Autumn term in Reception Class

The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas 

Our first text this term is The Colour Monster. We use this to help our children settle into the new class as well as talk about how they are feeling. 

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell 

Next class book is Owl Babies. We have been learning all about the life cycle of an owl; from egg to adult owl as well as learning how owls take off, fly and glide.

We made our own clay owls looking at the different features of an owl and thinking about the tools we needed to make these body parts.  

Time to ride.... cycle and scoot to school week 

Developing our imaginations and our physical skills! 

Learning about Road Safety

The Dental Nurse visit 8th October 2021

The Dental Nurses came to teach us all about oral hygiene and how to keep our teeth and gums healthy. We looked at healthy and unhealthy foods as well as how to brush our teeth correctly. 

In maths we have been learning about patterns

Oi Frog  by Kes Grey and Jim Field

This class text is designed to help us learn about rhyming words and patterns in words.

This is one of our class core books so we will revisit this on a regular basis to help us to embed our knowledge of rhyme and rhythm. 

Qualitas Balance Bike session 11th October 2021

Autumn...... what a colourful, vibrant season

Design and Technology Day

Toys from the past

We explored some toys from the past. Some were from our parents, some from our grandparents. We watched a video showing toys from 1910 and discussed which toys we recognised and which we still played with now, like marbles. 

We then made a ball and cup toy using some skills such as threading, cutting, joining and decorating. We then tried out our toys! 

All Saints Day - St Francis 

Today we looked at St Francis as part of All Saint's Day. We chose St Francis as we love nature and animals and St Francis is the Patron Saint of animals and ecology. We looked at the story of how St Francis tamed the wild wolf and saved the village then we made hedgehog bread and leaf crowns to celebrate this saint. 

Percy The Park Keeper - After the Storm

by Nick Butterworth

This class book is in keeping with our seasonal theme, autumn and looking at nature and weather. We explored where the animals live, which hibernate and which don't and what the animals like to eat, especially in autumn and winter as the weather gets colder. 

As part of our learning around Percy the Park Keeper and autumn, we went on a hunt for our missing animals. We had to use our investigation skills to find them all hiding in the school grounds and we used our iPads to take photos of them so we could tell our friends where they were hiding. We talked about what the animals were, what they ate and where they lived.

Police visit 3rd November 2021

We had a visit from a Police Car and we got to try on their uniform as well as look around the car and even try the light and sirens! In the afternoon we played Police Officers and pretended we were in our Police Car chasing down criminals and arresting them. 

Bonfire Night 2021

We looked at why we celebrate Bonfire Night and how Guy Fawkes was stopped when he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Some children have been to London so we talked about Big Ben and where the Houses of Parliament were. We watched a video of the fireworks in London so we could see Big Ben and identify where the Houses of Parliament were. 

We also watched a safety video showing us how to keep safe on Bonfire Night from Fireman Sam and then we practised the "Stop, Drop and Roll" exercise to keep us safe if our clothes caught fire. 

As a treat we made chocolate covered marshmallow "sparklers". We used our fine motor skills to twist the kebab stick to cover our marshmallow with chocolate and then to cover them in sparkles.  

Road Safety Heroes!

Our children have been learning about how to keep themselves safe and healthy this term. This time is is revisiting road safety with more practical application. We used the pretend zebra and pelican crossings and talked to the children about safe places to cross the road, and places they shouldn't. Our children all know to hold an adult's hand when near the road and NEVER to run into the road. We practised looking and listening for traffic and using the pedestrian crossing as a safe place to cross. 

Our children then looked at Road Safety Heroes, people who keep us safe on and near the roads, and those who help us if we need it. We then drew a picture of our hero on a postcard to remind our adults of all the things they can do to keep us safe. 

Remembrance Day 11th November 2021

We spent the day looking at why it is important to remember the soldiers who died or were injured in the wars around the world and why we wear poppies to celebrate their lives and raise money for veterans. We watched a video to help to understand why we stay silent for 2 minutes on the 11th of November and we made our own poppies using wool and sticks as well as painting our own poppies. 

Abi Burlingham visit 15th November

The Author of Ruby and Grub 

We had a visit from a local author, Abi Burlingham. She is the author of some of the books we like, Ruby and Grub, Grub in love and Grub's pups. 

She came and read us Grub's Pups and we made Grub ears so we could be Grub's pups too! We decorated these in our own unique way. 

We asked Abi lots of questions about her books and also her dogs. We talked about our own pets too. 

We have decided we would like to be authors so we have started our own story station to draw our own ideas for stories in. 

Kindness Week

15th - 19th November

In Kindness Week we spoke about why we are kind to our friends, what it means to be kind, and how we can be kind in school. We also talked about what makes us special, what makes us different to our friends and why our uniqueness should be celebrated. 

During the week we gave our friends special "kind friend" awards when we felt they had been kind to us in our play and learning. 

Stick man by Julia Donaldson

We have been reading Stick Man and learning all about the different places Stick Man ended up on his adventures and the different things he ended up being! 

We looked at all the things a stick could be, we came up with lots of lots of different ideas! Sticks are amazing!

We created story maps to show the different parts of the story. This helps us to understand structures of stories and develop our listening and recall skills. 

Autumn Lamps

To finish our topic on Autumn, we used some of the colourful autumn leaves we had found to make a lamp to take home and enjoy the autumn colours through the winter. We learned how to use see-through greaseproof paper as a medium for this art activity and how using glue to stick the leaves on would help them stay in place. 

Whatever Next? By Jill Murphy

We read this lovely book and then we acted out the book and took a flight to space! We listened carefully to the story so we could draw our own story maps to show the key aspects of the story. 

Christingle 1st December

We have been learning all about Advent and Christingle this week in RE. We made our own Christingle Orange and talked about the different parts representing the four seasons, all of God's creations, the blood of Jesus, the light of Jesus in the world, and the world God created.

The Jolly Christmas Postman

by Allan and Janet Ahlberg

This book tells the story of the Jolly Postman who delivers letters to lots of different nursery rhyme and story characters. The letters are all written by other book and rhyme characters and looks at how letters are written and the kinds of things we can put into our own letters. 

The children have been writing letters to Father Christmas and his Elves (Emma and Ed) who have been visiting us in Reception. We have looked at how to start a letter and also how to end a letter so the person knows who this is from. 

In literacy we have been drawing the characters from the book and writing our own letters to some of the fairytale characters as well as completing a story map to help us to recall key aspects of the story. 

Christmas activities 

Nativity Performance