our environment!
• Tuesday 15 November 2022 Is it waterproof? For our first Family Learning Week session, Reception worked in groups to test different materials to find out which ones would be waterproof. We have been reading the story of Julian is a Mermaid and wanted to find some materials which would be waterproof to be by the seaside! We used pipettes to test different materials by dropping water onto them and made predictions about whether different materials would be waterproof. We enjoyed worked collaboratively and had some very interesting discussions. We enjoyed having our families with us and we are looking forward to our next session.
• Friday 11 November 2022 The Creation Story We have been learning the creation story from the Bible in our RE lessons. We learnt the story and as a group, we created images to represent the different parts of the story. We hope you enjoy the images from our creation story.
• Friday 4 November 2022 Phonics in Reception Reception have made a super start to their phonics learning using Little Wandle and are practising blending CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words both in class and at home with their reading books. To support at home, please see the video link for Autumn 1 Reception for a demonstration of the sounds learnt so far and how to pronounce them to support blending.
• Tuesday 18 October 2022 Learning all about Hungary During Culture Week, some Reception parent visitors came to teach us all about Hungary. We learnt all about the beautiful Lake Balaton and we enjoyed seeing how the landscape changes during the different seasons. It was exciting to see people skating on the ice! We also listened to a Hungarian story called 'Bogyó és Babóca' about friendship which we particularly enjoyed! Later, we wore traditional Hungarian dress and learnt some folk dances - it was fun to try the different movements! At the end of the afternoon, we tasted some delicious Hungarian twisted bread. Huge thanks to our parent volunteers for visiting us and teaching us all about Hungary. We had a wonderful afternoon and learnt so much.
• Monday 10 October 2022 Culture Week This morning, to launch our Culture Week, we learnt all about Mandarin characters from one of our parent visitors. We used the clues to guess what the characters might represent and then enjoyed exploring them during our child-initiated learning. What do you think these characters might mean
• Friday 30 September 2022 Pompoms! This week, we have been busy making pompoms in the atelier using different brightly coloured wool. We practised our weaving techniques and have enjoyed seeing the pompoms become soft and fluffy once they were carefully cut! They are hanging in our classroom for us all to enjoy and we will be continuing with some more woolly weaving next week as we have enjoyed it so much!
• Friday 23 September 2022 Ruby's Worry This week, we have started to read Ruby's Worry by Tom Percival. We have been exploring different emotions from the story and have been thinking about the things which make us happy in our lives. We shared lots of our own ideas and feelings, drawing pictures of the things in our lives which make us feel happy. We feel happy when we are with our families because they play with us, give us hugs and kisses, and build things for us. We also explored different colours and which foods make us feel happy. What makes you feel happy What would you draw
• Wednesday 14 September 2022 Bugs in a Blanket We have had such a wonderful start to our Reception Class. This week, we have been exploring the story 'Bugs in a Blanket' and we have learnt that we are all different but we should feel proud of who we are. We have been busy making bug hotels to keep the bugs cosy and snug, decorations for the bugs' party in our home corner and chocolate cakes for the bugs in the mud kitchen. We have been very busy! We have also made our own peg bugs which we have decorated so that they are all unique - just like us!
• Friday 20 May 2022 Christian Aid in Reception Class
• Friday 20 May 2022 Christian Aid in Reception Class
• Friday 20 May 2022 Christian Aid in Reception Class The reception class really enjoyed visiting the Silver Birches this week and participating in the activities organised by the Worship Acolytes for Christian Aid week. It was a time for quiet reflection in our beautiful outdoor area. The children could choose to paint a pebble, create an amulet from clay, dress up or manipulate water beads for a sensory experience. There was even a chill out tent to sit in and relax! The Worship Acolytes supported each group really well and the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
• Friday 11 February 2022 RE Week - Sikhism Thisweek we have been learning about Sikhism. We have explored the story of Vaisakhi and learnt how the Sikh religion started. This led on to learning about the different celebrations Sikhs participate in, including Vaisakhi parades for the new year and Diwali.
• Monday 7 February 2022 National Hedgehog Day On the 2nd February we celebrated National Hedgehog Day! This entailed us finding out lots about hedgehogs and creating our own information sheets to let others know how to care for hedgehogs too.
• Tuesday 1 February 2022 We are Authors! Since beginning our Space topic, we have been exploring non-fiction text. We have been learning about the features non-fiction books have. Including a front cover, a title, images and information. This has lead us to become authors ourselves! Using our new knowledge about space we have began making our own books and filling them with information. I have added some snippets of the books created below:
• Monday 24 January 2022 Space We have been exploring all things Space! Exploring all areas of the curriculum through Space themed learning.
• Friday 12 November 2021 Culture Week This week we have 'travelled' around the world exploring many different countries! Finding out about the cultures in our class through parents and carers visiting to give us an insight into the countries they come from such as Greece, The Basque Country and India! We have explored many traditions from other cultures through the arts and have used 'passports' to track where we have travelled! Thank you so much to all of the volunteers it has been fantastic to find out more about where our children originate from.
• Thursday 21 October 2021 Buddy Reading We are so lucky to have made fantastic friendships with our Year 6 buddies. Today they came to visit us to share a story or two!
• Monday 20 September 2021 Starting School Today was our first full day at school!
• Sunday 23 May 2021 Outdoor Learning Week We took our Literacy learning outside this week! We used the outdoor stage to put on our own show, creating our own outfits and sharing our knowledge of the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
• Wednesday 28 April 2021 The Minibeasts have arrived! Reception have always shown an interest in the wildlife in our environment. During STEM week we explored this further through a minibeast hunt which everyone loved!
• Thursday 18 March 2021 The Great Art Exhibition
• Friday 13 November 2020 Remembrance In Literacy this week we explored the book Where The Poppies Now Grow by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey. Thinking about Remembrance day and the meaning of Peace. Reception were able to explain the story in their own ways, referring to before and after the war as 'light' and the war as 'dark'. With peace our value this month, Reception were asked to think about what makes them feel peaceful. Every child explained what they feel peaceful doing, explanations varied from cuddling our mummies and daddies, coming to school and watching TV! Having printed poppies; we practised our mark making and writing skills on our peaceful poppy photos. We have been very busy this week reflecting on Remembrance day, peace and using our phonics to write!
• Tuesday 27 October 2020 Culture Week! For the final week of our first term at school, we have been celebrating all things culture! We have learnt about the differences between families and what makes us unique. Throughout the week we created traditional decorations and learnt about the reason behind them.We travelled around the activities using our culture week passports, 'visiting' India, China, Ireland and Ghana!Celebration day! To finish our week, we came into school dressed in our families traditional dress with an artefact to talk about our families. We started the day dancing to celebration music from all around the world.In small groups we shared our artefacts and outfits! We even had some twinning outfits!
• Thursday 1 October 2020 Starting School September has been such a big month for the Reception! Starting full time school, making new friends and learning new routines.On our first day at school we found out how tall we are. I cannot wait to see how much the children grow throughout the year! We have displayed our own interests and are exploring our new environment.Using our life experiences to recreate role play.Enjoying 'barbeques' with our new friends.Creating our own 'camp fire'.Then experiencing our own camp fire in forest school - with added popcorn!
• Wednesday 15 July 2020 Bog Babies in Year One This week, we explored the pond to look for some bog babies! Sadly, we didn't find any bog babies although we did find lots of newts and pond creatures. But look at these wonderful bog babies from our classroom...  

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