Here is our 2020 Nativity performance! The children worked really hard practising their lines, learning new songs, remembering their positions and stage direction.
We are extremely proud of each and every one of them – we hope you enjoy our show!
!!!!!MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
Christmas jumper day!!
We all looked very festive today in our lovely Christmas outfits.
We even got a visit from Santa!!! We sang him Christmas songs and waved to him on our pirate ship.
We have started to make our Winter display. This will be changed throughout the season.
We painted snow globes with snowmen inside!
We just had to wrap up and experience the snow this morning! We talked about why it was snowing, what we see and feel in Winter time and what snow is made of.
George: “It’s snowing because it’s nearly Christmas!”
Brea: “Snow is just made of water.”
Harry: “When it’s snowy I will wear my boots.”
Mia: “You see snowman in winter and it’s cold.”
We have been matching words to pictures in phonics – everyone did a super job!
Some of us have been working on hearing the sounds in words and then writing them down!
We love reading and writing in Reception class!
Our new Christmas workshop has been very popular! It has been great for independent writing and we have seen lots of cards, lists and letters being attempted!
Here are some cards we found at the end of the day – can you tell we learned the tricky word ‘to’ today?!
We have revamped our mud kitchen area!
We have four brand new boxes that are FULL of sand. We have loved using it to measure, role play, cook and build with. Sand play is great for us as it improves our fine motor skills. It also provides opportunities for exploration and experimentation. It’s a sensory, immersive, calming experience.
We have been working as a team at forest school. We collected logs and then pretended it was a giant camp fire!
We had a visit from an elf! He came with a letter to tell us he will be watching for children who are doing kind things and spreading Christmas cheer!
We open our class advent each day – we have to find the number ourselves!
We also have all of our Christmas books next to our new reading grotto.
On Friday we celebrated all the children who have had a birthday but have been unable to have a party due to the coronavirus.
We sang Happy Birthday, had balloons and birthday hats, played party games, dressed up and played pass the parcel.
In P.E. we have been working on our throwing and catching skills. Today we were aiming the bean bags into the hoops – if we miss the hoop we decide if next time we need more power or less power. We always keep our eye on the target!
To incorporate phonics into our P.E. lesson we added simple words into the hoop – you have to read the word to get a dojo. We were so good at this game!
Then we played four corners – but to stay in the game we had to read the ‘r’ word on our arch.
I: “r…e…d…. red!”
R: “r..a..DIGRAPH CK!!… r..a…ck… rack!”
‘Stick Man lives in the family tree With his Stick Lady love and their stick children three. ‘
We are reading Stickman this week and had a go at drawing our own family tree. We discussed who lives in our house and tried to label our pictures afterwards. These were done independently.
We continued with our circle and triangle exploration today. We recreated versions of Kandinsky’s ‘circles in a circle.’
How great is our board of work!?
A: “Do you want a go on the minion ride, Miss Carter? It’s so wobbly!”
Today we all came to school in our pajamas for children in need!
We had a little fashion show to see everyone’s lovely outfits and designed some Pudsey Bear masks.
Today we made paper airplanes, decorated them and tested them out!
A seat was made for this important passenger…
We played a fun phonics game today. We move around the room to music and when the music stops we stand under a letter. We have to say what sound the letter makes.
Then we choose a card and see which letter is on it. If you are stood at that letter then you are OUT! You then have to come and write the letter you were stood at while the rest of the class are moving to the music and choose a different letter. (and so on!)
A great interactive game that consolidates letter sounds and writing- and best of all it is good fun!
We have been looking at different compositions of 3.
For example, 3 can be composed of 1 and 1 and 1 or 2 and 1 or 1 and 2 or 3 and 0.
We explored the blocks today. We had become a little repetitive with our buildings so had a whole session on how to build, how to make it even better and how to explain what they have created …
These big blocks started on the floor in a long line – look at how it progressed! The children used a photograph to influence their building.
Some of us built our own individual models.
We then made some signs for our models. We will develop this further in provision.
“do not go in”
“do not touch”
“nobody go in”
We have been learning the ‘c’ sound. We have been spotting it in words and practising how to write it. Some of us even had a go at writing a word that starts with ‘c’. Well done everyone!
We have had such a nice week – we have been working together, helping our friends, making sure no one is left out and sharing. Good work, Reception…
We have been discussing why the 5th of November is special. We made firework crafts and watched the Disneyland illumination display on Youtube!
A smiley photo… and a silly one!
Happy Halloween from Reception Class! Look at our AMAZING outfits!
Thank you for a great 8 weeks, enjoy half term every body! See you on November 2nd.
Miss Carter and Miss Wright x
Today we did some independent writing (check out some of our wow writing that has been put up on display) Then we made some magic wands and halloween party hats!
Some spooky jobs we have had out today!
Some beautiful pictures of our Autumn afternoon..
Exploring pumpkins!
Today we had a look inside a pumpkin and scooped all the seeds out!
Then we all designed a pumpkin and displayed our work.
A huge well done to the Mathletics Superstars in Reception this week.
Check out our harvest song. It is all about vegetables!
What lovely singing and dancing. We were very proud of ourselves when we watched it on the big screen.
Well done, Reception class.
We had a great P.E. session today! We had so much fun balancing and challenging ourselves. We all did so well waiting for our turn!
We are trying so hard to learn our letters and sounds. Miss Carter says the sound and we show her what it looks like!
We all had a good try and that is what is important in our class.
Today we had our first dough disco session.. We all had our own personalised playdough pot.
We do dough disco to strengthen our fingers, hands and wrists so it is easier for us to write, open things, dress ourselves, tie our shoes etc…
We listen to music and follow instructions – we roll the playdough, stretch it, prod it, splat it, squeeze it, pinch it, prod it…!
We used the leaves we collected yesterday to make leaf people, leaf families and leaf animals!
As always we displayed our work on the washing line so they can see their super work!
A lovely Monday afternoon spent outdoors.
We have been collecting leaves to make leaf art this week! Some of us made leaf crowns and we have done lots of sweeping in our playground!
This tree was green a week ago – we all noticed the change.
N: “It’s going yellow because they’re ready to fall off. It happens in Autumn that.”
S: “It’s snowing leaves!”
Today we learned the ‘d’ sound. Someone suggested ‘doughnut’ as a word that starts with D.
We designed a design a delicious doughnut. To make it more challenging I asked them to write a ‘d’ next to their work – everyone rose to the challenge!
Some of us used real sprinkles and others chose glitter.
We celebrate everyone’s work by hanging it up in our classroom. Super work everybody!
Today we started learning about harvest. We practised our cutting skills and made vegetables to go in our vegetable patch.
Then we practised drawing lines and circles to different types of music. This makes it easier to write the letters we are learning.
Today we started our learning about harvest. We sorted fruits and vegetables and acted out ‘The Little Red Hen’. We also used carrots to make some autumn paintings!
It is a shame that parents cannot come into our classroom at the moment but we wanted to show you all the lovely display we have made in Reception!
In our first topic we looked at the story ‘Elmer’. We discussed what made each of us special and then designed our own colourful Elmer.
Our Elmer’s are made from our handprints. We had to choose which colours we wanted to decorate them with and be very careful with the paintbrush. We are so proud of our work.
The children have come up with some lovely reasons why they are so special.
B: “I’m special because I’m a Smith, some of my family are Smith and when Mummy and Daddy get married they are Smiths!”
S: “I’m special because I’ve got five jigsaws and I can do them by myself.”
H: “I’m special because I’m super fast and look how big my muscles are!”
N: “I’m special because I can nearly do a handstand!”
Today we went to Forest School to hunt for signs of Autumn.
We’ve been making potions today and practising our letter formation!
Today we’ve been sorting objects…
Today we looked at the letter ‘p’. We had p..p..p..pasta in the kitchen and then using our p..p..pencils we had a go at writing a p!
As always we had a big focus on pencil grip and initial sounds too.
Today we wrote letters on post it notes (ourselves!) and then went and found something in the classroom that started with this sound and stuck it on. For example… t for tap, s for sink, a for animal.
Everyone had a really good go at writing the letter independently and then looking for something that had this initial sound.
Why not have a go at home?
We are on a roll now!
Today we learned the ‘t’ sound. At the end of the day we had a go at writing the letters we have learned at school so far. Some children realised they could make a word – sat!
This is only our third week at school and we are doing fantastic letter formation already!
We read every day at school. This is in our phonics lesson, our class book, or a story we listen to at home time. If you want to start reading with your child at home why not have a look at the link below? Due to the coronavirus we cannot send home reading books each week yet, so this is perfect to get them started!
You can read any book you fancy, from the Oxford Owl library online! Start with age 4 – some books have no words inside but we can talk about the pictures and make the story up ourselves.
I’ve created a username and password for you to be able to read ANY book you fancy.
Just follow the simple instructions – first log into http://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/books/free-ebooks/
Click on – browse the e book library.
Then choose my class log in
Next is to add the class name and password.
My class name is – birdwellreception
My class password is – Read
Once you have logged in you can choose to read ANY book from the e library!
Happy reading!
Every day we pick two books and then we vote for which one we want to listen to.
We all have one vote each and then at the end we look at which box has more votes.
If we can’t tell we choose someone to count the cubes. An activity we do daily that is super for counting, reading for pleasure and estimating!
We practised doing some letters outside.
In our maths lesson we used our fine motor skills to snip up pieces of paper and peel off stickers to match . We discussed as a class that if we can see the number 3… we need 3 stickers above it. We did such a great job.
In the afternoon we all made a rainbow. We did this after looking at all the different colours Elmer has on her skin.
Loving the finished products!
We used materials found in Forest School and made a rainbow! What a lovely sunny day.
Today we looked at the letter ‘S’. We thought of words that start with the sound and had a go at forming the letter. What a super effort on our first try!
Take a look at our busy timetable below!
9:10 – We order our lunch, say good morning and write the date on the board.
9:20 – We do our phonics session on the carpet or outside.
9:40 – We explore the classroom and have a go at the activities out on the tables. Our teachers explore with us, take pictures and help us if we are struggling.
10:15 – We tidy up our classroom and wash our hands.
10:30 – We eat our toast and go outside to play.
10:45 – We come inside, wash hands and sit on the carpet.
10:50 – We begin our maths session. We always start with counting forwards and then backwards!
11:05 – We have a go at a maths activity in our classroom or practise writing our numbers.
11:20 – We wash our hands and get ready for lunch.
11:30 – 12:30 – lunch time!
12:30 – We read our class story.
12:45 – We begin a topic activity, once we are finished we explore the classroom or our outdoor area.
1:45 – Afternoon playtime.
2:00 – Now we tidy up, wash our hands and have our milk and snack.
2:20 – We do some dancing and fine motor activities. We always do some mark making to get us ready for writing.
2:40 – We vote for a story and listen to it.
3:00 – We collect our things for home time and discuss our busy day!
(We do P.E. on a Thursday afternoon and Forest School on a Wednesday afternoon. If the weather is particularly nice, or the topic involves nature we may visit Forest School more than once a week.)
Phew! We are very busy all day which is why when it gets to Friday we are very tired. This timetable is flexible but this gives you an idea of how we run our day.
As we progress through the school year we will have longer phonics/maths sessions, targeted writing, group work and eventually begin handwriting sessions.
The weekly newsletter I send out includes what our topic is, what we are focusing on in phonics and maths and what you can do at home to support your child.
As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please speak to myself or Miss Wright when dropping or collecting your child from school.
Enjoy your weekend,
Miss Carter x
This has been on the school website since early July – it has lots of great information on about school, staff members, our classroom and how we learn in Reception class.
Due to the pandemic no parents have been inside the classroom so hopefully you will enjoy seeing these pictures. Keep checking this blog for updates!
What a busy afternoon in the sun! We went on a listening walk at Forest School, then explored mark making with chunky chalks, measured each other and enjoyed the sun.
Enjoying the small world.
We are looking at the story ‘Elmer’ this week. We are thinking about what makes us special and how being different can be a good thing – like Elmer!
We had a go at mixing colours, identifying colours and designing our own elephant.
To get our hands, fingers and wrists ready for writing we do various fine motor activities throughout the day. This makes our fingers nice and strong so we can control pens and pencils.
Today we moved to music and then focussed on drawing circles – we all did a super job!
We have had a lovely first week in Reception class.
We have been to forest school, made new friends, explored our new classroom and done lots of fine motor activities to make our fingers strong!
Big smiles – the last week in Reception class!
And a silly one!
Just a note to all parents to say THANK YOU for all your support this year. The children that returned to school settled in such an admirable way that I cannot even begin explain.
They have shown a level of resilliance that we can only hope to achieve as adults. They were amazing. We have been so busy making memories and going on adventures, digging at forest school and taking care of one another.
The children have made new friendships and I hope they all leave Reception with happy memories of school.
Please enjoy the 6 week holiday and everyone at Birdwell Primary will see you in September ❤️
A huge well done to everyone who has been working on Mathletics throughout the lockdown. Especially to Michael in Year 5 who has logged over 70 hours. We will be celebrating the success of everyone who made it onto the Mathletics Hall of Fame when we return in September.
Congratulations to the winner of the Mathletics prize draw, your prize is on it’s way to you.
Don’t forget you can still log onto Mathletics throughout the summer, any certificates you achieve will be waiting for you in September.
What a amazing 7 weeks we have had we will always remember the time when we were Reception Bubble B. Have a great summer see you in September.
We were so lucky to be able to have a mini sports day in Reception. Both bubbles were able to go on the field and compete in the egg and spoon race, obstacle course, long jump and running race. Phoenix was a superstar in the race around the field and Crystal was a very good sport who kept going even when the egg fell off her spoon for the hundredth time! Finally we did a penalty shootout and a huge well done to Albert and Elysie who went in goal. We had a fantastic time and everyone won a medal.
We found some rocks on the playground and decided they looked like fun pets. We painted them all different colours, added some eyes and hair and suddenly we had pet rocks. We named them and they all have their own house in the classroom and we make sure we check on them regularly. They will be coming home for the holidays on Friday.
We are working on recognising and writing numbers all the way up to 20!
We spin the wheel and see if we have the number that is selected. To win the prize you have to shout bingo first but you ALSO have to read out which numbers you have crossed off!
We have been discussing the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and writing about what is happening in each picture. Everyone had a really good try. Super writing, Reception!
My giants castle has a secret door and a bridge and from the top you can see the whole world. I would love to live in the giants castle I think it would be awesome.
I made a castle boat for my giant with windows that no bad guys can get through.
My giants castle has 2 beanstalks growing up the side. It has a big door which Jack sneaks through and inside it is full of pineapples.
My giant beanstalk castle has lots of windows so you can see the pretty lights. The roof is for halloween parties and it has a castle kitchen to cook lots of things.
My giants castle has a warrior giant inside. It has windows and a big kitchen with a cooking cupboard.
I built a ship castle. It has a shed and wings in case it needs to fly.
This is my castle with a lovely roof. The Mum and Jack are standing outside the castle. The leaves make it look lovely.
To get down you have to use the pink beanstalk,I have made 2 beanstalks. The Mum is trying to get the hammer. The horse is trying to run away!
Today we combined maths and phonics. We learned how to play snakes and ladders, recognising the number on the dice and moving that many forward.
To make it even harder we had to read the word on the square we landed on.
Then we stuck some magic beans onto our hand prints and wrote a wish.
We also had our first handwriting lesson! We have learned ‘c’ and ‘a’ with the Birdwell flicks! I was so impressed with how hard they concentrated and the positive attitude towards lovely writing.
Spiders,centipedes,millipedes and worms who knew there could be so much going on under a log.
Today we decided to go by bus and we all set off on our summer holiday to Neverland via Tenerife!
At Forest School we decided to build a den. It kept drizzling so we got to work on making a shelter.
We gathered sticks to make a pretend bonfire and then used natural resources we found to make some marshmallow roasting sticks! We gathered around and pretended to be camping with our friends. What a nice afternoon of team work, good work Bubble A.
A Friday morning spelling test! We are trying our best to spell the tricky words we have learned.
Everyone had a really good try, well done!
We were very excited to receive a visit from these 2 masked heroes on Friday afternoon, they took time out of their busy crime fighting schedule to brighten our day, we hope they come back soon.
We have had another fantastic week with the children in Bubble B. We have been growing beanstalks, ordering number, learning tricky words, painting using watercolours as well as having lots of fun. Today we have been running our own Ninja Warrior course (the best time so far is 15 seconds!) everyone has loved having a go and what is really lovely is the encouragement that the children show their friends as they run the course. Think we might have to extend the course next week to really challenge them.
A huge well done to our Star of the Week. Thank you for always trying to do your best.
We collected leaves at forest school and then measured them. The children had to guess which one was bigger and then use counters to measure them and see if they were right. Some of us chose to measure lots of leaves and put them in size order!
Elna: “This one is 5 counters long but this one is only 3 counters long… it’s smaller.”
Farrah: “Mine are exactly the same! 9 for both of them!”
After a week of watching and waiting finally our beanstalks have sprouted. Watch this space and we will keep you posted on their progress
Unfortunately our carrot top growing experiment didn’t end well. Only Elysie’s carrot grew another top the others just went mouldy. But at least we had fun trying.
We worked together to find and order our numbers all the way up to 20.
Today it was very rainy so we did a lot of crafts inside. We had paper plates to paint, magic beans to colour in and giants to make for our cardboard town!
The finished products…
Some of the girls have been really enjoying the skipping ropes. On Monday they struggled to jump in time and were holding the rope too high.
They have been practising their jumping and timing all week and it has paid off because now they can skip! They do not need a grown up to hold the rope anymore – they know to go at the same time as their partner and not go too fast! Well done, girls.
Using water colours we painted paper plates so they looked like giant flowers to link with our growing theme.
We played number bingo and tricky word bingo. Anyone who thinks bingo is for the older generation should see how competitive our class are when we play. Here we are dabbers at the ready…..
We took full advantage of the good weather and enjoyed time in the sun. We did a scavenger hunt on the field and had to find something that matched the colour on our sheet.
We have been making castles and houses from Jack and the Beanstalk. Once we all made our own we stuck them all down on a big piece of cardboard and created an entire town!
We washed our hands and then decorated the town. We went to find a beanstalk outside and made clouds too!
Today we have been exploring subtraction.
We played subtraction splat with our playdough. You make 6 little balls of playdough (more if you like!) then roll the dice and splat that many. You then see how many are left.
Seth: “I had 6 and then I’ve splatted 4 so I’ve got 2 now…”
We then wrote the number sentences on the board.
We decorated a little homemade plant pot ready for our cress seeds!
Today we did some story sequencing! We had to cut out the pictures and decide which order they go in. Everyone knew what happened next in the story. I was very impressed!
Once upon a time there was a boy called Jack.
Jack lived in a cottage with his mother. They were very poor and their most valuable possession was a cow.
They had to sell the cow at the market. On the way, Jack met a man.
He gave Jack magic beans in exchange for his cow.
When Jack came home with the beans his mother was angry. She threw the beans out of the window and sent him to bed.
Jack went to bed and was very sad.
The next morning, Jack looked out of the window. A giant beanstalk had grown in the garden!
Jack decided to climb the beanstalk.
At the top of the beanstalk was a castle. Jack decided to go inside; all the furniture was huge!
Suddenly, Jack heard a loud noise. He ran into a cupboard to hide.
An enormous giant came into the room.
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!” he bellowed.
The giant sat down at the table.
On the table was a hen and a golden harp.
Jack saw that the hen could lay golden eggs! The harp played peaceful music and soon the giant was asleep.
Jack jumped out of the cupboard and took the hen and the harp.
But the giant woke up!
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!”
He chased Jack to the top of the beanstalk.
Jack climbed down the beanstalk and the giant followed him.
As Jack got to the bottom of the beanstalk he shouted, “Help!”
Jack’s mother came out with an axe.
She used it to chop the bottom of the beanstalk.
The giant fell and crashed to the ground.
He was never seen again.
With the golden eggs and the magic harp, Jack and his mother lived happily ever after.
THE END.
Our performers taking a bow! Super duper acting, everyone!
We hunted for magic beans at forest school. Once we found them all we realised they had words on. .e all had to read the word on our bean.
This sentence makes no sense – so we got to work on putting the words in the right place.
We knew a capital letter would be at the beginning and a full stop at the end.
I read out the sentence as the children swapped places – we kept going until we got it to make sense!
This was a very tricky job but with support we managed it! Well done, everyone.
Today we planted our own beans. We will water them and check them every day.
We discussed the parts of a plant – we knew roots, leaves and flower.
