Welcome to Life at KPS for Reception

Mr Sembhi and Mrs Morgan warmly welcome you to Reception.

The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Reception, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.

We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.

January 2022

Communication and Language

This month we started learning about traditional tales. We read Little Red Riding Hood and The three billy goats gruff stories. The children have shown great attention and focus during these sessions as they have been joining in repeated refrains, asking questions and sharing their views about the characters and the events in the stories. There has been an increase in using the language from the stories when creating roles and experiences in and outdoors during independent learning. More children are beginning to speak in longer sentences, explaining their ideas, asking questions in their conversations.

Personal, Social, Emotional Development

As we were learning the Little Red Riding Hood story, we asked the children to share pictures of their grandparents. Those who did, fondly talked about their feelings towards their grandparents and things they do for each other. We talked about Stanger Danger and discussions on why they should be aware of these. From the The three billy goats gruff story, the children have been identifying some of the behaviour they dislike such as not sharing as the troll in the story did. We are proud to see a lot more sharing going in in Reception.

Physical Development

The children have been developing skills in moving and showing increased control over objects. Engaging in racing and chasing games has been helping them to learn to successfully negotiate space around them, adjusting speed and direction to avoid risk. The Little Red Riding Hood story gave us another opportunity to talk about healthy and unhealthy foods. The children had fun making their healthy sandwiches in our Food and Tech Room. They worked in pair, chose their own fillings, used knives to spread butter and cut their bread safely. They absolutely  loved it!

Literacy

The children are progressing well in their Phonics groups. They are applying their sounds in their reading and writing both during adult led and independent activities. We were very proud of their efforts at applying set two sounds in their letter writing to gran as big bad wolf apologising for his bad behaviour. They also drew their Billy goats gruff story maps to get themselves ready for their story writing. During guided reading activities, the children are getting more and more confident at discussing what they have read about. They are also beginning to ask questions and share their views on what they have read.

Maths

The children have been learning to count up to 10. We identified and formed numbers 0-10. We moved on to addition and subtraction of numbers within 10 by counting on or back. We used number lines, ten frames and counters to help us. For example, for addition we used the following sentence structure: First there are 3 goats, then 2. Now there are 5 goats. 3 plus 2 is equals to 5. The children also enjoyed learning about time. We looked at seasons, months and days of the week through songs. The children have been using language such as first, next, then, after that, finally.

Understanding the World

The story Little Red Riding Hood led us to learn about woodlands. During our daily walks, we have been looking at what woodlands and discussing the features of a woodland especially in winter. The children have been able to identify the changes they notice from Autumn to Winter seasons. We talked about woodland animals. During our walks, the children continue to learn about different birds that fly around our setting. The story billy goats gruff has led us to learn about bridges. The children are curious and are buzzing during independent time as they are working in teams building their bridges discussing their features.

Expressive Arts and Design

Our traditional stories have given the children a wider aspect of engaging in pretend play. We observed more children join in as characters and playing cooperatively.

They have taken a big interest in mixing colours discovering the changes they can create when colours mix during painting. We have enjoyed seeing amazing creativity in this area of the Arts as children expressed themselves beautifully painting the characters of the big bad wolf, Little Red riding Hood, Gran, The three billy goats gruff, the troll and the different settings in these stories.