Reception

Welcome to Reception's Learning Page

MEET THE TEAM

Mrs Hayes

Mrs Littlewood

Mrs Dalby

Miss Harrison

Mrs Wilson

Our main driver project this half term is:

This project supports children with settling into the new rules and routines of school and encourages them to make new friends and feel confident in their class. It teaches children about being helpful, kind and thoughtful at home and at school. This project also teaches children how they are unique and special, the importance of friendship and how people in their family, school and local community are important and can help them.

Support your child at home by:

🧠 1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

Focus: Understanding themselves, building relationships, and learning about community roles.

Home learning ideas:

Talk about family members and their roles.

Make a “People Who Help Us” collage (e.g. doctor, firefighter, postperson).

Role play with dolls, toy figures, or dress-up clothes.

🗣️ 2. Communication and Language (CL)

Focus: Speaking, listening, and understanding.

Home learning ideas:

Read books like "People Who Help Us" or "All About Families."

Talk about who lives in your house and what they do.

Call or video-chat with family members and ask questions about their jobs.

🧮 3. Mathematics

Focus: Counting, sorting, comparing.

Home learning ideas:

Count houses on your street.

Sort toy people or vehicles (e.g. police car, ambulance) by type or color.

Create a bar chart with drawings to show how many people live in each house in your family or street.

🌍 4. Understanding the World (UTW)

Focus: Communities, families, cultures, people.

Home learning ideas:

Look at a map and point to where family members live.

Go on a local walk and take photos of community buildings (school, library, shop).

Talk about celebrations or traditions in your family or others.

🎨 5. Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)

Focus: Using art, music, dance, and role play to express ideas.

Home learning ideas:

Create a junk-model of your home or a local building.

Sing songs about community helpers (“Miss Polly Had a Dolly”, etc.).

Draw pictures of family members or neighbourhood friends.

🏃‍♀️ 6. Physical Development

Focus: Movement, coordination, and fine motor skills.

Home learning ideas:

Play movement games pretending to be different community helpers (e.g. firefighter climbing a ladder).

Use scissors, glue, and crayons to make a family tree.

Practice getting dressed independently (important for school readiness).

Children can access home learning activities by logging onto Seesaw. These are updated on a regular basis and support learning that is taking place in the classroom.

Our companion project is:

This project teaches children about the natural changes that happen during the season of autumn, including how the weather changes, why trees lose their leaves and how wild animals prepare for winter.

Support your child at home by:

1. 🧠 Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

Activity: Go on an Autumn walk and talk about how the season makes you feel (happy, cozy, sleepy, etc.).

Talk about: Changes we notice in ourselves and the world, e.g., “I need a coat now – it’s colder.”

Kindness activity: Make a bird feeder to care for animals in colder weather.

2. 🗣️ Communication and Language (CL)

Activity: Autumn object basket – include conkers, pinecones, leaves, and acorns. Talk about how they look, feel, smell.

Storytime: Read books like:

“Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert

“We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt”

Retell stories: Use puppets or props to retell Autumn-themed books.

3. 📚 Literacy

Mark-making: Use sticks in mud/sand to write letters or draw leaves.

Leaf name puzzle: Write a letter of your child’s name on each leaf, then piece together.

Storytelling: Create your own Autumn story using toys or drawings.

4. 🧮 Mathematics

Leaf counting: Collect and count different colored leaves.

Size sorting: Line up conkers/pinecones from smallest to largest.

Pattern making: Make natural patterns (e.g. leaf, stick, stone, leaf).

Leaf number hunt: Write numbers on leaves and hide them for a scavenger hunt.

5. 🌍 Understanding the World (UTW)

Seasons: Talk about how Autumn is different from Summer (shorter days, falling leaves).

Nature walk: Observe changes in trees, weather, and wildlife.

Science: Explore how animals prepare for winter (hibernation, migration).

Cooking: Make an Autumn soup or apple crumble together – talk about ingredients and where food comes from.

6. 🎨 Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)

Leaf printing: Use real leaves and paint to create beautiful prints.

Autumn collage: Use natural materials to create artwork.

Songs & rhymes:

“Autumn Leaves are Falling Down”

“Five Little Pumpkins”

Make puppets or characters using pinecones and googly eyes.

7. 🏃‍♀️ Physical Development

Gross motor: Rake leaves, jump in leaf piles, or do a nature scavenger hunt.

Fine motor: Thread leaves onto string, peel apples for cooking, use tweezers to pick up small Autumn objects.

Pre-writing: Trace leaf shapes or make zig-zag lines to mimic wind blowing.

Again, don't forget to look out for the fun, weekly activities on Seesaw and also look what we have been up to in class on class dojo.

Maths

Here is our overview for this term:

This half term we will be focusing on:

Matching, sorting and comparing objects into groups and sets.
Creating sorting rules
Looking at and exploring mass/weight
Looking at and exploring capacity
Looking at and exploring size.
Exploring simple patterns
Copy and continuing patterns
Creating simple patterns.

Key books that we'd recommend that will support your child(ren's) understanding in this terms maths:

• Zero is the Leaves on the Tree by Betsy Franco • None the Number by Oliver Jeffers • Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno • I Spy Numbers by Jean Marzollo • The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson • Five Small Stars by Elizabeth Matterson and Madge Bugden • Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson • Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen • Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh • A Beach for Albert by Eleanor May • Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne • Sidney the Silly Who Only Eats 6 by M.W. Penn • Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore • 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle • Kipper’s Toybox by Mick Inkpen • Quack and Count by Keith Baker • Simon Sock by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet

Literacy

This half term we will be focusing on:

Giving meanings to marks as they draw.
Recognising and writing own name.
Writing recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.
Forming lower-case and capital letters correctly.
Reading simple phrases and sentences made up of words with known letter–sound correspondences and, where necessary, a few exception words.
Reading individual letters by saying the sounds for them.
Using one-handed tools and equipment, for example, making snips in paper with scissors.
Using a comfortable grip with good control when holding pens and pencils.
Drawing story maps.
Using phonic knowledge to write captions and sentences.
Using stories to create opportunities for writing across the areas of provision.
Re-reading what they have written to check that it makes sense.
Writing short sentences with words with known sound-letter correspondences using a capital letter and full stop.

Reading and Phonics

We are beginning our ELS phonics journey. Your child is learning the phase 2 sounds.

This half term we will be learning all about recognising phase 2 sounds segmenting words with sounds we have learnt, then blending the sounds together.

We will continue to practice to read the harder to read and spell words daily.

Books are changed every Friday and we ask that children practice reading at least four times a week.

Check out the following links to help at home:

How to pronounce pure sounds

How to blend words to read

This grapheme sheet and harder to spell and read words have been sent home but click the button below to see it online.

Key Days:

Both Reception classes will be doing PE on a Friday this half term.

Reading books will need to be returned by Thursday in order to send out a new book on Friday. Please ensure you bring your child's their reading book to school every day to support reading in school.

Grapheme Sheet for Parents

Harder to Read and Spell Words

Grapheme Sheet for Parents

Here is our Reception Class Charter challenge sheet. You can also download a copy by clicking on the image.

Download all the Charters as a PDF file