Class R
Welcome to Reception Year in Wonder Class
Welcome to reception at de Vere! Wonder class is taught by Miss Hutchings and supported by our fantastic LSAs, Mrs De’ath and Miss Smith.
Reception is such an important year as the children begin their journey through school life. We ensure there is a smooth transition for our children as they start with us; carrying out nursery visits, home visits and stay and play sessions to really start building those important relationships from early on in the year.
We have developed our own EYFS curriculum, where we learn through a play and exploration and support children to build on their knowledge and skills, both indoors and outdoors. The children learn so much throughout the year and take part in many exciting opportunities and experiences linked to our topics:
Autumn 1: This is me
Autumn 2: Let’s Celebrate
Spring 1: Animal Adventures
Spring 2: Once upon a time
Summer 1: Ready, Steady, Grow
Summer 2: Sun, sea & sand
WONDER CLASS BLOG 2023-2024- CHECK OUT WHAT WE HAVE BEEN LEARNING!
15th September 2023
What a busy start Wonder class have had to their school journey! The children have spent the last few days settling in and getting to know the adults and the environment. We are continuing to learn all the rules and routines of school life. We have started our topic of ‘This is me!’ by focusing on getting to know each other and exploring our similarities and differences. We had a go at painting pictures of ourselves. We have loved listening to the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and exploring the different colours and emotions. The children enjoyed talking about this and have done brilliantly remembering which colour represents which emotion. They even helped The Colour Monster sort his feelings into the correct jars.
This week we also met Joe! He is a character who works at the phonics shed and he taught us good listening skills. We practised listening for sounds in words. Next week we will be exploring blending and we can’t wait to meet more characters from the phonics shed when we start learning lots of sounds! Well done Wonder Class, for completing your first full week of school!
Last year's Blog 2022-2023
20th July 2023
Our final few weeks in Wonder Class have been as busy as ever! We finished off our ‘Sun, sea and sand’ topic with lots of learning about Handa’s surprise. We enjoyed acting out the story, comparing our own village to Handa’s village in Kenya, trying lots of exotic fruits, making sun summer drinks in our outside area and even learning a fantastic song and playing instruments in time. The children have also continued to work hard to apply their phonics skills to writing sentences about the story as well as how to keep safe in the sun. It has been such a fun few weeks!
We finished off our topic with a lovely trip to the park where we enjoyed a picnic together, played with friends and enjoyed a treat from the ice cream van. What a wonderful year we have had together. We could not be prouder of everything the children have achieved and it has been an absolute pleasure! We hope everyone has a wonderful summer.
16th June 2023
We have had a lovely start to our final half term in reception! We kicked off our ‘Sun, sea and sand’ focusing on the story ‘The Rainbow Fish.’ The story provided some great talking points for the children and we all shared our thoughts on the events and characters. It was great to hear the children talking about what makes a kind friend and how the characters could have solved problems. The children had a go at making their own rainbow fish using different techniques such as collaging, printing with celery to create scales and using water colours. Some children also wrote a simple book review which they are hoping to share with their reading buddies. They have also enjoyed lots of outdoor and water play to keep cool in the heat!
We have continued to work hard in maths, consolidating key skills, recalling double facts and exploring sharing and halving. In phonics, we are working on reading longer words containing the digraphs we know and it has been wonderful to see such lovely sentence writing. Great job Wonder Class!
25th May 2023
We can’t believe our ‘Ready, Steady, Grow’ topic is coming to an end – what a fun one it has been! Last week the children continued to learn about Avocado Baby, where they enjoyed caring for the babies in class and writing super sentences about how strong and mighty the baby in the story was. They also painted some wonderful pictures of the baby, thinking carefully about the colours and shapes needed and using thin brushes to add detail. We explored ways of looking after our minds and bodies, including happy breathing, fun and exercise and eating a range of foods. The children absolutely loved making their own fruit kebabs for afternoon snack – they went down a treat! Alongside this, we have been carefully observing our caterpillars and talking about the change that is happening. We loved learning the word ‘metamorphosis’. In maths we have been exploring sharing into equal groups before we move onto halving amounts in a few weeks and in phonics we continue to consolidate our learning and develop our sentence writing. We are now looking forward to our final topic ‘Sun, sea and sand.’ Happy half term Wonder Class!
12th May 2023
What a busy couple of weeks we have had in Wonder Class! Last week we had fun learning all about the coronation and sharing interesting facts about King Charles. They produced some lovely writing about his age, where he was born, his children and what he likes to do. They were very impressed that he learnt how to fly a helicopter! They also had fun making beautiful paper plate crowns with Mrs De’ath ready for their celebrations. Linking to our ‘Ready, Steady, Grow’ topic, the children enjoyed planting their own coronation sunflowers with Mrs Joy and talking about how to care for them. Some of them are growing really well already!
This week we have begun to read the story ‘Avocado Baby’ and we have loved sharing pictures of us as babies and talking about how we have grown and changed. In maths, we have been learning to double amounts. We had fun on the field, choosing a numicon piece and finding different natural objects to represent what double that amount is. As always, Wonder Class continue to work hard and show a really positive attitude towards their learning. Great job!
28th April 2023
Wonder Class have had a great start to the summer term. We kicked off our ‘Ready, steady, grow!’ topic by reading the story ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk.’ The children have become experts at retelling it and they have enjoyed writing words and sentences about what happened in the story. They have been busy learning about what a bean needs to grow and they have loved creating their own garden centre outside with Mrs Joy. A favourite activity last week was using magic clay to make our own minibeasts. The children loved exploring the texture of the clay and manipulating it in different ways to create their butterflies, slugs, snails, spiders and ladybirds.
This week we have also started to explore ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and learnt about the lifecycle of a butterfly. The children produced some lovely writing and drawing to explain this. In maths, we have been learning to use what we know about 10 to build bigger numbers. The children used the numicon to explore how teen numbers are made up of a full ten plus some extras! Well done Wonder Class.
31st March
Wonder Class have had such a busy couple of weeks as we come to the end of our ‘Once Upon a Time’ topic. The children finished off their learning about Goldilocks and the Three Bears by following the instructions they wrote to make some yummy porridge. We then began exploring the story ‘The Jolly Postman’, where he delivers letters to all our favourite characters. The children have been very busy writing their own letters and were so excited address them, add the stamp and walk to the post box to send them. The whole class were so sensible on our walk and showed how children at de Vere are kind, safe and responsible. We then spent the afternoon in the park, having filled up our reward board and we had the best time!
It has been an exciting few weeks as we also began to learn about Easter. The children have enjoyed listening to and talking about the Easter story and why it is special to Christians and they have explored lots of Easter activities. They were so excited to go to the church and show their lovely spring time pictures and sing to the whole school and their parents.
The children have continued to work really hard in maths, where we have been learning about 3D shapes and repeating patterns and their reading and writing skills continue to get better and better! Well done Wonder Class – you have had another amazing term and worked so hard! Next half term we will be starting our new topic, ‘Ready, Steady, Grow!’ Have a lovely Easter break!
17th March 2024
This week in Wonder Class, we have been having lots of fun completing science week activities. Our first challenge was to send a message to Obama Class on a boat! We had to think carefully about which materials would be best and then explore how to get it moving. The children worked together to create a water way using the guttering and successfully delivered the message! We also explored the famous fossil hunter, Mary Anning and created a diorama to show her work.
Over the past fortnight we have continued to explore the traditional tales ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’. The children created some wonderful textured houses for the pigs and they were excited to receive a letter from Goldilocks asking for their help to write some instructions on how to make porridge. This also inspired some children to write a message back to her which was wonderful to see.
The children have continued to work hard in maths and have enjoyed exploring subtraction using different methods. They have also learnt how to use a computer mouse and use the class laptop to play maths and phonics games.
Next week we are going to be exploring the story ‘The Jolly Postman’ who delivers letters to lots of well known fairy tale characters. We are looking forward to writing our own letters and sending them home to our adults.
3rd March 2023
Wonder Class have had the best start to the second half of the spring term! We started off our ‘One Upon a Time’ topic, reading the story ‘Mr Wolf’s pancakes. The children loved writing their own pancake shopping lists but their favourite activity was definitely decorating their own pancakes with lots of yummy ingredients! This week we have begun to explore another story that stars the Big Bad Wolf! The children have enjoyed telling the story of The Three Little Pigs through their play, building strong houses and painting and drawing the characters. Again, we have seen some lovely writing about the story too.
We were also really excited about a new addition to our class. Thanks to our wonderful friends committee, we now have a Tonie Box in our class and the children have loved borrowing different Tonies to listen to their favourite songs and stories. This has really encouraged super listening skills, brilliant turn taking, lovely singing and even more great writing opportunities as the children enjoyed writing down which Tonie they would like to borrow. We are so grateful!
Next week we will be continuing with The Three little Pigs as our main text and we are going to be created wanted posters to help track down the wolf!
10th February 2023
Wonder Class have had a great couple of weeks continuing their ‘Animal Adventures’ topic by exploring the book ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ by Michael Rosen. We have retold the story, created our own story maps and even gone on our own pretend bear hunt in our outside area. The children have enjoyed using new vocabulary to describe the different settings in the story and have had a go at writing these words in simple sentences. They also enjoyed exploring hibernation and completing an experiment to see which materials would keep a hot water bottle the warmest in the cold winter weather.
We had the best afternoon on Thursday when we had lots of different animals come to visit us, including Peter the lizard, Dave the rabbit, Betty & Bubba the meerkats and Dionne the tarantula. The children were so brave and loved meeting the animals and learning all about them. Well done Wonder Class on another fantastic six weeks. We are looking forward to starting our ‘One Upon a Time’ topic after half term!
27th January 2023
Over the last two weeks, the children in Wonder Class have enjoyed lots of learning about animals. Last week, we focused on pets and explored non-fiction texts to find out interesting things about them, and then used our phonic knowledge to have a go at writing a simple fact. We were also very lucky to have a visit from Mrs Auld, who taught us all about what it is like to work at a veterinary practice. We got to explore lots of different equipment and even had a go at bandaging a poorly tiger. Thank you Mrs Auld!
This week we have explored Lunar New Year. We learnt about different traditions and cultures and even tried noodles. Our focus story was ‘The Great Race’ and the children enjoyed drawing pictures and writing all about the animals who competed to have a year names after them. Well done Wonder class for another great few weeks.
13th January 2023
What an amazing start to the Spring term Wonder class have had! The children came back from the holidays eager to learn and they enjoyed talking and writing about all the lovely gifts they got for Christmas. We then began our topic of ‘Animal Adventures!’ by exploring the story ‘Walking through the jungle’. The children loved the story and then enjoyed pretending to be explorers, imagining what they would see on their jungle journey. It was fantastic to see so many children having a go at writing ‘I can see…’ sentences and using their phonic knowledge to spell the animal names. We also learnt how to add detail to our paintings and the children produced some amazing jungle animal art!
We have begun Chapter 3 of phonics shed, which the children seem to be really enjoying and in maths we have been focusing on number bonds to 5. We have also been working on our subitising skills and the children loved using the ‘One minute maths’ app to help them with this - https://whiterosemaths.com/1-minute-maths
Finally, Wonder Class would like to say a huge thank you to Mr Wilson who has made us a wonderful stage for our outside area! The children are really excited to use it in their imaginative play. THANK YOU!
9th December 2022
Wonder Class have been getting Christmassy! We have busy taking part in lots of different festive activities during our exploring time, from making cards, acting out the nativity story, selling hot chocolate in our ‘Winter Wonderland’ role play area and pretending to deliver presents outside! We have also had a special visitor every day…Buddy the elf has been sent from the North Pole to keep an eye on us and set us challenges! There has been lots of lovely writing and drawing happening each day! We have really enjoyed learning all about baby Jesus and talking about the events of the Christmas story and have been practising SO hard for our own Nativity. We hope you love it!
25th November 2022
We have been as busy as ever in Class R over the last two weeks! We have especially enjoyed becoming artists, where we explored the work of Kandinsky and then painted our own masterpieces whilst listening to some lovely calming music. The children enjoyed it so much that this week we listened to music whilst we all drew our favourite characters from the story ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We also really enjoyed Children in Need, where we learnt all about Pudsey and had fun giving him his spots!
It has been great to see lots of the children writing words from ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story this week and we are looking forward to exploring the story further next week. We have also been working so hard to learn our songs for the Nativity. We can’t wait for you all to see it!
11th November 2022
We have made a great start to our topic ‘Let’s Celebrate’ over the past two weeks! We of course started off the term very excited about Halloween. The children loved sharing their experiences, making spooky potions and taking part in our pumpkin number challenge. We also learnt lots about fireworks, including how to stay safe on bonfire night and why it is celebrated. It has been great to hear that the children have been sharing their knowledge of this at home too! This week the children have enjoyed learning about Remembrance and using their art skills to create some lovely poppy pictures. A definite highlight of this week has been starting ‘Pen disco’, where the children have a wiggle whilst developing their fine motor skills.
Wonder class have continued to work hard in phonics where we have been really focusing on our blending and segmenting skills in order to read and write words. Next week we are looking forward to learning about the story ‘The Scarecrow’s wedding’ and using our phonic knowledge to write lists for the characters!
7th October 2022
We have had another busy couple of weeks in Wonder class. We have been focusing on the story ‘The Little Red Hen’ and the children have absolutely loved it! We made our own story map and have been retelling the story using pictures and actions. The children have explored lots of fun themed tuff trays, making pretend bread in the playdough area and even making their own toast for snack – that was definitely a favourite! It was great to see the children working on their independence. We also really enjoyed going on a senses walk around the school grounds and thinking about the different things we could see, smell, touch and hear.
In phonics, we have focused a lot of blending and segmenting, which will help us with our reading and writing. We have met lots of new characters from the phonics shed and explored the sounds they make. In maths, we have explored comparing quantity using more/less and vocabulary such as taller/shorter. We are looking forward to practising our careful counting next week and learning more sounds.
September 23rd 2022
What a great start Wonder class have had to their school journey! They have settled in so well and are continuing to learn all the rules and routines of school life. During our topic of ‘This is me!’, we have focused a lot on learning each other’s names, talking about our families, speaking and listening and taking turns. The children have really enjoyed exploring ‘The colour monster’, talking about their feelings and working together to create collages, just like in the story. They have also really enjoyed all the opportunities they have to explore outside, especially going on nature walks and making lead crowns.
In phonics, we met Joe! He is from the phonics shed and he taught us good listening skills, all about initial sounds and next week we will be learning about blending. We are excited to start learning individual sounds soon. Well done on a great first few weeks Wonder Class!
