Welcome to Reception

Our Early Years Coordinator and the class teacher is Miss Miller 

Our Early Years Educator is Miss Wheeler 

Our Learning Support Assistants are Mrs Mani, Ms Pitman and Mrs Warty

Friday 1st July

Wow what another jam packed week! The children really enjoyed starting each day this week with the music assemblies. It was so lovely for them to their peers perform to a large audience. Well done to all those who took part.

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend our open evening. It was so lovely to share the children’s learning and classroom with you.

The children enjoyed taking part in a sponsored activity circuit. They got really active with Pierre Henry-Fontaine champion for sport who really put them (and me) through our paces.

The absolute highlight of this week has to be our Buddy trip to London zoo. The children spent the day in small groups, going around the zoo with their buddies looking at all the different animals. Over the course of the year, they have developed a supportive relationship with their Year 6 buddy and it was lovely to celebrate this on our trip.

 

Coming up next week –

On Monday we will need all the children's costumes for Oliver in school

On Tuesday  we have the final of our Music assemblies

On Wednesday all Reception parents are welcome to attend our ‘Stay and Play’ session from 8.45am.

2022 Zoo Buddy Trip

 

 

Friday 24th June

This week the children have taken part in a range of activities to support their well-being. They enjoyed workshops such as dance, yoga and a visit from an author. We took part in different activities in class too to promote a happy lifestyle and talked about healthy food choices for our bodies. The children thoroughly enjoyed the week and they gained a good understanding that we take part in different physical activities to help keep our minds healthy as well as our bodies.

We continued our focus on the story Dear Zoo and the children had a go at editing a story map to include their own animals. They then used this to write their own version of the story. In our maths sessions this week, the children learnt about the composition of different numbers and were able to write number sentences to match.

Coming up next week - We are all extremely excited about our buddy trip to the zoo on Thursday. As well as welcoming parents in for our open evening on Tuesday.

The children will also listen to a range of music assemblies throughout the week. 

Reception 2021 Wellbeing week

 

Friday 17th June

What a scorcher of a week! Despite the soaring temperatures, reception have maintained their focus and achieved some excellent outcomes this week. They have been practising their number bonds to 10 and some of the children can now recite these automatically. We used 10s frames and numicon pieces to solve problems up to 10. The children have also enjoyed reading and learning the story Dear Zoo.  They made their own final page of the book writing about a pet that they would like. The children also used a story map to help them remember and retell the story. The children wore their bit of green on Thursday for Grenfell. We talked about what had happened and the children had some very thoughtful responses to our discussions. They also decorated a heart and thought about someone who is a hero to them.

The children thoroughly enjoyed their Friday afternoon, in the hot weather, the only way to cool off was to get wet!

 

Coming up next week – With Health and Wellbeing week starting on Monday, the children will take part in a range of wellness activities throughout the week.

Reception 2021 Summer 2 week 2

 

 

Friday 10th June

It was a short but eventful week in Reception. In our maths learning, we focused on doubling and sharing amounts. The children did a super job at spotting patterns and were able to say some of their doubles off by heart.

The children have also been working hard on their sentence writing and have been using the sounds they have learnt in their phonics lessons to write words in their own writing.

On Thursday, we focused on keeping our teeth healthy. The children knew lots of ways that they could do this. They write some ‘Top Tips for Teeth’ and sorted different foods that were good and bad for our teeth.

On Friday, the children enjoyed performing their poem all about summer. With the sun shining on us in the playground it was the perfect setting for the recital. They did an amazing job and again I felt immensely proud of them all. They are such wonderful performers.

We also enjoyed a spot of buddy reading outside in the sun.

 

Coming up next week –

On Tuesday there will be a breakfast held for all the Dads and significant lads.

On Friday it will be our Sports day

 

 

Reception 2021 Summer 2 week 1

 

Friday 27th May

We have enjoyed our final week of this half term and have been busy practising for our Jubilee Concert.

The children learnt more about the queen and her time as our monarch. They created, bunting, flags and crowns throughout the week to celebrate her 70 years on the throne.

In our maths learning, the children began to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. They were able to understand that whilst counting up in 1s is great, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s is a lot quicker.

We also continued learning based on our ‘Around the World’ topic. The children learnt about the Arctic through the story The Lonely Bear. They were able to make comparisons between the arctic and the UK. We talked about the different animals, the landscape and the sea and how this was different to the UK.

On Thursday afternoon, the children loved taking their change to the young enterprise afternoon held by their Year 6 buddies. They enjoyed playing games and winning treats and picking up a bargain or two!

On Friday, the children took part in the St Peter’s Jubilee concert and my word, they were amazing! I was so proud of each and every one of the children for their participation and enthusiasm, the costumes looked great too! Abba themselves would have been proud.

In the afternoon we enjoyed a lovely Jubilee picnic with our Year 6 buddies.

I hope you all have a lovely half term break, fingers crossed for some nice weather!

 

Miss Miller

 

Coming up after half term – We welcome the children back on Wednesday 8^th June

On Friday 10^th we will be doing our final Poetry recital of the year.

 

Reception 2021 Summer 1 Jubilee

 

 

Friday 20th May

This week the children have really enjoyed all the STEM week activities that have been arranged.

Thank you to Irene, Humera, Eleni, Conor, Philip, and Natali for coming in and sharing their STEM expertise with the children. We have been exploring architecture, boat engineering, why things glow-in-the-dark, climate change and coding. It has been a jam packed week, and the children are so enthused and excited about the STEM world. 

The children started the week with an introduction all about climate change. I was really impressed with the children’s existing knowledge and questions that they asked.

The children took part in some investigations this week. They tested different materials to see if they would float or sink. With the information they had gathered, they then had a go at making their own boats for the Every Buddy Bear (the brother of the Everywhere Bear). They also used the special metal detectors to sort through materials and identify if they were metal or not.

Reception took part in some discussions this week, one with an architect and another with Marina’s Mummy who is an electrical engineer. The children were really excited to learn about how she helps to keep ships safe and the technology that is used for this. They had lots of questions and lots to say on the topic.

The children loved using the BeeBots with Alfred’s Daddy. He taught the children the basics of programming. They learnt all about inputting precise instructions to tell the Beebot exactly what to do. They loved instructing the Beebots to different locations on the mats. 

Josephine’s Mummy did a super job at explaining some really tricky science to the children. They learnt about how everything is made up of atoms, how electrons move and how some items glow-in-the-dark. The children loved using the glow-in-the-dark tattoos to explore this.

We ended the week with Mr Smith who showed the children how to use the app Seesaw on the brand new class iPads. The children were very sensible when exploring the app and were able to save their own learning independently.

 

What a fun week!

 

Coming up next week – On Thursday afternoon the children will enjoy enterprise day.

On Thursday from 5pm-7pm we have our Family Supper event.

On Friday – We will performing our Jubilee Song in the St Peter’s Jubilee Concert from 10am. In the afternoon, the children will enjoy our Jubilee picnic.

 

Reception 2021 Summer 1 STEM Week

 

Friday 13th May

This week the children have continued their numberline learning, only this time they have been learning how to subtract using it. The children have been solving a variety of calculations up to 20. They have also been using the story Anna Hibiscus’ Song to learn about West Africa and what it is like there compared to the UK. The story focuses on a girl who is happy and doesn’t know what to do when she is feeling happy. The children spent time thinking about what makes them happy and what they do when they are happy. They used the ideas generated to create a happiness poem.

This week the children have also enjoyed the introduction of our junk modelling area. They have enjoyed using recycled materials to create something new. The children can access this independently throughout the day so that they can keep making improvements and adjustments to their models. Thank you parents for all your recycling donations!

Coming up next week- STEM week - the children will take part in a range of workshops to inspire them. We also have a investigations planned throughout the week for the children to explore as well as computing sessions that will introduce them to the world of coding.

Reception 2021 Summer 1 week 4

 

Thursday 5th May 

This week the children have began their new topic - Around the World. We have used the book Anna Hibiscus’ Song by Atinuke to compare our environment with the main characters’ in West Africa. The children had a really good discussion about all the countries that they know of and how they compare to the UK. They loved looking at photos of different cities in Africa and were able to find many similarities with London.

In our maths learning this week, the children have been using numberlines to solve addition questions. They have been finding the larger number and counting on to solve their calculations.

As our role play area is now a veterinary surgery, we arranged a Google Meet with Alice, a real life vet. The children were able to ask her questions about animal care and what the role of vet involves. The children were inspired to act out what they had learnt in the role play area.

Coming up next week:

The children will continue to use the Anna Hibiscus’ Song story to compare the UK with Africa. They will also be learning how to subtract using a numberline.

Reception 2021 Summer 1 week 3

 

Friday 29th April 

Wow! What a wonderful trip to Kew Gardens we all had last week. We enjoyed visiting the Palm house, the Water Lily house, the Princess of Wales Conservatory and the Hive as well as taking part in a great workshop. The children learnt about the different parts of a plant and their function through an interactive session. We loved our picnic lunch and then had lots of fun in the children’s garden. This week the children spent time practising for their class assembly. They all learnt a range of songs and lines and on Thursday they got to perform to the whole school and parents. They were fantastic! All that practise really paid off because they sung with confidence and all delivered their lines clearly. Reception, I am so proud of you! The children also enjoyed their new role play area. Together, we have set up a small animal veterinary practice. The children made lots of signs and labels and have enjoyed making sure all the animals are well cared for. 

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend.

 

Reception 2021 Summer 1 Week 2

 

Friday 22nd April

What a lovely little week we have had back after the Easter break. The children settled back well and we enjoyed sharing our Easter holiday news with each other. It seems like a lot of chocolate has been consumed!

The children enjoyed exploring a range of birds nests this week as we have noticed more birds as the weather gets better. It was fascinating for the children to see the different materials that the different birds use to make their homes.  We looked at pictures of different types of birds and the nests that they make. The nests in the classroom were from a wren, a dunnock and a swallow.

I sadly didn’t look after the class runner beans very well over the holidays and the children learnt that without water plants can’t survive so they tried a different planting technique of their own. They got some damp cotton wool placed it in a clear bag and then made a little bed for their bean to grow in. All the beans are hung up by the window so I hope these are more successful than the first attempt!

The children wanted to know more information about plants so they used the iPads and had a go at scanning a range of QR codes placed around the classroom which had informational videos on them. We are now all ready for our fun trip to Kew Gardens!

 

Reception 2021 Summer 1 week 1

 

Friday1st April

Wow! What a fun last week of term. The children began the week with a fun performance with Danny from The Riot Act who did a show for them linked to keeping safe when out and about on the road. As part of our Easter festivities, the children enjoyed making some Easter biscuits to share with their friends and families at home. On Thursday, it was the famous St Peter’s egg rolling competition. It was amazing to see all the effort the children had gone to in decorating their eggs and they took part in the rolling with good spirits. On Friday, the children did an absolutely fantastic job attending our first ever church service. They listened well and took part in singing the songs. Well done to Alaric for delivering a thoughtful prayer during the service.

The whole week has also been underpinned by our R.E topic of Easter. The children have learnt in detail the Easter story and had a go at retelling it and making their own models to represent different parts.

 

Finally, I just want to take this opportunity to thank all our reception families for all their support over the last term and to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

 

We will see you after the holiday on Wednesday 20th April.

Reception 2021-22 Easter Week

 

Thursday 24th March 

This week the children have enjoyed learning about patterns. We started off with colour patterns and then advanced to number patterns. The children used the Numicon pieces to help them create the missing number in the pattern. We continued our topic learning based on the theme ‘Growing’ by re-read the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. We talked about where we find seeds and explored looking at different food items and plants to see if we could spot any. The children then had a go at planting the seeds that they found. Let’s see if anything grows between now and the end of term!

With Mothering Sunday coming up, the children shared their thoughts about why they love their mums. They also made some fantastic cards to give at the weekend but shhh it’s a surprise!

On Thursday, we continued our learning about the Easter story. The children learnt about what happened in the garden of Gethsemane and then had a go at making their own Prayer Gardens.

 

Coming up next week-

 

Lots of Easter fun!!

 

On Monday we have a road safety performance coming to show reception how to keep safe.

On Thursday the children will be invited to participate in an egg rolling competition and on Friday we will enjoy an Easter service.

We break up 2pm on Friday 1st April.

 

Have a lovely weekend.

Reception 2021-22 Spring 2 Week 5

 

 

 Friday 18th March 

What a week!! Arts week has provided the children with so many wonderful opportunities. On Monday the children enjoyed a fun gallery role plays session with Jessica. She brought in some pieces of artwork for the children to look at and then they used water colours to paint their own. We arranged their pieces in a mini gallery and the children went and bought a piece of artwork. On Monday afternoon the children took part in the re-enacting of the Greek Myth Hades and Persephone with Arwen from Dramatic Dreams. The children took turns to act out different characters with expression, they also learnt to always face your audience and had loads of fun! On Tuesday the children came face to face with some endangered animals with the help of Ranger Stu. He showed us an owl, a pancake tortoise, an armadillo, a tenrec, a tarantula, a snake and a bearded dragon. The children learnt about the different endangered species and the part that we can play in protecting them. On Tuesday afternoon we met the artist Dominic Harris along with Kate and her team Bailey and Jasper. Dominic showed us some of his digital butterfly artworks from his series entitled metamorphosis which inspired them to create their own butterfly designs. At least 3 of these designs will be given to Dominic for him to turn into a moving digital butterfly. On Wednesday Em came into Reception to introduce them to the world of illustration. The children created their own story boards of the story Superworm a firm favourite of Reception’s. In the afternoon, the children enjoyed an energetic session of street dance. My word Reception have got some great moves!On Thursday we all said goodbye to our lovely ducklings. The children have loved watching them grow, taking them for a swim and giving them lots of cuddles. We wish them well at the farm. The children also spent the day working hard on their own butterfly paintings. They took their time to carefully paint a Monarch butterfly using acrylic paints. Through this the children were introduced to the concept of symmetry. They then enjoyed a drama workshop linked to mini beasts. On Friday the children enjoyed turning one of their Superworm story board drawings into a painting with the support of Em. The children loved using the watercolours to add colour to their illustration. Today we also supported Comic Relief by coming to school with some crazy hairstyles!

 

Coming up next week-

 

World maths day on Wednesday

Mothers and female carers afternoon tea on Thursday

The arts cafe on Friday afternoon

 

Reception 2022 Arts Week

 

Friday 11th March 

 

The sun has been shining this week and it is starting to feel like spring, particularly as this week we have safely hatched 5 little ducklings. The children saw one of the ducklings hatch out in front of their eyes on Tuesday morning which was a really special experience for us all to see together. After much deliberation, the ducklings have been named Midnight, Mini, Spotty, Sweetie and Goldie and since their arrival our learning has been focused on them. The children have been writing mini reports and updates about what has been happening and created information posters about how to look after a duckling. This will help Mrs Johnston to look after them over the weekend. 

In other news the children enjoyed a Shakespeare workshop on Tuesday afternoon led by Lee from  West End In. They had fun helping him to retell the play A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. They enjoyed acting as different characters and expressing their emotions. We all had a lot of fun. On Thursday, the children did a superb job of performing their poem 'Springtime' to a live audience. They spoke clearly and confidently and we are all so proud of them. Thank you to those of you who were able to come and see them perform.

 

Coming up next week - Arts Week

Next week is jam packed with a range of workshops linked to the arts such as drama, illustration and street dance. The children will also have the opportunity to work with Artist Dominic Harris which we are really looking forward to. The children will also be working towards creating a final piece of art which will be exhibited in our Arts Cafe on Friday 25th March.

Reception 2021 Spring 2 Week 3

 

 Friday 4th March 

This week the children have continued their learning to linked shapes. They looked carefully at the composition of 3d shapes and had a go at identifying the 2d shape faces that they have. We started our topic of ‘Growing’ for tis half term and the children enjoyed getting outside and looking for signs of spring. They identified new flowers and buds that weren’t there during the winter the months. The children enjoyed sketching and using oil pastels to observe these spring flowers. We also read the story ‘The Tiny Seed’ by Eric Carle, about a little seed that one day goes on to becoming a huge flower. We talked about the different seasons in the story and how this applies to our own surroundings.

On Thursday, the children enjoyed a fantastic World Book Day. They all came dressed up with a copy of their story book. They looked fantastic, thank you to parents for all your effort arranging such wonderful costumes. They children really loved the costume parade that they did with their buddies. We also focused our day on a Spanish version of little red riding hood called Little Roja Riding Hood by Susan Middleton Elya. It was lovely for some of our Spanish speaking children help me with some of the word meanings. The children collaged and created their own baskets of food that they would take for someone poorly and carefully cut out their choices. On Friday the children were very lucky to have an illustration sessions with illustrator Oguzhan Secir. They loved spending time talking and drawing with him.

Coming up next week -

Parents consultations will be on Monday and Tuesday evening please make sure you sign up for a slot. I will send a Google Meet invite out on Monday

On Tuesday afternoon, the children will enjoy a Shakespeare workshop.

On Thursday the children will be performing their poem for our poetry recital. This will be held in the Scott playground for parents to watch. More details will follow shortly. 

 

 

Reception 21-22 spring 2 week 2

 

 

 

Friday 15th February 

  The children have had an excellent week back in class. They have been busy continuing their learning linked to addition and subtraction and are becoming more confident at writing the number sentence to match their calculations. We had an exciting day on Wednesday when we immersed ourselves in the world of carnival. The children enjoyed an assembly led by Fiona Compton and later made their own colourful carnival headdresses. We listened to samba music and enjoyed lots of dancing. Some of the children loved wearing some of the real headdresses on loan to us and Chef Andrew made us a lovely Caribbean themed lunch.

On Friday the children began their PSHE learning linked to being healthy. We discussed our favourite exercises and sports and had a go at some short intense activities. We talked about the effects of these on our bodies.  

In RE we also began our topic of Easter. The session was focused on the role of the humble donkey. The children learnt about the Palm Sunday story and enjoyed acting out different roles.

 

Coming up next week –

On Wednesday we will be celebrating Ash Wednesday. Reception will be watching the school service virtually.

On Thurday we will be celebrating World Book day. The theme this year is Traditional Tales and Reception have been assigned Little Roja Riding Hood, by Susan Middleton Elya. A Spanish take on Little Red Riding Hood. 

The children will also take part in an exciting parade to show off their World Book Day costumes. Their Year 6 Buddies will accompany them to do this.

 

 Thursday 10th February 

This week the children have been kept incredibly busy! We completed our learning linked to traditional tales and Jack and the Beanstalk with the children imagining what else could be up the beanstalk other than a castle. They came up with some fantastic ideas, we had a shark river, a candy forest, flying dragons, luxurious hotels and many, many more. On Tuesday we focused on how to be safe online. The children watched a clip about a character called Digi Duck who accidentally shared his password. The children then thought of other ways that they could be safe online and had a go at using a password to open the class iPads. They then player a coding game safely and talked about how we wouldn’t share this password with anyone else. Throughout the week the children have been thinking about their mental health. They have been naming different emotions and are encouraged to use a range of different words to explain how they are feeling. The children enjoyed creating their own emotions wheel to show how they are feeling at different times. With the national theme this year being ‘Growing Together’ the children enjoyed listening to the Very hungry caterpillar. They identified ways in which he changes throughout the story and then they focused on ways they had changed and grown. The children spoke about things and experiences that used to worry them but now don’t because they have grown. We also celebrated Women and girls in science. The children listened to a story all about Jane Goodall. They learnt about her passion for Chimpanzees as a young girl which then led her to making important scientific discoveries. The children thought about their animal passions and decided upon an animal that one day they would like to research. On Thursday the children took part in our second DT day. The theme this term was Music. The children carefully constructed rain maker instruments. They decided how to decorate they rainmaker, how many beads they wanted to put into the rainmaker and decided how best to secure it so the beads didn’t come out. They also had great fun playing their instruments along to different pieces of music. They seemed to particularly enjoy Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

 

The children have had yet another wonderful half term in Reception and I am so proud of them all.

 

I hope you all have a lovely half term.

Friday 4th February 

This week the children have been introduced to different coins and their value. They have enjoyed identifying different coins and adding them to find a total. We played lots of games with the coins and talked about other ways that we see money such as notes, cards and playing on your phone or watch.  This week we continued their learning based on Jack and the Beanstalk. As the children have become more familiar with the story, they were able to successfully sequence and retell the story using puppets. The children also loved our learning linked to Chinese New Year. They were really inspired by the animal race and had a go at making their own puppets to retell the story. They loved making lanterns and writing Chinese numerals too. In our PSHE session the children thought about what they want to be when they grow up. They considered the skills they would need for their dream job and thought about how they need to show perseverance to achieve their goals.

Coming up next week -

- Mental health awareness week.

- Tuesday is safer internet day.

- On Thursday we have our second DT with a focus on music

- Also on Thursday we have our Movie Night.

- On Friday we will be celebrating international women and girls in science day. The children will be learning about Jane Goodall.

 

Friday 28th January

This week has been full of surprises in Reception. The children have been continuing their learning linked to traditional tales and came in one day to find clues to a mystery. They found some golden eggs, giant footprints and some beans. All the clues pointed towards Jack and the Beanstalk so the children wrote a message to Jack explaining that we had found the golden eggs. The children wanted to see this giant so they decided to design and create their own security cameras. One night the cameras picked up some activity. Not from a giant but the Gingerbread Man! The children watched footage of a Gingerbread Man and his friends walking through the classroom. They decided they would like to catch him and talk to him about what he is up to, so they decided to design some traps adding labels so these designs could be made.

In their maths learning, the children matched amounts to numerals and began to understand the number pattern which continues when counting beyond 20. They were also introduced to the concept of doubling.

The children also enjoyed looking at maps this week. They were introduced to a map of the UK and some of the children were able to identify the different countries within in. They then looked at maps of their local area and were able to identify different features such as the river, Ravenscourt Park, the Scott building and St Peter’s Square. They looked at a map of our outdoor area and had a go at creating their own maps of their dream playground. They had some creative suggestions!

 

Coming up next week - we look forward to celebrating Chinese New Year on Tuesday

 

Reception 2022 Week 4

 

Friday 21st January 

This week the children have been busy immersing themselves in the Little Red Riding Hood traditional tale. They used a start map to retell the story and then had a go at changing one for the main characters - the wolf. The children had a go at thinking of a replacement for the wolf and they came up with some excellent ideas. We had sharks, hyenas, rats, frogs, tigers, lions fire breathing monsters and pterodactyls and a t-rex.

Instead of ‘what big ears, eyes and teeth you have’ the children had to think of other ways that Little Red Riding hood would describe their character. The children also innovated their own version of the story using their own characters and had a go at retelling it. The children enjoyed learning about estimation this week, particularly when their estimation was right. They gained a good understanding of this and they played lots of games to apply their learning.

 Friday 14th January 

This week the children have enjoyed continuing their learning around shapes. They enjoyed playing 2d shape bingo as well as learning some names for 3d shapes. They had a go at sorting shapes based on their properties such as which ones would roll down a ramp and which ones would slide. They had great fun testing this out. This half term our topic is Traditional Tales and the children began with the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We were sent a letter from Red Riding Hood explaining that she was lost in the woods so the children came up with the idea of creating maps for her. They thought about the different locations in the story and put these on their maps. They then added labels to help Red Riding Hood even more. The children also had a go at using the language from the story to retell it. It was lovely to see so many of them use expression for the different characters, particularly the wolf!

 

All children have now been given a reading folder. In the front cover you will see your child’s login details for our Bug Club phonics scheme. This login will enable your child to access an e-book which directly links to the sounds they are learning in their phonics sessions.

 

Coming up next week -

In phonics – the children will be learning the ai, ee, igh sounds as well as h, b, f, ff

In Maths - our focus will be on estimating. The children will learn into estimate and then check heir estimate by counting.

The children will begin innovating their own version of Little Red Riding Hood

 Friday 7th January 2022

Happy New Year!

The children have had a wonderful few days back and have settled in really well. We enjoyed sharing our Christmas news and talking about our favourite presents.

This week we set up a hospital as our new role play area and the children have loved caring for each other in there. There have been lots of operations! We also learnt about this half term’s value of perseverance.  The children took part in a number of challenging activities and leant that we try and keep going! They also learnt that there are always friends around who can help and encourage us.

In our maths learning, the children had a go at sorting 2d and 3d shapes which they did using their own criteria. This helped them to learn some of the shape names and describe some of their properties. We will continue to learn about different shapes next week.

 

Friday 10th December

 

This week the children have been busy getting reading for their Nativity performance. They have been practising their songs and learning the actions. You are going to love it! Our focus story this week has been ‘The Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson. This festive story inspired the children to create their own stick men using natural resources from outside. They also used their phonics skills to have a go at writing and creating their own missing posters to help the Stickman return home safely. Today the children enjoyed a fabulous Christmas lunch whilst wearing their Christmas jumpers. The Christmas theme continued as the children learnt more about the Nativity story and how and why we celebrate Christmas.

Coming up next week -  

The children will be participating in a range of Christmas crafts throughout the final week of term.  Many of these will be linked to the Julia Donaldson poem ‘A Christmas Pine’.

On Monday, please make your way to St Peter’s Square for the Key Stage Twos ‘Carols by Candlelight’ evening.

On Tuesday the children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 will be recording their Nativity ready for you to enjoy at home.

On Friday we break up at 2pm for Christmas.

 

Reminder – Please bring your child’s nativity costume in on Monday 13^th December.

 

Friday 2nd December

This week the children have continued learning and enjoying the Everywhere bear story and made their own art work linked to the story using paints and bottle tops.

The children were introduced to addition and subtraction and used different methods to add one more, find out one less and find the total of two groups of objects altogether. We also enjoyed the beginning of advent and have already jumped into Christmas festivities. The children did a great job at helping to transform their home corner into a Santa’s workshop where they can design, build and wrap their own toys. We decorated the tree and made some posters for the area. We also have a class advent calendar and each day the children will bring home a little treat.

 

Coming up next week -

In phonics the children will be working on reading and writing captions and high frequency words.

In maths the children will continue their learning about addition and subtraction.

On Friday we will all enjoy Christmas jumper day and our Christmas lunch.

 

Reception 2021 Week 6

 

 

Friday 26th November

This week the children have continued to enjoy learning about time. They used language linked to time such as long time or short time and sorted activities into these categories. They had fun exploring all the things they could do in 1 minute - 56 exhausting star jumps was one of them. The children also thought about things they do in the daytime and things they do at night time and had a go at sequencing a whole day.

This half term the children have enjoyed listening to and learning about a range of Julia Donaldson books and now we are focusing on The Everywhere Bear. The children met their very own Everywhere Bear and thought about where they would like to take him. They came up with some great suggestions such as the moon, horse riding and to Spain! In the story the bear is lost so the children had a go at making missing posters in the hope that he will be found.

 

Coming up next week -

In phonics the children will be learning sounds ….ss, zz, ck, u, j, w, z

In maths the children will be learning about addition and subtraction. The will be adding one for and working out what one less is.

On Friday the children will be able to come into school wearing their own clothes we ask that they kindly donate a bottle for our tombola stool which will be at the school Christmas fair on 4^th December

 

Miss Miller

 

Reception 2021 Aut 2 W4

 

Friday 19th November 

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Kind said the boy"

We started off the week celebrating World Kindness Day and Anti-Bullying Week by wearing our odd socks. We learnt what bullying is and how it makes people feel. We focused on how we could make each other happy through acts of kindness. The children decorate and designed their own odd socks because we are all unique.

Later in the week, we had some investigating to do. Some rather large footprints turned up in the classroom so we spent the afternoon measuring the prints and our own feet to make sure it wasn’t anyone in reception! The children used a range of resources to measure including cubes and tape measures.  The children then received a message from a friendly giant who had been lost. Mystery solved!

On Thursday Andrew came to teach us all about animal welfare. He was really impressed with the children’s knowledge of the environment. He taught the children about all the ways in which we can care for pets and animals that we may come across in the wild.

We also had a great time at our movie night. The children loved watching Paw Patrol whilst eating all their yummy snacks.

Our week ended celebrating Children in Need. The children enjoyed coming to school wearing their home clothes and we talked about what the word charity means.

 

Coming up next week –

In phonics we will be learning sounds x y ff ll

In maths our focus will be on time, we will be learning about the days of the week, months of the year and sequencing different parts of the day.

 

Reception 2021 Aut 2 Wk 3

 

Friday 12th November

This week the children have been learning about the importance of Poppy day and the Poppy appeal. This inspired them to create some beautiful poppy field paintings using the water colours. They also acted out a service with the small world play church and shared some interesting discussions about their experiences of church. On Wednesday, the children enjoyed participating in our first DT day of the year. The theme this term was ‘Nature’. In reception, we researched the type of colours that appealed to ladybirds and decorated ladybird houses. We all learnt that ladybirds have very poor eyesight but can distinguish between light and dark shades which is why our houses are so bright and colourful! Some of the children also chose to design their own ladybird houses.

 

Coming up next week:

In phonics we will be learning the sounds – j, u, w, z and the everyday word - was

Our maths learning will be linked to all things measure including length/height, capacity and weight

Next week is anti-bullying week so the children will have a range of activities linked to this year’s theme ‘One Kind Word’. To start this week off, we will all be coming into school with odd socks!

On Wednesday we will enjoy and animal welfare workshop organised by Miss Murphy 

Thursday evening will also be the PTA’s movie night. In reception the children have voted to watch Paw Patrol.

On Friday we will be raising money for Children in Need. All children can come into school wearing non school uniform with a donation . 

 

Miss Miller 

 

Reception 2021 Aut 2 W1

 

Friday 5th November

Welcome back Reception!

I hope you all had a happy half term.

The children have enjoyed a very festive week in Reception. They enjoyed using the pumpkins to develop their fine motor skills by pushing the golf tees into them using the hammers. They also learnt about Diwali. The children spent time creating Diva Lamps, designing their own Henna tattoos and drawing colourful Rangoli patterns. The children enjoyed learning about Bonfire Night by making their own sparkling firework pictures.

 

Coming up next week –

In phonics the children will be learning the sounds k, l, r and the everyday word are

In maths the children will continue to learn about the composition of numbers to 10.

We are also looking forward to our first DT of the year with a focus on nature

Parent Consultations will also run virtually on Monday 4.00 – 7pm and Tuesday 3.30 – 6pm

 

Miss Miller

 

Reception 2021 Aut 2 W1

 

 

 Thursday 21st October

This week sees the end of our first half term in Reception and they have been AMAZING! The children have settled so well. They have been busy making new friends and getting to know all the routines. They have already learnt so much. I can’t wait to see what we get up to next half term!

For our final week of the half term, we learnt all about patterns. In their maths learning, the children used different resources to make repeating patterns with colours, shapes and numbers. We continued celebrating Black History Month by reading the Anansi the Spider tale. The children loved the story and had a go at retelling it with props from the story. They also created some fantastic artwork linked to the story by making their own Anansi. We had a couple of fun visitors too and the children watched a play all about treating everyone equally. They came into the classroom in search of an alien who was eventually found!

Finally, today we showed racism the red card. All the children came into school wearing an item of red clothing to support this message.

Coming up after half term: 

Our first poetry recital of the year. The children will perform and record their poem during the first week back. A copy of the poem has been added to Tapestry. Please practise it with your child over half term.

 

Have a lovely break,

 

Miss Miller

 

Reception 2021 Week 7

 

Friday 15th October

This week the children have enjoyed problem solving in their maths learning. They had a go at exploring the different ways of making 3,4,5 and 6. They did this by using double sided counters and then the numicon pieces. They were then encouraged to record the different compositions that they had discovered. The children have been really creative this week, they enjoyed listening to the story ‘My Hair’ by Hannah Lee and they had a go at creating their own hairstyles for the main character of the story. They used different materials to create their styles and talked about how they would style their hair if it was their birthday just like the main character. The children loved using the oil pastels to create their own autumnal leaf pictures. We talked about all the colours they could see and they had a go at smudging the pastels to blend the colours.

 

Coming up next week:

In phonics we will be learning the sounds c, g, h and we will be learning to use the everyday words ‘I’ and ‘the’.

For Black History month we will be focussing on the story Anansi The Spider – a tale from the Ashanti by Gerald McDermott. We will also be taking part in a Black History Month dance workshop on Tuesday.

On Thursday, the children will need to add something red to their uniform for our Show Racism the Red Card day.

 

Reception 2021 Week 6

 

 

 

 Friday 8th October 

 

For Black History Month this week the children have enjoyed looking at the beautiful patterns used in Kente Cloth. The children used different coloured paper to create their own patterns. Some children chose to create repeating patterns and others decided to explore all the colours. We also enjoyed an engaging poetry session with Kat, an author and poet. She made sure that all the children took part in helping her to recite her fun and lively poems using actions, signs and pictures. In RE this week, the children enjoyed sharing their baby photos with their friends. They all had a go at guessing who the baby was. We then talked about how they have changed and how we are all unique. Some children then decided to create their own self-portraits.

 

Coming up next week:

In phonics we will be learning the sounds o, n, b and we will be learning to use the high frequency words ‘is’ and ‘a’

For Black History month we will be focussing on the story ‘My Hair’ by Hannah Lee. We will be learning about the different hair styles used in black culture.

Reception 2021 Week 5

 

 

Friday 1st October 

This week we have been continuing our ‘All About Me’ topic and we focused on the story ‘You Choose’ by Nick Sharratt. The children had fun talking about their preferences and sharing their ideas with their friends. They decided to create their own houses and choose furniture and games that they liked the most to go in their house. They also drew pictures of their dream pets. Dolphins and dragons were some of the suggestions! The children also learnt about who keeps them safe at home and who keeps them safe at school. Some of the children chose to make their own helpful posters to remind them of the adults who look after them at school. The children made an amazing start at their phonics sessions this week. They learnt the sounds s, a, t and had a go at reading and writing words with those sounds.

We ended the week with a nice little trip to the park. The children went in search for all things natural. They enjoyed collecting natural objects with their partners and thought about all of God’s creations.

 

Coming up next week:

We will be creating some art linked to Black History Month.

In phonics we will be learning the sounds i, p, m.

In their maths sessions the children will be comparing amounts.

Don't forget to please upload a baby photo to Tapestry by Thursday 7^th October.

 

Reception 2021 Week 4

 

 Thursday 23rd September

This week started off with an arghhhh! The children did such a good job talking like a pirate for the day! They came in wearing their superb costumes and enjoyed learning what their pirate names would be. We read the story ‘Pirates Love Underpants’ and the children then created their own treasure maps to go with the story. They searched for buried treasure in the sand pit and made their own pirate ships for the water tray. For the rest of the week we focused on family. The children bought in family photos and talked to their friends about who is in their family. They also drew their own family pictures and added labels. In maths we looked at different numerals and their value. They children had a go at writing these and used the counting people to sing the counting song ‘5 little men in a flying saucer’.

The children also loved meeting their Year 6 buddies for the first time. They enjoyed sharing stories together in playground. The children will have a great year with them.

 

Notices:

Uniform - Please do ensure that all items of your child's uniform including water bottles are clearly named.

Black History Month - This will commence from Friday 1st October

 

 Miss Miller

 

Reception 2021 Week 2

 

Friday 17th September 

The Reception class have had an absolutely brilliant first week in school. It was amazing to see them happily come into school each morning and enjoy their first full week. If they are feeling half as tired as Miss Miller and the other teachers then they will be having some big sleeps this weekend. Over the week, they have been reading the stories ‘The Colour Monster’ and ‘The Colour Monster goes to school’ by Anna Llenas. These are stories about emotions and feelings. As part of our work on the colour monster, the children created their own colour monsters and used different colours to show how they were feeling.

Last week the children enjoyed sharing their ‘Special boxes’ with their new friends. They listened carefully to what each other said and made links with children who have similar interests. It was a lovely surprise to see what each child had put in their box.

We have enjoyed a lot of firsts this week. Our first music lesson with Ms Ailsa and our first two PE sessions with Mr Correia in the Scott hall playground. The children participated really well and thoroughly enjoyed these sessions. We also enjoyed our first week of school lunches. The children are getting to know Chef Andrew and happily eat their lunches.  On Thursday the children went to the library for the first time and choose their own library book which they can enjoy until next Thursday. Each week they will be given a new book to take home.

The children also had their first RE lesson this week and this was all about St Peter. We learnt that he was a special friend of Jesus and that he was a fisherman. We listened to a story about how Jesus helped St Peter fill his net with fish. In our classroom we had our own net to fill with beautifully decorated fish.

Please have a look at the gallery below to see some of the fun we’ve had this week.

 

Notices:

Next week will be another busy one…

We are having a ‘Talk like a Pirate day’ on Monday the children can bring in a pirate accessory and will have activities linked to all things pirates!

Library books – the children all took home a library book this week, please return this on Thursday so the children can change their book for a new one.

Meeting – Parents don’t forget our phonics meeting on Monday 20^th at 5pm. I will send out the Google Meet invite on the day.

I hope all the children have a lovely, restful weekend and I can’t wait to see them again on Monday  

Miss Miller

17.09.21 rec

 

 

 

 Thursday 22nd July The end of term 

Wow!  What a fantastic last week the children have had in reception. On Tuesday 20^th July, we were very fortunate to have a visit from Olympic athlete, Ezekiel Ewulo or otherwise known as Zeeks. Zeeks is a professional long jump athlete who has competed for both Britain and for Nigeria; his proudest achievement to date is when he gained the ‘British Indoor Long Jump Title’. Zeeks delivered a fantastic virtual assembly to the children; he discussed how he came to be so successful and what his training regime consists of. He then worked with each class to push them to their limits through a variety of physical activities. Zeeks was impressed with how brilliant all the children were in the event – looks like we have many budding athletes on our hands! Thank you so much to everyone who has brought in sponsorship money, we will be able to do something special for the school with the funds!

The children also played a big part in the Mary Poppins production and performed ‘Jolly Holiday’ absolutely brilliantly. They remembered the actions and sang with confidence in front of a big audience. We are all so so proud of them.

We hope you have a wonderful summer holiday and enjoy a lovely break.

 

RECEPTION END OF TERM GALLERY

Friday 16th July

 

Reception have had a super fun, active week! We have taken part in a fantastic ballet fusion workshop and got even more active in a Fit4all workshop. We also enjoyed reading the story ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell. The children learnt the story off by heart using a story map. They learnt to retell it using actions to remember the words and performed them brilliantly! They also chose to write about their own unsuitable pet that they would send back to the zoo too! We thought some more about how we could look after the world and made steward badges to remind ourselves that there are jobs which we can be responsible for. In our maths learning, we focused on measures. We had a go at measuring different items and used the metre sticks to help us create some wonderful buildings in our construction area. Together some of the children made a superb house boat. We have lots to look forward to next week with our Mary Poppins performance on Wednesday and the children will also be meeting their Year 1 teacher.

 

ACTIVE RECEPTION GALLERY

 

Friday 9th July

Reception have enjoyed learning about how they can look after the environment. We had some great discussions about the things that we can personally do to make a difference, such as recycling and picking up litter to protect the animals in our locality. To remind ourselves of this important issue, the children collaged their own worlds in the art area, separated small world sea creatures from plastic in the water area and used construction to create safe spaces for animals. We also got right behind our England football team by making flags, designing our own football kits and watching some iconic football moments from the past. We looked at footage from 1966 and noticed that it was in black and white. This sparked discussions about how technology has changed over the time. We couldn’t believe TV wasn’t in colour!

 

RECEPTION 9TH GALLERY

Friday 2nd July 2021

Wow! What a week! We have absolutely loved Arts Week! The children have enjoyed attending a range of workshops including street dance, circus skills, drama and poetry. They have also been working on a printing project throughout the week inspired by Henri Rousseau's 'Surprised!' painting. They began the week making observational drawings of different types of leaves. They then created their own leaf design from their imagination and then transferred this onto a foam board to make their own printing block. Finally, they printed their leaves to make a jungle scene and then added an animal that they had sketched using oil pastels and the results were fabulous!

Next week the children will enjoy our sports day on Monday. Let's hope the sun can join us too!

ARTS WEEK RECEPTION 2 GALLERY

Friday 25th June 2021

Reception have had a wonderful week this week with so many fun activities going on. This week has been our Health and Wellbeing week so we have spent lots of time thinking about how we can make ourselves and others happy. We made friendship bracelets to give to our friends and learnt that being kind to others made us feel good too. We then enjoyed a fantastic trip to London Zoo with our buddies who really took care of us. We saw lots of different animals and spent the day talking and laughing with our year 6 friends. We also enjoyed a session with the Life Education Bus as well as taking part in some calming yoga. To finish the week, the children enjoyed reading the story 'The Colour Monster' and talked about our feelings and what we can do when we feel angry, sad or lonely and more importantly what makes us feel happy again.

Next week, the children will enjoyed another action packed week through our Arts Week activities and we can't wait!

 

 

1 HEALTH GALLERY

Friday 18th June 2021

We have had another fantastic week in Reception. The children did so well at reciting their class poem 'Mad About Minibeasts'. They were able to perform it using clear and confident voices and remembered lots of the actions. 

We also spent the first part of the week practising our threading skills in preparation for DT day with a focus on textiles. The children learnt how to thread needles and used a running stitch so that they were ready to make their very own teddy bears. Once we had made the teddies the children chose how they wanted to decorated them. we also had a little teddy bears picnic to celebrate all their effort in making them. 

In our maths learning this week the children have learnt how to share amounts. They did this by sharing cookies between the class soft toy and have become really confident at this.

We have got plenty to look forward to next week. It is health and wellbeing week so the children will be attending a variety of workshops and we are also so excited to go to the zoo with our Year 6 buddies.

 

 

MISS MILLER GALLERY

 

Friday 11th June 2021

I want to start my very first blog by saying a huge thank your everyone in the St Peter’s school community for making me feel so welcome in my first week in reception.

We have enjoyed lots of ‘getting to know you’ activities this week and started off by talking about our families and friends. We enjoyed sharing the book ‘You Choose’ by Nick Sharrat. It gave the children the opportunity to express their interests and preferences. They also use some of the illustrations to make their own houses and filled them with their favourite items from the book.

In their maths learning this week the children revised how to double. They used and applied their knowledge and have become very confident.  We also introduced halving and sharing. They enjoyed using their favourite toys to practise this concept.

RECEPTION 11TH JUNE GALLERY

Next week is another fun filled one, with our DT day on Wednesday the children will enjoy getting creative. It is also our sports day so I look forward to seeing all the children compete in a range of sporting challenges.

 

Reminders -

On Monday the children will be having their individual and sibling photos, please ensure your child comes into school wearing their school uniform rather than their PE kit.

On Tuesday the children will have their class photos, please ensure they come into school wearing their Autumn/Winter uniform.

 

 

“If you are brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello”

Paulo Coelho

29/05/21

Trying to find the opening line of today’s blog has struck me with writers block and has been hard to think of the right words...so we will just drive right in.  As you are all aware after half term Miss Miller will become the reception class teacher and I will be continuing my role as Deputy Head teacher.  I know that the children are going to have such a great time with Miss Miller – she is such a kind and caring teacher and the children will thrive under her care for the final half term. I will of course also be able to keep saying hello in assemblies and from working in my office, just down the corridor from the classroom.

The children have been a joy to teach both remotely and in school and I will greatly miss being their teacher. Thank you parents, carers and children for your kind words and generous gifts.

I'll keep you all updated on Baby Noonan when I have more news!

Have a lovely, safe and restful half term,

Mrs Noonan

“Learning together”

21/05/21

I have to start this week’s blog with a huge well done and thank you to all of the children and the Early Years team. It has taken a bit of adjustment by everyone this week and has personally been odd being in my office (just down the corridor from the classroom) remotely connecting with the class. It’s taken some time for the children to realise that it wasn’t just videos of Mrs Noonan but really a live stream! It has been so lovely to still feel connected with the class and hearing their news, sharing a story together and them sharing their 5 favourite things from each day.

The children have thoroughly been enjoying Mr. Cottons PE lessons this week. Their skills in physical development are really coming on and they are loving all of the challenges and activities set by Mr. Cotton! Have a look below to see them in action!

REC PE LESSONS GALLERY

Our learning in our other lessons this week has seen us learning the sounds ‘ng’ and ‘qu’ in Phonics, practicing our subtraction skills in maths, practicing our drawing skills in art and learning about how to take care of God’s world in RE.

On Wednesday the children thoroughly enjoyed meeting Miss Miller, their new teacher for the final half term of the year. Miss Miller read the children a story and spent some time in the class getting to know them.

Next week we will be working around the theme of ‘Minibeasts’ to link to Environmental Day which is on Wednesday. We will be learning facts all about different types of bugs, exploring what insects we can find in our outside area and lots of digging in our digging area outside. It should be a great week filled with lots of fun activities and a perfect way to end the half term and my final week with the class.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan 

“…and then you have an Elmer, and he isn’t at all ordinary!”

David McKee

14/05/21

This week our learning is focused on the story of Elmer by David McKee. The children have loved listening to the story and thinking about how their friends make them happy, how being different is a good thing and how we can celebrate each other. We have created some brilliant ‘different’ elephants to celebrate Elmer Day and have created a new display in our classroom to show off our brilliant art skills. The children used a variety of materials including chalks, oil pastels and wax crayons to add the colourful patterns to the elephants.

In our phonics we have been writing lots of ccvc, cvcc and even ccvcc words! We are such brilliant phonics thinkers now and our sentences writing is coming on so well! In maths we have been practising our addition skills and been writing out addition sentences.

Next week we will be starting to learn some new diagraphs in phonics including ‘ng’ and ‘qu’ and our maths lessons will be practising our subtraction skills. We will continue to have our physical development sessions with Mr Cotton, our dance lessons in the hall and our weekly art lesson in the art room.

We also had a discussion in our class this week about what makes us all unique, linking with our learning on Elmer. One area we looked at was all of the different languages we speak in our class – there are about 10 different languages from all around the world. The children loved discovering who else in their class could speak the same language as them and we have been having chats in Italian and French! The children then explored the maps and globe we have in our class to discover where these countries are in the world.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

“The more he gave away the more delighted he became”

The Rainbow Fish

07/05/21

This week the children have been learning using the story of ‘The Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister. This is a lovely story all about learning to share and being a good friend.

On Tuesday, we made some brilliant artwork based on the story. The children used collage to make their fishes colourful scales and then oil pastels to create the blue sea background. Then we got the shiny, silvery scale and shared these between the class so it was fair and everyone had one special scale just like in the story.

Have a look at the gallery to see our beautiful creations.

REC RAINBOW FISH GALLERY

As well as our artwork we have also been enjoying spending time in our café role play area, looking at atlas’ and a globe to discover different countries around the world, working on our knowledge of symmetry making butterflies and all other kinds of fun. The children have loved having a new selection of musical instruments in our outside area  (I’m not sure if Mrs Zalar has enjoyed it as much as the stage is right outside her window when she is working) but with brilliant performances like this one how can you not be impressed and a big fan of the reception band and their manager!

Have  a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan 

“I’m a little yellow duck quack, quack, quack, quack!”

Reception sharing assembly

30/04/21

On Tuesday morning, the Reception children were amazing performing their sharing assembly! They were all fantastic – saying their lines, singing the songs and performing the poem. The whole school was incredibly proud of them and it was so lovely to see all of the messages sent over Google Meet and hearing from the children in the school about what they enjoyed about the assembly.

After such a fabulous start to our week Reception have kept up their excellent work! They have been busy in their lessons creating some beautiful paintings in the Art room, revising some of their letter knowledge in our phonics lessons, practising their counting skills in Maths and learning all about our bodies in Personal, Social and Emotional develop lessons.

On Friday we loved seeing our buddies for buddy reading time, we practised for the first time listening to our own buddies read us stories (at a social distance) and really enjoyed being able to have a chat with them! In the afternoon we learnt all about how we can take care of God’s wonderful world and learnt about this through the song ‘Who put the colours in the rainbow?’. The children wrote their own questions about the world. We then all helped to paint a beautiful rainbow as a class.  If you would like listen to the song at home use the video below…

Café

The children have been working hard this week to help us set up our café role play area. They have been enjoying taking it in turns to serve each other, ordering our favourite drinks and having a chat over a drink and a snack.

 

REC CAFE GALLERY

Next week

Firstly, don’t forget it is the bank holiday on Monday so the children won’t be in school until Tuesday. Our learning will be continuing with our phonics where we will be beginning to learn some more diagraphs, for our literacy work we are going to be looking at the book ‘The Rainbow Fish’. All of our other lessons will continue including dance, time on the bikes in the Scott Playground, PE with Mr Cotton, dough discoes etc. On Thursday, we will have an exciting lunchtime as the hall is being used for the local elections we will be having a picnic in our classroom and if the weather is lovely then we will probably have a picnic outside!

Have a lovely, long weekend

Mrs Noonan

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty”

Maya Angelou

23/04/21

This week we have been spending lots of time rehearsing our sharing assembly. The children have done an excellent job of learning their lines, actions and songs and most importantly practising their big, loud voices so the audience will be able to hear us. The songs and poem from the assembly are loaded on Tapestry activities so parents if you get a chance to practise over the weekend please do.

Details of how to remotely watch our assembly will be emailed out on Parentmail.

In our lessons this week, we have been settling back into our usual routine after the Easter holidays. We started on Tuesday with painting some brilliant spring blossom trees in the art room. Our other learning has been focused on our caterpillars...who are not caterpillars anymore! The caterpillars spent the Easter holidays in their cocoons or chrysalis’ and then came out as beautiful butterflies! We have been carefully observing them this week and feeding them some delicious fresh fruit to eat. On Friday afternoon we all went outside and let our butterflies go so they can fly around our local area. The butterflies were a little reluctant to leave the lovely home Reception had made for them, spending some time on the astro-turf to warm up and practise using their wings but it gave us a great opportunity to have a really close look and them.

REC BUTTERFLIES GALLERY

Homework

The new changes to our homework have started this week with all homework now being uploaded and submitted on Tapestry. The children all brought home their new green homework books which can be used at home if needed to complete the work, these do not need to be returned to school.

Reading Books

Please make sure your child’s reading folder is in school each day.

Sunhats

As the weather is becoming more and more sunny please send your child to school with a sun hat, which is clearly named that they can then wear when playing in the outside area. On sunny days we advise the children come in having had sun cream applied. If this is needed to be reapplied during the day the children need to be able to do this independently.

The children have had an excellent week and settled back into school for their final term in Reception.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

Duckling Diary

Thursday 1^st April 2021

Today was our final day with the ducklings. We have loved looking after them and seeing how much they have grown and changed since they hatched out of their eggs.

Happy Easter everyone!

We will see you again on Tuesday 20^th April!

Monday 29^th and Tuesday 30^th March 2021

The duckling were safely delivered back to school on Monday morning – a big thank you to Mrs Pond Jones for the duckling taxi service!

Once the ducklings had settled back in they loved showing Reception their amazing swimming skills, watching them swim is similar to being in the front row of a show at sea world with splashing and sploshing.

The ducklings love diving down under the water, using the ramps to jump off and generally having a paddle. On Tuesday in the glorious sunshine we were all a little jealous of their lovely pool swimming pool!

On Tuesday, we also all had a turn holding the ducklings. Reception were incredibly brave, sensible and gentle. It was a great opportunity for the children to have a real close look at the ducklings and have a feel of their fluffy feathers.

The ducklings go home on Thursday so we have a few more days to enjoy them in our classroom.

Watch the Ducklings Live!

https://youtu.be/aYvdbZGHljo

Join the YouTube link above to watch the ducklings all day!

A Quacker of a Week!

Day 5 – Friday 26^th March

I hope you have all be enjoying the duckling diaries this week! The children have been excellent in helping to take care of the ducklings and have really enjoyed watching them. Today we let the ducklings have a run around in one of our tuff trays and were able to give them a stroke and feel how soft and fluffy they are, we also had a go at feeding them, which feels like a lovely little tickle on your hand!

We also completed our most important job of giving the ducklings names. So it is my pleasures to introduce you to…

Quacky, Sun, Fluffy, Flippy Flappy and Danny!

 

PHOTO_GRID_{REC__DUCKLINGS2}_FOLDER

 

Over the weekend the duckling will be at home with Mrs Noonan. I am hoping to set up a live stream so you can watch the ducklings throughout the weekend. They get their first swimming lesson over the weekend so that they are pros for when then come back to school. So keep checking the blog for updates!

Other Notices

Wednesday 31^st March is St Peter’s first ever ‘Egg Rolling Competition’. The children all need to bring a hardboiled egg to school that has been decorated and then we will have an egg rolling competition! There will be prizes for the best rolls and for the best-decorated eggs. I’m sure we will all have an EGGcellent time!

Please note that we finish at 2pm on Thursday 1^st April for the Easter Holidays and return to school on Tuesday 20^th April.

Our Easter service is on Thursday 1^st April at 9am.

Our learning next week will be all around Easter. We will be learning about the Easter story, making Easter crafts and of course continuing with our very important job of looking after the ducklings.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

Day 4 – Thursday 25^th March

The ducklings have had another great day in school today! They have discovered the food and water in the brooder and have been loving having a big breakfast, lunch and dinner and washing it all down with some tasty water. They have just been tucking into their end of the day snack…

 

Tomorrow we have a very important job! The ducklings need names. So bring your best ideas and by the end of the day, we will let you know the names we have chosen.

Day 3 – Wednesday 24^th March

All 5 of our ducklings have hatched. By the time Mrs Noonan got to school this morning the final duckling had hatched out of its egg and all of the ducklings were looking fluffy and warm and ready to move into their brooder.

Once the children arrived at school they helped to set up the brooder including adding some soft hay and sawdust for the bedding, some tasty food and water for the ducklings to have. Then as a class we watched as the ducklings left the incubator and discovered their new home! Watch the video to see this lovely moment.

Since then the ducklings have been having a lot of rest and many, many naps! they love having lots of cuddles with each other and getting cosy underneath their heater. 

 

Day 2 – Tuesday 23^rd March

We have 3 ducklings that have hatched!

The first duckling hatched this morning then the other two hatched just after lunch time. They all still need to get warm and fluffy inside the incubator for a while before they are ready to move to the brooder. Watch the video to see the moment that Duckling number 3 hatched out of its egg!

After the ducklings have hatched, they are exhausted! It is incredibly cute to see a duckling yawn! Reception thought that singing them some songs would help them fall asleep.

Day 1 – Monday 22^nd March

Our ducklings eggs have been delivered this afternoon!  

When they arrived they had already ‘pipped’. This means that they had made the first crack in their eggs. By the afternoon they had pecked away at the shell, using something called the ‘tooth’, which is at the end of their beaks. Each duckling has to peck over 200 times to get out of the egg. Once they have cracked all around the shell they use their legs to push out of the egg. We might be able to watch this happen tomorrow!

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We learnt that when they first come out of the shell, the ducklings are exhausted. They also are quite wet. They will have to stay inside the incubator to dry off. They are ready to move to the brooder once they have fluffed up and had a big rest. We will also needed to wait for at least two ducklings to be ready to move as they do not like being on their own.

Tomorrow we are going to spend some time looking at books and learning all about how to look after our special visitors as well as keeping an eye out to see if any of the ducklings hatch completely out of their eggs!

Keep checking the blog for more photos and information!

“Just when the caterpillar thinks the world is over, it becomes a butterfly”

Anonymous

19/03/21

This week we were very excited to meet 5 caterpillars that have joined Reception! The caterpillars are quite tiny at the moment (so small we have been using magnifying glasses to see them), but each day we are watching and observing them grow and in a few weeks will be able to see them go into their cocoons before turning into butterflies! The children have loved watching the caterpillars climb around their home and much away at their food.

The growing in Reception hasn’t stopped there! On Monday, we planted some cress seeds and have watched the changes each day as the cress grows, we have been watering them each day and making sure they get lots of sunshine. Our bean plants are also starting to sprout and we are beginning to see some roots growing too!

We have also been playing in our fruit and veg shop role play areas and using our money to buy some healthy snacks. 

 

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“Every child is an artist” Picasso

This week our art work was focused on drawing what we can really see, or observational drawings. The children are fantastic at using their imaginations and creating some wonderful pieces of art. But this week we wanted to try and draw just what we could see. We used the plants in our classroom to carefully study and look at and we tried to draw these just as we saw them. Mrs Noonan was incredibly impressed at the work we created! The children were able to chose only the correct colours, some of us mixed different shades of green for the leaves and added extra details we could spot. Have a look at the gallery to see some of our outstanding work!

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Buddy reading

On Friday we were delighted that the weather was beautiful and sunny which allowed us to meet our buddies on the playground for an outdoors, socially distanced buddy reading. The children meet in small groups, stayed 2m apart at all times, and loved listening to their buddies read them stories – much better to see them in ‘real life’ than watch them on the screen!

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Own clothes day

We all looked fabulous on Friday for our Red Nose Day. The children had some funky hairstyles going on as well as looking gorgeous in their costumes. A highlight of our day was watching in the sharing assembly to see all of the hilarious and crazy hairstyles that the children, and teachers, across the school had!

Next week…

…is a quite exciting week in Reception. I have been keeping a surprise for Reception that will be being delivered on Monday. I will give you one clue… “quack, quack!”. Keep a close eye on this blog for updates!

Our learning next week will be very much focused around our special surprise but as well as that we will be continuing with our normal lessons of PE with Mr Cotton and Music with Miss Ailsa. Our number work will be focused on finding 1 more and 1 less than numbers and our phonics will continue to learn how to spell and read cvcc and ccvc words. 

Parents evening

On Monday and Tuesday I will be meeting with you all to have our Parent’s Evening. The link to the meetings and all information will be sent directly to you. Can I please remind you that the appointments are for 10 minutes. If there is anything else that you wish to discuss that we do not have time for during these meetings I will happily arrange to speak to you at some other time. Please be a little patient on the evening also, as even with the best will in the world the meetings may run a little late –although I will endeavour to stay as on time as possible!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

Play, learn and grow together!

12/03/21

The children have had such a brilliant first week back at school. It was so lovely on Monday morning to see everyone “for real” as the children describe it. I have been so impressed with how well they have settled back into school. We have been working hard this week on our friendships, finding out how everyone is, sharing and taking turns. It has been lovely to see the children having so much fun with each other and really enjoying each other’s company.

As we settled back in so well we were able to start some of our learning activities this week and some new topics. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be focusing on Growing. We started this by looking at all of our baby pictures, which are displayed in our classroom, and talking about how we have grown and changed. The children have been measuring themselves against a height chart in our class to see how tall they all are. We have also been planting some beans, we remembered when we had learnt about the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and are growing our own bean plants! We checked that the beans we used were just normal beans and not magic ones as we didn’t think Mrs Zalar or Mr Rob would like it if a giant beanstalk that grew up to the clouds and burst through our classroom ceiling. We are carefully watching the beans and spotting when any roots begin to grow. Last year when we did this growing experiment with the children in Year 1 some of them were able to grow bean plants as big as them and eat some of the beans that grew on the plant – fingers crossed we are as successful this year. As well as these activities this week we have also enjoyed lots of other activities, we have been enjoying eating our lunch in the hall with chef Andrew, we have been putting on some very entertaining puppet shows in our theatre, we have been painting in the art room, enjoying our PE lessons with Mr Cotton, dancing in the hall and spending time in the library.

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Homework

You will have received your homework folder in your child’s bag on Thursday. Homework will come home in the folders and be uploaded onto tapestry each week. There will always be an activity and then an optional extra activity. There is also a section for parents to give some feedback on how the children found the activity or this can be done on Tapestry. Homework is due back on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Next week

Our learning next week will continue to be all about Growing. I hope that we will have some special caterpillars in our class that we will be able to observe changing and growing into butterflies. We will be looking carefully to see how the caterpillars move and grow, we hope they are not like the very hungry caterpillar and need lots of food otherwise we might have to have a chat with Chef Andrew and ask very politely for some more food!

We will be thinking and learning all about 3D shapes in Maths and revising some of the sounds we learnt during our home learning in Phonics.

Thank you

Finally, I would like to say a huge thank you for all of your congratulations and well wishes on my pregnancy. The flowers I received on Monday are beautiful and are still filling my home with a beautiful aroma. The children have been so kind and caring about the baby as well as very entertaining with some interesting ideas and questions!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

 

 

Retrouvaille

(n.) The joy of meeting or finding someone again after a long separation; rediscovery

05/03/21

I am so excited about being able to see everyone again! Monday is going to be such a lovely day to have the children back in the classroom.

Our final week of Home Learning has been excellent and the children have had a great week. A highlight was World Book day, where I think everyone enjoyed spending the day in their PJ’s and spending lots of time listening to stories and reading books. Throughout the week the children have also enjoyed discovering some new Eric Carle books in Literacy and have become super subtractors in Maths. Although I think many of the children’s favourite lesson of the week was our RE lesson. In this lesson we were discussing how God made us all Unique, and even when we were a tiny babies he knew us all and made us all special. We had a look at what we all looked like when we were babies and enjoyed guessing who was who from the pictures. I wonder if you can figure any of them out?

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Next week is going to be so exciting to be back at school. I know that some children may feel a little nervous or unsure about coming back but I hope my mid-morning on Monday we will all be in class playing and enjoying each other’s company again. The main focus of our lessons next week will all be about settling in again to school. We will have lessons to help us remember the rules and routines of our classroom, we will be playing lots of turn taking games, thinking about our kindness and sharing skills, rekindling our friendships and working as a team. As well as remembering how to tidy up the classroom and other important skills like that! We will also be going to have our lunch in the dining hall with Chef Andrew! Our original plans were to start to do this after Christmas so it is great that we are able to start this new routine. The children will be looked after by the Reception team throughout lunchtime and I’m sure will love being in the hall together for their lunch!

I hope you all have an excellent weekend and that it stays sunny!

See you all on Monday!

Mrs Noonan

 

 “Simplify, slow down, be kind. And don’t forget to have art in your life, music, painting, theatre, dance and sunsets”

Eric Carle

In Reception over the next few weeks will be using the stories of Eric Carle to focus our learning on. This week started with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Mixed Up Chameleon. The children all really enjoyed using these stories for their lessons and made some excellent work based on them. Next week we are going to continue to use Eric Carle’s stories for our lessons.

In Maths, we learnt the very useful skill of counting using tally marks. The children made their own tally charts. We are all looking forward to being back in school when we can create more of the charts and ask all of our friends the questions and record their answers in our charts.

Talking of being back in school our week this week started off with the excellent news that the children will be able to return to school on Monday 8^th March. We cannot wait to be able to see each other again and get back to playing together, learning together and having fun! I will send out more information about our return and all the information you will need next week!

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Next week

In our final week of home learning, our lessons will be focused on:

Literacy – We continue with the stories of Eric Carle. We will be learning through a new story each day have lots of fun activities to take part in based on the stories.

Maths – Our lessons will be focused on the skill of subtracting and we will be putting all of our great number knowledge to use to learn this new skill.

Phonics – having learnt about how two letters can make one sound we will continue to learn some new diagraphs including ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘sh’ and ‘ck’

Physical Development – will continue with our lessons with Mr Cotton everyday and our yoga, dough discos and dance sessions.

RE – will teach us all about how we are unique and special

Mr Cotton’s New Competition

Mr Cotton has set up a new competition for us to take part in. Head over to the Tapestry or Google Drive to watch the video and see what you need to do to take part.

I hope you all enjoy the lovely sunshine this weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

12/02/21

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone! Today is Chinese New Year and the children in Reception have been celebrating all day. They started their day by learning all about the story of the animal race which decided the order of the zodiac calendar. This year is the year of the Ox. We also learnt that all of the children in the class were born in the year of the goat or monkey! Whereas Mrs Noonan is a rabbit! Then the children learned about traditions on Chinese New Year including making a wish for the wishing tree, the children came up with beautiful ideas for their wishes.

This week has been so much fun to see the children truly embrace their inner scientists, technicians, engineers and mathematicians! The children have fully thrown themselves into all of the week’s challenges and learning. Firstly, a huge thank you to all of the parents and adults at home who have helped facilitate the children’s activities this week. We started with our bubble challenge and the children found the most amazing, innovative ways to make bubbles. Then we moved onto our excellent creative skills to learn all about mixing colours and created some beautiful art work and super characters based on the story of ‘Mixed’ by Arree Chung. On DT Day Reception focused on the story of ‘The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff’, they built bridges, made troll spotting binoculars and their own scary trolls! Finally, they made some excellent paper airplanes to complete the final challenge of the week. Take a look at the amazing gallery below to see all of what we have been up to!

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Thank you to everyone who took part in Miss Cook and Mr Cotton’s Yoga and Football challenge. It was so lovely to feel the whole community taking part in the same activity and great to see everyone being so active! Take a look at the gallery below to see all of the children from across the school in their excellent yoga poses!

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I hope everyone has a lovely half term holiday, that you all stay safe and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday 22^nd February to start our next half term!

Mrs Noonan

“Kindness spreads kindness” â?¤ï¸?

Sadie

05/02/21

I thought that this quote from one of our classmates was the perfect quote for this week’s blog! After listening to the story of the Good Samaritan in their RE lesson this week the children thought about the acts of kindness they could do. I heard about all of the children going above and beyond our expectations of just how kind they could be. The children were looking after little brothers and sisters, tidying up their toys, wiping down the table after dinner, making special cards for their family, drawing pictures to make people smile to name but a few of their kind acts. I was so proud to see the extra effort they made to be the kindest person they could be and as Sadie wisely said, ‘kindness spreads kindness’! We did chat in our story time about trying to be this kind every day and I hope the children have been able to keep up this huge effort and will continue to do so over the weekend.

Have a look at the pictures below to see what we have been up to this week.

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Next Week

Next week the children will be joining in with STEM week. STEM is science, technology, engineering and mathematics and we will be planning lots of activities for the children to explore, experiment and learn in these areas. There have been letters sent with information on all of the resources you will need for the week.

There is one more week until half term and I am sure it is going to be a week that the children are going to really enjoy!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

“Little pig, little pig let me in…”

The Big Bad Wolf

29/01/21

Yet another week of outstanding learning in Reception! The highlight of this week was watching the amazing performances the children created of The Three Little Pigs! They were so creative in their ideas of how to retell the story; we had homemade masks, puppets and models. The children built amazing houses made of straw, sticks and bricks (or good substitutes to those materials) to help them retell the story and then used the most brilliant character voices for the Big Bad Wolf and the Little Pigs!

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 The children thoroughly enjoyed visiting Ten Town again this week, practising lots of their maths skills and learning about the numbers 11 – 20! Another highlight of this week was seeing the amazing work the children produced when they were photographers. Set the challenge to take photos such as ‘a photo of something beautiful, something you love, something red, something circular etc. they all did a brilliant job and made excellent photographers! There were also some great selfies too!

Class Chats

This week was our first week of Class Chats. It was so lovely to be able to spend some time with the children in smaller groups and have a good discussion with them all. This week the children were showing their favourite toy or present they got at Christmas. There was a huge range of amazing toys on show and it was so interesting to hear from the children about their choices. Next week we are going to be meeting at the same times and playing ‘Would you rather…?’ starting off with

Would you rather get into a bath of jelly or a bath of beans?

Next week’s learning:

• Literacy – we will be learning through the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We will continue to use some of the same activities such as sequencing, sentence writing as we have in the previous week’s learning.
• Maths – This week our focus will be on Measures. We will be having lessons on length, weight, capacity and ordering by size. The learning objectives for this week will be familiar to the children and will include learning that they will be confident with. It will be a good opportunity to consolidate their understanding in this area of Maths.
• Physical Development – the weekly Yoga lesson will be shared on Tuesday and Mr Cotton will continue to lessons on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Our Dough Disco will be on Tuesday and dance on Thursday.
• Phonics – this week we are going to revising our learning from previous weeks including the sounds learnt last week. Repetition and application is key in phonics so revising previous learning helps secure the children’s knowledge and to learn through what they know.
• RE – our RE lesson this week is based on the story of ‘The Good Samaritan’
• Music – We are continuing with our two music lessons, on Monday there is the Oak National lesson and then on Thursday we will have a lesson from our new Music teacher.
• PSED – On Friday our Personal, Social and Emotional development lesson will continue.

Having checked the weather forecast I don’t think we are going to get the amazing snow weekend we got to enjoy last week, but I still hope you have an enjoyable, restful weekend and look forward to seeing you all on Monday!

Mrs Noonan

“You are powerful and your voice matters!”

Vice President Kamala Harris

22/01/21

Time flies when you are having fun! Another week of Home learning is done. Just as in previous weeks, I have been so impressed by the amazing learning that the children have done this week. It is so incredible to see the progress that all of the children are making, and that is down to you, parents, and all of the extra support, effort and time you are giving to help the children.

Have a look at the gallery to see what we have all been up to…

 

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Next week

• Literacy – we will be learning through the story of The Three Little Pigs this week. We will continue to use some of the same activities such as sequencing, sentence writing as we have in the previous week’s learning. This allows the children to become more confident in the activity and develop upon their existing skills.
• Maths - This week we are going to take a break from new learning and have some time revising things we know. We are going to do this by visiting Ten Town each day and listening to the stories of two characters each day. We will be working through the teen numbers 11 – 20 and each day will have another element of maths to revise. I think the children are ready for a week to consolidate their learning and they do love the Ten Town lessons! Each Ten Town lesson has a video and a song.
• Physical Development – the weekly Yoga lesson will be shared on Tuesday and Mr Cotton will continue to lessons on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Our Dough Disco will be on Tuesday and dance on Thursday.
• Phonics – this week we are going to be learning our first double letter sounds. These start with sounds that have the same letter making a sound i.e. ‘ff’ in ‘huff’ or ‘ss’ in ‘kiss’
• Understanding the World – Our Wednesday lesson this week will be from the ‘technology’ Early Learning Goal and the children will be taking part in a Photo Challenge!
• Music – We are continuing with our two music lessons, on Monday there is the Oak National lesson and then on Thursday we will have a lesson from our new Music teacher.
• PSED – On Friday our Personal, Social and Emotional development lesson will continue.

PE Competitions

In order to keep up our customary St Peter’s sporting and competitive enthusiasm, we will be hosting some PE competitions that you can complete from the comfort of your home - how exciting!

Mr Cotton and Miss Cook will go into more detail in a video which will be shared soon regarding the competition but there are two optional competitions to enter:

1. How many keepy-uppies you can do without dropping the ball on the ground.
2. Find your favourite place in your house, garden or park (you could even Photoshop yourself onto a digital image for those tech savvy children) and perform your favourite yoga pose. Be as creative as possible.

All entries must be uploaded by Friday 5^th February 2021.

Please use the Tapestry activities to upload your pictures or videos and enter the competition.

In you have any queries, please contact communications with the subject as: FAO Miss Cook

PS - parents and teachers you can get involved too...

We will select a KS1 winner, a KS2 winner and an overall House Winner (house with the most total points).

Best of luck St Peter’s

Class Chats

Next week we will be adding a daily session to the timetable of ‘Class Chat’

To give the children a chance to talk to each other and for me to be able to catch up with the children in a smaller group (compared to our Register and Story time sessions) we are going to be holding some ‘Small Group Chat’ sessions. These will run from Monday – Thursday between 2.45 – 3pm so we can join the Story time session at 3pm with the rest of the class.

The main aim of this session will be to give the children a chance to see some of their classmates and a chance to talk to them. I will lead the conversation and give each session a small focus.

Our first week will be – Show us your favourite Christmas present or toy!

I’ve seen the children showing lots of their toys during our story times so I thought this would be an engaging start to our chats.

I will include a separate link on the weekly timetable on Google Drive for these sessions.

Please check in the letter shared with parents on Friday through parent mail to see which day your child’s session is.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

Run, run as fast as you can you can’t catch me…

The Gingerbread Man

15/01/21

Another amazing week of home learning from Reception! We have been talking in our morning register meetings about our school value of perseverance and not giving up. This week I think we were all starting to feel that the novelty of learning from home may have lost its shine and that the new routine was now well embedded but getting trickier to keep persevering at. But, the children have really risen to the challenge! The work they have been producing has been outstanding and they have all tried their best…which is all we can ask for!

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The Gingerbread Man

The children have really enjoyed exploring the story of the gingerbread man. They have been listening carefully to the story, learning the repeated phrases and writing sentences based on the story. I think the children enjoyed the lessons where they could act out the story the most. I think we have some future Oscar winners in the class! The children then also changed the story of the Gingerbread man and added their own characters to the story. The Gingerbread Man went to visit places and animals in jungles, the zoo, and the artic and even met some dinosaurs!

"Money, Money, Money…its so funny!"

Abba

Our Maths learning has been all about Money this week. We have learnt how to recognise the coins and their values, add coins together and how to pay for items at the shop. The children had a go at making their own shops at home and selling lots of different items to their families!

On top of all that amazing learning we have also been taking part in Mr Cotton’s daily PE lessons, having some dough discos, learning about the Miracles of Jesus in our RE lessons and a highlight of our week was also Mr Alex’s music lesson which was thoroughly enjoyed my the children, their siblings and parents alike!

Thank you Buddies

As our buddies are also at home working hard we were so pleased to see some of them (virtually) this week as they had made a video for us of them reading us some stories. It was the perfect Friday treat and we loved seeing our buddies! Thank you!

Next Week

We are going start a new story in Literacy…I’ll give you a clue – she loves porridge! Our number work will be learning all about doubles and we will continue to have our afternoon sessions including learning about a new story of Jesus’ miracles.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and get outside for some fresh air and have a big rest ready again for next week!

Mrs Noonan

“One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world”

Malala Yousafzai

08/01/21

Happy New Year!

Our first week of Home learning is finished! What super stars the children have been. I have been so impressed by their resilience and adaptability to be able to get used to our new normal. I have loved being able to meet with you all, virtually, at the beginning and end of each day – it is so lovely to be able to see the children’s smiley faces and to give them a chance to say hello to each other and keep connected.

Normally in my blogs I now tell you all about what we have been doing all week – but you know this inside out this week. I’m sure you will agree with me that the children have created some excellent work this week. I know that there will be some lessons that the children find easier than others and some that they will find more challenging, but all I ask as ever, is for the children to try their best. On some days that best might look quite different from other days, as with all of us, the children will have good days and days when they are more tired.

Thank you so much parents for your amazing efforts in uploading onto Tapestry the children’s work and updates on what they have been doing. It is so encouraging to still be able to witness the children’s progress. I love seeing all of the updates. I have to say I think my favourites this week were definitely the retelling Little Red Riding Hood videos, some of the starring roles made by pet cats playing the part of the Big Bad Wolf but a huge smile on my face!

Next week we will be moving onto a new traditional tale – The Gingerbread Man. So expect lots of “run, run as fast as you can!”. We will be following a similar format the this week with reading the story, learning to retell it and creating some writing focused on the story. Our maths work will be looking at money. The children need to understand what money is used for, recognise some coins and then be able to add small coins together. The phonics next week is going to be a revision week. This weeks lessons included a lot of new sounds so I want to give the children a chance to revise these sounds and others they have learnt, we will also be revising some of the trickier everyday words. Our RE will be focused on the ‘Miracles of Jesus’ and learning of through some of the stories of the miracles he performed. Our physical education will continue with some more yoga, a dough disco and Mr Cotton’s live PE lessons.

On Friday I will email you all the link to the Google Drive for the work and recorded videos for next week and the timetable for the week.

I hope you all have a restful, enjoyable weekend. Thank you again for all your hard work this week and I look forward to seeing you at the register google meet on Monday morning.

If there is anything else I can support you with or any questions or queries then please do not hesitate to get in contact.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

“Little Donkey, Little Donkey on the dusty road…”

Reception Class

18/12/20

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

Firstly, I have to say a huge well done to all the children in Key Stage 1 and Reception for their fantastic performance of the Nativity ‘Midwife Crisis’ the children all spoke sang and danced brilliantly and shared the message of Jesus’ birth to all of us. Reception sang their songs so well and really enjoyed joining in with the singing and actions throughout the show. I hope you all enjoyed watching the video of the show at homes and sharing the joy of a nativity with your families.

Christmas Service

On Friday, we watched our Christmas service from Charles in class. We loved listening to our Year 6 buddies sing the beautiful carols and watching our friends read the Christmas prayers.

Father Christmas at the Lyric

During our party day we thoroughly enjoyed watching the recorded performance of Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs. Although this is usually a performance we enjoy live at the lyric it was excellent to provide the opportunity for the children to watch the stage performance in school.

Lunch times

Following our brilliant and delicious Christmas lunch on Monday the reception children have been able to start having their lunch in the hall. We are still remaining within our own bubble and the class are continuing to be looked after by the Reception team but we are now able to go and enjoy our lunch in the hall. This will continue in the Spring term.

Next term

Our theme for our learning next term will be ‘Traditional tales’. We will be using these tales to focus our learning across all of the areas of learning. So expect a lot of big bad wolves, run, run as fast as you can and watch out for giants coming down the beanstalk!

Finally, I would like to share a message from the whole reception team. A huge thank you for your generosity, your kind words and gifts are greatly appreciated. It has been a very unusual first term, one unlike any other, but your children have brightened each and every day and have been a pleasure to get to know and teach.

I hope you all have a peaceful, fun Christmas break – with lots of rest (I think we all need it!)

Have a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mrs Noonan ðŸ?…  

 

“Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas means a little bit more…”

The Grinch By Dr. Seuss

11/12/20

On Thursday, the children took part in the filming of the nativity show ‘A Midwife crisis’. They were true professionals! Even under the spotlights and cameras their signing was truly amazing and they all had such a good time and quite a unique experience for their first nativity at St Peters. I cannot wait for you all to see the final production next week!

As well as rehearsing this week the children have been in full creative Christmas mode in class. We have been making some special cards and presents that will be coming home next week. We all looked fantastically festive on Friday wearing our Christmas jumpers, thank you for all of the donations towards the Children’s charity. Have a look at some of the Christmas activities we have been up to...

Can you believe it is the final week of term next week? The children are already a third of their way through the year. And what a brilliant term it has been! One more very busy week to go…

Next week is going to be a very festive one!

On Monday, we will be having our Christmas Dinner! The children will be going to the hall to join in with their Christmas lunch and I am sure Chef Andrew has some tasty treats in stall for us!

We will be continuing to learn about the Christmas story and creating some Christmas crafts in our classroom.

On Thursday, we will be having our party day! The children can come into school in their Christmas Party wear (any clothes they would like to wear to a party!) and we will be enjoying a fun filled day. We will be watching the recording of the ‘Father Christmas’ by Raymond Briggs show in the hall, and then having some party games, dancing and boogieing in the classroom in the afternoon – I can’t wait to see receptions dance moves!

Have a restful weekend – we will need a lot of energy next week!

Mrs Noonan

“Stick man, I’m Stick man that’s me…”

04/12/20

We have loved learning this week and all of our work has been focused on ‘Stick man’ by Julia Donaldson. We started by listening to the story and looking at the order of when things happened to the poor stick man, we then used the sticks to do some height ordering from longest to shortest. Then we used the sticks to practise our positional language. After that we did a little bit of magic with googly eyes and PVA glue to turn a normal stick into a real stick man! The children were very creative with their designs.

Then on Wednesday morning, we went to Ravenscourt Park for a ‘Stickman Adventure’ and explored the park with our stick men. Before our trip on Wednesday, Year 6 learnt the whole book and performed it to us (socially distanced in the playground) we loved listening to our buddies perform the story!

Then when we arrived at the park on Wednesday we explored and found adventures all over the park! The children behaved beautifully and were a credit to St Peter’s.

On Wednesday and Thursday, our focus was all about being a good friend. We spent some time rotating between some special friendship activities and choosing special friends to play with, we also tried to have turn playing with different people that we usually do. The children were all exceptionally kind to each other and are really starting to create some special friendships with many children in the class.

Our classroom is looking particularly festive at the moment! Our Christmas writing area has lots of resources to help make cards to send to our friends and the post box is getting very full of our creations. We also have a Christmas home corner, complete with our own tree to decorate!

Movie Night

We had an excellent time on Thursday night for Movie Night. A bit different this year being in our classroom, but we had so much fun. The children loved the film….and the snacks!

Don’t forget…

Our virtual Christmas fair is this Saturday!

Nativity update

Thank you so much for the hard work you have all being doing in practising the songs at home – please keep practising over the weekend so the children are ready for the recording later on next week.

Costumes – if you haven’t already please bring in your costumes as soon as possible.

Next week

Our week next week will be particularly focused on getting ready for performing our nativity songs, including chances for us to go and practise on the real stage! We are also going to getting some Christmas crafts and cards ready but they are a surprise…so I can’t tell you much about them!

Next Friday is the Christmas jumper day in school for ‘save the Children’ so please come to school in your best Christmas attire!

Mrs Noonan

“Superworm is super strong, Superworm is super long”

Superworm by Julia Donaldson

27/11/20

Our learning this week has been busy, busy, busy! Our math’s work has been focused on addition. The children have learnt the concept excellently finding all different ways to add objects together. Our favourite has been using our numicon counters to add amounts together.

This week we started to use our writing books to use all of the great phonics skills we have learnt. The children were writing all about Superworm and using the sentence starter ‘I am a…’ and finishing the sentences with all of amazing things that Superworm can turn into.

As well our extra hard work in maths and phonics we have also been enjoying continuing to fly around the classroom as superheroes, practicing our cutting and sticking skills and doing lots of playing in the outside area.

Have a look at some of our super writing…

A few notices for you…

Foodbank Advent Collection

Our School Council is currently collecting items to give to the Hammersmith and Fulham Foodbank to support the local community over the Christmas period.

Children can bring any items they wish to donate into school and give them to their class teacher. We are hoping to make a final collection on the 11^th December.

For a list of food items the foodbank accepts, please follow the link below.

https://hammersmithfulham.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-food/

Clubs

This week was the last week of clubs. They will continue again in January and information about this will be sent out in the New Year.

Technology at home form

Thank you so much to the parents who have returned their ‘technology at home’ Questionnaire. If you haven’t returned your form please complete it and place it in your child’s reading folder next week.

Nativity

Today you will have received both an email from Mrs. Zalar and a letter home about the Nativity.

Our show is called ‘A Midwife Crisis’. At St Peter’s the Nativity is performed by Years 1 and 2 and Reception. In Reception, the children perform a couple of songs.  The children in Year 1 and 2 perform the characters and narrate the show – so it will not be long until Reception have their turn when they are in Year 1 and 2!

As you may be aware, under current COVID restrictions we cannot sing these songs as a whole class as we would normally do to practise in school. Please find some time to practise at home as this will really help the children in learning the words and the melodies of the songs.

At the top of the page, I have saved a link at the top of the page called ‘Nativity Documents’ which has a copy of the lyrics, a video of the song Little Donkey and the tracks for the ‘Baa Baa Bethlehem’ song.

Next week

“I’m Stickman I’m Stickman that’s me!”

Our learning next week is going to be based on the Julia Donaldson story Stickman! We will be making our very own stickmen, learning about measuring and ordering lengths in maths and complete some more writing all about the stickman story.

Stickman Adventure

Early on next week the children will be making their own Stickmen! So we will, naturally, need to go on a stickman adventure. The children will be going in small groups to St Peter’s square to take our stickmen for an adventure. More information, and a consent form will be sent out on parent mail.

We will also, of course, be practicing our Nativity songs, as much as we can.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

“You are stronger than you believe. You have greater powers than you know.”

Wonder Woman

19/11/20

This week at St Peter’s we have been learning about Anti-bullying week. In Reception, we have been focusing on being a good friend and talking about what we can do to be a good friend. The children have been brilliant all week, taking extra care to help others and share with them. Learning how to negotiate and work things out ‘using their words’ and trying to solve problems without always needing a teachers help.

On Monday, we all looked excellent in our odd socks supporting ‘Odd Socks day’ organised for Anti-bullying week. The children designed their own pair of odd socks and talked about how we are all different and that the fact that we are is something to celebrate.

Is it a bird?…Is it a plane?...

No its Reception being superheroes!

Our role play area this week has been transformed into a ‘superhero headquarters’. The children thought about what they would like to have as a super power. Flying was very popular as well as being able to run so fast you could run on water! The children then loved playing all day as superheroes completing super hero missions for Miss Wheeler and I and making sure they were helping everyone.

 

We have loved joining in with the actions of this Superhero song...why not have a listen and a go at home! 

 

Diwali

On Tuesday we learnt all about the festival of Diwali. The children learnt about how the festival is celebrated. As Diwali is the festival of lights, the children then went to the Art Room and had a go making their own diyas. They moulded, squashed and pinched the clay into the shape for the diya. We then left them to dry for a few days before painting and decorating them on Friday. Once they are dry we will be bringing our amazing creations home. The children also learnt about Rangoli patterns. We had a go making Rangoli patterns on paper, using chalk on the floor in the playground and using the interactive whiteboard to make our own designs.

Next week

Next week we will continue to look at some more of the excellent stories by Julia Donaldson. The texts we will be focusing on next week will be ‘The Snail and the Whale’ and ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’. We are going to start using all the phonics knowledge we have been learning to write sentences about the characters.

We will be learning all about addition in maths. We have great knowledge of our numbers and there representations so we will be using these skills to learn how to find the total of two amounts using addition. If you would like to practise at home over the weekend why not try finding two dice, roll them both and add the numbers together. I wonder what the largest number you could make is? I wonder what the smallest amount you can have when adding two dice together?

Our role play area will continue to be a ‘Superhero headquarters’ and the superheroes in the class will be challenged by some new adventures and tasks to help out the whole class.

Reminders

Library Books – thank you so much for everyone remembering to return the library books each week! The children are loving their time going to the library to choose a new books. We will be giving the children new bookmarks this week which will have the colour of their house group on – this is just to help us in school organise the books a bit more efficiently. So please do not worry if you see a new bookmark coming home, everyone is getting a new one.

Names in uniform – can you all please just double check that names are in all pieces of uniform and are clear to read. Also if you child is starting to bring in hats, gloves, scarfs in this cold weather then having a name tag on these is also really helpful for the end of the day when we are getting the children to gather all of their items to go home.

Have  a lovely weekend

Mrs Noonan

“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest!”

C.S. Lewis

13/11/20

This week has been another great one in reception. We continued our learning this week using the stories of Julia Donaldson. We are getting very good at making up actions, using voices and joining in with our favourite stories. As the quote from C.S. Lewis above Mrs Noonan loves reading Julia Donaldson stories and never gets carried away with the actions and voices…honestly! As well as our usual PE lessons, Music lessons, Phonics, maths and dough discos this week also had our first DT day!

On Wednesday, we took part in our first DT day. DT days happen once per term and are based upon a theme. Every child in the school takes part and spends the day producing a product that fits the purpose of the day. No ‘normal’ lessons take place just lots of designing, making and evaluating. The theme for this DT Day was Techcard. We were making a pull along truck using wheels, axels and a baseboard.  

The children loved using the junior hacksaw to cut their doweling in half, decorating their bas cards in patterns and pictures. They then had some tricky gluing to do to assemble the pull along truck before adding the wheels.

After we had made the pull along trucks we explored how much they could carry and how many objects they could hold. We did some excellent counting and estimating to see how many of our cubes and small teddy counters we could fit into the trucks. I wonder what objects you can find at home to fill the truck with?

Remembrance Day

The children all made the most beautiful poppies to wear on 11^th November. They joined in beautifully with the 2-minute silence with the school and watched this beautiful video to help them understand why we were wearing poppies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04p4zsl/poppies

Parents evening

I wanted to say a huge thank you to all the parents for attending the virtual parents evening it was a new experience for all of us but one that went as smoothly as possible and it was such a good opportunity fir us all to catch up and discuss the amazing progress the children are making.

Next week

Next week is anti-bullying week at school which is starting off by us all wearing odd socks on Monday. In reception we will be focusing on how we can be good friends and celebrating our differences. We will be using the story of ‘The Highway Rat’ by Julia Donaldson to think about how our actions affect others. . Next week we will continue to work on our phonics and shape work in maths. Our role play area will be changing to a ‘Superhero headquarters!’ next week. The children will be inspired by the story of ‘Super worm’ by Julia Donaldson to think about what helpful superheroes then can be! On Tuesday we will be learning about the celebration of Diwali! We will be going to the art room to create some amazingly exciting activities…but I’ll save what they are for a surprise!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is a success”

Henry Ford

06/11/20

Firstly, I hope everyone had a lovely half term break. I have been hearing from the children all week about some of the exciting things you all did.  I had a very relaxing week at home, and now hopefully we are all ready for the next half term and the exciting lead up to Christmas! (I know - already!?!)

This week we have been getting back into our routines in school. We reminded ourselves of our school rules and have been working as a team.

We started our new topic on Julia Donaldson books. We have been reading a variety of her books and focusing on Room on the Broom this week. We have been joining with the story when listening to the book, finding the rhyming words and enjoying discussing the orders and characters.  The highlight of our week was our first ‘Buddy Reading Session!’ we virtually meet our buddies and watched as they read and performed Julia Donaldson stories for us – thank you Year 6 for rehearsing and making such excellent and entertaining performances for us.

On Thursday, we enjoyed attending our first Poetry Recital assembly. We loved listening to each class perform a poem and we were particularly proud of our buddies! The next Poetry Recital will be in Spring and it will be our turn to perform.

Welcome to school!

Our role play area has been transferred into a school! The children have been taking it in turns to be the teacher and have been running maths, phonics and music lessons, taking the register, leading the children in saying the end of the day prayer and reminding them how to sit nicely on the carpet. It has been so entertaining (and funny) to watch their role play and see how much they have enjoyed ‘playing teacher’!

RE Lessons

To finish off our unit of work the children were looking at the God’s Creations. We firstly answered the question “Where is the most beautiful place you have ever been” We had some amazing answers including some very exotic places around the world, anywhere with lots of flowers and somewhere with lots of snow. Then we discussed how we are surrounded by God’s creations and when we look out the window or look outside, we can spot the wonderful things that make our world beautiful! The children then went on a hunt outside, armed with clipboards, to make a note of all the creations they could spot.

Parents Evening

Our virtual parent’s evenings will be taking place on Monday and Tuesday. Can I please remind you that these are 10-minute appointments. More than ever with us having to run these meetings virtually we need to ensure that we are running on time and keeping to the 10 minute timeframe. If there is something that you would like to discuss in more details with me then please let me know.

Your will be sent a link to join the meetings. Once you have requested to join it may take a minute for two for me to allow you into the meeting so please be patient. I am looking forward to chatting to you all and haring the great progress the children have made.

Reading Folders

I hope the letter shared earlier this week was informative and answered any questions you have about the reading folders and how to use the reading records. It has been excellent to see the effort being made at home to support the children in their reading and I want to say a huge thank you for that. The children are all making excellent progress with learning their everyday words – keep up the good work!

A message from Miss Cook:

House Athletics Competition

We would like to congratulate all of the children for their wonderful sporting skills in athletics. Mr Cotton was so pleased with the determination and sportsmanship he saw. We would like to give an almighty congratulations to the children in Keys who received the most points in the competition, well done.

We look forward to running the next house sporting competitions at the end of this term. Thank you, Miss Cook

This week has been so lovely to be back at school and it has been such a joy to see the children again. With everything else that is going on in the world this week having St. Peter’s as a haven of learning, creativity and community makes us all feel very fortunate. As an Early Years team we want to say a huge thank you to parents for wearing masks on drop off/collection and using the social distancing lines to keep us all safe.

Have a lovely weekend, and keep safe

Mrs Noonan

"For me, it’s just about being myself, leading from the heart and playing with my heart on my sleeve – which is what I try and do every game."

Serena Guthrie MBE– England Roses’ Captain

23/10/20

Black History Month

This week the entire school has been celebrating Black History Month. In Reception we have been learning about the stories of Anansi the Spider from Ghana. The children have learnt about how Anansi got his skinny waist and legs from being too greedy and enjoyed the story when Anansi showed the bigger animals that even the smallest of creatures can be strong and clever! Our favourite story was about Anansi’s six sons. The children also used the beautiful art from the storybook/ to inspire some beautiful pieces of work. Have a look at some of our beautiful creations…

One of the highlighted of this week has been sharing some amazing books and stories with the children. One of my favourite this week is the excellent ‘Coming to England’ by Baroness Floella Benjamin which tell her story of her journey from Trinidad to London in 1960.

To listen to a version of the story click here: Coming to England

Below is a link to a virtual library with some more amazing stories and books celebrating diversity:

Virtual Library

Along came a different…

To help Reception engage in the important messages of Black history Month and ‘Show racism the red card’ we have been reading a story called ‘Along came a different’ by Tom McLaughlin. In this story there are lots of shape characters the yellow squares, the blue triangles and the red circles. At the beginning of the story we were shocked that the blue triangles wouldn’t share with the yellow squares because they only like blue things and the red circles made a space that was for ‘reds only’. But…along came a “different different!” This was a shape made up of lots of other shapes and was the most colourful shape there has ever been. Most importantly this “different different” shape likes blue, red, yellow and all of the colours and will share and be kind to everyone. The story finishes with the very important message…”being different is the best thing ever!” In our Art lessons this week we painted some of the colour shapes and then we learnt how to make other colours by mixing red, yellow and blue together. We then created our own ‘different different’ shape by working together in teams.

If you would like to listen to this story at home together then you can watch this recent Cbeebies bedtime story: Along came a Different

We also had a lot of fun this week exploring our senses. A huge thank you to Chef Andrew for giving us a set of fresh herbs and spices to explore and discuss. The children loved smelling the herbs and talking about what they reminded them of, which were their favourites and if they liked the smells or not.

Our Year 6 Buddies

On Friday we had a virtual meeting with our Year 6 Buddies where we all introduced ourselves and shared our plans for our weekly Buddy Reading sessions next half term. The Reception children all loved waving and saying hello to their buddies and can’t wait to hear the stories that Year 6 prepare for them next half term.

House Competitions

What a wonderful week for sport. Thank you to all year groups for taking part in the house athletics competitions this week, it has been lovely to get the children involved in competitive sport, and they really enjoy it. It has been a very close call all week but Mr Cotton will tally up the results and announce the winning house after half term. Best wishes, Miss Cook 

Reading Folders

On Friday the children will be bringing home their reading folders for the first time. In this folder there is your child’s reading record (yellow small book – please read the information inside the front cover) and a copy of letters about Everyday Words and Mathletics and Readiwriter.

Please can the children’s reading folders be brought into school every day from after the half term. We will be beginning the children on the reading scheme after the holidays and will need access to their folders every day. Once your child has a reading books these will be changed on Monday and Thursdays.

In the meantime the children have their first set of everyday words to begin to learn – happy reading!

Happy Half Term

Finally, I wanted to say thank you to all the children and parents for such a brilliant first half term! I can’t quite believe it is the half term holidays already and we are already 1/6 of the way through Reception! The children have been exceptional! For many of them this is the first time they have been in an education setting full time, and it has been a long time for many of them since they have been due to lock down. They have adapted to the new rules and routines beautifully, they are becoming more independent and resilient, they have learnt to make new friends, share with others and be kind and caring to all, they have got to know all of the Early Years team and become confident when talking and sharing their ideas with adults and peers, they have taken part in phonics, maths, PE, art and RE lessons to name but a few of the areas they have developed their learning in…not bad for your first 6 weeks at school!

Have a lovely, restful week and I will see you all again on November 2^nd

Mrs Noonan

“I am perfectly designed…”

Karamo Brown

16/10/20

Another busy week in Reception has flown by! And a busy one it has been too!
On Friday this week we all looked excellent adding something red to our uniforms to support ‘Show Racism the Red card’. In Reception, we have been thinking about what makes us all unique and how we can celebrate our differences and our similarities.  We have read some lovely stories such as ‘All are welcome’ by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman, ‘my world, your world’ by Melanie Walsh and ‘I am perfectly designed’ by Karamo Brown which have helped us to understand that even if someone looks, speaks or sounds different than we do we all have so much in common and are all unique and perfect.

Earlier this week our maths work was focused on capacity. We had a lot of fun in the water trays filling pouring and measuring to show full, half full, empty, nearly empty and nearly full!

Thank you for the donations of leaves and autumn items. The children have loved exploring them and then created their own beautiful autumn leaves which are now decorating our new autumn reading area – because who doesn’t love cosying up on an autumn day with a good book!

Inspiration sparks everywhere…

While sharing our WOW notes this week we heard all about an experiment that Louanne had done at home using pens and kitchen roll that created magical pictures!

One of our favourite things to do in Reception sis be inspired by the children so…Friday afternoon we dropped everything and decided it was time to get experimenting! We watched an instruction video to see how to make the magical pictures and then watched our experiments and we were amazed!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Receptions are winners!

Miss Cook announced in Fridays assembly that Reception were the class to have the most children walking, cycling or scooting to school each day of ‘Walk to School Week’. We are all very pleased with certificate. Well done everyone and keep it up!

A few reminders:

Water Bottles

Please make sure your child has their own water bottle with them each day in school.

Names on Clothes

It is always after a few weeks and many washes that names in jumpers become trickier to read or are washed off. Please check that names in all jumpers (including PE) are clearly named. Thank you.

WOW Notes

Thank you so much for the WOW notes we have received so far this year. I sent home a few extra copies this week but if you ever need any more copies let us know. It is such a joy to share the children success and see how proud they are to share with their friends their achievements. Keep them coming

Black History week

Next week we are celebrating Black History Month in school. We will listening to stories from different cultures and in Reception; we will be focusing on the story of Anansi and learning about some inspirational people.  

If you have any books, resources or ideas to help support or learning during our week then please get in contact – I would love to hear your suggestions.

As I’m sure you have noticed the children are all getting quite tired at the end of a very long and exciting first half term at school, some big sleeps and lots of rest this weekend is what we all need (Mrs Noonan included!). 

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

 

“Doctor Doctor I feel like a bell….’

“Well take 2 of these and if they don’t work give me a ring!”

09/10/20

A broken arm, sore tummy, banged head, broken fingers, blocked ears and 4 sprained ankles and that’s only the aliments that Mrs Noonan has had this week! Luckily, the doctors in our role play area have been on hand with their bandages and medicines to make everything better again and make sure everyone is fit and healthy for the weekend.

The Early Years Team and I have been so impressed this week watching all of the children engage so brilliantly in their learning. They are sharing with each other, trying their best to remember their manners and very importantly helping to tidy up after we have had so much fun learning!  Maths this week has been looking at ordering numbers to 10. The children have been hugely impressive in their phonics lessons where we have been focusing on the letters s, a, t, i, m, o and p. The children have been writing words such as pat, tap, sat, mat, in and is. They are beginning to form their letters correctly and are using great segmenting and blending skills. Don’t forget to look at the Sounds Write website for more information about the phonics scheme we are using and if you get a chance to download the app then the children can show off their skills to you at home.

In our RE lesson this week we learnt about the Creation story. The children loved thinking about all of the amazing things God’s created for us. After listening to the story the children then created  their own worlds using the resources in our classroom.

The children have adapted so well to eating their lunches in the art room and are thoroughly enjoying the new menu! We also used the art room this week to create some beautiful Autumn art work – colourful leaves and beautiful trees. The leaves have helped to decorate our autumn reading corner and the Trees will be displayed in the art room for all to admire!

If you are out on an Autumn walk this weekend and find any beautiful leaves, conkers or autumn items then please collect them and bring them into school for us to use in lots of creative ways.

“I like big trucks and I cannot lie…”

A huge thank you for all the kind donations of trucks, diggers, cranes that we have been given this week. They have been a huge hit with the children and they have had so much fun with them!

Upcoming events and dates for your diary:

Show Racism the Red card

On Friday 16^th October we are asking all of the children to add something red to their uniform to mark the national event ‘Show Racism the Red Card’. In Reception we will be focusing on how God made us all unique and celebrating what makes us special in our RE lessons.

Black History Week

The week beginning 15^th October as a school we will be celebrating Black History Month. If you have any ideas or suggestions to help us celebrate or would like to find a virtual way to be involved then please let me know.

Sporting News – A message from Miss Cook

During the final week of school, before half term (week commencing 19^th October 2020), within our PE lessons, we will be running sporting House Competitions. The competitions will be house athletics competitions which will take place within each year group. 

Each class will be divided into their house groups where they will compete against their opposing house groups to win the House Competition Trophy. Each year group will have a winning house but the trophy will be given to the house with the most wins across the school; the trophy will be presented in one of our virtual assemblies and each member of the winning house will receive a certificate.

I wonder who will be the winning house this half term. Happy competition and good luck!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Noonan

“Hello, hello, hello…”

2/10/20

“999. What is your emergency?”

This week the children have been discussing all of the different people who help us and the things they do. Luckily our very brave firefighters were on hand and answered the call on Thursday when there were a lot of fires to put out – they worked together as a team to use our water pump to make sure that every bit of the fire had gone. The police have been on patrol around our classroom looking for anyone who needs any help, finding missing items and keeping any trouble makers at bay!

Our learning

Our learning in phonics this week we have been using the letters s, a, m, i and t to write and read words. In Maths we have met 8 members of Ten Town. They have been helping us to count, find more or less of an amount and practise writing our numbers. We have also been making some patterns using shapes and colours. Why not see what patterns you can find at home?

Library

On Thursday we had another lovely trip to the library, we were all very excited to have a browse and choose a library books to borrow. The children have all been given a bookmark with their name on – please look after this, as it helps us know whose book is whose. If you would like to take out a new book from the library please return, the book on Thursday (with the bookmark inside) and then the children will be able to return their current book before choosing a new one. We will not be able to give children a book until they have returned their current one.

Next Week

(One thing parents who have had a child in Reception class with me before will know that I love a good competition – particularly if I can get Reception to be the best class in school! Our first whole school competition is starting next week so fingers crossed we show St Peter’s how it is done and Reception will be the winners!)

Walk to School Week – A Message from Miss Cook

Get your happy feet on, it’s time to celebrate.
Living Streets, have created the greatest national Walk to School celebration, where pupils and grown-ups around the UK unite for one week of walking to school.

The five-day walking challenge aimed at primary schools is a fun and engaging week-long activity, raising awareness and celebrating walking for all. Not only will it set them up for a positive day in the classroom, it will also help create healthy habits for life.

Walk to School Week is now scheduled to take place on w/c 5 October 2020, during International Walk to School Month.

The class with the most amount of children and staff walking to school will receive a lovely, sparkly certificate.

Harvest festival

On Monday, we will be joining the Harvest Service virtually led by Charles. Any donations of tinned or dried foods, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shower gels etc., to be brought in on Monday 5th October, will be greatly appreciated, and will all go towards supporting the efforts of the Upper Room and Fulham Food Bank.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Noonan 

 

“Yo Ho Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me…”

25/09/20

We have had a lovely week in Reception. It’s been a pirates life for us all week. Each day we have been enjoying pirate stories, we have been making treasure maps, creating pirate artwork and learning some pirate actions and dances. On Thursday, we all dressed up as pirates and had a fantastic day full of pirate adventures! Have a look at the gallery to see our fantastic adventure this week…

This week we have also had our first PE lessons and Music lessons. The children were fantastic and all of their teachers said how well they behaved and joined in with all of the lessons. Thank you to all of the parents for remembering to put the children in their PE kits on Mondays and Fridays.

RE lessons

Our first RE lesson this week was starting on our first topic which is answering the question ‘Who made this wonderful world?’ In our first lesson we were thinking about what is precious to us. We first thought about what precious means and then created some lovely work filling our hearts with pictures of precious things.

Phonics and Reading Meeting

On Monday you will receive a ParentMail with all the information about the Phonics and Reading meeting. This will include PDF’s of documents with information, a link to the YouTube video presentation and an invitation to the ‘Google Meet’ link for the Q&A session on Tuesday 29^th at 6pm.

Buddy System

We feel it is important to both our Reception and Year 6 children that we try and continue our brilliant Buddy system in any way we can. At the moment, due to the children having to stay within their ‘bubbles’, we cannot physically meet but Mrs Noonan and Mr Thomas (Year 6 Teacher) have paired up the children with their Buddies and the children have made each other a card. The cards include photos of the children so they can start to get to know their buddies. We are thinking of what other creative ways we can connect the children to their buddies so watch this space…

Ambassadors

This week we announced the children who have been chosen to represent Reception in the various ambassador roles in the school.

School Council – Francesco and Poppy

RE Ambassadors – Jemima and Imogen

Art Ambassadors – Louis and Clara

Eco Council – Orlando and Reyan

Kindness Ambassadors – Isaiah and Allegra

Throughout the year the children will be attending meetings (virtually) or given special tasks to do to help them complete their very important jobs!

Next week

Our phonics will be starting next week with us looking at the letter from Sounds Write Unit 1 – s a t i and we will be continuing to visit ‘Ten Town’ each day to get to know the stories and characters for each number. Our theme for the week is going to be ‘People who help us’. Our role play areas will be transforming into builders yards and police and firefighters stations.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Noonan

“I knew you’d have a good day! School isn’t so bad after all, is it?”

The Colour Monster by Anna LLenas

18/09/20

The Reception class have had an absolutely brilliant first week in school. It was amazing to see them all happily come into school each morning and enjoying their first full week. If they are feeling half as tired as Mrs Noonan and the other teachers then they will be having some big sleeps this weekend. Over the week we have been reading the story of ‘The Colour Monster’ by Anna Llenas. This is a beautiful book about emotions and feelings. We also read ‘The Colour Monster goes to School’ and lots of us could relate to how the Colour Monster was feeling on his first day at school but by the end he agreed that “school isn’t so bad after all!” As part of our work on the colour monster the children created their own colour monsters and used different colours to show how they were feeling. These are now in our classroom on our ‘The Colour Monster’ display.

Our first lesson this week on Monday was RE and this was all about St Peter. We learnt that he was a special friend of Jesus and that he was a fisherman. We listened to a story about how Jesus helped St Peter fill his net with fish. In our classroom we had our own net to fill with beautifully decorated fish.

We have had a few visitors this week to help us get to know all of the teachers who are going to be looking after us. Mr Alex will be teaching us on Monday’s in our Music lessons (our first lesson is next week) but this week he came and introduced himself and learnt about the instruments that the children already know how to play. Mr Cotton has been popping into Reception to come and play all week! On Friday we went to the Scott Hall playground to explore where we will be having our PE lessons which start on Monday.

And inbetween all of those exciting things we have been getting to know our friends, finding lots of fun activities to do, enjoying our playtime in the big playground each day and eating our tasty, yummy lunches.

Phew!

Have a look at the gallery below to see some of the fun we’ve had this week.

Notices:

Next week will be another busy one…

Twitter – If you don’t already then please follow us on Twitter @St_Peters_CE

Pirates – our theme for next weeks learning is Pirates and on Thursday we will have our Talk Like a Pirate day where we will all dress up as pirates!

PE lessons start on Monday and Friday so please wear PE kit on these days

Library books – the children all took home a library book this week, pelase return this on Thursday so the children can change their book for a new one.

Meeting – Parent’s don’t forget our Q&A on Phonics and Reading Meeting will be on Tuesday 29^th September at 6pm. A video of the presentation will be shared before meeting as will the Google Meet link to join the meeting.

I hope all the children have a lovely, restful weekend and I can’t wait to see them again next week!

Mrs Noonan

“Somewhere inside all of us is the potential to change the world”

Roald Dahl

11/09/20

What a great week! I am delighted to say that all of the children have settled in to Reception. It’s been a lovely week of getting to know the children. They are all making friends, both new and old, enjoying exploring all of the activities in our classroom and outside areas.  We have been learning about our classroom, we have been getting to know each other and learning lots of new things. We have been practising our cutting and sticking and making lots of creative things to take home and we have been sharing lots of stories that are all about starting school and how we look after our toys and each other.

Monday is going to be a very exciting day when we get to have all of the children together for their first full day!

Meet our new Reception children

 

Roald Dahl Day

On Friday we enjoyed joining in with the whole schools celebrations of Roald Dalh Day. In Reception we read the story of Roald Dahl’s ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ with his “nasty plans and clever tricks!” The children listened beautifully to the story, and were very happy when the crocodile didn’t manage to eat and children and cheered when he got ‘sizzled like a sausage’ at the end. The children enjoyed exploring in the water tray with our crocodile toys and making their own crocodiles in the creative area.

A few notices:

Don’t forget that clubs start next week. if you child is attending Mr Cotton’s clubs on Monday and Thursday please bring in their PE kits and we will change them ready for the club at the end of the day.

All children will need a snack if they are attending a club, please leave this in their bags or book bags.

Virtual Welcome Evening

On Wednesday night from 5.20 – 5.40 we will be having a ‘Welcome Evening’ meeting. Prior to this meeting I will be sending some information to you all such as a class timetable and then during the meeting I will discuss some more of the arrangements for Reception and will be happy to answer any questions you may have. The link to the meeting will be emailed to you prior to the meeting.

Have a lovely weekend, you might have some very tired children who will need a big rest this weekend!

Mrs Noonan