The children in Reception have been practicing for their christmas play for several weeks now.

Friday 15th of December was the ‘big day’ where we were able to perform in front of our parents and grandparents. The children were so excited to be singing songs and performing in front of their families, and they didn’t dissappoint.

Every single child was a super star. They sang their hearts outs and put on their best performances.

After the performance the adults were invited to a christmas craft morning where the children and adults were able to create various christmas crafts and decorations. It was a lovely morning enjoyed by the children and adults alike.

Here is a picture of the children in their christmas play costumes.

Merry Christmas and we hope you have a wonderful holiday. Thank you for the many cards and presents we have received.

All our love the Reception Team

Over the last two Mondays,  the Reception classes have been for some afternoons visit to the library. On arriving at the library we discovered that it had been opened just for us! The children were so excited that they had the whole library to themselves.

We met the friendly librarian, Kathy, who read lots of fun stories to the children! She read this really funny story to us called, ‘Yikes Stinkisaurs’. The children were able to join in with this story as it was about a smelly dinosaur who didn’t like to wash, and shouted “Yikes Stinkisaurus’ every time they saw it.

After story time the children were able to spend some time exploring the library and selecting books to look at independently. It was lovely to explore the library, and the children learnt all about what type of books they could find in there. They also learnt that there are 10 libraries across Havering, that library members can borrow books from.

Here are some pictures of the children enjoying their time in the library.

Thank you so much to the parent helpers.

Yesterday we had our first school trip to Thorndon Country park. We were hoping to spot the Gruffalo!

We had a fantastic day, the weather was on our side as it stayed dry and sunny all day. We started off the day travelling to Thorndon Country park on a double decker bus, the children were really excited about the bus trip. When we arrived at the park we split up into two classes and began our search for the Gruffalo.

On our quest to find the Gruffalo, we met lots of characters from the story along the way.

We found the mouse, fox, owl, snake and even the Gruffalos child. Finally we found the Gruffalo hiding amongst the trees.

After finding all of the characters, we then went and ate our lunch in the picnic area of the park.

Once we had eaten we continued to explore the country park. The children really enjoyed making log pile houses for the snake. Some of the logs that the children found were enormous and twice the length of them!  We also played hide and seek in the woods, and collected as many natural materials as we could find.

It was a brilliant day out!

Thank you to all of the parent helpers who joined us.

Last week we focused on a call text called, ‘The house that wanted a family’ by Susan Spence Daniel. It was all about a sad, lonely house who wanted a family. This got us talking about our families and who lives in our houses. The children created some wonderful work based around this and they had great fun telling us all about their family life.

The learning we have been focusing on this week has been around;

name writing,

pencil grip and pencil control,

talking about the drawings we have created,

Focused numbers of the day,

counting with 1:1 correspondence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKVbDvOZzyM (the link explains in detail what this is).

and finally recognising the numbers 1-10.

You will have noticed that the children brought some worksheets home last week to complete at home. They will not be sent home everyday and they are not compulsory to complete, but the children who do will be getting a golden ticket! 🙂

Please continue to read at home and sign the reading record at least 3 times a week.

This week we are focusing on the text: Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson

Hello and Welcome to Reception,

We have been eagerly awaiting for our Reception children to finally join us, and what a fantastic start to the new year it has been.

All of the Reception team are amazed and thrilled at how quickly the new cohort have settled in. They have really enjoyed the freedom of exploring the inside and outside areas, and are already beginning to understand basic routines that run within the classrooms.

The children are communicating well with each other, and whilst old friendships from nurseries continue to flourish, new friendships are being made everyday.

We look forward to seeing what the rest of the this half term will bring.

Hear is a quick look at the children settling in so far.