Summer 1 

The summer term has brought warm weather and plenty of sunshine for our reception pupils.  We've loved taking our learning outside!  Check out some of the things we've been up to.

Getting ready to grow!

We began this half-term by exploring plants and observing how they grow.  We enjoyed reading our class novel, Bud and planting some of of our own flowers and plants.  As a class we planted, beans, sweet peas and cress from seed.  We also planted our own individual sunflowers and have enjoyed watching the roots, stem and leaves begin to form.

Pupils in Reception have taken great joy and care looking after their outdoor area.  They have show great responsibility by taking care of the plants and mini-beasts that share our outdoor space.

Maths

In Maths, we have been counting and exploring numbers up to 20.  We've been busy learning how to 'add' and 'take-away' using a range of different resources.

Science

As well as learning about how plants grow, we have been learning about our own bodies and how they are growing too!  We have been learning the names of different body parts and the jobs they do.  We loved drawing and labelling bodies in our outdoor area and writing our own fabulous fact files!

Summer 2

It's our final few weeks in Reception and we are hoping to share lots of love and joy as we explore different types of adventures.

Whatever Next!

Our first book this half-term was Whatever Next by Jill Murphy.  We enjoyed reading about Baby Bear's adventure to the moon before learning all about space.  We learnt about a famous astronaut called Sunita Williams before looking at pictures and videos to help us undertand how visiting space would be very different to our life here in Idle!

We used all our knowledge about space to plan our own trip to the moon.  We wrote our own packing lists and made special space helmets to take on our adventure.  We packed dry-food space snacks, our special helmets and our imagination before setting off on our own adventure!  We had a fantastic afternoon together!

The Castle the King Built

We have been learning about castles and reading lots of castle adventure stories as well as our class book, The Castle the King Built.

We enjoyed learning lots about how and why castles were built as well as the names for parts of the castle and how they were used.  We've had so much fun building our own model castles using everything from sand, to bricks and even cardboard boxes!

As part of our sculpture unit, we made our very own castle turrets using clay and lots of different tools!  

A Trip to Temple Newsam!

We went on a special trip to Temple Newsam to help us try imagine what it would've been like to live in the past.  Although Temple Newsam isn't a castle, we found out that it had been visited by many royal people.  

We had a great day exploring Temple Newsam House and looking at different objects from the past.  We had a brilliant time retelling the story of The Princess and the Pea and visiting lots of rooms fit for a royal guests.  

In the afternoon, we continued our adventure around Temple Newsam and sang nursery rhymes as we visited different rooms of the house.  We enjoyed singing Hot Cross Buns in the kitchen and The Grand Old Duke of York as we climbed the staircase.  Our favourite room was the old play room full of toys from the past!