Friday 17th July 2020

Hi Reception,

We just wanted to say how proud we are of all of you. You have amazed us with all of your hard work in school and at home, you really do deserve the best summer making lots more memories with your families and getting ready for the start of your new journey in Year 1.

Make sure you listen to your grown ups and stay safe.

We cannot wait to see you all in September. Don't forget to keep checking the website for any updates.

Lots of love

The Reception team

Parent SEND Questionnaire

SEND Support - A Note from Nichola Jones (Assistant Director Inclusion, SEND and Wellbeing)

Dear Parent,

I hope you and your family are well. I’m getting in touch to invite you to take part in our short survey to share your experiences during lockdown and tell us your views on the support you have received from different education services.

Please complete one survey for each child or young person with SEND. The survey is anonymous, however you can choose to include your contact details at the end if you would like to be more involved in shaping future SEND services.

Click here to access the survey

Please feel free to forward this email on to other families of children and young people with SEND.

Thank you for taking part. We really value your feedback in helping us to monitor and continually improve our services for SEND families.  

Please note that the survey will close at 12 midnight on Monday 13 July 2020.

With very best wishes,

Nichola Jones

Assistant Director Inclusion, SEND and Wellbeing

Monday 6th July

Hello Reception! We hope you all had a super week last week and are ready for some more fun learning this week.

This week we are thinking about the story Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson, you can watch it here if you haven't got the book at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpJumAZx1t8&safe=true

You could try drawing the characters from the story and turn them into finger puppets and then retell the story in your own words. You could even write your own book review.

Have a go at the problem solving questions about sharing shells into buckets. If you're feeling creative you could make your own beach scene pictures and include some of the characters from the story.

This week's maths is based around the story of The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter.

You can find all the activities here: https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/

The activities this week include using shapes to make a rocket, patterns, finding one more/one less than a number, doubling and sharing and sorting.

We are also watching some Numberblock episodes which can be found on bbc iplayer: 

Twenty https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006rr5/numberblocks-series-4-twenty

Tall stories: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006rrg/numberblocks-series-4-tall-stories

Flights of Fancy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006rrv/numberblocks-series-4-flights-of-fancy

I can count to twenty: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006s5q/numberblocks-series-4-i-can-count-to-twenty

Heist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006s63/numberblocks-series-4-heist

Thursday 20th June

Hi Reception!
We are feeling really proud of you all seeing the hard work you have been doing at home and at school. We are setting you online work on Education City and Purple Mash and we absolutely love to see all the fantastic scores you are getting and all the brilliant work you are producing. The children at school have been very busy this week. We have been on Mini-beast hunts, looked at Ladybirds and Julia Donaldson stories and we have been very busy with our Maths all about Zog. We have worked so hard with our Literacy too, watching the daily videos online and writing our spellings and 'hold a sentences'. What have you been doing at home? Did you like practicing today's sound?

Over the next few days, it is going to be very warm and in Early Years we love exploring the outdoors and outdoor learning, especially in this beautiful weather. 

https://www.pacey.org.uk/working-in-childcare/spotlight-on/outdoor-activities/

Take a look at some of the activities suggested on this site! It looks at all different types of outdoor learning and how we can take learning and make it fun, practical, and fun outdoors!
Take a look at some of the ideas we have had at school when we are exploring in our Reception area and in Forest School. 

• Paint with water on the pavement. 
• Digging for treasure.
• Bake with mud. 
• Treasure hunt. 
• Make fairy soup. 
• Lie on the ground and look for shapes in the clouds. 
• Draw shapes in the dirt with sticks. 
• Hunt for mini beasts.

Have a safe and fun few days, Reception! Please remember to be safe in the sunshine! Take a look at the link to find out more about the different ways to keep safe (https://soltansunready.com/for-schools). We are missing you all so much and are so happy to see the children that are continuing to come to school. You are making the teachers smile each day wherever you are learning. 
Give yourself a 'round of a claws' because you are 'faaaaaaantastic'!

Love from, 

Miss Orohoe, Mrs Sheppard, Miss Lench, Miss Porter, Mrs Yuksel, Miss Pritchard, Mrs Lindsey, Mrs Quinn and Mrs Adams 

Monday 22nd June 2020

Good morning, Reception! We hope you have had a super weekend. It is now time for another week of fantastic learning and exciting stories for us to read. This week, our White Rose Maths story and our project story are both written by the author, Julia Donaldson. We have looked at lots of Julia Donaldson books over our online learning journey so we know it is going to be a great week. 

Our project so far this half term has been about 'Mini-beasts' and we are still looking at a mini-beast this week in our project story but we are now looking at Holidays in our project too! We would like you to start thinking of places that you have been on holiday? How did you travel there? How long did it take you? Where did you stay? What was the weather like? What did you do there? Answer these questions and write them down in sentences, remembering to start with a capital letter and finish your sentence with a full stop.  Miss Orohoe likes going on holiday in a tent and loves to go swimming on holiday! Miss Lench loves going on an aeroplane to places that are hot, she loves visiting the beaches on her holidays. Mrs Sheppard loves going to explore cities on her holidays and has even been to very cold places where she has to wear warm clothes. Take a picture of your work and share it to twitter and we can read about where you like to go too!
 

This week at school, we will be reading the story of 'What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday' by Julia Donaldson. There are lots of What the Ladybird Heard stories to read so have a look online for them all and see which story you like the most.

At school we will be writing postcards this week, making maps and looking at an Atlas. We will also be completing sheets on doubling numbers using the ladybirds spots and counting the ladybird spots with numbers up to twenty. Below is a selection of resources that you can print off at home to use. If you haven't got a printer, there are also pictures of activities to have a go at practically linked to our What the Ladybird Heard stories. 

Thursday 18th June

Morning Reception!

It's a very wet and rainy day today - we were hoping to get outside today to go on a minibeast hunt so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we can do that tomorrow.

We will also be looking at the story of The Snail and the Whale today and tomorrow, if you haven't got the story at home you could always watch it on BBC Iplayer. Here are some activities for you to try at home:

• Can you label parts of a snail?
• Can you cut out a spiral and decorate it? What pattern will you use to decorate your snail shell?
• Can you find, colour and count all of the animals on the sheet?

We hope you have lots of fun with these activities.

There are also new Summer Learning packs for the children at the front of school which are available now for you to collect.

Have a lovely weekend.

Love from Reception staff

Monday 15th June

Hello Reception! Here we are at the start of another new week. We have lots of things planned for this week and we thought you could try some of them at home too.

Maths

This week we are continuing to follow White Rose Home Learning and this week the book is Princess Mirror-Belle and the Dragon Pox by Julia Donaldson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAFaJfcqqt4&safe=true

Project

This week we are continuing with our project on minibeasts. You could try painting half of a butterfly and fold your paper over to make it symmetrical. Why not try drawing some ladybirds and double the number of spots that they have. Can you write a description of your favourite minibeast?

We are also going to be reading the story of 'The Snail and the Whale' https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000cslw/the-snail-and-the-whale

Enjoy and have lots of fun!

Thursday 11th June

Hello again Reception ,we hope you're having a great week so far. Some of us are in school now having lots of fun so we wanted to share some of the activities with you that we have been doing together.

We have been thinking and talking lots about Mini-Beasts. We have been thinking about the ways that different Mini-Beasts move - butterflies like to flutter their wings, grasshoppers like to jump, ladybirds fly, caterpillars crawl. See if you can think of lots of different Mini-Beasts and how they move, why not see if you can move like a Mini-Beast.

Below you will find a Mini-Beat sorting activity, see if you can find out which Mini-Beasts have legs! You could also have a go at making your own Mini-Beast mask! Which Mini-Beast will you be?

Enjoy the rest of the week Reception, we will speak to you all again very soon. Bye for now!

Monday 8th June

Hi Reception, we hope you’re all well! 😌 We have a few ‘Mini-beast’ activities we wanted to share with you as we know you’ll have great fun doing them! 
 

We thought you could go outside and look for different items to create your own mini-beast picture. You could use leaves, flower petals, twigs! 🍁 🌷 Explore your outside area and see what you can find and make your very own Mini-beast!
 

You could write about your favourite mini-beast, give your mini-beast a name, what kind of mini-beast is it, what does it like to eat, where does it live, what colour is it? 🕷 🐛 🐜 
 

Below you will also find some ladybird maths for you to try. Have a go at making your own ladybird and spots, how many spots does your ladybird have? If you add another spot how many spots will it have altogether? If you take one spot away how many will your ladybird have then? Also why not see if you can do some ladybird doubles! If your ladybird has two spots and you double them, how many spots would it have altogether? What other double numbers do you know? 🤔 

We really are proud of you all for all your hard work, so keep checking here as we will keep thinking of exciting things for you to do while you’re staying safe at home. But for now, take care and we will be in touch again very soon. Lots of love to you all. 😍

 

Thursday 4th June

Hi Reception, 
We all hope that you had lots of fun in the sun this week and we loved hearing about all of your outdoor learning! It was great to speak to so many children that had been safe in the sunshine, making, and learning. We hope that you are enjoying the White Rose Maths and Read Write Inc. daily lessons! They are a fantastic resource with exciting and engaging activities. We will continue to post these so keep updated with the latest exciting activities.  Next week, children are starting to come back to school. To get the children ready to return there is a story about bear that returns back to his school bubble. Take a look...

Next week, we will also be focusing on a Minibeast project! This is because our bubble names are named after the minibeasts. You could find out a little bit about Minibeasts by having a Minibeast Hunt. Explore outdoors searching for the different bugs. The weather has become a little cooler and wetter which is perfect weather for all the tiny creatures to appear...especially wiggly wriggly worms! How may beautiful butterflies can you see? How many buzzing bees can you hear? Can you see any crawly caterpillars? We can not wait to hear all about what you find!
 

Keep working hard and keep safe. We are looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you next week. We can all do this together as a Timberley family and just know that we are so proud of each and every one of you. You are all fantastic learners, explorers, and investigators and whether you are at home or at school, there are always learning opportunities around us. 

Love all of the Reception Team 

Monday 1st June 

Hi Reception, 

Happy first day of June and we are so excited as we have lots of new and exciting adventures awaiting us! It is also a very happy first day back to online learning after a lovely, sunny half term ☀️ We hope you all had a safe and happy half term and we are looking forward to sharing lots more learning with you all!

The next few days we are continuing to have beautiful weather ☀️ and we are now allowed to go outside a little bit more, which is why we have put lots of outdoor learning opportunities for you to enjoy in our outdoor environment 🌿🌳.

How about making some letter stones and having a go at blending some of your sounds! What sounds do you need for the word for the word hat 🎩 , chip 🍟 and sun ☀️? How many sound stones would you need?

You could even make some paintbrushes or use some that you have in your homes to write some words and sentences with water. Can you write your name? Can your write a sentence about what you have done over half term?

The teachers have been going on lovely nature walks  with their families and collecting lots of natural objects 🍂🌻🌺. You could go on a nature walk with your grown ups and explore your local environment. You could even make a tally chart to see how many things you have collected! Or even use those objects to make shapes or numbers. 

Maths Home Learning 📕🏠

Please also take a look at the White Rose Maths Online Learning resources. This week’s lesson are all focused on the story The Snail and the Whale 🐳 🐌. You can read the story by Julia Donaldson and complete all the fantastic Maths activities and then as a special treat, even watch the short film on the link below.

RWI Phonics 🔠

To help children learning to read at home during school closure, we are streaming phonics, reading and spelling lessons every weekday on their YouTube channel - https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCo7fbLgY2oA_cFCIg9GdxtQ

Each lesson is ten to fifteen minutes long and available for 24 hours.

From 1st June:

All films will be available at 9.30 am.

Set 1, 2 and 3 Speed Sounds lessons will restart.
Set 2 and 3 Speed Sounds lessons will include new words for reading and spelling.

Speed Sounds Set 1 - Reception 

• Set 1 Speed Sounds
• Set 1 Word Time
• Set 1 Spelling

Speed Sounds Set 2 - for children in Reception that can read Set 1 Speed Sounds and for children in Year 1 and 2

• Set 2 Speed Sounds and Word Time
• Set 2 Spelling📕📗📘

Thursday 21st May

This week we have been thinking about Superheroes - we have some more fun challenges for you to try at home.

• Find out what special powers the people in your family would like to have if they were superheroes
• Make a vehicle for a superhero out of junk modelling materials. Remember to give it some special features!
• Superhero Physical Challenge: How many star jumps can you do in a minute?
• Make a wanted poster for a villain you have read about in a book or comic or one that you have made up
• Read a superhero story with a grown-up. Can you think of a different ending?

You could also try making some Super-Stretchy Playdough:

It's Elmer Day on Saturday and we usually celebrate this in school on the Friday before. We thought you might like to try some of the Elmer activities we would have done in school for yourselves - they include reading the stories, making Elmer crafts, dressing up in bright colours and lots of other activities.

https://www.elmer.co.uk/elmer-day/

With the sun shining it is important that we all remember to stay safe in the sun. The Sun Ready Schools programme provides children with ideas on how to stay safe in the sun.

https://soltansunready.com/for-families

We hope you enjoy trying out the activities!

Stay safe Reception - we will see you soon 

Monday 18th May

Hello Reception! We hope you've all had a lovely weekend and are looking forward to a new week with lots of new and exciting ideas for you to try at home! The weather is looking good for this week so we hope lots of you can get outside to enjoy the sunshine.

Thank you to all the children that have been sending in their pictures of the exciting things you have been doing at home - we love seeing them on Twitter!

This week we are thinking about superheroes! You could start off by reading or listening to stories about superheroes. Supertato  by  Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlaMeNmTG6c and Superworm by Julia Donaldson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0keNDquvZEE

You could have a try at making your very own superhero mask and you could design a superhero.

You could even have a try at these superhero crafts.

The theme for maths this week is Superworm.

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/

Also, all of the Numberblocks episodes are available on Cbeebies at the moment. We have watched all of series 1 and 2 in school and had started to watch some of series 3 - this would be a good place to start watching from, in particular the episodes featuring numbers from 11 to 20!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b08bzfnh/numberblocks?seriesId=b0bls7vy

Thursday 14th May 

Hello again Reception, we hope you’re all okay and that you enjoyed the video that the Timberley staff did to make you smile! 😄😉

All the teachers are very proud of how hard you’re all working at home and we know you’re all doing your very best. The Reception staff have been working hard too and we have thought of some more activities that we think you will enjoy!

If you have a look at the images below there is an ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ word search you could print out and complete and if you have read the story there is a book review you could do too!

Now don’t worry if you can’t print these out because you could make your own word search, design it however you want to, you could even see if your grown up can find your hidden words or ask your grown up to make one for you! I wonder how many words you can find! 🧐

Likewise, if you can’t print the book review you can always write your own, what happened at the beginning of the story? What happened in the middle of the story? What happened at the end? Which part of the story is your favourite? What colour aliens did you see in the story? How many different aliens can you see? How many pairs of pants can you find in the book?

If you didn’t get chance to read the story then you could just think about a story you like or you could choose a story book that you have at home and write a review about that instead. Or why not have a go at writing your own story, you could write a story about an alien, maybe your alien likes underpants too, is your alien friendly? What does your alien like to play? 🤔

Below you will also see an ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ home learning activity sheet with other ideas of things you can do to keep busy. 😊

🌈 Thinking about all the lovely rainbows that many of us have been busy doing lately, you could have a go at creating your own rainbow name collage using lots of different coloured paper. Again, please take a look at the pictures below. You could even tape together lots of felt tip pens or crayons and write some rainbow coloured words. You could even think about number bonds to ten and create your own rainbow to 10 picture. 🌈

Also you could ask your grown ups if they have any coins that you could use to do some rainbow coin rubbings! 🌈 Why don’t you take a good look and explore the different coins we use, what colour are they, what shape are they, how many sides do they have? You could even use the coins to help you count different amounts. What coins could you use to make 5p? Can you make 7p? 🤔

Something else you could try is having a go at making your own pan balance using a coat hanger, buckets or bowls with string or laces to attach them together. Have a look for a selection of different objects to weigh, which item is the heaviest, which item is the lightest, how do you know?

Lots of these ideas are pictured below and we really hope you’re all able to use some of our ideas to help you with your home learning. If you are then please don’t forget that we would love to hear from you and see photographs of the things you’re doing so please keep posting on our twitter page, it’s great to see so many of our Reception children taking part in lots of fun things! 😊 🤩

Now, as always, we want you to know how much we’re all missing you and how much we want you to stay safe so Reception, please make sure you’re doing as your grown ups ask you to do, keep washing your hands, stay home and look after each other and enjoy your time at home together. 🥰

Lots of love to you and your families from all of us. Take care everyone. 😉😌💕

Monday 11th May

Hi Reception, we hope you all had a wonderful week last week and enjoyed the VE Day celebrations on Friday. Now it’s a brand new week and we’ve got more exciting activities to share with you! 🤗

We thought you might like to have a go at making your own number line, you could make a number line to 5 or 10 or you could really impress us and your grown ups and have a go at making a number line to 20! You could then use your number line in different ways. You could ask your grown up to say a number and you have to try and find it as quickly as you can, you could find one more or one less than a given number, you could count in twos or fives or you could ask your grown up to hide a number and you have to try and find out which number is missing! There are so many fun things you could do and all of these ideas will help you to remember your numbers and help you with ordering and counting so go on have a go and show off your super maths skills! 👍😊🤗

Now, one of our favourite stories is ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ and as our project is ‘Space’, why not see if you can find the story or use the link below and enjoy reading it to your grown up. You could have a go at designing your own underpants! 😆 Think about the colours and patterns you are going to use - but remember to watch out just in case those aliens try to take them!!! You could even design lots of different underpants and hang them on your number-line, how many pairs have you got? If you had 1 more pair how many would you have altogether? If you have 5 pairs of underpants but the alien takes 2 away how many would you have left?

You could also imagine that you are an alien or you have seen an alien, you could draw your imaginary alien and write about it. What would your alien’s name be? What colour is it? What kind of things does it like to eat? Where does it live and who does it live with? If someone saw your alien what would they do?

Why not think about planning a tea party on the moon for the aliens. You could draw a picture of the food you want to have at the party. Think about what food the aliens might like, star biscuits, rocket jelly or moon cheese! What food would you take? You could write an invitation to the aliens inviting them to your tea party! 🍢🍭🍪🍰 We know they would love to come! You could even ask your grown ups if you could make some space food! You could make fruit rockets, star sandwiches, space rocket wraps! Take a look at the pictures below.

We hope these activities will keep you busy for a while but also if you take a look below there are pictures of things that you might like to try and make or do such as making your own marble maze using Lego, paper plates, straws and cardboard lids (maybe a shoebox lid if you have one!) Straw mazes, giant paper plate noughts and crosses and lots more!

As well as this you could also use your time to learn a new skill such as tying your own show laces, fastening zips or doing up buttons, cutting different materials with child scissors, anything you find tricky, now is a good time to practice because we know that the more we practice the better we get! So go on Reception, give it a go, we know you can because you’re all Superstars! 🤩

Don’t forget we’ll be thinking of more exciting things you can do later in the week so keep checking as we don’t want you to miss any of the fun ideas!

Remember Reception that it is still important for us all to stay home and stay safe so take good care, look after each other and we’ll speak to you all again very soon. Have a great few days! 😊💕

UNICEF - Rights of the Child

Reception, we know you are super at knowing all about your rights as a child and sharing them with your families! This is why we know that you will be very excited to hear that UNICEF is releasing new activities each week related to a different Article. This week's Article is Article 14 - Freedom of Thought, Belief, and Religion.  Take a look at some of the activities and if you have been completing some super work let us know on Twitter or via email!

Young Voices World's Largest Children's Choir at Home

#VatHome project over the next few weeks!

Young Voices, the current Guinness World Record holders for the world’s largest simultaneous sing are staging the World’s Largest Children’s Choir at Home for a record-breaking #PowerInMe Singing Challenge.

On 2nd June 2020 - you are invited along with families and children from across the world to pay tribute to all teachers by joining together to sing “The Power in Me” from the safety of your own homes.

You can register your involvement at youngvoices.co.uk/powerinme to access learning resources for the song. 

Take a look and get those beautiful singing voices ready, Reception!

Thursday 7th May 

Hi Reception!
We hope you have been having a lovely week and enjoying all the fantastic Space activities. We love learning new things and learning about space is so exciting as like all science we keep learning new things all the time!
 

Tomorrow is a very special day. On Friday 8th May we celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe which is called VE Day. Over the next few days, we would love it if you could learn all about this special time in our history and we have thought of a few ways that you can do that!

There are many resources out there for you to get creative with and accessing them allows us to learn so much about our history; making us feel proud of Great Britain and all the soldiers. We have put a few of these below including making your very own flag, colouring and even a dance routine you can learn with your family. There is also a wartime song that some people are going to sing which soldiers and their families sung in the war. There is a link below so you can join in with your family and learn a song from the 1940s (a very long time ago)!

We have also attached a delicious scone recipe that you can make with your grown-ups to enjoy an extra special afternoon tea to celebrate VE Day. Remember to look at how much of the ingredients you need and to use the scales and measuring jugs to figure this out! Which one of your scones is the biggest? Which one is the smallest? Who is going to have the biggest scone?
 

Over the next couple of days, the weather is supposed to be beautiful, with more sun shining! This is a great time to take our learning outside too, because as we know in Reception, learning takes place all around us. 

Literacy 
For Literacy, we would like you to have a go at making a messy mud alphabet! This will be a fun way to learn our letter names and our letter sounds! We also thought you may like to do some muddy name writing, using your sticks to write your name, remembering your Read Write Inc. rhymes to help you. 

Maths 
For Maths, we would love it if you could use natural resources to make a tens frame, a fives frame or any grid and use it to sort, count, add, and subtract natural objects. I know that 3 pink flowers and 7 stones make 10 objects altogether! Am I right? Can you prove it?
If you have some planting pots in your garden, you could also use a permanent marker to write some numbers on them. Can you order them from smallest to biggest? Can you make a tower with them and knock some down? How many have you got now? How many did you have altogether? 

 

We are also uploading work for you to complete on Education City and Purple Mash daily so if you can, please go online and have a look and see if you can complete some super work for us to look at. We love looking at all of the work you are doing, seeing who has been on Numbots, and looking at the Timberley Academy Twitter page. 
We are so proud of you all for keeping safe and keeping smiling. We will continue to ring all of our lovely Reception children so please listen out for the phone! We are so excited to hear about all the fantastic learning you have been doing at home and continue to do even though we are not at school. Keep up all the hard work! We miss you all so much, Reception!
Miss Orohoe, Mrs Sheppard, Miss Lench, Mrs Yuksel, Miss Porter, Mrs Quinn, Mrs Adams, Miss Pritchard and Mrs Lindsey 

Monday 4th May

Hi Reception,
It is now week 7 of our home learning, and we are missing you all so much but are so happy that when we call you, that you are all staying safe and happy. It makes us smile that even though we are not at school, we still get to speak to you, and hear all about the lovely things you have been doing with your grown-ups. This is so important in order for us to keep safe and we are all trying so hard to socially distance ourselves. Take a look at some of these pictures from the author Julia Donaldson. It helps us to understand how we can socially distance using our beloved stories.

Our project is now Space so we have been looking at different storybooks that you could read that help us understand space a little bit better.

This week take a look at a story by Oliver Jeffers. We have already looked at the author Oliver Jeffers as he wrote Lost and Found which we looked at in our Animals project. Now, we would like you to have a listen to his story How to Catch a Star.

 

There are also some activities that we thought you could complete and you can use some things around your household for this too!
 

• Have a discussion about what different things you might see during the daytime and what you might see during the night. Draw some pictures of the things you see only at night time. What things do you see during the daytime? Why is this?
• The boy watches the stars in the night sky from his window. Make a list of what else you might see in the night sky. Next, make a list of what colours you see in the night sky. If everything was black what wouldn’t' you be able to see? No stars, no moon, no owls etc. Go through magazines or newspapers and rummage in the craft cupboard to find anything that matches the colours in your list.
• Take a look at the activity sheets below and if you have a printer you can print these off to do too.
• You could even get creative and make some rockets to get us to space. You could create your own stars using card and foil and hang them from your bedroom ceilings, or even make some watercolour art! 
  These activities are out of this world!

We are so proud of all the work that you are doing and how you are continuing to log on to Purple Mash, Education City and Numbots. We love that our Timberley Twitter page is also full of our Reception children completing their exciting activities so keep posting them, we always look forward to seeing them. We are missing you so much!

Have a safe and happy day,

Reception Team 

Friday 1st May

Today is International Space Day so we thought you might like to try and make your own constellation projector! Take a look at the pictures and enjoy!
 

Thursday 30th April

Hello again Reception! We are really missing you but it has been so nice to speak to lots of you on the phone this week. It sounds like you are all working hard to complete the games and activities we are putting online for you as well as lots of other fun things too - keep up the hard work!

Carol Vorderman has got a maths website that usually charges but is now free to use during lockdown. Here you can find lots of games as well as specific topics for the children to try.

https://www.themathsfactor.com/

Below are a list of websites you can go onto to help with Literacy:

• Phonics Play - https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
• Phonics Bloom - https://www.phonicsbloom.com/
• Letters and sounds - http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/
• Cbeebies - Alphablocks - www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
• Teach your monster to read (website is free but there is a cost for the app) https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/
• Oxford Owl - https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/  
• ICT Games - lots of games for handwriting, reading -  https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/skyWriter/index.html https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/writingRepeater/index.html
• Ruth Miskin speed sounds - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ruth+miskin

We have also thought of an activity you could do to as a family keepsake :

To make the salt dough, you will need

500g plain flour

250g salt

250mls water (add more water if necessary)

Bake in the oven on lowest heat for 3 hours or until rock hard

Instructions

• Mix the flour and salt then add the water
• mix into a dough
• roll out onto flat surface into desired shape about 1-1.5cm thick (remember to sprinkle some flour down to prevent sticking)
• place on a baking tray
• make hand imprints (as deep/clear as possible)
• place in the oven on the lowest heat possible (so it doesn’t burn)and leave for 3-4 hours or until completely solid top and bottom
• paint with your choice of paints/colours 
• seal with any kind of varnish or sealer to preserve it (PVA glue works too)
   

We hope you enjoy these activities - enjoy the rest of your week and have a wonderful weekend. Stay safe and remember to be good for your grown ups. We miss you all so much, speak soon.

Monday 27th April

Hello Reception!

We hope you’ve had a lovely weekend.

As well as the fun activities we have planned for you on Purple Mash & Education City, we have also thought of some other things you could try doing at home.

As part of our space theme you could go onto YouTube and search for the book ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy

Why not act out the story using props that you can find from around your home?

You could make a postcard to send back down to Earth - What can you see in space? Is it hot or cold? What are you wearing?

Try making your very own moonsand - you need 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil - add some food colouring to change the colour!
 

If you managed to make some playdough last week you could make two play dough aliens - how many eyes do they have altogether? How many legs? Can you write down the number sentence to show what you’ve found out?

Don’t forget if you have access to the internet then White Rose home learning have some fantastic maths ideas for you to try at home. This week the theme is ‘Night Pirates’.

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/early-years/

Another great website is BBC Bitesize 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
 

You could also try the Oak National Academy

https://www.thenational.academy/

We have also found some exciting science activities that you could try - have a look at the pictures below for some ideas!
 

We hope you have lots of fun this week, stay safe and remember to be good for your grown ups at home.

Speak to you all soon 

Thursday 23rd April 2020

Hello again Reception, we hope you’re all well and having a good week so far.

We have thought of some more activities that we wanted to share with you as we thought you would like them and that you could have lots of fun doing them with your families. 😊

Continuing with our space project, we want you to have a think about the things you would take with you in your very own rocket if you could travel into space! See if you can write these items down in a list, remember to sound out the words carefully listening for all those letter sounds!

Also if you have made any moon rocks out of foil (or if you haven’t you could give it a go now) you could make your own tens frame and use your moon rocks to find different ways of making ten! If you remember back to when we did our maths in class, we had started to chant our number bonds to ten. Why don’t you have a go at chanting and see if you can remember all the different ways of making ten, remember we start with “Ten split is zero and ten, zero and ten makes ten!”

You could also have a go at decorating stones in different ways and make your own number stones! You can make them look like dominoes, you can paint or write numbers on them, you can draw spots on them so they look like dice! See if you can make your own set of number stones and you could use them in so many different ways! Take a look at the picture below! You can even make your own clock and begin to learn to tell the time. You could then record what you do at different times during the day, such as, ‘I get up at 8 o’clock and have breakfast’, ‘At 9 o’clock I do my school work’, ‘At 12 o’clock I have lunch’, ‘At 1 o’clock I play.’

Something else we thought you might like to do is kindly ask your grown ups if you could make your own play dough just like the play dough we use in class. We have put the recipe underneath so you can have a go - but only if your grown ups say it is okay and will help you with this. Have fun!

Enjoy the rest of the week Reception. We will be in touch again very soon. Love to you and your families.

Take good care and stay safe. ☺️💕

Monday 20th April 2020

Hi Reception, we hope you have all had a wonderful Easter, eating lots of chocolate and enjoying the sunshine! 😎

We are missing you all so much and it has been lovely talking to lots of you over the phone and hearing about all the things you have been doing. We are so pleased that lots of you have been able to go online and complete some of the activities that we have put on for you and that you are checking the website and our class page to keep you up to date with all that is going on. Please keep up your hard work, you’re all doing so well!

We have got some more activities for you to try now as our project for this half term is ‘Space’ so it would be great if you could write down anything you already know about space and start to make your own information book!

Also to get you thinking about our project you could try and make your own rocket or space station by using a cardboard box (maybe you could ask a grown up to help   you with this)

You could also use some paper (coloured paper if you have it but if not don’t worry) you could draw and then cut out some 2D shapes and arrange them to design and make your own space rocket or you could have a go at making a name rocket!   

Why not have a go at making some moon rocks by scrunching up tin foil, you could use these to print your own moon picture or you could play your own game of throw and count! How many moon rocks can you get into the bucket or box!    

We hope you have lots of fun trying the activities but don’t forget the most important thing to do at the moment is to stay safe! Please continue to help your grown ups by making good choices at home and we will give you all a call again very soon.

Take good care of yourselves and each other

Love from us all.

Happy Easter!

Hi Reception, 
Happy Easter! We hope you are keeping safe, learning lots and enjoying your special time at home.

Now, we know our Reception children are the best at exploring and learning so we have decided that this week we would like you to go on some special scavenger hunts! You are going to be little explorers, on a quest to find everything on the lists. We ask that if you find all the items can you write them down and even send in some pictures to our Timberley email. We have also put some Easter craft ideas for you to get ready for Springtime and for the Easter Bunny! Some even include some potato printing!

There is special Easter themed Cosmic Kids Yoga that you can access https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEp9euhuu2E, as well as our daily P.E lesson with Joe Wicks!
We have spoken to some of you already on the phone it was so amazing to hear that you are all safe and well and it really made us smile to hear your voices :) We will continue to go through the classes, ringing around to say hi and to make sure we are keeping in touch at this very different time. 

Thank you for your continued support and thank you for taking the time to log on to Purple Mash, Education City and Numbots. It was lovely to hear that you are enjoying the activities that we are setting and we always look forward to seeing who has been busy at work online and looking at the fantastic work you are producing!

Stay safe, keep smiling and keep learning. You are all amazing and we are all so proud of you!
Reception Team :)
 

Thursday 2nd April

Hi Reception!
We just wanted to say another hello to you all. We miss you all so much! We hope you are keeping safe and having a lovely time doing your home learning activities and spending time with your families. We have been thinking of more great learning opportunities that you could complete because we want to make them as fun and exciting as we can and so you can use all the things around your house as well as making sure you continue to log on to Numbots, Purple Mash and Education City! Thank you to all those children who are completing games that we have set but if you haven't do not worry. Times are very different and we just want to make sure each one of you are happy, safe and smiling! 

Maths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVlvGRIU428 - How Big is a Million? 
Listen to the story of How Big is a Million? Talk about the story and discuss with your grown ups about the values of different numbers? How old is everybody in your family? How big is 5 compared to 25? 

I'm going on a shape hunt!
Can you collect different shapes around your home? Collect both 2D and 3D shapes and discuss what is the same? What is different? Can you sort the shapes in different ways? Do you know the names of these shapes?  CHALLENGE - Can you draw around a 3D shape and spot the 2D shapes within that shape? 

Science

- Ogden Trust resources - for example Phizzi Problem solving, Phizzi practicals etc www.ogdentrust.com/resources

- Marvin and Milo experiments - http://www.physics.org/marvinandmilo.asp

- Science Museum resources - eg Rocket mice etc -  https://learning-resources.sciencemuseum.org.uk/resources/?keystage=ks2&type=at-home

- 101 experiments on Sublime science site - www.sublimescience.com/free-science-experiments/

- ASE great bug hunt (fun whether competition runs or not?) - http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/bughunt

- Science Sparks - www.science-sparks.com/science-experiments-for-kids/

- WhizzPopBang magazine - www.whizzpopbang.com - maybe now's the time to get some back issues!

- BP resources - https://bpes.bp.com/resources/list

- Twinkl's Coronavirus support pages for parents - https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/free-resources-parents/science-free-resources-parents/science-science-free-resources-parents

- 100 activities from the Scout Association - www.scouts.org.uk/the-great-indoors/

and I'm sure there are lots more...

or could your children do home projects for a virtual Science Fair (as our enterprising Sutton Coldfield Ogden Trust partnership are doing)?

Music
Mrs Salt has sent us some musical activities for us to complete. They are located on the music page of our school website so take a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEey4LZLeGw - Learn our Springtime Timberley song! 
 

Literacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42j__i-owjs - Rabbit Ears by Amber Stewart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGfpmwHdw4M - The Story of the Easter Bunny
Read the story Rabbit Ears and The Story of the Easter Bunny. Can you answer your grown ups questions about the story? Now it's your turn to make a book review. Which story did you like best and why? What did you like about the story? What did you not like about the story? Did you have a favourite character? Can you think of a different ending? 

Monday 30th March 2020

Hi Reception, we just wanted to say a big hello to you all and we hope you’re all staying safe and helping your grown ups by making good choices! We also hope that you’re all enjoying doing the activities in your packs and the ones we’re setting for you online. 
 

Don’t forget that in your packs were your bean diaries! Be sure to keep filling it in and look after your bean plants so they grow big and tall and hopefully they will produce some beans that you can pick. We also sent you a ruler so you could use this to measure your bean plant or you could use a piece of ribbon or string, you could then go on a little hunt around your house or garden to see if you can find things that are taller or shorter than your bean plant and make a list of the things you find. 
 

As well as this, our project for this half term would still be fairytales so you could draw and write about your favourite story characters, you could even invent characters of your own to write about or make up your own stories and share them with a grown up. 
 

Another fun idea for you to try is to have a good look around your house, garden or bedroom and try to find things that rhyme, such as, mat & cat, ham & jam, bed & ted and see if you can write these down. 
 

Also, why not see if you can find items to stack, such as small stones or buttons! Find out how many you can stack in a tower before they fall over, be sure to count them carefully! Investigate how many fall off and how many are still stacked and have a go at writing this down as a number sentence! 
 

Have fun trying out these activities Reception. 
 

We wish you and your family the very best of health - stay safe everyone. 
 

Love The Reception Team. 

Wednesday 25th March 2020
 

Hi Reception!

We just wanted to say hello and tell you that we are missing you so much! We hope you are all making good choices at home too just like you do at school!

We are adding activities everyday to Education City and to Purple Mash so don't forget to log on and have a go and have a try on Numbots too!

Twinkl is currently free for parents to log onto and they have lots of great activities for the children to do.

See you all soon,

Mrs Sheppard, Miss Lench and Miss Orohoe

Practical Learning Ideas

We know it may be a little bit different doing some of your work at home but we have been thinking of some exciting things that you can do with items you have in your house!

Counting objects within the house - This could be anything as simple as counting the cutlery in your drawer!
Looking for shapes in the environment - Can you see the rectangle on the table? The square on the oven door? How many edges does the television have? Can you name any 3D shapes you can see?
Writing numbers 1-20 - Can you recognise the numerals and place them in order?

Stick Man Art - Read the story of Stick Man and see if you can use natural materials to make your very own Stick Man! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t09rk/stick-man)
Using scissors to cut leaves - Can you collect lots of leaves and use your fine motor skills to cut the leaves? Can you cut your leaf in half? How many leaves can you cut holding your scissors correctly?

Have lots of fun with these activities and stay safe :)

Read Write Inc are providing phonic lessons on Facebook and Youtube for the children to watch at home. You can watch Set 1 speed sounds at 9.30 and 12.30, Set 2 speed sounds will be available at 10.00 and 1.00. They are also showing a film of a poem which is suitable for Reception at 2.00 every day too.

Have fun!

Teddy Bear Picnic!

On Friday 20th March Reception will be hosting a Teddy Bear's picnic. We would like to invite all the children and their favourite teddy bear to come to the picnic. We will be making a jam sandwich and we would love it if the bears could share it with us!

Homework - Friday 6th March 2020

Number Shape Number Bonds to 10

Planting beans

As part of our topic on Fairytales, we have been reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We decided to go outside into the farm area and plant our own magic beans. We can't wait to see how tall our beanstalks grow just like the one in the story.

Golden Table

Reception have been trying very hard to use their good manners at lunch time. The dinner ladies are always on the look out to choose somebody to sit at the 'Golden Table' on a Friday as a reward for using super manners throughout the week.

Take a look below to see some of the children who have been chosen so far...

Shrove Tuesday 

On Shrove Tuesday, we talked about Lent and why we enjoy pancakes and what these symbolise in the Christian religion. We even got to eat a pancake covered in jam and chocolate spread. We thought they were delicious! 

Homework- 28th February 2020
 

Children to draw their favourite Fairytale story.

Homework - Friday 14th February

Numbots - log on and play some games.

Dinosaur fossils

We have had lots of fun making our very own dinosaur fossils. We flattened the clay using our hands and made skeleton marks using clay tools. We even tried pressing plastic dinosaurs into the clay.

Egg-citing news!
 

We have some exciting news in Reception...We have found a Dinosaur egg! The Dinosaur egg has started to crack and we are not quite sure how it has got there. If you have any information about our Dinosaur egg please let us know. We are going to continue to investigate over the next two weeks so any information will be appreciated!

 

Fun at the Farm!

On Friday, we had a fantastic day on the farm. We went on a an animal hunt and made a list of all the animals we discovered. Mr Ball gave an amazing talk on how he looks after all the animals on the farm and we even got to stroke the rabbits and the guinea pigs. We then took part in crafts activities, making a sheep and cow mask using paper plates. We decorated biscuits and made them look like pigs! We also did some super science by playing 'What's in the box?' Take a look at our pictures!

Homework 31st January 2020 

Letter formation - 'h'

Chinese New Year celebrations

We had a fantastic time celebrating Chinese New Year in Reception. We had a fun filled day learning all about different Chinese traditions. We made wishes and threw our wishes in a wishing tree. We tasted delicious Chinese food and talked about adjectives to describe the food thinking about our senses. We really enjoyed using our bodies to create dragon dances and watched traditional parades. We made some red money envelopes and did money rubbings to put inside like the lucky Chinese tradition. We made a Chinese drum by joining two paper plates together and threading beads. Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Reception Inspire Workshop

Thank you for coming to our Inspire Workshop. We hope you had a fantastic time and found it useful. We enjoyed sharing all the activities and ideas that you can use at home to support your children. Take a look at some of our Inspire photos!

RS

RL

Reception Newsletter

Welcome back, we hope you all had a lovely break over Christmas.

This half term our project is called ‘Animals and Dinosaurs’.

We will be learning about lots of different animals and their habitats. We will also be talking about our pets and how we look after them so if you have a pet and would like to send in a photograph for us to display we would love to see them. If you don’t have a pet you could always send in a photograph of your favourite animal for us to talk about.

In Literacy we will be continuing with the Read Write Inc programme. Here are some useful websites to support your child with their phonics.

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6OiU2h3sUI

https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEB&search_query=geraldine+the+giraffe

In Maths this half term we will be concentrating on numbers from 6 to 10 and comparing groups of objects. We will also be learning about addition and subtraction to 10 and continuing with learning about 2D and 3D shapes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks

We have got lots of fun and exciting Science activities planned and we will be sending home a Science discovery bag where a child from each class will be chosen each week to take home the bag and the ‘challenge chimpanzee’ to complete an activity at home.

PE days will continue to be on a Wednesday and a reminder that all earrings should be removed.

We look forward to seeing you all at our Inspire workshops this term. The dates are:

RL – 21^st January 2020

RS – 22^nd January 2020

RO – 23^rd January 2020

Thank you all for your continued support.

The Reception Team

Homework - 29/11/2019 - Letter formation 'g'

Homework - 22/11/2019 - letter formation 'p'

Children in Need

We have had so much fun today. We started off the day by taking part in the live stream of Joe Wicks and Pudsey Bear doing their exercises. We enjoyed making our own Pudsey Bear biscuits and counted out loud the spots onto the biscuit. We coloured in a picture of Pudsey Bear and took part in lots of other fun activities too! Take a look at the pictures to see how much fun we had.

Our Bonfire Extravaganza!

 

As part of our new project 'Festivals and Celebrations' we had a Bonfire in Forest School. We had lots of fun on Tuesday at our Bonfire! Mr Herbert did a great job keeping the Bonfire going whilst we had our special Bonfire lunch. We enjoyed eating our dinner and puddings by the heat of the fire. We waved our special  sparklers in the air that we had made in the morning and even danced around the playground with them in the afternoon!. We really enjoyed ourselves and it was a great start to our new project.

Bonfire Extravaganza

As part of our entry point for our new project 'Festivals and Celebrations',  we will be having a mini bonfire outside in the Forest School area (weather permitting) on Tuesday 5th November. The children will take part in fun activities throughout the day and will have a special 'bonfire' themed lunch. Please could you send your child to school with a warm coat, hats, scarves and gloves and appropriate footwear.

Thanks for all of your continued support.

Awesome Autumn

Today Reception went into the farm on an Autumn hunt. We were looking for Autumn objects for the children to collect and sort. Along the way we even found some spooky pumpkins!

People Who Help Us Day

Reception have had a fantastic day learning all about different people who help us. They enjoyed different activities throughout the day and learnt about the police, fire fighters, doctors, dentists, lollipop people and vets. Take a look at the photos to see how much fun we had.

Homework - 18.10.19 Letter Formation 't'

Homework 11/10/2019

Letter formation 'd' sheet

Reception's Got Talent

On Friday, we held a Reception's Got Talent afternoon, where the children shared their talents to celebrate finishing our 'All About Me' project and moving on to learning all about 'People Who Help Us'. The children enjoyed walking through the audience and performing different dances, jokes and even some solo performances singing their favourite songs. It was such an enjoyable afternoon with joy and laughter and we all felt so happy at the end of it because we are all so special and unique with our different talents! Take a look at some of our performances...

Welcome to Reception!

Reception children have had a fantastic first week settling into their new classes and beginning their school journey. We are so proud of how the children have began their school year, with big smiles and such enthusiasm. During our first week we have been so busy, learning routines, making new friends and even visiting our farm to meet the animals. 

We have also sent the children home with reading books and reading diaries. Book changing days are Tuesday and Friday. Please make sure that you have signed the reading diary to show us that your child has shared the book with you and you would like it changed. 

The children have enjoyed their first P.E session, and enjoyed playing P.E games in the hall. P.E day is on a Wednesday and we ask all children to have their P.E kit in school and children to have earrings removed. 

We would like to thank you for making the start of the year such a fantastic experience for your children and we cannot wait to continue to have a super year!