Welcome to Reception

from

Miss Foster and Miss Fawcett

Our email address is: reception@kingsleyschool.org.uk

This is checked regularly however, if you need to speak to a member of staff as a matter of urgency, please either speak to a member of the leadership team on the gate on a morning or ring the school office.

In Reception, we have planned a progressive curriculum which is built around stories to engage and excite the children. Our chosen books are a mixture of traditional and diverse texts which enhance British values and cultural capital. Our inclusive curriculum ensures all children are given the time, space and opportunity to participate and engage at their own level. We are committed in supporting all children to reach their full potential. Below you will find comprehensive documents which outline our current curriculum and progression documents. Please enjoy spending time browsing these before looking through the page to see our amazing pupils and their work. 

If you require any additional information regarding our curriculum, please do not hesitate to contact your child's class teacher or a member of the Leadership Team.

For more information on how we teach phonics in Reception, please click on the link below.

Autumn Term 2024

We are very excited to have a new layout to our environment this year and become a Reception unit where all children's needs can be met and individual progress paramount. It has been a very busy, fun-filled start to the school year. This term is all about starting school, our feelings, how we grow, celebrations, houses and homes and Christmas!

Below you will find our curriculum and some photographs of what we have been up to this term. 

Settling in weeks

We have spent the first few weeks of Reception settling in and exploring our new environment and resources. Here are a few photos to show you what we have been getting up to!

Baking in Reception

Each week, we enjoy opportunities to develop our social skills during baking. We have used a range of techniques to make some delicious treats. 

Rockin' in our school shoes

To help with the transition to school, we have been reading the story of Pete the Cat. We loved hearing all about Pete's day as he 'rocked' through different areas of 'big' school in his new shoes. We learned a song and added our own actions, practised writing by creating some new shoes for Pete and used our good listening and drawing skills to draw our very own cat. Amazing work everyone!

What does a baby need?

We have been thinking about how we have grown from a baby until now and celebrated all of the things we have learned to do so far! We loved looking at baby photos and thinking about how we needed help with everything and all of the new things we have achieved. We then read the stories 'When I was Little' and 'Once there were Giants'. We enjoyed cutting and sticking objects into what a baby needs to help them grow. 

When I Grow Up ...

To continue our learning on growing and changing, we read the story 'When I Grow Up' by Tim Minchin and listened to the well known song. We loved listening to all of the things the child said they could do as a grown up and began to think about our own dreams for when were are older. Take a look at what we want to be when we grow up!

Initial Sounds with Ziggy

Today we explored initial sounds in the tulip room. Our resident monster Ziggy was only allowed to eat objects starting with s and then a. We were very proud of engagement levels and how the children were able to listen to the sounds. 

My Family

We have moved on from looking at ourselves to thinking about those around us. We used the story of Titch to help us think about our own families. We enjoyed using drawing and colouring to firstly help us think and talk about our family members at home. After this, we loved using pebbles and loose parts to create our own unique artwork of those in our house. 

Multi-skills

Our first PE topic of the year is multi-skills. We really enjoy this as we get to move in many different ways, use different speeds, pretend to be animals, hop onto islands to escape sharks as well as showing how good we are at listening and following instructions. Here are some photos of our first PE lessons this year!

Exploring the Rainbow

We have enjoyed exploring different colours of the rainbow in a range of ways using sensory play, messy play, fine motor activities and singing. 

Jasper's Beanstalk

We enjoyed seeing how Titch's plant grew to being taller than his siblings, so we moved onto the story of Jasper's Beanstalk. We thought it was very funny how Jasper tried to make his bean grow by mowing it and digging it over and over again. This led us to learning about what plants need to grow before planting our very own beans. We stuck them to the window and look forward to seeing how much they grow over the next few weeks. 

It's Harvest Time

To celebrate Harvest we enjoy learning where our food comes from. For this, we have used the story of 'Oliver's Vegetables'. We enjoyed talking about the different vegetables Oliver had eaten and the ones we like to eat the most. It was fun to guess what Oliver would find next in Grandad's garden. We then used potatoes and carrots to create our own repeating patterns. 

Making chips

In the end of Oliver's Vegetables, Oliver is very excited to finally discover the potatoes for the chips he loves! We thought it would be a great opportunity to show children how to make chips from scratch. We washed, peeled, chopped and cooked our very own chips - they were delicious! We then practised our writing skills by writing instructions. All of the grown ups were blown away by how much we have learned this half term!

Occupational therapy in Reception

We have loved exploring the balancing stones during O.T. time. It was lots of fun balancing over the range of levels and moving around them in different directions. 

Academic year 2023-2024

Autumn Term 2023

The Colour Monster

Starting school can leave us with a lot of mixed emotions. We used the Colour Monster story to help us work these through. Here is some of our lovely work.

Our Family

We loved talking about our families and listening to the experiences we have at home. We used pebbles to create some modern artwork of those who live in our house. 

Making Kites

We read the story of Titch to continue our learning about families and growing up. We loved the part of the story where Titch and his siblings flew their kites so we took advantage of the windy weather and made our own to fly. We had an amazing time on the field!

When I Grow Up

We looked at how people change over time and thought about all the skills we had learned since we were a baby. This made us think about all of the wonderful things we may do in our lives and what we want to be when we grow up.

Jasper's Beanstalk

After learning how humans grow over time, we started thinking about the natural world. We read Jasper's Beanstalk and learned all about what plants need to grow. We then planted our own beans and kept a bean diary to observe the changes! 

Patterns with colours and numbers

In maths, we have explored repeating patterns and were very confident making them with two, and sometimes three colours. We then extended our learning to making patterns with numbers. Look at our incredible work!

P.E.

This half term we have been looking at multiskills - moving around the hall, finding space, following instructions, throwing and catching, balancing and animal movements. We love going to the hall, exploring the space and using the equipment. We have learned lots of safety rules and how to stop with a signal. Here are some P.E. photos from this half term. 

Skeleton Collages

To combine our learning about ourselves with Halloween, we used the story of Funnybones to explore our skeleton. We found it fascinating to hear we all have an actual skeleton inside our body. We created our own skeleton craft and thought about the different bones inside our body. 

Bonfire Night

We listened to the story 'Sparks in the Sky' and thought about the things associated with bonfire night - fireworks, bonfires, sparklers and spending time with family. We then heard the story of Guy Fawkes and learned why we celebrate on November 5th. We then used tubes, sticks and paint to create our own lovely bonfire night artwork. 

Balancing and jumping

We have been working hard on our balancing in P.E. as well as learning how to use the large equipment safely. We were able to take turns to balance on the benches and jump and land safely from two feet to two feet from a range of heights. 

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day is an important event in school and we always spend time with the children explaining how the armed forces play a significant part in keeping our country safe. We watched the BBC animation, 'Poppies' and used apples and our fingers to make some commemorative artwork. 

Happy Diwali

We have enjoyed looking at Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. We listened to the story, 'A Gift for Amma' which explored the Indian market and introduced us to various artefacts. We then watched the story of Rama and Sita to learn the origin of Diwali and enjoyed looking at rangoli patterns and mendhi hand art. We also made Diwali cards for our friends. 

Anti-Bullying Week

As part of anti-bullying week we have explored how to show kindness to others through out words and actions. We looked at a range of different scenarios and discussed whether the children were demonstrating kind or unkind behaviour. We then made a badge we could take home to keep to remind us to always be kind to others. 

Christmas Writing

We have been working very hard in phonics to segment words and begin applying our sounds to writing. We used a lovely Christmas writing sheet to help us apply our knowledge and complete an 'I Can See ...' activity. 

WELCOME TO SPRING TERM!

This term will begin with Local History week, where we will think about transport and travel in the olden days. We will then move onto our Explorers topic where we will be thinking about pirates travelling to new lands, jungle explorers and astronauts in Space.

Local History week 

We took a step back in time as part of local history week. We looked at ‘How did children get to school in the olden days?’ We looked at different kinds of transport from the past and compared them to modern day transport today by looking at similarities and differences, sorting them into categories and writing about them. We also created a class table in maths to show how each of us travel to school.

Pirates

Ahoy there! Continuing our learning on explorers, we looked at pirates and their adventures. We worked hard designing our own pirate ships, which we then were able to build using a variety of resources. We also created our own treasure maps, telescopes and hats and used these to support our role play.

Jungle Explorers

To continue our topic of 'explorers' we took a trip to the jungle. We enjoyed reading the books 'Rumble in the Jungle', 'Monkey Puzzle' and 'Giraffes Can't Dance'. We used these stories to inspire our writing, role play, artwork and musical skills. 

We looked at Giraffe's Cant Dance by Giles Andrea as our focused text and completed some AMAZING writing. We were able to write describing words, speech and a even a fact file. Look at our fantastic progress!

Jungle art

We have been working on something very special in Reception. We looked at the jungle artwork by Henri Rousseau and thought about how he filled his page with jungle inspired backgrounds  and set about making our own jungle collages. They took a long time, but we persevered and were very proud of the outcome. We then painted our favourite jungle animal using watercolours and stuck these together to create the most wonderful piece of artwork!

Puffy Paint Planets

We have been learning about space and have enjoyed being able to name some planets in our solar system. Last week we made puffy paints with shaving foam, glue and food colouring. We then looked at the colours and patterns of different planets and tried hard to paint our own. We enjoyed watching the effects the bubbles made in the paint. 

The Aliens are Coming!

We were inspired by the story 'Here Come the Aliens' by Colin McNaughton to design our own alien creature. We enjoyed thinking about how many eyes, legs and arms our alien would have as well as the size and shape of their body. We were very impressed by the unique designs the children came up with. They then used modelling clay, sequins, eyes and pipe cleaners to recreate their alien. 

Summer Term

During this term we are trying out some new stories to support our vocabulary and writing. We are going to enjoy exploring the stories 'There's a Dragon in your Book' by Tom Fletcher, 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and 'The Bear and the Piano' by David Litchfield. We will also use these stories to inspire other areas of our work. We will then move on to our learning about minibeasts before beginning our transition into year 1. 

Dragon weaving

We loved creating these beautiful dragon pictures using weaving techniques. We worked so hard to make our strips go over and under the paper to create a lovely effect. We then added our dragon cut out over the top to make our artwork complete.

Dragon writing

After reading our stories, we completed lots of lovely writing. We wrote fact files, thought bubbles and even created our own dragon. Have a look at our amazing work!

Sponge print dragons

We have been reading the stories of Zog by Julia Donaldson and There's a Dragon in your Book by Tom Fletcher/ We loved creating our own dragons using sponge printing and seeing how the colours mixed together. We then practised our cutting skills to add eyes, horns, nostrils and wings!

Help the Giant get back home ....

We have enjoyed reading Jack and the Beanstalk as part of our traditional tales topic. We thought carefully about how to help the Giant return to his castle in the sky and used our design sheets to think of ideas. We then chose our construction materials to recreate our ideas. The children were very creative, thinking of everything from staircases, to aeroplanes and even catapults! 

Making Fruit Salad

We have loved making fruit salad this week in Reception as part of our learning on Little Red Riding Hood. We decided that to help Grandma feel better, she would need something healthy and delicious. The children each designed their own fruit salads before using knives to chop the fruit very carefully. They were extremely proud of their skills and enjoyed tasting their lovely creations. 

EURO fever!

Football fever has hit Reception at Kingsley Primary School. We have enjoyed learning about the different countries involved in the competition, creating kits, boots, footballs, playing football outside and of course cheering on England!

We love reading!

We have worked so hard in phonics and guided reading this year and love to talk about our favourite books. As a special treat we went to visit the key stage 2 library. We enjoyed kicking back on the sofas and beanbags and reading some of our favourite stories. It was lovely to talk about books with our friends and listen to the grown ups read lots of different books. 

Sports Day 2024

One of our favourite days of the year is sports day! Everyone had an amazing time working their way around all of the games and activities. It was wonderful to see so many happy faces and hear lots of happy children and parents sharing an afternoon. We definitely earned our ice lollies!

GOOD LUCK IN YEAR ONE EVERYBODY!