Reception Class Topics and Activities 24-25
Welcome to Reception!
Watch this space for updates on topic overviews and activities children have enjoyed taking part in throughout the year!
Spring 1 - It's Freezing
This half term we have had lots of fun learning about The Arctic and Antarctica and comparing life in these 'freezing places' to our own experiences at home. We loved sharing what we'd learnt about polar animals through art, sculpture and stories and enjoyed pretending to be explorers ourselves getting ready for expeditions to the Polar Regions.
When it's been a bit chilly outside, we've found lots of ways of 'keeping warm' and looking after the environment by engaging in a variety of activities from exploring our new 'playpod' at lunchtime and making 'bird feeders' at Forest School to help look after wildlife during the winter months.
Creating matching mittens
1/19
Getting ready to explore
2/19
I'm a polar explorer!!
3/19
Making rainbow snowflakes
4/19
Narwhal fact file
5/19
Who's at sea today?
6/19
Creating swirling Antarctic ice field pictures
7/19
Cut and stick macaroni penguins
8/19
Look at his hair!
9/19
Building icebergs
10/19
The penguins reached the top!
11/19
Look at my penguin!
12/19
Fun with ice!
13/19
Making bird feeders
14/19
I'm an ice explorer!
15/19
The birds will love this!
16/19
We made cheerios feeders too!!
17/19
We made a den to keep us warm at Forest School
18/19
Warming up with hot chocolate!
19/19
Spring 1 - Chinese New Year and Candlemas
Reception have had fun this term learning more about some spring festivals celebrated at home and away.
We all enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year, especially with a resident expert in the class! This year is 'The Year of the Snake'. In PE we helped act out being all the animals from the story racing to be the first to finish the swimming race, before pretending to be real 'dragons and lions' climbing and exploring ourselves. Afterwards we had a go making our own 'red envelopes' (complete with money!) and lanterns as well as joining in with the tradition of the 'Chinese Wishing Tree' where people through their wish onto a special tree in the hope that it will come true!
In the middle of term we enjoyed joining in with the rest of the school to learn about and celebrate 'Candlemas', finding out more about the story by watching Year 2's retelling of the story of Jesus' presentation in the temple and making candles of our own to remember how Christians believe Jesus to be 'the light of the world'.
My Chinese Lantern decoration
1/20
Show and tell
2/20
Making paper dragons
3/20
Grrr!!
4/20
Adding our wishes to the tree
5/20
Creating Chinese Wishing tree messages
6/20
I hope our wishes come true!!
7/20
Look at the animals go!
8/20
I can leap like a lion!!
9/20
Cleaning the house reading for Chinese New Year
10/20
Trying out the chopsticks
11/20
Getting ready for a feast!
12/20
Making envelopes and lanterns
13/20
Lantern workshop
14/20
Lanterns on display!
15/20
We made symmetrical dragon paintings!
16/20
We made our own candles for Candlemas!
17/20
I coloured a mindfulness candle.
18/20
I made a a junk modelling candle!
19/20
St. Mary's Church service
20/20
Autumn 2 - Getting ready for Christmas
What a busy end of term we had in Reception Class!
The children loved taking part in their first ever Nativity show "Christmas with the Aliens". They all made the most wonderful angels and joined in with all the songs and actions, remembering their parts beautifully.
Despite many of the children succumbing to the flu/sickness bug during the last week of term, those remaining in school joined in the fun on our final day of term when we celebrated our very own "Shelford Christmas Day." We took part in a "Santa Dash" around the field in our festive outfits, learned about Christmas customs in other countries and made our own St Lucia Crowns to wear when eating our Christmas lunch. The children also took part in our first ever "Elfridges" Christmas shop where they carefully selected and wrapped gifts for their families to open as a lovely surprise on Christmas Day. We finished the day by decorating some delicious biscuits to eat as we watched a Christmas film before saying goodbye and as everyone went home at the end of their very first term at school.
Making Christingle biscuits
1/28
Don't they look yummy?!
3/28
Exploring and sorting daytime and night-time Christmas activities
4/28
What's happening when at Christmas time?
5/28
Exploring with biodegradable glitter
6/28
Weaving and decorating outdoor Christmas tree decorations
7/28
My Forest creation
8/28
Christmas biscuits
9/28
Making Christmas cards!
10/28
Folding and cutting paper to make spiderwebs
11/28
Look at the logs flickering!!
12/28
Ukrainian 'spider webs' and snowflakes
13/28
Making 'yule logs' for the Christmas tree
14/28
Look at my decoration!
15/28
Decorating our Christmas Tree
16/28
GenR8 shares 'The Christmas Story'
17/28
Working with our Y2 buddies
18/28
Christmas with the Aliens
19/28
Beautiful angels!
20/28
Our Nativity Play
21/28
Making Jewish menorahs as we learned about the celebration of Hannukah.
22/28
Crown craft
23/28
The children enjoyed making their very own St Lucia crowns after learning about Scandinavian Christmas traditions.
24/28
Enjoying a Christmas lunch
25/28
Enjoying a Christmas lunch
26/28
Enjoying a Christmas lunch
27/28
Wrapping gifts from our "Elfridges" gift shop to surprise our families on Christmas Day.
28/28
Autumn 2- Tell Me a Story
This half of term we have been looking at lots of different stories, including Pumpkin Soup, The Rainbow Fish and We're Going on a Bear Hunt. The children have had lots of fun inspired by our stories, from making their own pumpkin soup in the mud kitchen to building a den for a bear in forest school. We have had our first PE lessons and our first trip to the village library. The children enjoyed coming to school wearing odd socks as part of our whole school Kindness Week and they learned about how everyone is different and unique and that is a cause for celebration. We took part in an anti-bullying workshop where the children played games focusing on using kind words and "choosing respect". They even learned and performed a fantastic dance to the song "This is Me". Things are getting busy in the build up to Christmas and everyone has been enjoying learning and practising the words to the songs for our Nativity performance "Christmas with the Aliens". We look forward to sharing pictures from the performance with you soon.
Working together to play a game during carousel.
1/8
Making clay diva lamps as part of our learning about Diwali.
2/8
Exploring with shaving foam and water.
3/8
"Snap" go the twigs as we go through the forest on our Bear Hunt!
4/8
Having fun in the book corner.
5/8
Enjoying sharing books.
6/8
Taking part in the anti-bullying workshop as part of kindness week.
7/8
"Jesus and his Disciples" handing out bread to feed the 5000!
8/8
Autumn 1- Marvellous Me
The children have settled in beautifully to school life, getting used to new routines and building friendships. We are so proud of them! Our learning this half of term has been around the topic "Marvellous Me" and we have been learning all about what makes us special, what things about us are the same as others and what things are different. We started our morning carousel sessions and have enjoyed getting to know our year 3 reading buddies. Towards half term we also started our weekly forest school sessions and the children have loved being able to explore the meadow and wooded area.
Autumn "hand tree" crafts
1/7
Purple group creating some purple art!
2/7
Conker painting
3/7
Making obstacle courses
4/7
The children have started to take part in our "show and tell" sessions.
5/7
Maths- big, medium and small sorting
6/7
Practising fine motor skills with the peg boards.
7/7