Bees and Butterflies (Reception)
Autumn Term 1
Hello Bees and Butterflies!
We would like to welcome you all to St. Peter's and hope you are as excited as we are in starting your school journey.
As a member of the Bees and Butterflies you will be busy learning, playing, creating and exploring each and every day. We hope you find many adventures and meet wonderful friends along the way.
Keep your eyes on our class page as we will be regularly posting photos of all the magical moments and memories we make together.
Mrs Williams, Miss Holyhead, Mrs Saunders & Mrs Turner
A Super Start!
Our Bees and Butterflies Reception classes have had a fantastic first week settling into their new school and meeting their new friends! They have been busy exploring their classrooms, the playground, lunchtimes and learning about our school rules and values. They have been focussing on how we can show that we ‘Love God and Love One Another’.
Supersonic Phonics!
Here at St. Peter’s, we use the wonderful Supersonic Phonic Friends scheme of work to enhance reading and writing skills in our early years setting and beyond! Using fun actions, memorable rhymes, and the help of the Phonic Friends to embed knowledge of the sounds we have learnt. Join us, on our Supersonic journey!
Our Author Focus:
This term’s author focus is Julia Donaldson! Here in Reception we have been exploring this authors books, and looking at the beautiful illustrations in our stories. We have created a story folder where we have recorded our thoughts and opinions of each book we have read.
Marvellous Me!
We have been learning all about each other and making new friends. We have shared our 'All About Me' books which we created in the summer holidays with our family. We have even made self-portraits by painting paper plates and using loose parts on the tuff tray.
Charcoal Self-Portraits
We have learnt about the process of how charcoal is made and wanted to use it for our drawings. We created self-portraits by looking carefully into a mirror at our facial features and using the charcoal to draw what we could see.
God's Creation
We have been listening to the Bible story of Creation and enjoyed learning our first hymn 'God Said'. We have designed our own posters showing what God created on each day.
Twinkle, Twinkle We are Stars!
We have enjoyed our nursery rhyme topic and discovered a fantastic book called 'Dear Mother Goose'. All the nursery rhyme characters wrote a letter to her with a problem and she had to solve it. We loved listening to her ideas and came up with a few of our own. We told Humpty Dumpty to make sure he puts a trampoline under the wall so he doesn't fall and break. We also told Jack and Jill to catch the train so they don't keep falling down the hill.
Humpty Dumpty - We have tried to put Humpty back together using sellotape, glue, staples even plasters! We have practised our fine motor skills by making concertina arms and legs for our Humpty danglies. We have also enjoyed taking turns when playing the Humpty Dumpty brick balance game.
Incy Wincy Spider - We have loved changing the words to the famous nursery rhyme Incy Wincy Spider. We have used our super strength to crush and squish newspaper so we can push it into a pair of tights to make legs for Incy Wincy. We were very lucky to have a frosty morning so we could go outside to make observatial drawings of spider webs. We also got creative with PVA glue and glitter to make webs for our playdough spiders.
Rosary Bead Making!
After learning all about the Rosary and the prayer which we say whilst using our Rosary beads, we made some of our own using pipe cleaners and beads. We then practiced using our new Rosary beads to help us pray and displayed them on our prayer table.
Reception Superstars!
Wow! What a super first-half term we have had. We were all given a superstar crown to decorate because our teachers are all so proud of us and how we have settled so well into life at St. Peter's.
Autumn Term 2
Autumn Term 2
Welcome back to Autumn Term 2 here at St Peter’s Reception unit. This term we are focussing on all things Autumn! We will be exploring this vibrant season and observing the changes happening in the natural world. We will be making use of our senses to participate in exciting Autumn walks, using natural objects as tools to develop our maths skills, creating some beautiful artwork and even incorporating the season of Autumn into our literacy work! We will also be learning about the importance of Christmas and why it is a special time of year, as well as taking part in many festive activities, putting on a spectacular production of ‘The Big Little Nativity’, and much more!
Season of Autumn
The season of Autumn is certainly upon us and we have been observing the changes that we can see during this wonderful season. The mornings are crisp, the leaves are falling and there is a chill in the air.
Forest School - Autumn Changes
Our first visit to Forest School was very exciting. We all had fun putting on our waterproofs and helping our friends. It was a little rainy so we splashed in puddles whilst making our way there. We listened to the story 'Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn' and spoke about the seasonal changes. We had great fun exploring the forest.
Fireworks!
We have been looking at the artist Jackson Pollock and have created our own artwork inspired by him. We have had great fun splatting and dripping paint to look like fireworks in the night sky. We also became Scientists when we investigated the experiment of 'Fireworks in a glass'!
The wind blew Leaf Man to…
Our current book focus here in Reception is ‘Leaf man’ a story about a man made from leaves and the adventure the wind takes him on. We have been incorporating our book focus into all areas of our learning including the use of autumn objects to create repeating patterns and practice counting in maths, creating vibrant Autumn leaf art, and writing our own version of the leaf an story with a prediction of where he will blow next! We hope you enjoy looking at some of our fantastic Leaf Men as much as we enjoyed making them!
I'm Stick Man! That's me!
Here in Reception, we have been exploring books written by Julia Donaldson. Our book focus this week has been Stick Man! We have been busy completing lots of fun activities relating to our story including sequencing games, fine motor activities to develop our pencil control, making our own stick men using clay, using our phonics knowledge to write mystery words, and also writing postcards to Stick Man's family!
Sequencing the story
Re-telling the story
Stickman Words
Postcard Writing
Clay
Happy Diwali Day!
Here in Reception, we have been celebrating the festival of lights in style by dressing in our brightest colours and taking part in lots of sparkly, messy and fun Diwali activities! We experimented with colourful rice to create Rangoli patterns, painted shimmering Diva lamps, and created fireworks in our sparkly water tray! We also took part in a delicious curry taste test where we sampled some new flavours! We hope you enjoy our Diwali Day pictures as much as we enjoyed celebrating!
Diwali Celebration Day
Diwali Celebration Day
Diwali Celebration Day
Diwali Celebration Day
Diwali Celebration Day
Tasting vegetable curry made Class Catering
It's delicious!
Clay Diva Lamps
Painting our Diva Lamps
Odd Sock Day!
This week is National Anti-Bullying Week. We launched the week wearing odd socks to celebrate our individuality and uniqueness, reception enjoyed wearing their funky socks and discussing how we can all show that we Love God and Love One Another through being kind and compassionate friends.
A Surprise Visitor!
On Tuesday we were delighted to have a surprise visit from Pudsey Bear on his BBC Hereford and Worcester Children in Need Roadshow. The children were so excited to see him and he received many hugs and high fives to send him on his way! We also took part in many Pudsey themed activities including wearig our own spotty clothes, and using finger painting to decorate Pudsey's bandage!
Decorating Pudsey
Hugs for Pudsey
High-Five for Pudsey
Cool Concentric Circles!
Today we have been learning about circles and triangles and comparing their properties! We looked at the work of Wassily Kandinsky and made our own paintings using concentric circles! We also experimented with these shapes to make Christmas trees, shapes in colourful sand, and solved a colouring puzzle using clues!
Kandinsky Artwork
Advent
Mrs Clubley taught us about how Advent is a special liturgical season. We helped her change our prayer table cloths to purple and we made an Advent wreath together.
Our Christmas Workshop
Thank you to all the parents who attended our Reception Christmas workshop! The room was full of smiles, laughter, festive spirit and lots of glitter! The children enjoyed making reindeer hats, snowmen biscuits, and glittering angels. The parents were also treated to a sneak preview of a song from our Christmas Nativity!
Making Angels 
Wreath Painting
Paper Chains
Super Team Work!
Who doesn't love the smell of oranges and cloves at Christmas!
Melting Snowman Biscuits!
Christmas Stories
Christmas Stories
A Nativity Sing Song!
Freezing Fun!
It was a chilly afternoon here in Reception, where the children were using their scientific equiry skills to experiment with different temperatures. Their challenge involved blocks of ice with different Arctic animals trapped inside! The children worked hard to discover the fastest way to melt the ice and save the animals!
Save the reindeer!
Time Travel Tuesday!
Here in Reception, we have been learning about how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Today, we took part in a history lesson where we took a step back in time to explore old and new Christmas items. We looked carefully at our Christmas object table, then spoke about the similarities and differences between toys, technology, stocking fillers and sleighs! We then thought of different ways to describe these objects and even got to test some of them out!
It's Christmas!
Well what a day! We started the morning with a Christmas sing-a-long with the whole school, our favourite was definitely 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer'! Then we played party games in class with our friends. We were all very excited as we entered the hall for Christmas lunch as it was decorated with tinsel and we all had a cracker to pull! Then we had a very special visitor to check we are all being nice!
The Big Little Nativity
Wow! We were so excited to perform our Nativity to our families. We shared the Christmas Story of how Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem on a donkey. We sang our hearts out along the way and finished once baby Jesus had been born in a stable.
Spring Term 1
Spring Term 2
Welcome back to a new Term here at St. Peter’s! We have started our learning this term with a bang! With our first literary focus being ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy. We have been soaring into space with Baby Bear, by using our imaginations to think of what sort of vehicle a cardboard box could be and writing our description with the help of our phonics knowledge. We have been focussing particularly hard on making sure our sentences are as good as they can be, by ensuring we are using capital letters, finger spaces, full stops, and checking that our work makes sense!
Epiphany
We listened carefully to the Christmas story and focussed on when the Wise Men visited baby Jesus. We thought about their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh and how they would be used. We then discussed what we would give Jesus as a gift, we had lots of wonderful ideas including a blanket, a nappy, a cuddle and even a soft animal to help him sleep.
Bike Ability Superstars!
Our reception classes have been taking part in Bike Ability this term and have made terrific progress! By taking part in fun games and supporting one another to improve, both Bees and Butterflies classes have seen lots of children move from balance bikes to peddle bikes, and some children are even riding without stabilisers! We cannot wait to see how their bike skills progress in the coming weeks!
Forest School
We listened carefully to the story 'Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter'. We spent time looking for signs of Winter at Forest School. We finished the session by writing our names in the frost on our playground.
Frosty Mornings
We have been inspired by the frost outside to create winter pictures. We used a white wax crayon to make patterns on our woolly hat design, then we used watercolours to paint over them and we watched the magic patterns appear before our eyes!
Piet Mondrain
We have been learning about the primary colours red, yellow and blue. We have looked closely at the work of Piet Mondrian and have been inspired to create our own versions of his artwork.
Celebrating the Sacraments
This morning Reception accompanied Mrs Clubley and the Reception team to our Church to learn all about Baptism. Reception were able to look around the Church, observing the font, a Baptismal Candle, and even roleplaying a real Baptism! We discussed the importance of this event in a person's life, and thought about our own experiences of Baptism.
The Big Bird Watch
Reception could not wait to get start when we told them we would be taking part in Big Garden Bird Watch. We even turned our role-play into a bird watching station. At Forest School we made bird feeders using cheerios to encourage more birds onto the school grounds.
Happy Chinese New Year!
Reception have loved learning about and celebrating Chinese New Year this term and have been busy discovering the history of this celebration and taking part in lots of fun activities. We rounded off our Chinese New Year learning with a celebration day! We dressed up in lucky Chinese colours, performed a traditional dragon dance, and made lots of wonderful artwork including lanterns, concertina dragons, and decorated willow pattern plates!
Spring Term 2
Spring Term 2
Welcome back to our exciting Spring Term at St. Peter’s! We have kickstarted our learning this term by beginning our new topic: ‘People Who Help Us’. We have also begun preparing our Mother's Day assembly, where we will be showcasing our super singing, some amazing artwork, and celebrating with our adults!
Our Lenten Promises
As we enter the liturgical season of Lent, we have been thinking carefully about how we can use this time to pray, reflect, and make good choices. As part of this, we have written our own Lenten promises.
Summer Term 1
WELCOME TO THE SUMMER TERM BEES AND BUTTERFLIES!
We are excited to welcome back the Bees and Butterflies for a fun-filled Summer Term full of adventures, sunshine, and lots of new learning! We will be delving into some wonderful new topics which will spark our imagination and creativity! Keep an eye on our class page for updates on our learning journey!
Summer Term Curriculum Information
Summer Term Information Letter
Home Learning - Spring Has Sprung!
Faiths Around the World Week!
Here in Reception we have been exploring the festival of Eid. We have been learning about why the month of Ramadan is an important time for Muslims and how Eid is celebrated. We have been looking at the important symbols of the Islamic Faith by making sparkly star and crescent moon mobiles. We also looked at images of different Mosques around the world, creating some wonderful observational drawings, and a print of a Mosque using stencils. Finally, we made some shimmering pasta jewellery, to represent the bright and colourful outfits worn when celebrating Eid!
Summer Term 2
Info