...for the generous gifts to all the Reception Staff. We are very honoured to have taught your lovely children this year.

Enjoy your summer and have a good break.

Mrs Smith, Mr Edmonds, Mrs Dolbear, Mrs Clarke, Mrs Kaye, Mrs Pritchard and Mrs Stachurski. 

Click on the stars to find new activities and missions to do at home. 

Thank you so much to all the parents who have volunteered for The Secret Reader. Apple Class and Cherry Class are loving it and we feel very excited knowing that one of the parents is coming to read.

Just a quick note: Any parents signed up for the following weeks, we will keep your names on our lists and rearrange the dates for the future. Thank you for being so understanding!  

Help Wanted

We are looking for two to three parent volunteers to help with our Castle Wow day next Friday 14th February just for the morning (9.30 am - 11.40 am).

if you are free and would like to help, please let either Mrs Smith or Mr Edmonds know. We will get back to you as quickly as we can. 

Many thanks in advance.  

Secret Readers

Ssssssssh! Don't tell your children but we have a lovely surprise in store for them involving you - the parents!

We would like you to volunteer to come and read to your child and their class at the end of every Tuesday from 2:40 p.m. -2:50 p.m. Let Mr Edmonds or Mrs Smith know that you are interested and they will compile a list and let you know when it is your turn. Bring a book and do your magic.It will be a fabulous surprise for the children and even more so if it's your little one in the class. 

We are hoping to start the SECRET READER after the half term break so let us know and we will start to organise it. 

Spring 1

Welcome to a New Year and a new term. A new term means a brand new topic and this time we are learning all about Castles and all the things and people that are found inside, outside and thereabouts. If you and your family have visited a castle, please do let us know and perhaps you can come and talk about it or send photos or souvenirs for us to see.

Week one was all about our new topic and asking questions about castles. We learned to label castles and talk about some of the features found on them. 

Week two was all about Kings and Queens and we made up some rules for our subjects to follow. We will be painting self portraits of ourselves as Kings and Queens too.

Week three (what already!) is all about the story of the Princess and the Frog. We have story mapped it and we are going to retell it in our own words. Watch this space. 

Welcome back to Autumn 2 in which we explore the theme of Celebrations in our lives. We are beginning with fireworks which remind us of the demise of the notorious Guy Fawkes on Bonfire Night, as well as herald the New Year, commemorate Diwali and are used in many other special celebrations. Fireworks are amazing, thrilling, bright and a little bit scary....we hope you enjoyed them safely too.

We will also be looking at other Celebrations too in the coming weeks such as birthdays, weddings, Eid and Christmas. If you have any leftover celebration decorations such as party cups and plates, banner, bunting, wrapping paper, old cards, party hats or any other paraphernalia that we could use in our Home Corner or Role play areas, we would love to take them off your hands and use them to make learning more meaningful.

The EYFS children love making and creating so if you do have any clean and allergy free recycling that we could use, please do send it in.

As you all know PE is on Thursday and although the children are getting better at changing in and out of their kits, it still important that all the clothes are named (even socks - yes...even socks) as errant items of clothing are wont to go a-wandering and are never seen again despite our best efforts. Named items are more likely to be returned to their owners kits 

Now that we have begun teaching phonics the children will soon start to pick up sounds and hopefully blend words to read and write. If you would like to help at home the CBBC Alphablocks pages are very useful and include a parent's guide about phonics. You can help your child at home by watching and playing the games. We have included the link below to help you. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/the-alphablocks-guide-to-phonics

We are flying through the first half of Autumn term as it whips by like the Autumn wind and we are learning so many new things. Our learning last week was based on We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Have a look at the poster below to see some of the things we did. 

We are enjoying reading out the WOW cards at the end of the day and are amazed to see the things the children are achieving at home from doing shoelaces to making their own beds. Please do write out a WOW card and send it in to post in our special box. Don't forget to write their names on the cards as we want to be able to put a name to the achievement. 

Well done to everyone who has a pair of wellies in school as we will need them to go on the field during playtime and they are also useful if its wet and muddy. Please do label everything even socks and gloves as we are already beginning to find errant items that are unclaimed. Poor little lost items with no home to go to!

In the last few weeks the children have had a lot to contend with; not only having to come to school everyday and learn lots of new routines and rules, there has been new relationships, making new friends and trying to remember everyone's names...oh it's all been too much. We are getting there though and the children have really settled in well. 

We have been looking at the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears these last two weeks as our topic this half term is All about Bears. Next week we will share the story 'Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see'. The children have had fun role playing the Goldilocks story as well as trying porridge. Lots of children tried Daddy Bear's special recipe and there were many likes and some dislikes but well done for trying it!

In case you missed the EYFS introduction to Parents meeting on Thursday 26th September - don't worry. Please have a look at the PowerPoint above which contains information given on the evening. We appreciate that not everyone can get to these events so feel free to have a look and if you have any questions or if there is anything that needs to be clarified, please do ask us and we will be happy to explain. 

Welcome to EYFS 2019-20

A new school year and two brand new classes of lovely children. Mr Edmonds and Mrs Smith are looking forward to teaching all the little stars of the future. 

Goodbye to EYFS 2018-19

It has been a very busy half term and with only two weeks to go we are slowly climbing the hill towards the peak of the summer... to the holidays and then its all downhill from there! We've had Activities week in which we participated in drama workshops based on Peter Pan, an Art and Design day getting messy and sticky and totally being creative (please look at the Gallery page for photos), a puzzle workshop and a day of sports doing lots of different activities (please see the Gallery page). It all culminated with Sports Day at the junior school. 

Since then we have been delving into our space topic and being space explorers. We have been learning all about the Solar System and the different planets. We learned a mnemonic to recall all the planets. You can ask us all about it. We were also very bust practising for our assembly!

We have also had transition day and met our new class teachers. That was fun although it seems a bit strange to us that we have to go back to Reception instead of starting in Year 1 straightaway. Our teachers and helpers are going to miss us...

We performed our assembly and we were marvellous (of course!) and looking back we have really grown in many ways. 

This week we are back to learning about the planet - we are writing facts about the different planets. Its all very interesting and cool. We are learning about orbits, Mercury, Venus, Mars and the planet Earth. I bet we can tell you some amazing facts. In maths we are looking at measure and the different ways of measuring things; weighing, capacity and length. 

Welcome to Summer 2. 

This half term is all about space and our topic is called

Prestwood & Beyond...

We will be looking at where we live and the surrounding areas as well as the Earth and the planets in outer space. 

The half term started with the annual trip to College Lake where we had a lovely time absorbed in nature and learning the important things real bears and teddy bears need to survive. 

It is going to be a busy half term with a lot of activities to squeeze in so watch this space (no pun intended!) and keep an eye on the school diary dates so you stay in the know.Don't forget to look at the Expert of the Week pages for our amazing speakers and the gallery for other adventures. Now let's fire up the rockets and

... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....BLAST OFF!

This week has been about Oliver's Vegetables and watching our seeds grow. We have been watering them daily and some have started to grow into seedlings. We hope that they keep growing so we can plant them in the Reception garden and spruce it up a little. 

In our Charanga music lessons this week we had a go at using the new glockenspiels bought for us by the lovely Friends of Prestwood Infant School. Apple Class had a go and we have included a little clip below for you to see how much we loved using them. We are very lucky...thank you!

We have also had a special PHSE day today focused on keeping our minds and brains healthy. Our normal energetic day has been calm and collected as we participated in mindful colouring, listening to calming music, practising making expressions on faces using playdough and pasta and various other mindful activities. 

What a fabulous half term it has been...enjoy the holiday everyone and we will see you for Summer 2!

• Please have a look at our Expert of the Week video by Frankie in Apple Class talking about Diggers. 

• As the library is currently out of action the children can keep their books in their bags or in their trays however books will not be changed in the forthcoming weeks until the new library is up and running so please do bear with us. 

• We are having lots of accidents with dropped water bottles resulting in either broken bottles or rather large spillages on the carpet. Water bottles with sports tops would be better if you are thinking of purchasing any new bottles. Thank you.

Our minibeast topic has begun and this week we have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The caterpillar ate through lots of different foods and we actually got to try some of the fruits. Some of us hadn't tried the watermelon or plums so that was a new experience. Words used to describe the watermelon included 'watery', 'juicy', 'slippery' and 'the seeds inside were yummy!' We also found out from one of our fruit connoisseurs that strawberries have their seeds on the outside.

We wrote a part of our own versions of the story in our writing books. We are getting better at sounding out and some of us can write a whole sentence. In our own learning time we investigated how to make perfume using water and rose petals and made patterns using the insect stampers. In IT we had a look around the school for different types of technology. We wonder if you can also find lots of tech at home? We are also very excited about the baby ducklings that have hatched and we have been to visit a few times this week. We are ready for the long weekend. Have a lovely time!

Magical Minibeasts

Our topic this half term is about insects. Please have a look at the Topic Grid below for details.  We will be reading books linking to our literacy lesson about insects.

We have started this week with The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. A classic book. We have already looked at a non-fiction book about insects and the children already know some 'bug' facts. Please feel free to explore the world of insects and look carefully at them in your gardens or on the way to school...there will be lots to talk about we are sure! Our maths lessons this week are going to be about 2D and 3D shapes. You could try spotting some of them in the environment too.

• Don't forget that reading books can be changed everyday if they are placed into the box and if the reading records are signed.

• Library books will be changed on Tuesday afternoons.

• Do remember a book must be returned before another is issued.

• PE is on a Friday afternoon and thank you for all being kitted out with named kits.  

It's the final week of this term and we are all ready for a break! Well done to all the children for their hard work and trying out lots of different activities. We have enjoyed the Circus topic so much and are looking forward to the next topic all about Minibeasts. 

This week was also learning about how to be healthy. We had a few discussions about why pizza is not healthy but fruit and vegetables are. We tried a few new foods and some were a hit but others didn't taste so exciting.  We also had an assembly on how to brush our teeth and not to eat too much sugar. Easter is soon upon us and now we know some things about Easter too. We had a fun Easter egg hunt and we are exhausted and totally ready for a rest...including our grown ups at school too. 

Have a fabulous Easter break everyone!

A plea for junk modelling boxes. If you have any old packaging that we can recycle into junk modelling we would be very grateful as the children just love it! we can't get enough so if you have any clean empty boxes or packaging that is allergen free, please send it our way.

Don't forget to sign any reading records and remind the children to put their books in the boxes if they would like to get their books changed. 

We are looking forward to seeing you at Stay and Play on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd of April. Enjoy your weekend.  

This is Science Week 2019 and we are having fun investigating the world and how things work in EYFS. 

We found out how fast different liquids move using the Slippery Slopes investigation on Monday and on Tuesday we investigated which materials are best for being seen in the dark so we can keep safe. On Wednesday we looked at all sorts of interesting investigations, they were amazing!

Roll up, roll up to our great new topic....Can you guess what it could be???

The Circus

Of course, we have already dived into the exciting world of the circus and the types of entertainment found there. We have a fabulous Circus role play area which the children have begun to explore. We are practising writing sentences and making clown faces from 2D shapes, there are circus acts everywhere! Come and see our greatest learning ever!

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!

We have been hearing those  words an awful lot this week as we are learning about that famous brothers Grimm fairy tale. Amidst all the fun activities that have been out for the children to enjoy, we have had a snow day! Woo hoo! Fortunately for us the snow stuck around so we could enjoy playing in it too the next day. Is Prestwood secretly Narnia? Who knows...

Have a look at all the learning we have been doing this week....

The Frog Prince

The fairy tale this week is The Frog Prince and it is a slightly different take on the traditional tale. The classes helped to make a story map and then retold it in their own words.We even made up our own animal to substitute into the original story.

In maths we had a go at spotting patterns and continuing patterns too. We soon got the hang of it!

Castle - mania

This term is all about Castles and we are getting stuck in! From banqueting halls to scrolls and everything in between. There are books galore to browse through and we have been asking lots of amazing questions in our lessons about castles....Who lives in them? Why were they built? How did they cook in castles? How did they build castles? Why are there so many soldiers? Well, hopefully we will be able to answer some of these questions and find out even more...

Don't forget that EYFS library day is on Tuesday and any books that require changing need to be brought in on Tuesday in order to be changed. Each child can have one book to take home to read however must bring the old book back before a new one can be issued . 

We would love to have your old recycling too as we are always in need of Junk Modelling materials. If you can give us any old cardboard boxes or containers that are wheat/dairy/nut free, we would be happy to take them off your hands. 

A Happy New Year and welcome to 2019!

We hope that you had a great festive holiday and although Christmas and New Year can be very hectic, we are sure that you are all raring to go! 

First of all, a big....

from all the Reception EYFS staff for the generous gifts given to us. You have been ever so lovely and lavish and we really appreciate your kindness. 

The Spring 1 half term topic is Castles. We will be finding out facts about castles as well the type of things that went on inside them, who lived there and their purpose. We will link all other learning to our castle topic and its going to be so much fun! You can find out the things we are going to do on the Spring topic letter below. 

If you have any books, leaflets or photos of your visits to any castles, please do share them with us as we would love to know and share the knowledge with the other children. 

The Greatest Show...

It's almost time to see our show.Thank you so much for sending the costumes in today as we are going to be doing a dress rehearsal early next week so we are ready for the big parent performances next Tuesday 11th December and Wednesday 12th December at 9:30 am. We hope that you enjoy it as much as we have we have worked very hard trying to remember all the songs and all the actions and all our words!

As we know the story of baby Jesus, we have been immersing ourselves in other Christmas activities such as  making Christmas cards and writing lists for Santa using sparkly gel pens. The Post Office has been very busy wrapping and sending presents and cards. We even decorated the EYFS area and it looks just great. We have even had a visit from one of Santa's elves. He has been appearing around the school looking out for fabulous children and he came to Apple Class and Cherry Class. We were very excited to see him of course!

Ssh....It's nearly time for Christmas!

Although it's still only November, we have started learning all about the first Christmas and preparing for our Christmas performances which will be in a few weeks. We do hope that you can all come. It is important that we have all our costumes so please could you send them in by Friday 7th December...that would be great! Some of us have been learning our lines and have already memorised them. We know most of the songs and you have probably heard them at home being too. Once they get into your head, you can't get them out. Even the grown ups are singing them constantly.

As well as that, we have also been learning about adding numbers and finding different ways to make a number. Perhaps we can show you at home if you ask. Its been grim and rainy this week but it hasn't stopped us learning. We have even learned to get better at tidying up the toys that we use. We've created a winter collage and the Role playing Post Office is still very popular. We had a go at sorting the seasons and this week we collaborated to put on a show for each other. 

The Reception Wedding of the Year - 2018

This week of learning all about weddings  ended with our beautiful EYFS wedding between Anna and Tyler. What a marvellous couple they made. We were their guests and we really enjoyed watching them get married (pretending, of course!). Isaac read out the vows as he was the vicar and Jakey took all the photos. He was a very lively photographer and everyone wanted to be in his shots. Ronnie was Tyler's best man and held the special little rings made from tin foil. Lily and Orla dressed up as bridesmaids and sprinkled confetti down the aisle. After the ceremony Anna and Tyler signed the book and cut the cake. Hanna read out poem that we had made up in class about getting married.  The special couple had a first dance and then we all joined in the party! What a wonderful time we had. Especially when we got to eat our wedding biscuits that we decorated with icing and hundreds and thousands. We love weddings in Reception and this was one of the best. Weddings are great fun and now we know why.

Let's Celebrate ... Birthdays!

This week has been all about birthdays. We were lucky enough to celebrate Mrs France's birthday this week so it was the real deal. We have made some birthday cards and had a go at writing. We have cut out and glued our favourite toys onto a wish list and so practising our cutting skills. We had a go at making pretend cakes in the sensory area and the Home Corner has been full of parties all week. 

This week the theme across the whole school has been Diversity and we have enjoyed taking part in the assemblies. We have learned that although we may look different, we are the same inside and we should treat all people with kindness and equality. 

Let's Celebrate

Our new topic this half term is all about celebrations so what a way to start than with the upcoming festival of Diwali. This festival of lights is celebrated by Hindus around the world so we thought we would also join in. We now know the ways Hindus celebrate Diwali with fireworks, diva candles, decorations and special food. We even tried some Diwali food as Mrs Smith brought some things in for us to taste. We thought it was tasty and spicy. We are also making some diva lamps from clay. We will decorate them next week - how exciting! 

Boring stuff:

Please send us your old recycling for our junk modelling box. We love it and we love to make new things from it. We also need any unused envelopes and writing paper or cards that you may have and don't need anymore for our role play Post Office area. If you have any, we will gladly have it. Many thanks! 

The final week was full of fun with our circus workshop at the start and ending with a Teddy Bear picnic in the hall with our teddies. 

We are certainly looking forward to the half term and a little rest from all the fun we are having at school. 

We're going on a Bear Hunt! 

What a fantastic book by Michael Rosen and Illustrated so beautifully by Helen Oxenbury. We certainly think so as we used it for all our learning and the end of the week finale was to go on our very own bear hunt in the EYFS garden. What a brilliant time we had! You can see some of the photos below...

Harvest Festival

This week the Reception children went along to the Harvest Celebration assembly where Deniol (our vicar) explained what Harvest was all about. It was very interesting how he used the letters from the word HARVEST to make other words that were important and helped us to understand how fortunate we were to have food and we really enjoyed eating out lunch that day and felt very grateful. 

The children also performed their Harvest Poem to the rest of the school which was exciting as they have never done anything like this before. They were (it has to be said) marvellous, using their voices clearly as well as performing all the actions. Well done!

Brown bear, brown bear, what can you see?

This week we looked at the book by Bill Martin and illustrated by Eric Carle. It was very good and we made a list of the animals in the book. In our literacy lessons we drew our own creature and tried our hand at writing what it was now that we are doing daily phonics sessions. In maths we are counting to 5 and then to 10. We are trying to make sure that when we we count, we count each item by touching it so we remember not to count it again. We are also trying to remember that when we get a number of cubes out, even if we move them around and muddle them up, there are still the same number of cubes. We are also practising looking at dots on a dice and saying how many there are without counting them first. Phew! Busy week. 

Reading Books

Please do remember that if a reading book has been completed and the reading record has been signed, then books should be placed in the Reading Book Box so that they can be changed. Books left in bags and trays will only be changed if it is the child's turn for reading with a grown up that day. Please can you make sure that children bring their books and reading records each day.  

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We say Goodbye to Goldilocks after this week so its a good job we know the story so well! We have retold it, given voices to all the characters and used facial expressions to depict the bears and Goldilocks... we even put some music to it. After much bear painting we now have a fabulous display in the corridor and in Apple Class. We have drawn Goldilocks in our books and tried writing her name. Now we are looking forward to trying Daddy Bear's porridge on Friday. He has a great recipe and always enjoys making porridge for the classes to try. Watch this space for the photos...

This week we have also completed a whole week of phonics and covered the first phase 2 sounds 's' 'a' 't' and 'p'. Please look on the Phonics Play Website for some sound games. You can also watch Mr Thorne's phonic videos on You Tube. In maths we looked at patterns and repeating patterns using shapes and colours. Perhaps you can spot some patterns or make your own?

We also joined in with whole school assemblies as we went along to the Singing Assembly on Monday and we also went to Celebration Assembly last week. 

Please do look at the Powerpoint presentation above for information that was given during the EYFS Presentation Evening. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask our lovely staff who will be happy to help you.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Our theme this half term is all about bears. Over the next two weeks we are going to be exploring the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. We have already used the story sack and read a book. All our activities are based around this story so we have a bear cave to role play in and we are painting bears as well as ordering bowls and chairs and lots of other exciting things. 

We have also started singing counting songs and practising counting on our fingers and recognising the number of dots on a dice without counting. Tricky! We are learning to listen with Lola the listening leopard. She has some four simple rules that we are trying to practise and perhaps you can have a go at doing them at home as well.

Lola's Listening Rules:

• Try to keep still
• Try to keep quiet
• Try to look at the speaker
• Try to remember what the speaker has said

Welcome to Reception 2018-2019

Welcome to your child's first year at school and what an exciting year its going to be!

Its going to be a year of firsts in all manner of ways, we can't wait to get started. The children have already been exploring the different areas of EYFS.

Please look at the Topic Map below for a sneak peek at the things we are going to be learning this term.