The Reception Welcome workshop was a wonderful success! We welcomed the majority of our families into school to explore a range of educational and fun play based activities with their children. It provided an opportunity for adults and children to learn through play in the same way that they would in school. There were lots of activities with an English, Maths or Science focus, providing exciting learning that is achievable in the home environment. The activities included: a beanbag darts game, matching pairs with baby and adult animals, feely bag game, playdough numbers, washing line number ordering, floating and sinking, exploring smell, and many more. Thank you to all the families that we

In Reception all children are given next steps linked to their writing development. There are a wide variety of next steps depending on their stage of gross and fine motor development. All children start their day by working on their individual next steps to become confident and skilled writers. We use a range of activities to support children including gross motor movement in the hall, dough gym, fine motor and dexterity activities (nuts and bolts, tweezers, threading), scissor skills, name writing and letter formation. Once children have the necessary physical skills to successfully use a pencil we will support them to hear and write the sounds in simple words, then put those words into si

As we are continuing with our maths busy times, the children have been looking at applying their fine motor skills in lots of different ways. As well as shapes, colours and construction playing huge parts this morning, the main focus was how we hold our writing equipment. To better understand the next steps for the children us teachers look at the choice of grip, choice of hand and the amount of pressure the children place behind their writing attempts. Lots of fun had by all and something we will continue enjoying!

Whilst eating our snack at the end of the day, the children have been experiencing our 'favourite five' stories. Through our narrative immersion approach, the children interact with each tale, using puppets, costumes and acting each page out. The level of understanding of each book increases the more we look at them and the more varied the appraoch the greater the appreciation for each story becomes evident. We will look at these particular stories until the next half term where we will chose five new ones to enjoy!

We have really enjoyed exloring number two by taking part in lots of exciting activities. Hope you find lots of things relating to number two at home and whilst out and about.

This week we have been exploring Autumn. We enjoyed doing lots of Autumn crafts and activities using real seasonal objects.

Whilst enoying and understanding that a healthy and balanced diet is neccessary for our growing bodies, the children are also attempting to find their name. With orange and apple in hand the children peruse the array of name tags in search for their very own one, with a very high success rate. Identifying the correct name is one of the first steps in reading progression, so the sky is the limit from here!

During our maths busy time the children have been helping their teachers sort out all sorts of problems. Amid the mahem of colour sorting, bracelet making, animal colouring, colour matching, spider creating, hole punching, the children have enjoyed each and every activity. Applying our fine motor skills to each task has resulted in an incredibly successful maths busy time and something we will continue to do throughout the year.

In our home corner we have a new doctor's surgery. Complete with a waiting room and medical equipment, the children have been showing us their care and concern for their friends. Although some of us may not look happy to be waiting at the doctors, this role playing experience provided lots of opportunity for writing, mark making, imaginery play and friendship building. It also provided plenty of talking and questioning from the children, something that we have also placed a huge focus on this term.

This week we have begun our number sense approach to mathematics, and the children have really loved exploring the number 1. We have: counted in ones found sets of one looked at the 2D shapes; a circle and an oval with one curved side, looked at the 3D shapes: a sphere with one curved face, and cone with one curved face, one circular flat face, one edge and one point explored how many things we can do in 1 minute found 1 o'clock on the classroom clock talked about Monday as the first day of the week, and January as the first month of the year completed simple repeating patterns, such as red, yellow, red yellow explored money with one penny and one pound coins, and used one pence coins to buy

During our maths time many of the children took part in a colour ordering activity. Each child picked one of our colour cards and was tasked with finding the corresponding lego bricks. The sense of achievement experienced when completeing the task was obvious as there were smiles all around. With today in mind, the teachers and I will aim to make this harder in the future so we continue to challenge our incredibly clever little people.