Cygnets, Ducklings and Goslings are hatching new ideas and exploring and beginning to learn about the world around them.
We dive into new learning experiences, always making a splash, do our best to get along swimmingly and are discovering how to spread our learning wings and fly.
Please feel free to contact us on the following email addresses
Reception lead and Goslings class teacher - lholloway@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk
Cygnets class teacher - clintern@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk
Ducklings class teacher - sbarlow@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk
Reception
Academic Year 2024-2025
Summer Term
UPCOMING DATES
CLOSED BANK HOLIDAYS: 18th & 21st April
Tuesday 22nd April - Non-Pupil Day
Wednesday 23rd April - First Day of Summer Term 1
Monday 5th May - BANK HOLIDAY
Friday 9th May- Spring Welly Walk
Monday 19th-Thursday 22nd May
Friday 23rd May - Last Day of Summer Term 1
~ MAY HALF TERM HOLIDAY CLUB ~ Tuesday 27th - Friday 30th May
Monday 2nd June 2025- First Day of Summer Term 2
Wednesday 16th July 2025 at 2.15pm- End of Term Garden Party
This terms theme is
'#Explore More'
Week commencing 28th April 2025
This week, we were lucky to host Priest Matt and Mollie from Bay Church, who led assemblies for all the children. They taught us about Jesus and how his disciples spread about how to live and talked about the word of God. We also had a great PE lesson this week, learning some activities and games in athletics. In maths, we have focussed on counting on 10-20 and representing numbers 10-14 in different ways.
Summer Term Commencing Wednesday 23rd April 2025
We have really enjoyed being back together again after the Easter break. We have been straight back at it with our writing and perfecting our letter formation. We have been writing about our homes and learning that there are different types of homes. All three Reception classes have now been to the computer suite and have been working on their mouse skills. We have also just started to explore what happens when we mix different colours together.
This terms theme is
'Around the world in 80 days'
We will be learning about different climates and how animals have adapted to live in different places. We will need all of this knowledge to help us solve the mystery of the lost egg! We will celebrate Chinese New Year with our friends in Explorers Nursery. We will learn about things that have happened in the recent past.
Spring Term
Week commencing 31st March 2025
This week we have been excited to witness the metamorphosis of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. In PE, we were lucky enough to have Mr Kelly lead martial arts activities and learnt some basic skills. In maths, we have been creating simple and complex patterns and spotting problems in repeated patterns.
Week commencing 24th March 2025
This week we have had a great time observing the changes in the tank filled with frog spawn and tadpoles . We learnt actions and used words; first, next, then and finally to order the lifecycle of the frog. In our outside provision, children have used junk modelling and realised they are near 3D shapes. We have painted the faces of 3D shapes to see which 2D shapes are within the 3D shape. We have had great fun during a whole school Skippathon and have been practising our skipping technique.
Week commencing 17th March 2025
This week we have had a great time retelling the story of the Little Red hen. We learnt actions and used the story map to help us remember the beginning, middle and end of the story. In our outside provision, children have used puppets from the Little Red Hen story to act out the story. We have also made our own bread roll and learnt to follow a recipe. We have focussed our maths learning on doubling numbers to 5 and enjoyed using the doubling machine in our provision time. We have also recapped odd and even numbers and noticed a pattern in our number system.
Week commencing 10th March 2025
This week we have had a great science week and focussed our learning on the changes we have observed with the bean plants, caterpillars and sunflowers. We had the opportunity to write instructions for planting seeds and then planted sunflower seeds. We have focussed our maths learning on showing number bonds to 10 and finding odd and even numbers. We really enjoyed welcoming our parents in to school for a phonics workshop and showed different ways of working on our phonics learning at home.
Week commencing 3rd March 2025
This week we have had another exciting and busy week. We made pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in class and enjoyed eating them. We have played phonics games and reviewed phase 3 graphemes in writing sessions. We had World Book day and did a class swap and reading with year 3 children. We are also very excited to have 5 baby caterpillars in each class and have predicted what will happen next in their life cycle.
Week commencing 24th February 2025.
We have had a really busy and fun filled first week back to school! We were visited by Sonopera, a musical duo who involved all of Reception and Key Stage 1 in a singing, rhythm making and dancing workshop. We especially enjoyed the Penguin dance and Months of the Year song! We have been learning about growing, through the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and made flowers and beanstalks in our creative areas. We had a visit from the Toothbrush club and they talked to us about how to look after our teeth and fun facts about how many teeth different animals have. In maths, we have been comparing length and height and using different ways to measure longer and shorter objects. In phonics we are reviewing the phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs we learnt last term. We have a new role play area called the baby clinic where we learn how to look after babies and take on the role of a doctor or nurse.
Week commencing 10th February 2025
This week, we have enjoyed exploring the story Dogger and learning about old toys our family members used to play with in show and tell sessions. We were lucky enough to look closely at a variety of old toys, some that were more than 100 years old! We have been using our segmenting fingers to spell words with phase 3 graphemes in and learning to read and write tricky words in phonics.
Week commencing 3rd February 2025
This week we had a fantastic welly walk around the local area looking for local landmarks. We have explored the features on different maps of local attractions and even drawn our own maps of school to lead us to different areas of the school site. In phonics, we have been reading and writing longer words and learning to chunk up a word to help us blend it. In maths, we are continuing our work of numbers 6,7 and 8. In PE and times on the playground we are working on our skipping skills as we have a school skip-a-thon happening at the end of March.
Week commencing 27th January 2025.
This week we have had great week celebrating the Chinese new year with nursery explorers. This year is the year of the snake, so we made paper and play dough snakes. We drew fireworks and Chinese numbers in rice and glitter. We decorated a large dragon for a parade and dance with ribbons to Chinese music. We even tried some vegetable spring rolls and prawn crackers. In maths, we have been counting , ordering and finding one more and one less with numbers 6,7,8. In literacy we have been writing about what we can see on a map and encouraging children to use finger spaces as they write short phrases and CVC words.
Week Commencing 20th January 2025
This week we have looked at the artist David Gilmour and created vehicles from cardboard and explored joining materials to make models from junk. In Literacy, we have read the story The Ugly Five and compared settings with the story Lost and Found. We explored measuring weight and capacity and explored how to use weighing scales in provision. We were also lucky enough to have the opportunity to take part in Story Camp and share stories in tents.
Week commencing 13th January 2025.
This week we have been using our phonics skills to write sentences about the lost penguin at school. In maths, we have been learning about the part, part whole model and understanding what numbers 0-5 are composed of and the different ways they can be represented. We have also worked on finding one more and one less that numbers 1-5. In PE we have been exploring different ways we can move and travelling like under water creatures. We have also had great fun exploring ice in our choosing time.
Week commencing 6th January 2025.
This week we have settled back from our Christmas break and got straight back into our Reception routines! In phonics, we are now learning phase 3 phonics and have learnt a trigraph is a grapheme with 3 letters to make one phoneme. We have had great fun being detectives to solve the mystery of a large, white egg being found in our outdoor area. We looked at which animals are born from eggs. From looking at the clues inside and outside, we have decided it must be a penguin's egg and so now we are trying to keep the fragile egg warm and safe.
Autumn Term
Week commencing 16th December 2024
This week we have had great fun learning Christmas songs and playing games. We have made Christmas decorations and decorated the class Christmas trees. We have all been on class trips to visit Santa in the caves at Kent's Cavern and searched for the Christmas spirit. We have watched Whiterock's got talent and are very proud of our Reception friend who won by singing confidently to the whole school.
Week commencing 9th December 2024
This week we have had fun creating Christmas decorations for the Christmas trees in each classroom. We have explored how to join lollipop sticks and used pipe cleaners to help join resources together. We have role played in a Christmas grotto and played collaboratively to get ready for Christmas. In maths, we have compared squares and rectangles and worked on our oracy skills to explain the properties.
Week commencing 2nd December 2024
This week we have been writing three words every phonic session. In Literacy we have been writing a list of toys we would like for Christmas using our segmenting fingers to spell. In maths, we have been finding one less and one more than numbers to 5. We have also explored different ways to compose 4 and 5 using numicon. We have been preparing for our nativity by singing and using actions to perform our nativity songs.
Week commencing 25th November 2024
This week we have been using five frames in maths to help with counting to 4 and five. We have also enjoyed building dens outside and talking about plans for designing them. In our classrooms, we have also had time to explore cutting and joining pieces of junk modelling together. In the role play area, we have been playing collaboratively as hairdressers.
Week commencing 18th November 2024.
This week in maths, we have been learning about the properties of circles and triangles. We have used resources to make these shapes, draw them and find them on a shape hunt. In Literacy, we have been focussing on reading and writing cvc words. We have also really enjoyed having our parents in for Read With Me sessions!
Week commencing 11th November 2024
This week we began learning about armistice day and we had two minutes silence for this. We also recognised anti bullying week and wore odd socks to celebrate being different. We spoke about ways to how kindness and did the apple experiment about the bruised apple that had unkind words said to it.
In Literacy we have been working on writing our names and in maths working on one more and one less for numbers to 3.
Week commencing 4th November 2024
This week we have focussed our phonics learning on digraphs; ff, ll, ss as double consonants and we have worked on forming recognisable letters. In maths, we have worked on subitising 1,2,3 and understanding the order of numerals 1-3 on a number track. We have been exploring the changes of state with ice melting around autumn leaves and exploring the fallen leaves in the woodland. We discussed different celebrations, that use fireworks as part of the festival of Diwali and bonfire night. We created our own firework pictures using card, chalk and tissue paper.
Week commencing 21st October 2024
This week we have continued reading Supertato and many of Sue Hendra's other books in the Supertato collection for story times. We have been practising writing recognisable letters and role playing as superheroes. In maths, we have created our own patterns and been able to identify mistakes in patterns. We have been exploring the changes of state with ice melting and used corn flour mixed with water and glitter to make gloop.
Week commencing 14th October 2024
This week we have been reading the Supertato book and have been searching for the evil pea. There was even some evil pieces trapped inside a giant piece of ice! We looked high and low for the evil peas and even made a Supertato to help us search. In literacy, we have listed where we saw the evil pea hidden on a ; tap, mat, cap and sock. We used a grapheme mat and phonic fingers to help us segment to spell. In maths we have focussed our learning on making repeated patterns. We have also been able to explore using the Beebots in our classrooms to use positional and directional language.
Week commencing 7th October 2024
This week we have had a fantastic time in our woodlands. Something very exciting has happened in our Woodland area! A spaceship crashed over the weekend and this morning, we went to explore. The children were all very excited as they explored the woodland for clues and found a steering wheel, some green gloop and glitter, some gloves, some jet packs, boosters and even some helmets. We then got a call to say the cameras showed there were superheroes that left the spaceship! There names are Sam, Pat, Nat and Stan and the children are now on a hunt to find them! We then spent our literacy sessions and provision time writing their names. In maths, we have used words to measure the size of tall and long objects. In phonics we have been learning tricky words; is , I.
Week commencing 30th September.
This week we have been learning 4 new graphemes; g, o, c, k and how to write them using a tripod grip. In maths, we have been sorting resources and thinking of rules of how we have sorted them according to the size, colour, and type. We have been painting self portraits. We have enjoyed sharing our new library books at home with our grownups and shared photos of ourselves reading the library book at home.
Week commencing 23rd September 2024
This week we have been taking a closer look at our different families. We have looked at how they are special and different. We have enjoyed sharing our family photos and talking about different family members. In maths we have been sorting and matching items by colours, size and type. We have also learnt 4 new graphemes; i, n , m, d.
Week commencing 16th September 2024
This week we have been looking at the features of our faces in a mirror and using the correct colours for our hair and eyes. We have drawn our own faces on the front page of our Learning Journeys. We have been learning our phonics song to get ready for learning and taking part in learning our first 4 phonemes and their corresponding graphemes /s/a/t/p. We have also been exploring all the areas of the Reception classrooms and our school woodlands.
Week commencing 9th September 2024
We have been so proud of the way the children have settled in this week. We have had great fun during our 'Choosing Time', taking turns and supporting friendships to grow. We have had a great time exploring the three classrooms, outside area and having lunch in the dining hall.
