Autumn 1 

Children have spent the first half term getting to know each other, learning our school rules, and making lots of new friends. We have built up our play adding in our home experiences. Over the summer holidays we asked all Reception to complete an 'all about me' box. Children have brought these in to share what they like and some of their favourite things with the rest of the class to build their confidence. 

Our timetable is in full swing, which you can see from the website. We have already started our phase 2 phonics. We are practising our oral blending and matching initial sounds with a certain grapheme. We have been working really hard to read CVC words and matching with a picture as well as practising our writing skills. 

In maths we have been working hard on our subitising skills. We are confident at subitising to number 4. We love learning all about number blocks to have a deeper understanding of 5. We have used our number block stampers to make number 4 in different ways. We have also looked at making different sets of objects making sure when we sort objects they are either the same colour or have the same amount of buttons on. We are currently looking at size and using the correct mathematical vocabulary when talking about this. 

So far in Reception we have read some different stories such as 'The Gruffalo', 'Five Minutes Peace' and 'Room on a Broom'. We have worked really hard on retelling and sequencing the stories making sure we have sued the correct language. We have used some of our cuddly toys to be characters from the story that we can retell, and rein act the story using the props. 

We have opened up our outdoor classroom, where we have been using our fine motor skills to thread different materials throughout weaving boards and using some of our gross motor skills to balance on our balance boards. We have started to take part in woodwork sessions with Mrs Southall learning some of our key skills, learning about where wood comes from and how to keep safe with tools. Miss Mantle and Mrs Spencer have taken us up into the forest school area where we have made muddy handprints to agree to our forest school rules and we have enjoyed playing different games such as duck duck goose. 

Autumn 2

In Reception this half term we have been learning about 'The Festivals of Light'. We came back after half term ant started learning about bonfire night. We tested our creativity skills by making firework safety posters using our communciation and language skills to explain our posters to the teachers. We also ahd a special treat of making our own chocolate sparkler, by looking at how we melt chocolate. These were delicious. 

Next, we took aprt in 'World Nursery Rhyme Week'. This was where we looked at a different nursery rhyme on each of the days. We used our construction and teamwork skills to build up a wall for Humpty Dumpty and also made up some new actions for Row Row Row your boat. In Literacy we looked at the story 'After the Fall'. This is where we learnt about what happened after Humpty had his big fall and what he turned into; it was so exciting. 

Then we started to learn about 'Diwali'. We looked at the story of 'Rama and Sita'. We learnt some new vocabulary to help us re tell the story and sequence the different pictures. We made Rangoli patterns using shapes and used our fine motor skills to make Mendhi patterns on our hands. 

The next couple of weeks we started to think about Christmas. We started off by learning all about Mary and Joseph. We looked at the start of advent and used our fine motor skills to create Christingles. Then we had a very exciting week! We learnt, rehearsed, and preformed infront of the whole school and our adults '5 Days of Christmas' EYFS play. Every child in EYFS went on the stage and performed. 

In phonics we have learnt all of our phase 2 sounds. We are starting to spot digraphs in words before we read them and making sure we are spelling some of our tricky words correctly. In maths we are very good at subitising to number 5 using cubes to make 5 in different ways.