Welcome to the Reception Class of 2023
Hello, I am Mrs Cunningham, the class teacher and our Classroom assistant is Mrs Towers. Both of us work almost full time in Reception, although I work from home on a Tuesday afternoon, when Mrs Towers is helped by Mrs Walker and Mrs Towers teaches Year One on Wednesday afternoons.
Please check this page regularly as I add some photos each week to show what we have been doing - I try to include as many of the children as I can! I will also put on curriculum information and the weekly poem which I expect all of the children to learn at home.
Remember, I am always available for a quick chat at drop off and pick up times, do please let me know if you need a longer conversation and I will happily arrange that.
Early Learning Goals
Towards the end of the school year, I have to assess each child on the EYFS Early Learning Goals. I know that this seems like a long way off, but here they are so that you can see where we're going over the next few months.
Poems
Each week we learn a poem or rhyme, which is usually related to our class topic. We say these together as a class and the children are always so proud to see the amount they know grow. I will put the poems here, please will you help your child to learn the poem each week so that they can join in confidently. Thank you.
Summer Term Poems
Spring Term Poems
Autumn Term Poems
Half Termly Information Sheets
Each half term I will put an information sheet on here, with a little more about what we will be doing in Reception.
An overview of the year.
The document below outlines our curriculum and topics for the year. It is not set in stone as we will amend or develop aspects as necessary as the year goes on.
Each week I will ty to add some photos to show you what we have been doing.
We are attempting our last Design Technology unit this week. To tie in with our 'books' topic we are making bookmarks. The children were fabulous at paper weaving, remembering to go up and down, then they practised on small pieces of binka. We are just sewing the real bookmarks at the moment, which as you can imagine is so time consuming. If I get the chance to take photos and pop them on here I will, otherwise you will have to wait until the finished items come home!
Sorry - as we approach the end of term I have been terrible at remembering to take photos!
We had a lovely teddy bear day yesterday. Look at the fabulous hats, beds, chairs and houses the children made.
What a fabulous day we had on our school visit! I had some lovely comments from other people about how well behaved the children are - I feel so proud of them.
We have had a lovely well-being week, with lots of mindful and calming activities - so calm I forgot to take many photos!
We have enjoyed stories and activities from them as well as yoga.
This week we have explored the last sense, touch.
We painted without using our hands, which was very tricky.
In our week about smelling we had smelly pots to sniff and talk about, and we explored herb smells by snipping, rolling and squashing them.
We have thought about hearing this week. We have enjoyed being outside in the lovely weather too.
This week we have explored eyes and seeing. We painted and built models with blindfolds on - it was very tricky!
We went to watch Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book at the Theatre.
We have carried on exploring Easter this week.
We started the week exploring Springtime and New Life, then we moved onto the first part of the Easter story.
We have had lots of fun celebrating St Patrick’s day today.
We tasted Irish bread, we played ‘Hot Potato’ and ‘Pin the Tail on the Leprechaun’ and we made fabulous hats, as well as Irish dancing.
Look at how wonderful everyone looked on World Book Day!
We have been looking at longer, taller and shorter this week. We also explored daffodils ready for St David’s day
We have celebrated Chinese New Year. We tasted Chinese food, we made lanterns and we danced with our dragons - we even made up the music to dance to.
We have explored ‘wind’ this week. We had great fun with the parachute!
We have been exploring rain and water this week.
We looked at a painting called 'Umbrellas', then we recreated what the scene and thought about what the people in the painting might have been saying.
We have dissolved some foods in hot water, we did some floating and sinking experiments, we watched what happens to Skittles with hot water. we blew paint bubbles and we learnt about the story of Noah's Ark!
This week we have explored ice. We looked carefully at pieces of ice, we found out where it melts best and we put different things on it to try to melt it faster. We even had to free the dinosaurs from ice blocks!
This week we have started our topic all about cold and winter. we have explored suitable clothes, thought about how to warm up when it is cold, and made fabulous snowmen and cold colour collages.
We had an amazing party this afternoon, played plenty of games and even had a special visitor.
After the children were so fabulous in our Nativity play we have made some Christmas decorations. The sliding Santas are great, the shiny Christmas shapes look amazing and the children are rightly very proud of the cards they have made. Probably the most fun they have at the moment is decorating our tree each day when they are in the role play area!
We had a great time at the Christmas Fair
We had a great skipping workshop. Sorry, I couldn't take photos of them actually skipping as I was busy turning the rope!
Exploring the roles of the police has been great fun. It feels as if our classroom has been turned into a mini crime drama!