Reception

This half term our new topic is called ‘Around the World.’ The children started off by looking at maps, using Google Earth to look at Earth, the UK, England, Norfolk, Dereham and Toftwood. They even zoomed in to see if they could find some familiar places such as Tesco and Planet Zoom! They discussed how maps are birds eye views and looked at a map of the school, working out where their classroom, playground and the hall was. At the end of the week, they learnt some facts about Earth.

They then spent a week learning about rainforests! They learnt that rainforests are warm, wet and dark places. They looked on a map to see where rainforests are over the world and enjoyed finding out which animals live there. They played a game where they had to listen to some animal noises and work out which animal was making it! The children have also enjoyed listening to lots of stories that are based in the rainforest/jungle such as ‘Wake up sloth’ and ‘There’s a Rang-Tan in my bedroom.’

The children will spend the rest of the topic learning about deserts, oceans, grasslands and tundras.

This half term our topic has been ‘Once Upon a Time.’ We have been reading lots of traditional tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have also read some not so traditional versions of these stories such as ‘Blow your nose, Big Bad Wolf’ and ‘The Great Fairy tale Disaster.’

Little Red Riding Hood

We had a go at acting out the story with props. We made a wanted poster for the wolf from the story and discussed his features and characteristics. We also had the opportunity to retell the story with puppets in the tuff tray.

The Three Little Pigs

We shared the story as a class and have also read different versions such as ‘The three little wolves and the big bad pig.’ As a class we discussed the sequence of the story. We then created a story map to show what happened at the beginning, middle and end. We tried to make our own houses from bricks, straw and sticks like the pigs did!

Jack and the Beanstalk.

Using our cutting skills, we cut out a spiral pattern to make our own beanstalks. Some of us made ‘Jack’ to put on the beanstalk and added leaves. At the end of the week, we planted our own magic bean! We are waiting patiently to see if they will grow.

Goldilocks and the 3 bears

In class, we had a go at making and trying porridge like Goldilocks. Some of us had raisins or honey with our porridge and we decided it was ‘just right!’

This half term our topic has been ‘People Who Help Us’. We have been very lucky and have had some visitors come into school to help us learn more about the different jobs that people do to help us.

To introduce our topic, KonectBus in Dereham, kindly sent a bus to pick us up from school and took us for a drive around Dereham Town. We saw many familiar places in our local environment such as the Library, Toftwood Pond Park and Costa!

Before we went, we came up with some questions to ask the bus driver to find out about his job. When our journey had finished, we all went to the top of the bus and asked the driver some questions.

We also had a visit from the firefighters from Dereham. They told us about their job, some basic fire safety and explained that they don’t just put out fires, they rescue people and even animals too. They showed us their uniform and we learnt that they only have 1 minute to put it on. We also go to look at a thermal camera and used it to look at our friends. We then went outside and got to look at the fire engine, we were shown all the equipment, tools where they sit and learnt how they get water from the truck to put out fires with the hose. We all had a turn at spraying the hose, which was very fun!

Cayley and Bethan visited us from the new Veterinary Surgery, just outside of Toftwood. They introduced us to a tortoise named Rossi. We were able to touch Rossi and find out where she lived and what she likes to eat. We found out how to bandage the animals and the children had a go at this. We learned that vets help animals that are ill or injured and can look after lots of different animals not just cats and dogs. We enjoyed asking lots of questions to find out more! We also role played vets in our classrooms.

We also met a police officer! We learnt that they keep us safe and if there is an emergency to call 999! We also learnt that dogs and horses work for the police force too. PC Charlotte brought in her police car and talked about the equipment that she carries. She also answered any questions that we had about being a police officer. During the week, we listened to police stories and dressed up as police officers in our role play.

Thank you so much to all of the visitors that were able to make this topic so exciting for the children!

This half term our topic has been ‘Fantasy’.  We enjoyed starting the topic with a dressing up day where we all came to school dressed as our favourite character!

During the first week, we had a fairy come and visit our classrooms! The fairy left a letter by their fairy door and told us her name was Pip and that he had come to visit our school to find out more about what ‘school’ is and what we do. The children used their phonics knowledge to write and leave messages and notes by Pip’s door and as a class we replied back to his letter.

We have read lots of stories this half term and one we particularly enjoyed was ‘Room on the Broom’ by Julia Donaldson. We took part in many witch themed activities; creating potions and making up spells! We made a story map, practised retelling the story using puppets and even had a go at acting the story out, seeing if we could remember any of the lines.

We had a week learning all about superheroes! We were surprised to find the superhero, Supertato, in our classroom and he had been captured by the evil pea! We made ourselves into Superheroes, listened to lots of superhero stories and wrote veggie speech bubbles. We also worked on our drawing skills and had to do really good listening to learn how to draw Supertato!

We had another visitor, this time it was an alien! We received a letter from ‘Oob’ and it was covered in green slime. He asked us to write him a letter so he could find out about school on earth. We also created some alien pictures by using different shaped pieces of paper. We also learnt about the scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock and found out some facts about space.

This half term our topic has been ‘Celebrations.’ We started by learning about Bonfire Night, we found out who Guy Fawkes was, talked about the fireworks that we had seen at displays or from our gardens or windows, and created some firework art using paint and glitter! 

We also spent a week learning about birthdays! We wrote invitations and party food lists, created birthday cards and best of all, had a birthday party for ‘Home Learning Hattie’ with our favourite songs! We have been able to find out when our own birthdays are and learnt the months of the year.  

On Friday 10^th November, we learnt about Remembrance Day and talked about why people wear poppies. We were able to make our own poppies to wear in class, and had a class assembly where we watched a video called ‘poppies’ that showed us how the poppies grew in the field after all the grass had turned to mud.

We have also been learning about Diwali; the Hindu festival of light. We have designed our own Mehndi’s, lanterns, rangoli patterns and Diva lamps. We were very lucky to have a dance workshop with Miss Helen where she taught us some dance moves and we helped to tell the story of Rama and Sita. We all enjoyed wearing Bindi’s, sari’s and sashes whilst we were dancing.  

Thank you to all the grown ups that came to the Reception Harvest Activity morning! It was lovely to see so many adults come to join us for; leaf crown making, scarecrow colouring, hedgehog painting, junk modelling, stick wand wrapping, pumpkin scooping, leaf weaving and conker tweezering!

The children have been settling into their new school over the last few weeks and have been busy exploring their new classrooms and outdoor spaces, including Ted’s Den. They have been playing games to get to know their new classmates and learn their names. The children have started their phonics and maths lessons and have been enjoying learning lots of new things. They have explored the areas in the classroom including the creative table, home corner and fine motor area (Twiddle Table.) Our topic has been ‘Ourselves’ and the children have spent time telling the class about themselves including what pets they have/would like and their favourite things to do. All the adults are very proud of how well they have settled and everything they have achieved in their first half term at school.