Reception

Please use the link below to see all the fantastic work completed in our Spanish Lessons.

29.04.25

🕷️🐞 Reception Go on a Minibeast Hunt! 🐛🐝

This week, Reception class put their learning into action as they went on an exciting minibeast hunt around our school grounds! 🧐🌿

After exploring different minibeast habitats in class—like damp logs, leafy bushes, and hidden corners under stones—the children were eager to find out where their favourite creepy crawlies might be hiding in real life. Armed with magnifying glasses, observation pots, and lots of curiosity, they searched high and low, using everything they had learnt to make predictions and spot signs of life.

We discovered wriggly worms, speedy woodlice, tickly ants, and even a caterpillar tucked under a leaf. The children showed fantastic teamwork, gentle handling of the creatures, and brilliant recall of habitat facts. 📝💬

What a fantastic way to bring science to life through outdoor learning! 🌍✨

28.04.25

Reception had a truly special experience this week as they took part in an interactive B Tales workshop all about the Creation Story from the Bible.

The session brought the story to life in the most engaging way, helping the children to understand how the world was made in seven days according to the Christian faith. Through music, dance and interactive learning, the children became part of the story—acting out the sun, moon, stars, animals, and even the sea!

The workshop was full of energy, imagination, and laughter. It was a fantastic opportunity for our youngest learners to explore a key religious story in a fun and memorable way. The children absolutely loved taking part and were eager to share what they had learned afterwards.

A big thank you to Tasha from B Tales for such a creative and enjoyable session!

25.04.25

What a wonderful start to the summer term! This half term, we are learning about how plants grow and where minibeasts live and we kick started our learning with our school trip to Norton Priory. We had a wonderful day, packed full of hands-on learning and outdoor fun! Our adventure began with exploring how plants grow and learning all about the different parts of a plant. We took a walk through the beautiful walled garden where we got up close with nature ad explored the different plants, flowers and herbs that were growing. We also spotted lots of bees! We then returned to the classroom to discover some amazing minibeasts hiding in soil and mulch that had been collected.

In the afternoon, with nets in hand, we went on a bug hunt, catching minibeasts and observing them carefully. We even tried worm charming – and were amazed by how many wiggly friends came up to say hello! We got crafty too – making our very own pots out of recycled paper and planting seeds to take home. Then, we rolled up our sleeves to make beeswax candles and played an exciting worker bee relay game, buzzing with energy.

It was a day full of learning, laughter, and lovely memories in the great outdoors!

04.04.25

Happy Easter everyone!

This week, we have started to learn the true meaning of Easter. On Monday, we were lucky enough to have Mrs Liptrott, from Cronton Mission Church, working with us. We listened to an Easter story with a twist called ‘Dave the Donkey’. We then joined in with some exciting Easter crafts, including eggshell art, to make a beautiful display in our classroom and an Easter card to bring home.

On Wednesday, we took part in an Easter Experience adventure. We followed the map and travelled around school to learn more about Jesus and the Easter story. We also took part in some meaningful activities to help our understanding.

In Maths, we consolidated our learning of number bonds to 10. We used the large ten frame and counters, a large part whole model with cubes and Numicon to support our understanding. We also enjoyed singing ‘Farmer Pete’s’ Number bond song.

Take a look at the photos below to see our learning in action!

28.03.25

This weekend we celebrate our amazing Mums, Nanas & Grandmas! The children have loved thinking of all the things that make their Mummy special as part of our Mother’s Day card. We hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday and know how truly special you are!

In Literacy, we received a letter from Joop informing us that Nut the Dog isn’t well! We were very concerned about this and decided that we would like to help Joop now that she needs a new side-kick. We drew posters to let others know that Joop needs a new side-kick.

In Maths, we have been learning number bonds to 10 e.g. 1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7 etc. We used counters and different objects to explore the different number bonds by making arrangements in two groups.

Take a look at the photos below to see our learning in action!

21.03.25

This week, as part of our International Studies Curriculum, we had a video call with Arise School in Tanzania. Mrs Durr read the children at Arise a story that we know and love – Little Red Riding Hood! The teacher at Arise then read us a traditional African tale about an Elephant that wanted to be king. It was a wonderful experience for us all and we loved the story that we listened to.

In Literacy, we’ve drawn our story plans for Joop and Nut and then we used them to write the entire story! We have shown what amazing progress we are making in our writing and what a fantastic knowledge of the story we have.

In Maths, we have been learning about the composition of 9 and 10. We’ve built towers of 9 and 10 with cubes, represented 9 and 10 on a ten frame and sorted pictures of 9 and 10 objects.

Take a look at the pictures below to see our week in action!

07.03.25

We had a fabulous time celebrating World Book Day on Thursday! We started our day by joining whole school worship, which was led by Mrs Jones. She read us a chapter of her favourite book The Twits by Roald Dahl. We then took part in a World Book Day parade around the hall. Throughout the day, we took part in ‘Drop Everything and Read’ each time we heard the whistle. It was lots of fun!

As part of our International Learning, we listened to a traditional counting story set in Tanzania. Next week, we will be continuing this learning and finding out more about what life is like in Tanzania.

This week in Literacy, we have been drawing storyboards to show our knowledge of the parts of the story of Juniper Jupiter. Within our lessons, we use an example text, which is a simplified version of the story, to support our storytelling. In our sentence writing we wrote about Joop and her super powers.

In Maths, we have been learning to explore and compare length and height. We used size vocabulary to compare towers, we used cubes to measure the length of Superhero footprints and we ordered the superheroes by their size.

Take a look at the pictures below to see our week in action!

03.03.2025

As part of our learning in RE, we have been learning about Special Times. One special time that we have been thinking about is Baptism. We were very lucky to have Mrs Liptrott in school on Monday to 'baptise' our doll Rosie. Rosie's parents and Godparents made special promises to Rosie as she was welcomed into God's family.

28.02.25

Reception Class had so much fun taking part in the Friends of Cronton Sponsored Pancake Flip Out!

27.02.25

We've had a great first week back and the sunshine has been extremely welcome! In maths, we've been learning to double numbers and find doubles up to double 5.

In Literacy we have moved on to our new Ready Steady Write text Juniper Jupiter by Lizzy Stewart and the children have enjoyed designing, and writing a sentence, about their own superheroes.

We've had lots of creativity in our independent learning time this week and lots of the children are starting to apply their phonic knowledge in their independent writing. We've had cards, sentences and even some stories!

Take a look at the images below to see our learning in action.

14.02.25

Happy half term everyone! What a wonderful half term we’ve had! The children have been absolute superstars and they have made so much progress. We are so proud of you Reception! Thank you to all of our parents for attending Parents Evening on Monday and Tuesday. Thank you for your continued support.

In Maths, we have been learning to identify odd and even numbers. In our outdoor area we had a race to sort the odd and even Numicon pieces and then we ordered them using the odd and even pattern to help us.

To finish the week, we had red and pink crafts available for the children to make their own Valentines cards. We also enjoyed putting our dancing shoes on for the Valentines Disco. What a great way to finish Spring 1!

07.02.25

Our Creativity Worship at St Lukes Church

On Friday, we went to St Lukes Church to lead a service all about Creativity - our Christian Value for this half term. We created artwork to represent the Creation Story, we sang and we shared ways that we are creative. We were all wonderful and it was so lovely to stand alongside our Year 5 Gardeners during the service.

30.01.25

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Today we have been learning about the way Chinese New Year is celebrated around the world. We watched the CBeebies Short Story about Abi, who celebrates Chinese New Year with her family. We learnt how the family prepares for the New Year and the different traditions and activities they take part in as part of the celebrations. In class, we enhanced our home corner, made Year of the Snake posters, wrote chinese numeral characters and even made our own Chinese Dragon puppets!

25.01.25

This week, in RE as part of our Special Places unit, we have been looking at different places of worship. We noticed similarities and differences and did observational drawings to show our learning.

In Literacy, we moved on to the plan and write section of our Little Red Literacy unit. The children have used their knowledge of our story song to support their ability to plan and write each part of the story. They have done an amazing job and we brought our phonic skills in to our guided writing sessions to spell the words in the sentences.

In maths, we continued to explore different ways of representing number bonds to 5. We are becoming increasingly secure in the composition of the number and we have been able to record our understanding.

18.01.25

We have had a jam packed week in school this week! In RE, we have been learning about different Special Places. We started by thinking of our own special place. A place that we feel calm, happy and safe. The children drew images of their special places and talked about what made them special. We also learnt that the church is a special place for Christians, the mosque is a special place for Muslims and the temple is a special place for Hindus. We looked at images of the special building and discussed what we like about them.

In PE, the children showed excellent control as we rolled the ball and used our skills to play an individual and partner game.

In Literacy, we have started to consider the different parts of the story Little Red in preparation for our story writing next week. We have also drawn our own storyboards to demonstrate our understanding of the parts of the story.

In Maths, to ensure that we were all secure in our learning, we continued to focus on number bonds to 5. This week we used part whole models and Hungarian 5 frames to represent the different number bonds.

10.01.25

Happy New Year! This week has been Science Week in school. We kick started the week with a Mad Science Assembly. The assembly showed the links between science and sport. We learnt about reaction time, aerodynamics and the olympic torch!

To tie in with our learning around Traditional Tales, we carried out an experiment to find out why the Gingerbread Man didn’t want to swim across the river. We put a Gingerbread man into water to see what would happen and it started to dissolve! We enjoyed saying the new vocabulary after discussing what was happening to the Gingerbread Man.

To finish the week on Friday afternoon, we watched the Pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. It was a fantastic show and we all really enjoyed ourselves!

In PE we have started our unit of learning on Ball Skills. This week, we have been learning to control the ball with our hands.

In Maths, we have been learning about number bonds to 5. The children have used cubes and numicon to explore the numbers that always go together to make 5. The children are becoming increasingly confident at recalling the number bonds and they used their knowledge to solve missing number problems.

In Literacy, we have moved on to our new focus text Little Red by Bethan Woollvin. The children were amazing at predicting what the story might be about from the clues that we looked at and they enjoyed the twist in the story when it was revealed.

We have started to learn the story song to support our story telling next week and all of the children did an amazing job at writing a sentence in our sentence accuracy work.

13.12.24

We had had a lovely morning working with our Gardeners to make a Christingle. We learnt about the significance of each part that we added as we worked together to learn about Jesus' love. In the afternoon, we took part in a Worship to share what we had learnt and to come together at this special time of year.

06.12.24

This week, we have been getting into the festive spirit in Reception Class. We are enjoying our new Christmas home corner and the Christmas crafts in our creative area. Thank you to everyone who attended our Christmas stay and play session. It was lovely to see you all.

In Maths, we have been consolidating some of the learning we have done this half term. The children have made shape Christmas trees, counted Christmas objects and consolidated our understanding of more and fewer.

In Literacy, we have been learning how to write messages in a card.

15.11.24

On Monday we learnt why we wear poppies for Remebrance Day. We had a special worship in the hall and made poppies in different ways. Mr Tunstall, our Year 6 teacher, played The Last Post on his cornet and we observed a two minutes silence with the rest of school.

In PE, we have started our new unit of learning – gymnastics. We have been learning to make different shapes with our bodies including a tuck shape, straight shape, star shape and straddle shape. On Wednesday, we developed our learning by doing the shapes on different apparatus.

In Maths, we have been learning about numbers 1 to 5. In our group work, we explored the composition of each number and the children independently made representations.

In Expressive Arts and Design, we have been exploring colour mixing. We learnt which are the primary colours and enjoyed mixing them to make secondary colours. We also learnt a colour mixing song and enjoyed singing it as we painted!

08.11.24

We had a wonderful time today learning about the Hindu Festival of Diwali. – the Festival of Light. We made cards, created our own rangoli patterns, danced and enjoyed listening to the story of Rama and Sita. We also got together with our Gardeners to make rangoli candle holders.

In Maths this week, we have been learning about circles and triangles. We’ve used mathematical vocabulary to describe the properties of the shapes, sorted them and found shapes in our environment.

In Understanding the World, we listened to the story Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. We then learnt about the life cycle of a pumpkin and compared it to our knowledge of the life cycle of an apple. After listening to the story, we decided to make our own pumpkin soup! We chopped, sprinkled and stirred! We tasted the soup when it was ready; some of us even had a second helping!

25.10.24

We have had such a great week to finish our first half term in school!

On Monday in RE, we thought about when and why we pray. We learnt that prayer is our way of speaking to God and a great way to say thank you or to ask for help.

In maths, we have been learning to find one less than a given number to 5. We used lots of counting rhymes to consolidate this learning and had so much fun!

In phonics, we have now learnt all of our single letter sounds and we're even starting to apply our knowledge to our writing. On Wednesday afternoon, we had a great time making marks in lots of different ways to support our fine motor control and our developing love of writing.

Take a look at the images below to see our learning in action.

18.10.24

On Monday, we went into our first worship with the rest of the school. It was really special because we learnt about the Shoebox Appeal. Mr Tunstall (Y6 teacher) and his Dad, Mr Tunstall Snr, talked to us about the work that Mr Tunstall Snr does when he visits the Ukraine. He takes aid to the people who need it and brings joy at Christmas time when he delivers Christmas shoeboxes. Please see the letter in your child’s book bag with details on how you can support this worthy cause.

In Maths, we have been learning about the composition of numbers 1-3. We have been recognising different representations, subitising and matching numerals to amounts.

We are making excellent progress in our phonics sessions and applying our learning within our Literacy sessions. This week we wrote a sentence for the ‘ending’ part of the story. ‘Dan got it back’. We also completed our story plans with the Problem Penguin and Elephant Ending parts of the story.

11.10.24

For World Mental Health Day, we thought about ways that we can keep our bodies and minds healthy. The children knew that eating healthy foods, doing exercise and getting enough sleep were all things they can do to keep healthy.

We thought about things that make us happy. Learning new things, spending time with our families and looking at rainbows were all things that the children suggested 💛🌈

Mrs Jones came in to show the children her new skill of juggling and we spent time outside connecting with our friends.

In Maths, we have been learning to identify and recreate repeating patterns. We used lots of different resources to make our own repeating patterns.

In Literacy, we have started using planning circles to create a plan for the story of The Something. We’ve drawn our own illustrations for the opening and build-up of the story and we will use these to draw our own zig-zag story books over the next few weeks.

Our Reception Welcome Service

On Sunday, we attended Cronton Mission Church for our Welcome Service. We were welcomed to the Church family by our Year 5 Gardeners. It was a beautiful service, and we enjoyed taking part in crafts that linked to the theme of Hope and Act. We sang and prayed and had a really great morning worshipping together.

04.10.24

We have had another busy week in Reception! In PE, we warmed up with different listening games and then developed our jumping skills. The children were amazing at taking off and landing with ‘squashy knees’!

In our outdoor learning, we found apples that had fallen from our apple tree and enjoyed making different recipes in our Mud Kitchen.

We also had fun learning Spanish with Mrs Kimmins and Jose the Spanish puppet.

In Maths this week, we have been learning to compare size. The children met Holly the Hedgehog at the beginning of the week who went on a scavenger hunt to find objects of different sizes. They also compared the size of acorns, while perfecting their cutting skills.

In Literacy, we have been learning to identify the different parts of our focus text The Something by Rebecca Cobb. The children have been introduced to the story friends Octopus Opening, Build Up Bear, Problem Penguin and Elephant Ending.

Our Harvest Worship!

We sang beautifully during our Harvest Worship today. Our teachers were so proud of us!

27.09.24

This week, we have enjoyed learning all about France during our European Day of Languages. We learnt to count to 10 in French, made flags and posters, constructed the Eiffel Tower and tried some French food!

In Maths, we have been learning to identify how objects have been sorted, as well as creating our own sorting rules!

In Literacy, we have learnt to retell the story of The Something by Rebecca Cobb through our story song. We've also enjoyed our daily sentence writing and, this week, we have written a sentence about how Dan felt when he lost his ball. As a class, we used phonics to help us spell each word in the sentence.

20.09.24

This week, we had our first Questful RE lesson around the theme of I am Special. We thought about what makes each of us special and we learnt the new vocabulary of ‘unique’. In the bible it tells us that God made us all in our own special way and that God loves each and every one of us. We discovered that we all have a unique fingerprint and we captured this in our RE floor-book. We signed our fingerprints, so that we can recognise them in the future. To finish our learning, we listened to the story ‘When God Made You’ by Matthew Paul Turner.

In Maths this week, we have been learning about matching objects and pictures and identifying sets. The children have been amazing at this learning in our daily maths sessions.

In Literacy, we started our Ready Steady Write literacy programme. Our focus text this half term is The Something by Rebecca Cobb. Linking to the theme of the story, on Monday Mrs Durr found a mysterious hole in her garden! We learnt the vocabulary of ‘peered’ and the children created their own verbal sentences starting with ‘I peered in the hole and saw a …’ We had everything from a grumpy badger to a big, scary dinosaur to a glittery, sparkling unicorn! The children were so engaged and I can’t wait to see where their learning takes them over the next few weeks!

13.09.24

This week has been another super week for Reception. We had our first PE lesson and tried really hard to get ourselves changed into our PE kits! We played lots of stop/start games to encourage careful listening.

In Expressive Arts and Design, we have been drawing self-portraits. We looked in the mirror to notice our features and then drew our faces and coloured them in using true colours.

In Literacy, we have been practising writing our names with chalk outside.