Welcome to Reception

from

Miss Foster and Mrs Cooper

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 2021 we began a new EYFS curriculum. This has allowed us to reimagine our topics and really think about exciting and engaging ways to promote learning. Our new topics are;​​​​​​

A Place Called Home

Explorers

Minibeasts

Once Upon a Time

Below, you will find lots of photographs of what we have been up to each term along with our curriculum documents and knowledge organisers.

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 2023

It has been a very exciting 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. 

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!

Academic Year 2022-2023

Autumn Term 2022

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.

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. 

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. 

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! 

The Great Outdoors 

We love to spend time in our outdoor area, here are some photos of the fun we have had this term. 

Harvest Festival

We have been reading the stories 'Oliver's Vegetables' and 'The Little Red Hen to learn more about harvest. 

We looked at where our food comes from and created some lovely prints using potatoes, carrots and parsnips. 

We had lots of fun baking bread, just like the Little Red Hen! We were very helpful and worked as a team to bake together, unlike the characters in the story!

It's Halloween!

We LOVED learning about Halloween and having lots of spooky fun this week!

Remember, remember the 5th of November ...

Here are our firework pictures. We used chalks on black paper to create our artwork. 

Happy Diwali!

Our next celebration was Diwali. We read a story called 'A Gift for Amma' and enjoyed exploring Indian artefacts, We also learned all about diwali, the Indian festival of light. Here are some photographs of our week. 

Where do we live? 

We looked at our local area and familiar places. We used google maps to find our houses and loved taking a virtual stroll down the street. We then used our design skills to draw and build our own houses using construction materials. These are some of our finished creations. 

The Jolly Postman

We looked at the story of the Jolly Postman and found out that each house in the world has an address! We enjoyed sorting the letters into the correct houses and this inspired us to write our own. We made sure to add our own stamps and addresses to the envelopes before posting them into our classroom post box. 

Posting Our Letters

Once we had collected all of our letters together, we took a trip to the local post box. We enjoyed talking about the information we could see. We were even lucky enough to see a postal van and a lady sending Christmas cards all over the world!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Christmas is always a special time at Kingsley Primary school, with crafts, parties, nativities and pantomimes! Here are some photos of our celebrations. 

Spring Term

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. We also created a class table to show how each of us travel to school!

Chinese New Year
In reception, we love learning about lots of different celebrations and traditions. We recently spent some time learning about Chinese New Year. We looked at ‘The Great Race story’ and the animal zodiac. Did you know that this year is the year of the rabbit? We also made our own lanterns to light up the way for the New Year and finished the week off by tasting some Chinese food, YUM!

Pirates
Ahoy there! Continuing our learning on explorers, we looked at pirates and their adventures. We worked in teams to design our own pirate ships, which we then were able to build using a variety of resources. We also created our own treasure maps to lead pirates to the buried treasure. To finish off our learning on pirates, we celebrated with Pirate day! Everyone enjoyed getting dressed up and had lots of fun completing different pirate activities. Our favourite was walk the plank! Be careful you do not fall in!

Crazy Creatures

We have been learning about the jungle and today the children enjoyed a visit from crazy creatures. They saw rabbits, bearded dragons, chinchillas, tortoises, skinny pigs (Guinea pigs), snakes and a tarantula. They were so brave and careful when handling the animals. 

Online Safety - Safer Internet Day

Teaching children to stay safe online is a huge priority at Kingsley. In Reception, we watched the video of Smartie the Penguin and discussed the importance of telling someone if we need help or notice anything while playing online.

Please also share the following poster with your child. 

World book day!

We love books! To show our awareness and recognition for World Book Day, we enjoyed getting dressed up as our favourite characters and shared many stories throughout the day. Children also enjoyed completing lots of world book day activities such as; designing their own book cover, character colouring sheets and decorating their own bookmark.

P.E. in the hall

This week we were able to take part in P.E. in the school hall. The children really impressed us with their ability to negotiate space, move in different ways and follow instructions. 

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. 

Rocket Launch

We have been learning about how rockets get to space and have found out that they need a really big push off the launchpad. We practised pushing ourselves off the floor by doing big jumps, then used the rocket game to launch our own rocket. We were able to see the amount of force we used sent the rocket different distances. 

A Journey Through the Galaxy

We have loved exploring space using the torches. We all sat on silver foil and put on our pretend astronaut helmets. We then looked up at all of the planets in our solar system and took turns using the torches to shine on different parts of 'space'.

Which bottle made the astronaut fly the highest?

We have been super scientists in Reception. We understood that the air inside of a bottle could be used to push the astronaut into the air. We made a prediction about which bottle would send the astronaut the highest and then had great fun experimenting in the hall. We even took our astronaut and bottle home to show our grown ups!

We have been exploring the past by looking at toys from the olden days. We enjoyed exploring a range of old toys and seeing how they work. We had to make sure we held the toys gently as they were very fragile and we enjoyed showing our friends how they work. 

Which material will make the best teddy?

We have been looking at toys and to help us with our investigation skills, we have explored which material would make the best teddy bear. We thought about what a teddy needs to be (soft, warm. cuddly) and some of the different materials we knew. We then explored a range of materials and thought about their properties. We then held each material and tested them in our hands before selecting the perfect one to make a new teddy bear. 

Welcome to Summer Term

This term we will begin by looking at minibeasts and the lifecycle of a caterpillar and a frog. We will then celebrate the coronation of King Charles with lots of lovely royal activities. Next, we will spend some time reading the traditional tales, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood. We will finish our term by thinking about our new adventure in Year One. 

Superworm!

We have been reading the story of Superworm by Julia Donaldson and loved hearing about how superworm changed into different objects. We then looked at some information videos all about real earthworms and learned lots of new facts. We went to get a closer look at some earthworms in the planters and enjoyed holding them and watching them wiggle. We then used our new knowledge to write a factfile about worms. 

The coronation of King Charles III

We had a fabulous time in school celebrating the coronation. We started the day by learning about King Charles and what 'coronation' means before heading outside with key stage one to sing the national anthem. We then completed lovely activities such as cards, crowns, colouring and designing. We had a special themed lunch and created some King Charles collages and completed the day with a dance party and cupcakes!

Minibeast Hunting

We have loved learning about all things minibeasts and so far looked at ants, grasshoppers, worms, caterpillars, butterflies and frogs. This week we are looking at microhabitats. We are fortunate enough to have a minibeast garden at school and have enjoyed spending time searching under logs, in trees, in the long grass and in the bug hotel to see which critters we can find. 

Composing

In music, we have been composing our own music using boomwhackers. We drew our own colours and then copied them to create our own musical pieces. 

Releasing the Butterflies

We were so excited to see our caterpillars had transformed into beautiful butterflies. We looked at their stunning patterns before releasing them carefully on the school field. 

I'm in the band!

We have been exploring music through dance. We made our own moves and put them into a routine then performed as a group to the class. We were fantastic!

Troll bridges and STEM week

We have been looking at the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff alongside our STEM topic of sustainability. We decided to make a new bridge for the troll by reusing recycling materials such as bottles, boxes and trays. We had lots of fun designing our bridges this week and making them with our friends. 

Ghanaian Goldilocks

We began by looking at the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears before moving on to the adaptation 'Ghanaian Goldilocks'. Through this we have learned lots of interesting facts about the country of Ghana and were lucky enough to hear some drumming using the djembe drum. 

Butterfly World and Preston Park

To link in with our learning this year, we chose to visit Butterfly world and Preston Park Museum. We had a fabulous time looking at the beautiful butterflies and hearing about their lifecycles. We also saw other creatures such as skinks, monkeys and even meerkats! We then explored Preston Park museum where we learned about life in the past. We visited an old police station, a sweet shop and even a dress makers. Everyone had a wonderful time and the adults were very impressed by our brilliant behaviour while out and about.