Diamond Class
Welcome to Diamond Class.
I am Mrs Fearby, your child's Reception teacher and I am also the Early Years Lead, your children will also be supported by Miss Ashcroft, Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Finlay throughout the week.
We are a happy Hetton family!
Remember to follow the links below to watch the parent videos to support your child in reading at home, using Read, Write, Inc. These are different to the Virtual Classroom videos that you will receive each week with your child's specifically taught sounds. Please let know if you have any questions.
Happy watching! Mrs Fearby
Week beginning 15th April 2024
Planting, Climbing, Counting and Writing…growing from Tiny Seeds.
A busy first week back for our Reception children!
Maths: we have been continuing our Counting Collections journey by exploring grouping our collections, skip counting to make it faster to count, then matching the amount to the numerals on the number track and number lines. We have also been recording our learning on part whole diagrams and ten frames. In Mastering Number we learned the song ‘Ten Sizzling Sausages’ to help us work out numbers to 10, and we used our fingers to work out, when some of our ten sausages are burned, how many do we have left?
Literacy was an exciting part of our week this week. We were introduced to our new focus story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, and we looked at different types of seeds, and planted our own. We learned about what a plant needs to grow, and drew and wrote about it. We are excited about looking after our seeds and helping them to grow!
In RE we finished our learning about the story of Easter. We learned more about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, and why the cross is such an important symbol to Christians. We also learned about the El Salvador Cross and created our own, using symbols that are important to us.
In PSCHE, we started our new topic, and we learned about what a family is, different types of families and the jobs we do in our family. We had lots of good ideas, including playing with our brothers and sisters, and stroking our pets. Some of us said we tidied our room, but some of us only had the job of playing and watching TV!
Mrs Atkinson very kindly went on a mission over the Easter Holidays and found us an amazing climbing tower complete with a pulley, a drawing screen and ladder to use, and Mr Wright built up our brand new climbing frame. We are having so much fun pushing ourselves to the limit climbing and hanging, learning so many skills!
Another fun filled week, watch this space next week to see what we get up to.
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
PSCHE: Learning about the jobs I do in my family.
Indoor and outdoor play: Showing off our skills and enjoying our new climbing frames.
Maths: Skip Counting in Twos, Part Whole Diagrams and using ten frames.
Maths: Counting Collections, grouping them and finding the numeral on number lines and tracks.
The Tiny Seed: Our new focus story in Literacy. Planting our own tiny seeds, and learning what a plant needs to grow.
RE: Creating palm leaves and El Salvador Crosses to learn why Christians have a cross in their Easter Garden.
Week beginning 25th March 2024
An Easter Egg hunt with a Maths theme: find an egg and order the numbers to unlock a chocolate reward! So much fun!
English: Story Maps, Maths: Making 7 and Counting our Collections
Egg-citing Easter Crafts. Cards, Printing, Spring Watercolours, Decorating Rabbits!
Week Beginning 18th March 2024
Another busy week for Reception, working hard, playing hard and everything in between!
We have been having a few technical issues with our website page, including getting photos and text on to the page, if you’re struggling to view photos please let a member of staff know and we will try and help.
Maths: In Maths this week the children have been recalling their learning on skip counting in twos, as well as learning about composition of number in Mastering Number.
In their own time, the children have been using our Counting Collections library to explore their own mathematical fascinations and solve problems, including comparing numbers and amounts on 100 squares and number tracks.
In RE this week, before we learn about the Easter Story, the children have built on their previous learning about belonging; being part of something, such as a club, or a school, by learning about how new babies are welcomed into different faiths, such as Christianity and Islam. We re-enacted a Christian baptism, and some of the children carried this on in their play.
In Literacy this week, the children have begun writing their own story ‘mountains’ busy using ‘Tell me a Story’ boxes to recount the story of Little Red, our alternative version of Little Red Riding Hood. We have also been thinking about how Little Red is similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and how it is different.
You can listen to the read aloud of the story online here:
https://youtu.be/42mbDDXc9OY?si=7Et1Tn5YpEVPOZhs
In Reception we focus on changing seasons and also some of the celebrations that we might typically hold at different times of year. The children have been looking forward to Easter, and they have been playing and learning, creating Easter themed crafts and themed art work, using lots of different skills in the process.
As always, the children have been working hard in their play, we have introduced some new ‘wheels’ to the outdoor provision, the children have been building, printing, painting and writing in their play, lots of new and important skills in practice!
Thank you for your continued support, we have a fun packed week coming up, and you never know, the Easter Bunny may leave something for the children to find!
Please remember we break up on Thursday for Easter, with our return to school on Monday 15th April.
We will need all book bags in by Wednesday at the latest so that I can change all books and folders ready for the half term, dig deep to see if you can find any books or bedtime story bags that you need to bring in!
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Maths: Skip Counting and Recording. Choosing to use our learning from Mastering Number and Counting Collections in our play.
Playing and Learning: Independent writing, building, outdoor play, creating pictures using tools, printing.
R.E: Being Special and Belonging. How do we welcome babies into the Christian Church?
Spring has sprung and Easter is near! Seasonal themed crafts and play.
Week beginning 11th March 2024
Here Come the Chicks!
English: Creating our story maps about Little Red
Maths: Counting by 2’s and Part Whole diagrams - what makes 5?
RE: Being Special - Where do we belong?
Spotting signs of Spring, building, drawing, learning through play.
Eight Fluffy Chicks to look after! Reading stories to them, being careful with them, and learning about the life cycle of a hen.
Week beginning 12th February 2024
Pancakes, Lent, and a whole lotta love!
Maths: 3D shape. We continued to learn the features of 3D shape this week, and we began to identify what 3D shapes we can see in everyday objects. We noticed cylinders are fire extinguishers and pencils, and cubes are dice! We then played a game to match 3D shapes to their names.
Understanding the World: the children in Reception learned a lot about our world this week, with two special celebrations, Shrove Tuesday and St Valentine’s Day, we learned about the connections they have to Lent, and to religion. Pancake Day is celebrated because people used to use up all of the things that we might give up during Lent and make pancakes, and St Valentine, married people in secret and passed secret love notes between couples in love who were in jail, a long time ago. We made love potions, cards and sent messages to each other, and on Pancake Day we voted on the toppings for our pancakes - whipped cream, sprinkles, and chocolate chips!
English: This week we pretended to be Shen from our story the Magic Paintbrush, and designed our own Monsters to scare away the evil Emperor. We then labelled our pictures using our phonic knowledge.
We had lots of our own time to practise our learning, and play and learn indoors and outdoors, and we hope everyone has a fantastic half term week. Stay safe, relax and enjoy!
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Maths: consolidating our knowledge of 3D shape by building towers, matching shapes to names, and going on a shape hunt!
Shrove Tuesday - enjoying Pancake day with some special treats and learning about Lent in RE.
Valentines Day: Cards, messages, and love potions!
Learning through play: Indoors and out.
Week Beginning 5th February 2024
Chinese New Year, Computing, History, Independent Writing and Staying Safe on the internet. All in a week’s work…
Understanding the World: The Lunar New Year. This week Reception have enjoyed tasting different kinds of Chinese food, (some we liked, some we didn’t!) learning about Chinese crafts such as lantern and fan making, , learning about Chinese culture, writing, and how the lunar new year was decided, renacting the story with masks. They also did a dragon dance to end the week!
Our Wider Community: As part of Children’s Mental Health Week as a whole school we decided to wear ‘What Makes You, You.’ The children enjoyed wearing different clothes to show what they liked. We also practised some mindful techniques such as ‘calm me’ time, we talked about who we could talk to if we weren’t feeling great, and for Art we coloured our drawings from last week, when we took a line for a walk. We played calming music and focused for as long as we needed to. A very chilled out week!
Expressive Art and Design: Every Friday Reception has a dance party, we listen to the Friday song and dance until we feel happy! We then usually play a song that the children have requested. This week was ‘Sweet Dreams’ by the Eurythmics. If you have favourite song that you like to listen to at home, send me a message on Class Dojo and we will include it on our playlist.
In Maths this week we started to learn more about 3D shapes. We looked at five common names of shapes, the features of the shapes, and we learned some songs to help us remember. When we were more confident we completed experiments to work out how the different faces of the shapes move on a surface, we made predictions - does it roll or does it slide? Then we used everyday objects that we could spot shapes within, and we tested if they moved as we had noticed with the shapes themselves.
We practised indoors then again in our play when we were outside….we decided any shape with a curve would roll, and any without would slide, a cone does both!
Reception have been following the Purple Mash scheme of work for Computing this term, as well as learning about how to use a tablet, and how to code a. Bee-Bot programme so that it gets to the end of a track, we have also learned how to keep ourselves safe on the internet with the help of a song.
’Ask your grown up, ask your grownup, ask for help, ask for help, use your tablet safely, use your tablet safely.’
We learned that we should not play anything with an age rating that is over our age, do not download anything without asking a grown up first, and also if we see anything that makes us uncomfortable, stop looking and tell a grown up. We also coloured in pieces of a jigsaw with the messages we learned.
Understanding the World; History. The children really enjoyed looking at the photos of when they were a baby! We read the story ‘Once they were Giants’ and compared what we could do then to what we can do now.
Remember to check your Class Dojo messages for the new virtual classroom links for Read, Write Inc. and have a great weekend!
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Learning through play: Physical Development, Communicating, Role Play, independent reading and writing, Maths, Art, Architecture, Cycling stunts, Photography and Physics!
Maths: 3D shape. It’s a cube, it’s a cuboid it’s a cylinder, it’s a sphere or it’s a cone!
Improving our wellbeing: Art, wearing what makes us happy, and dancing and laughing until we can’t any more!
Art and Calm Time: Reception get focused on filling in their ‘walking lines’.
Dance until you feel good!
The Lunar New Year: Food Tasting, learning about Chinese culture, painting Chinese numbers, dancing like dragons, and lots of crafts!
Purple Mash Computing, programming BeeBots, and Staying Safe on the Internet.
Week Beginning 29th January 2024
Maths: Time. Learning how much we can do in one minute, and ordering the days of the week.
Expressive Art: Taking a line for a walk.
RealPE: Moving like animals to warm up, then balancing using our core muscles!
Literacy: Thanking Shen and Labelling our Monsters.
ICT and Maths: What can you see, how do you see it?
A lovely surprise from Nursery: Whatever Next?
Phonics: practising reading our ditties, playing teacher to help our friends, and forming our letters.
Week beginning 22nd January
Magical Painting, Making Marks, Writing, and Comparing Taller and Shorter…another busy week.
Literacy: In literacy this week we have been inspired by our focus text The Magic Paintbrush. We drew what we thought would be a useful thing to help people, and then used beautiful watercolours to paint it and bring it to life. We then thought together as a group about what we could paint to use to release Shen from prison, and then we drew and wrote about what we would use. We have also been inspired to paint in our play, using watercolours and block paints, just like Shen in the story.
Expressive Art: We have been learning about different kinds of marks and how to make them, we looked at spirals, dots, zig zag, cross hatching, and so much more! We decided to have a go at three different ways to make marks by ourselves, we really took our time and thought about how to hold and use our pencils, and we enjoyed talking about it with our friends. We loved it!
In Maths this week we have been learning again about our special maths word ‘compare’ and we have been comparing who is taller, and who is shorter in our class, as well as ordering objects from shortest to tallest. We had lots of fun, and we made a height chart of all of our children to then measure ourselves again at the end of the year. We also read a story called ‘Titch’, which showed us that no matter how short we are, we can make a big difference!
In our Mastering Number session, we have been learning about the composition of 7, which smaller numbers make the number. We have also been learning how to recognise what is 7, and what is not 7. We were inspired by the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and decided to build our own beanstalks in our play - look how tall they got!
In our play, we have really demonstrated our learning, and practised as much as wel can! We have developed our fine motor skills using playdough, the superhero girls rescued their friends, and some of us developed our own maths game with the dice and cubes, writing number sentences and adding them together.
Another fun filled week, the children have started making accelerated progress across all areas of learning, and with your support from home this can only get better!
Please remember to bring book bags with books in back to school every day, and return the bedtime story book bags by Wednesday.
Thank you and have a good weekend from Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Inspired by The Magic Paintbrush: Our writing and painting.
Playful Maths: Thinking of our own problems, and challenging our friends!
Maths: Taller and Shorter, comparing our class, and building the tallest beanstalk.
Mastering Number: 7 and not 7.
Expressive Art: Making different marks.
Learning through play: showing off our skills. Saving the world, making the dinner, building the tower, using all of our senses with herbs we like the smell of to make a playdough ‘salad’, investigating the signs, sounds and smells of Winter. Deep learning at it’s best!
Week beginning 15th January 2024
Being Useful, Measuring and Comparing Length, Reading, Creating Beautiful Things, and Challenging Ourselves Outdoors!
Outdoor Learning: Climb Every Mountain! Risk Assessing, Fighting the Frost, Painting with Ice, Building and using resources to solve a problem.
Physical Development: Bounce and Play, building those muscles for learning!
Inspired to Write: Playing in role and independent writing using our phonics skills.
Literacy Comprehension: What useful items were in our story?
Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Learning about the colour of our skin - everyone is different and unique!
Maths: I Can Only Draw Worms! Comparing and ordering by length.
Mastering Number: A Stairway to Counting and is it 6...or not 6?
Week beginning 8th January 2024
Happy New Year from Diamond Class!
Welcome back and Happy New Year to all of our families.
This week, Reception have been straight back on it. New phonics groups, a new focus story, learning even more about Winter and seasonal changes, a new Maths topic, and lots of play and learning about personal, social and emotional development to settle us back into our routine.
Winter is here: In our Understanding the World group time, the children enjoyed learning a song all about the changes in the seasons, and we talked as a class about the signs of Winter, and how they are different to Spring, Summer and Autumn. We remembered lots of vocabulary we have already learned, and learned some new words together. Here is the link to the song if you’d like to sing along at home!
https://youtu.be/8ZjpI6fgYSY?si=Pb5ORqrBig7v38Ls
English - our new focus story: The Magic Paintbrush. Reception were amazed to find a delivery for our class. A girl called Shen had heard how much we love to help people and she had sent us a magic paintbrush and a brand new story. We learned about what things can be useful. And why people would need them. We also learned about the difference between wealthy and poor, and then we researched the different types of food that Shen and the people of her village ate. We all agreed we would probably eat Shrimp and fish, but no one said they were brave enough to touch an oyster!
To help Shen, we decided to draw and paint our very own useful objects, and label them. We thought a house would be useful, and other things such as jackets and ladders. This inspired us to paint our own pictures in our play time, and we investigated poster paints and watercolours. We also painted outside and mixed our own colours in the rain.
Heavier and Lighter: In Maths this week we have been investigating how to use balance scales, and how they don’t show what is heavy or light, but they COMPARE what is heavier and what is lighter. Vocabulary is very important in our Maths sessions, so we know the right words to explain our thinking.
First, Mrs Fearby turned us into human balance scales, then we used some for ourselves, making predictions and testing them, and then we used the giant balance scales outside to investigate things that were heavier. We found it a little tricky to understand that bigger things aren’t always heavy!
In our Maths Mastering Number sessions we have been
earning about the composition of 5,6,7 and 8, by breaking them done into their smaller parts, and learning about ‘one more.’
Phonics and independent writing: we have enjoyed our new phonics groups this week, and we are really taking off with our writing. Some of us showed off our skills on the board by writing the words we’d learned (you can see us using our Fred Fingers independently!) and we played
a game to remember our ‘red’ words, words that can’t be ‘sounded out’, such as ‘the’ ‘to’ ‘I’. In our play we have been fascinated with writing to label our drawings. We drew fruit and labelled it independently, and we were also inspired by our new focus story to paint our letters and words with watercolour paints.
As always, we played in the environment indoors and out to support our adult led group learning, and also to develop our vocabulary skills and personal and social development.
Please remember to bring your reading books back into school, and update the reading record to say that you have read the book with your child.
Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team.
Here we go, oh-oh, seasons of the year. Winter is here!
A special delivery...a magic paintbrush?
Maths: Mastering Number and counting our collections.
Maths: Balancing. Heavier and Lighter.
Putting our phonics into practice. Games and independent writing.
Learning more about our school values and our Jigsaw PSCHE: Working together and Resilience - keep trying!
Let the children play...independent reading, model making using our fine motor skills, role play, making maps of Hetton with blocks, drawing our own maps, creating new worlds, and delivering the mail!
Spring Term 2024 - 'Talents and Powers'
Welcome back to school!
Please see our plan for this half term below, including our focus texts this term.
We can't wait to get started...
Reception Spring One Half Term Plan
Week beginning 11th and 18th December.
Christmas Crafts with our grown ups, sequencing the story of Stick Man, and the Greatest Story Ever Told…
Merry Christmas from Diamond Class!
It’s Showtime! Our 2023 Nativity.
EYFS loves to party!
We’re going on an Elf Hunt!
Making our very own Stick Men with Chocolate...he didn’t last long!
Dashing through the...school!
Christmas Crafts
Stick Man: Ordering the story together, then independently.
Week Beginning 4th December 2023
Christmas jumpers, Christmas Lunch, learning about shapes, meeting Stick Man and learning about his journey, Phonics, and defrosting Elsa, Olaf, and Anna…all in a week’s work!
Week 6 of the 8 week half term is here, and what a week it has been, we are really packing things in as the weeks go by. We have been practising our Nativity lots this week and we can’t wait to show off to our grown ups on the 15th December.
As well as decorating the classroom for Christmas, and learning all about the season of Winter, the children have been hard at work as usual…
Literacy: The children were shocked to find a parcel delivered to school (with stamps and address!). We opened it up to find a letter from none other than STICK MAN! He had lost his way from his family tree again, and he needs us to remember his story off by heart, so that we can help him find his way back. He left us the story, some story spoons and some sticks, and sure enough, Reception accepted the challenge. We listened carefully to the story, then as a class we drew out Stick Man’s journey in the correct sequence. We then wrote about the different characters in the story, and used different describing words to remember all about them.
We also went on a hunt in the school woodlands to find as many sticks as we could so that he did not feel lonely!
Maths: This week we learned about four sided shapes, and also where we might find them in our environment. We found shapes hidden around the classroom, then brought them back to the carpet and sorted them into ‘four sides’ and ‘not four sides’. We loved this game, and we loved spotting the shapes in the familiar pictures of things we see every day. Have a go and see which shapes you can spot when you are walking to and from school.
Understanding the World: You may have heard that Reception have been visited by a very naughty elf in the last few days. Well he didn’t think we had enough to do, so he decided to put Elsa and her friends from the Frozen castle in the freezer!we got them out then we had to decide the best way to melt the ice back to water and save them. We took a vote and we tried: Using heat from a hairdryer, leaving it overnight, leaving it out in the rain, and pouring salt on the ice. The next day we decided that the hairdryer was definitely the quickest way to help free the characters from the ice, but that all of our ideas worked in the end. Phew!
Our Wider School Community: Reception were lucky enough to be joined by Nursery for a fantastic Christmas Lunch in the Hall, cooked by our very own lunchtime elves! It was also our Christmas Jumper day for Save the Children, and we all felt super Christmassy while listening to Christmas songs and tucking into a festive Turkey dinner. Lots of full tummies and happy faces!
To add to the festive feel we had the opportunity to watch a pantomime in our school hall, we absolutely loved joining in with the adventures of Buttons and Cinderella, we were all shouting and singing, and helping Cinderella find her prince. ‘HE’S BEHIND YOU!’
What an amazing experience.
Thank you for your continued support, and we will see you for Christmas Crafts on Monday, and then the Nativity on Friday, at 9:30am and 2:15pm.
Mrs Fearby, and the Early Years Team.
Christmas is here!
It’s Panto Time...Oh no it isn’t, OH YES IT IS!
Christmas lunch and jumper day, packing it all in...including the food!
Playing to learn: Sandy Christmas Cake, Clay Stick Men, outdoor ramps, and climbing!
Understanding the World: investigating freezing and thawing.
Literacy: A ‘Sticky’ surprise! A letter from Stick Man and drawing his journey to help him get back to the family tree.
Shapes are all around us. A square and an oblong rectangle, a circle and a triangle...
Phonics in our play: who is the teacher?
Week beginning 27th November 2023
Snow days, Shapes, Snakes and Ladders and another journey into space!
What a week we had, with a big snowy surprise!
Understanding the World: We made the most of the seasonal weather and got outside to explore the snow! We threw snowballs, investigated ice and how it formed overnight in different containers, built snowmen and then we shared hot chocolate and marshmallows together to warm up!
Phonics: We have continued to progress well in our phonics groups, and we are getting better at our blending skills! Watch out for your sound blending books, some of us will get them sent home next week, to be returned on a Wednesday along with the bedtime story bags and the homework books.
Maths: This week in Maths we finished our learning about circles and triangles, and learned all about Positional Language. We played 'Where is Teddy?' in our whole group, and used words such as 'underneath', 'next to, 'behind', 'in front of', 'on top'. We enjoyed playing the game, then we played it with our friends in our own time! In Mastering Number we learned abut how to recognise 'one more', which led us to playing games of Snakes and Ladders. In our own time we then created our own Snakes and Ladders boards, and played games together. We enjoyed talking to each other while we played!
Literacy: We finished our literacy work all about the story 'Look Up!' this week. We used the headphones from 'Now Press Play' to take part in an immersive experience in the school hall, listening to the story and following directions. It was so much fun!
Another packed week, with a lot more excitiement to follow in the next two weeks!
Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and The Early Years team.
Maths: Positional language - where is Teddy?
Now Press Play! Visiting space to finish our focus text: Look Up!
Snow days, snowmen, ice sculptures and a hot chocolate treat!
Outdoor Learning: Painting, small world, and building our own climbing frame!
Maths: Hands on learning about ‘one more’ by playing Snakes and Ladders.
Writing in our provision time: Sending letters and postcards. Don’t forget your stamps!
Week Beginning 20th November 2023: Journey into space, explore shapes, and Boogie Bounce with us in Reception this week!
A music and movement week this week for Reception!
Maths: In our lessons about Shape, Space and Measure this week, we learned all about circles, that curve all the way around, and we learned that triangles have three sides and three points. We played lots of games and explained to each other what makes a triangle a triangle and a circle a circle. We also drew around shapes and and tried to guess a shape by just looking at the parts. We also went to look for shapes in our classroom environment…a very busy week!
In our Mastering number Maths, we learned about matching numeral to amount and recognising familiar patterns such as on a die, the Numberblocks have been helping us!
Music: Miss March our PGCE student very kindly brought us one of her beautiful Ukelele’s to look at, and she taught us all about a Ukelele, and helped us to name the parts, as well as playing us some chords, and we have been enjoying our music role play area, singing new songs we have learned to each other!
In PE this week we took part in Boogie Bounce, the children had a fantastic time bouncing to the music…so did the staff!
In phonics some of the children have started to write their own words and we are encouraging this in the environment, next week we are going to introduce more letters and postcards into the area.
Literacy: In literacy this week we finished our lists of what to take to the moon, and we wrote to our main character Rocket, telling her that we felt sad that she was sad, and we wrote ideas about how we could cheer her up.
Not long to go until Christmas hits, keep an eye out for Christmas Nativity words coming home to practise, and remember the homework books and bedtime story bags should be returned every Wednesday so we time to exchange them and print new homework.
We were also very lucky to have lots of staff and the local authority as well as the Sunderland Music Hub join us for a music session to share ideas about what we do for music at Hetton Primary School. We had a lovely night singing together and showing off what our children can do!
Thank you for your continued suppport, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team.
What’s that shape I see? Finding, describing and comparing circles and triangles.
Mastering Number: Recognising Number Patterns, matching numeral to amount.
PE: Reception Boogie and Bounce!
Counting our Collections: recording our thinking.
Early Years Music: Showing off our skills to other schools.
Week beginning 13th November 2023:
World Nursery Rhyme Week, Anti-Bullying week, Children in Need, Draw along with Pudsey, Copper Trails, Maths, Counting Collections, Phonics, Writing, Playing, and Flying to the Moon…Reception will sleep this weekend!
As we hurtle towards Christmas, Reception keep up the pace with a fun-packed week full of learning!
Maths: In Maths we remembered our learning about repeating patterns from last week, and we learned about the word ‘equal’, and how to show an equal amount to represent a number. We did really well with this, and helped Mr Ted to work out how to do it!
Our Counting Collections project is in full swing, and the children have started choosing to use the resources in their own time. They need to choose together what they want to count from our counting library, decide how they’re going to count it and what they will use to help, then count it, and then record what they have counted by drawing. The children have really started to think about how they show their thinking!
Phonics: We have started supporting each other to remember our speed sounds, by testing each other’s knowledge…future teachers are among us!
Literacy: In literacy this week we are coming to end of learning about our focus text ‘Look Up!’, and we received a letter from Dr Smith from NASA today, to advise us how to pack our bags for flying to the moon. We drew pictures to show what we were going to take, then we had a go at writing the words, our writing is really progressing!
Community Links: Reception wore odd socks to support anti bullying week, and we learned all about differences and similarities in circle time. We also took part in World Nursery Rhyme Week, we learned new rhymes, sang old rhymes, and flooded our environment with things that reminded us of them.
Nursery rhymes are an important indicator of future literacy, it is so important to learn them by heart.
We also supported Children in Need by wearing our own clothes to school, and taking part in LOTS of activities throughout the day. Thank you to you, our parents and carers, for sending money in to support Children in Need and also being able to find loose change for our copper trail! We will update you on how much we raise.
As always, the children also have time in our environment both indoors and outdoors that supports their learning.
It won’t be long until you are all humming the Christmas production tunes!
Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and the Reception Team.
Reception and Year Six smashing World Nursery Rhyme Week 2023!
(Watch out for our special guest!)
Scan the QR code to watch us sing!
Show us your socks! Reception being ‘odd’ for anti bullying week!
Children in Need: Pudsey draw along, Pudsey biscuits, and meeting Pudsey!
Where one road ends, another road begins...laying our copper trail to help those in need.
Our Early Years Copper Trail!
Phonics: Speedy Sounds. ‘Even faster!’
Maths: Counting our Collections
Maths: Mastering number with subitising, copying and continuing patterns, and helping Ted find an equal amount.
Literacy: Fly me to the Moon!
Supporting our curriculum: Learning through play.
🎆 Week beginning 6th November 2023: A week to remember. 🎇
Reception Remembers: Learning about what the poppy means to us, wartime role play, air raid shelters, a walk to the Cenotaph, and our Remembrance assembly with Nursery.
Firework Fun! Art, Dance, Music and Movement.
Maths: Stampolines!
Real PE: Reception visit the moon, and learn how to move in different ways. Watch out for the alien eggs!
Week beginning 30th October: This is Hallowe’en, and Reception get lost…in space!
This week, Reception have made the most of the very best of our season, Autumn, and the celebrations it brings.
We went LARGE for Halloween in Reception this week, the classroom had lots of spooky goings-on, and we dressed up for the Halloween disco, and performed lots of spooky dance moves to the music, the children had a great time and the grown ups loved to see them having so much fun. We made spooky skeletons, giant spiders outside, and we wrote spooky potions!
Maths, we learned all about Capacity, the most that something can hold. We used the Halloween rice to fill and empty containers, and we used boxes to make homes for our small world animals, matching the right-sized animal to the right box. After that we all designed and built houses for the animals, using junk modelling, tape and glue to join the boxes together, then decorated the boxes.
In our Mastering Number lesson, we began to learn all about the parts of a whole number, we sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and we played ‘guess the whole’ by hiding parts of a shape.
Literacy: Reception have started their new focus text, which is called ‘Look Up!’ by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola. To introduce us to the text, the children were shocked to find the Halloween things cleared away, replaced by rocket shops, astronauts, small world moon scapes and a spaceship! We then found a sparkly-wrapped parcel, which turned out to be our new book. We are enjoying learning all about our story, and Rocket, the girl who wants to be an astronaut and a star catcher. We even got to have a look through a real telescope!
We wrote about what we wanted to be when we grew up, we played iSpy and listened to the initial sounds, and next week we are designing a flyer to advertise our very own meteor shower!
To finish the week, we had our very last Balance Bike Training with Kevin from Wheel Education. We had an amazing time and we are so grateful to Kevin and his team for supporting us with our learning.
Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team.
Maths: How much fits in?
Our last Balance Bikes session with Kevin.
PE: Balancing and learning how to jump safely.
Look Up! Reception get lost in space...
Hallowe’en...creepy disco, giant spiders, potion recipes, goop and spooky skeleton models!
Week beginning 16th October 2023: Autumn is here!
This week Reception have enjoyed everything that Autumn has to offer. We have become nature detectives, readers, writers, mathematicians, athletes and pirates!
Phonics: Another busy week learning new sounds, k, u, b, f, and we have been really focused on blending sounds to read words. We immersed ourselves in sounds this week, some of us even thought of a song that started with the same sound we learned…I wonder if you can guess from the photos below which one it was!
Maths: In Mastering Number sessions this week we practised our subitising skills further, with practical objects, and we learned about how to share fairly within five, looking at whether we had too much, or not enough, and also whether we had three, more than three, or fewer than three. In our shape, space and measure lesson we learned all about comparing, and how to use scales properly to find out which item was heaviest and which was lightest.
Understanding the World: We really made the most of the fruits of Autumn this week in our group time. We investigated mini squashes and pumpkins, we used our senses of touch, smell and sight, and we also talked about changes over time, by investigating a pumpkin that was a little mouldy! Some of us decided we wanted to get out hands in there, and we used magnifying glasses to look closely, it was so much fun and we learned so much about why things change, and how. We then made a vocabulary poster to place in our seasonal area.
We also went on an Autumn walk to collect some natural materials relating to Autumn, and we investigated our school woodlands. We talked about the changing colours of the leaves and the plants, we felt the plants that had dried up and changed, we talked about how the birds ate the red berries in the winter and that we weren’t to eat those ones in case we get sick, we learned how to always stay safe by keeping in sight of a grown up, and we listened to what we could hear outside, rustling in the wind, and birds tweeting. Some of us even ate some Blackberries we found on the brambles, after checking with Mrs Fearby!
Physical Development: In PE this week we were all pirates! We went outside and we sailed the seven seas and practiced our balancing skills, on two legs then on one leg! AAARRRR!!!!
Plan, Do, Review: As part of their planning cycle the children plan their own area of interest. They have been really interested in created an ‘office space’ so they can ‘do work and take messages’ all week, so Mrs Gardiner and Mrs Hamilton very kindly allowed the children to look around the office and they explained what they do during their day. The children are excited to set up their own ‘Hetton School Office’ when we get back!
As always, the children have also enjoyed their own time to play and learn together and build relationships.
Thank you for your support, the children brought home their ‘sound books’ this week, to practise writing the sounds we have been learning in school, please return this by Wednesday every week so that we can update it and send it back on Friday.
Please also remember to return your bedtime stories book bags when you return to school.
Have a happy and safe half term, we will be celebrating Hallowe’en on the Monday and Tuesday we come back, with lots of spooky goings on across Early Years!
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Making Connections: You can stand under my umbrella...u,u,u,u
Investigating the fruits of Autumn: Change over time. Why has the pumpkin gone squishy and black? How many seeds will it have? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? What are fibres?
Reception gets out and about: a fresh Autumn walk.
Maths: Subitising, weighing and comparing.
Hetton School Office: Doing our research.
Pirate PE: Balancing on one leg me hearties!
Playing and learning together: Autumn campfires, pumpkins, and problem solving!
Week beginning 9th October 2023
What a busy week we’ve had both in and out of school, we have been spending lots of time with our families for school events, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it!
Our School Community: We kicked off on Saturday with the Houghton Feast parade through Houghton, and we were joined by tiny kings and coal miners! It was such a good day and the children were very proud to carry our banner and hand out sweets to the children in the crowd. We all agreed we are going to make an even bigger event of it next year!
In PE this week we experimented with different ways of moving, side steps, gallops, balancing, hopping, the children did really well, they are used to moving in lots of different ways when playing outdoors, so next week we will be moving on to even more challenging moves!
Phonics: This week in phonics we learned the sounds g,o,c and we spent lots of time with Fred the Frog, learning how to blend. We will be sending a sounds book home every week from next week, to practise what we are learning.
Maths: This week in our lessons on Mastering Number, we are learning about rules of counting to five, showing five in different ways, on our fingers, on dice, on a five frame, and also that five and five make ten. In shape, space and measure lessons we learned about comparing height, using the correct vocabulary of shorter and longer, then we had a go at working out who was taller and shorter in our class!
Bedtime Stories: on Friday we launched our bedtime story bags, we shared stories all day, and we acted out ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen using the balance equipment in the Hall. We couldn’t go over or under the equipment, we had to go through it!
We were joined later in Nursery and Reception by our families, and we listened to a story, had some hot chocolate and some cookies together. Even some of our brothers and sisters came along, it was such a lovely time to spend together! Every child went home with a bedtime story bag to read and return their story before Wednesday, then they will get a new book every Friday, to share at bedtime.
Please enjoy the photos below of your children learning through play in our environment, they are becoming more imaginative as the weeks go by, and they are developing lots of social and emotional skills and communication and language skills as they play, as well as so many other characteristics of effective learning.
Next week is the last week in school before half term, and the children’s last day is Thursday 19th October. Ready for another busy week!
Thank You for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team.
Houghton Feast: King Coal!
PE: Different ways of moving.
Marvellous Maths: Comparing Height. Who is the Tallest?
Learning and growing in our play.
Outdoor Learning: Playing with what we know. Leaf painting, bear prints, chalk drawing, pavement phonics and potions!
Bedtime Stories, Friday Dance Party, and a Bear Hunt!
Week beginning 2nd October 2023
Reception have enjoyed their routines this week, we have started planning changes to our environment together, indoor and outdoor, and we are getting used to our Balance Bike Training, Phonics, Literacy, Maths and group time, as well as PE, celebration assembly, and lots of time to learn through play!
Phonics: The children have learned the sounds from Set One in Read Write Inc., m,a,s,d,t,i,n, up to now, and this week they will be learning how to blend the sounds using magnetic letters, and we will also be sending some practise homework from next week, you can find the links to the information about how to support your child at home, below.
Maths: The children have been practising how to ‘show me’ numbers using their fingers, and how to show numbers in different ways, such as 3 and 1 make 4, but so do 2 and 2…we have also been learning about ‘more than’, and using specific phrases to help us remember, such as: ‘Pat has more than Sam”. As well as this we have been practising subitising, our rules of counting, and learning about the difference between length and height, using the vocabulary of tall and short, and long and short. We have also been reading stories together to reinforce our learning, we have loved the story of ‘Titch’ the small boy with the tiny seed.
A very busy week learning about Maths!
Literacy: We have really enjoyed learning the story of The Little Red Hen. To learn it off by heart and internalise the story we have been creating story maps together and performing actions to represent the characters and the story sequence. We are hoping to film our performance next week and post it on our website!
Music: Our Reception children absolutely love singing and moving to music, and we have a short structured music session every day, using puppets, instruments, rhyme and song. This week the children have been learning how to take part in ‘call and response’ singing, and following instructions to the beat - we had so much fun!
Our School Community: We have taken some photographs to show off our gorgeous children for the Sunderland Echo’s Annual ‘First Class’ Newspaper article featuring the Reception classes from Sunderland Schools. I’m sure you’ll agree they will shine on the pages!
I will send you a link with more information. If you do not wish your child to be featured, please send me a message via Dojo before 5pm on 9th October.
Early Years are hosting our ‘Bedtime Stories’ launch event this coming Friday, 13th October at 11:30am for morning Nursery, and 2:30pm for Reception and afternoon Nursery. We can’t wait to share a cup of hot chocolate and a biscuit, and snuggle up to listen to some bedtime stories together, then get our first bedtime stories bag for home.
The children can come to school in their pyjamas for the whole day:
it’s going to be a comfy one!
Remember we are at the Houghton Feast on Saturday 7th October, meeting at the old library car park between 12 and 1. Please send a message on Dojo if you have any questions before tomorrow.
Thank you for your continuing support, Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team.
Diamond Class 2023: First Class!
Maths: Who has more? Solving problems and showing what we know.
Learning Through Play
Week Beginning 25th September 2023
Another active week for our Reception children as we took part in Balance Bike Training with Kevin from Wheel Education.
Physical Development: The children thoroughly enjoyed learning how to click their helmets on, gliding, using their brakes, pretending to move like jungle animals, and crossing the ‘river’ to avoid the crocodiles!
(More photos to follow, don’t worry if you can’t see your little one yet!)
Communication and Language: The children have started Plan, Do, Review each day, which is supporting them to explain what they are doing in their play. Lots of new vocabulary has been learned, including the word ‘discombobulated’, I wonder if we can remember it!
Phonics: The children have continued their phonics sessions this week with the sounds
m, a, s, and d.
They have been learning to recognise words that begin with the sounds, and how to listen and blend words. Please click the links below for a video guide to Read, Write, Inc. and also to watch a video all about how it is taught, as well as how you can support at home.
https://youtu.be/sjlPILhk7bQ?si=cLVrLSdGv5aDYwOX
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
I will inform all parents in plenty of time when the children will be bringing reading books home, along with some information about how to support your child at home, and we will be having parent information sessions to help with this as well, I really hope to see everyone there as the sessions are fun and informative, and again I will let you know these dates in plenty of time.
Maths: This week in Maths we have been learning about numerical patterns, and reinforcing our subitising skills: when you recognise the number of items you have, without counting. We used pom-poms, and the Numberblocks to help us!
Personal, Social and Emotional Development: The children met ‘Jigsaw Jenie’ and the cat Jerry this week, and we started to learn about our place in the world and how our actions and behaviour affect ourselves and other around us. We completed peer massage, and we talked about how we can have ‘kind hands’ to help our friends. We love spending time playing and learning together and we are starting to feel like a class family.
Our School Community: This week we took part in Green Day for MacMillan, and we held a coffee morning for our parents. The children loved dressing in green, eating green biscuits and they even had some special green activities and a special green cake at lunchtime. Thankfully The Hulk didn’t show up, we were worried what would happen to our school if he got angry!
We are all looking forward to another busy week, the children will be continuing their Balance Bike Training, and we will be learning more about Autumn, including exploring fruits and vegetables that grow such as pumpkins and squash, and using them for some Autumnal cooking!
The staff are attending the Houghton Feast parade on Saturday 7th October, and we are hoping that some of the children will join us as ‘Hetton Heroes’ and take our new banner along. There will be more details to follow on Class Dojo, but if you’d like to join in our parade walk through Houghton, please let us know to expect you via Class Dojo, as we will be creating masks through the week to wear.
As always, thank you for your support.
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Balance Bike Training with Wheel Education
Marvellous Maths: Reception Mastering Numbers.
‘Green Day’ for MacMillan and Friday Dance Party!
Week Beginning 18th September 2023
A very active week for our Reception children as they tested out their PE kits for the first time! We got changed, we explored the space in the Hall, we investigated equipment that was new to us, and we also learned how exercise keeps us healthy, and why we need to warm up and cool down.
A mystery box arrived this week, and the children loved trying to guess what was in it, we had suggestions ranging from a Hippo and a guitar, to a new rocking horse or a Henry Hoover! The grown ups think it might be something exciting to do with our Maths project we are starting soon, but a Hippo would be very exciting, particularly if it had a guitar! We are going to open it and find out more next week.
The most important thing the children will do in their time in Reception is learn through play, this week they have played and learned so much; Science (joining pipes together to get the water to travel the furthest they can), Writing: while playing in role to create tickets for a castle that they built, as well as making funny faces in mirrors and drawing their self portraits, the children demonstrate focus, concentration, active learning, creative and critical thinking, and playing and exploring. All vital elements of the characteristics of effective learning. I will talk more about this during our Meet the Teacher session on Thursday at 3:25pm.
Check out some of the photos below in the meantime!
Phonics: The children have continued their phonics sessions this week with more games with Fred the Frog to practise listening to sounds in a words, and we learned how to read and form the letter ‘m’ as well as listening to words that begin with ‘m’. The children will be assessed next week and then we will start more formal sessions.
I will inform all parents in plenty of time when the children will be bringing reading books home, along with some information about how to support your child at home, and we will be having parent information sessions to help with this as well, I really hope to see everyone there as the sessions are fun and informative, and again I will let you know these dates in plenty of time.
Maths: This week we have been laying more foundations for our Maths brains, and we have some keen Mathematicians in Reception! We learned the word ‘subitise’, we practised how to do it, and we sang lots of songs and rhymes to support us with our rules of counting, focusing on counting one to one, and saying one number for each item we count. We then used natural materials to create our own number line to 5. Some of us then had a go at this in our play.
Part of the Early Years curriculum is learning about, and having Understanding of the World. This week we began our small group time around seasons and change, and we started to learn about Autumn: the clothes that we will need to wear now, the nights are coming more quickly and the days are shorter, and the difference between a Pine Cone and an Acorn, as well as examining what happens to leaves in the Autumn. We wrote down lots of words that we hear in Autumn and displayed them on our seasonal table, as we will be going for an Autumn walk soon to collect more items for our table. Our Pearl even brought us a pine cone to look at and talk about, and we compared it to an Acorn, then our Mia brought us in some shedded lizard skin from her Gecko ‘Beano’ and we talked about how and why things need to change. We all had a good look at the old skin!
We are all looking forward to another busy week, the children will be starting Balance Bike Training on Tuesday morning with Kevin from Wheel Education.
As always, thank you for your support, (and for writing your children’s names on all of their clothing and shoes!)
Mrs Fearby and the Early Years Team
Our first PE session, exploring the Hall, getting changed, and making different moves!
A Mystery Box...
Making our very own number line. 1,2,3,4,5...
Staying Curious...Campfires, Making our Marks, Role Play, Musical Instruments, Model Making, Our favourite books, Experimenting with water, eating a Big, Blue, Bug, and investigating a lizard skin...phew, all in a day’s work!
Week beginning 11th September 2023
A very busy week for our new Reception gang! We have settled in very well to routines, we have enjoyed circle time and we are looking forward to starting our group times next week.
We practised our literacy skills by singing Nursery Rhymes to Fred the Frog, challenging our friends by choosing the right picture to match the rhyme.
We have been singing number songs every day to practise our rules of counting - saying one number name for each thing we count, counting in the right order, and knowing that the last number we say means that is how many we have. Some of us then played with the dominoes, counting and matching. We thought really hard about the moves we were making!
Lots of time has been spent outdoors, and we have loved spending time in the mud, on the bikes, watching the tractor cut the grass, and chalking on the wet ground, we loved investigating how the chalk looked different on wet and dry ground.
Autumn is here and Winter is coming, so some labelled spare clothes will be needed to be brought in from home as in Reception we go outside in all weathers, and we will get wet!
There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing!
This half term our theme is All About Me, and as part of this we will be completing self portraits, creating a family display, and learning about our feelings and emotions. Today we passed around a very special tin and we each looked inside, while the whole group said ‘there is something very special in this tin.’
When we looked in the tin we had to keep what was in it a surprise until the last person looked, and we realised it was a mirror that showed us our reflection - we are all so special!
Exciting times ahead, thank you for your support.
Mrs Fearby, Diamond Class and the Early Years Team.
Circle Time!
All About Me. There is something very special in this tin...we are all different, we are all special.
Playing together outside. Grass cutting, exploring, building, and making new friends.
Playing games together - thinking strategy!
Playing with words: Fred the Frog sings the Nursery Rhymes!
Junk Modelling: Robots, Monsters and Towers.
Making our marks: After the Rain
Welcome to Reception 2023!
The children have had an amazing first few days in school, and we are amazed at how much they have grown over the holidays. We have been settling into our new routines, meeting and playing with new friends, and we are all looking forward to learning and growing together! We appreciate all of the support from our families so far, and we can’t wait to build our relationships as the time goes on.
Thank You, Mrs Fearby
More photos of our first week settling in.
Singing together.
Cooling off with an ice lolly!
Exploring and making friends!
Enjoying our first school lunches.
Exploring our new environment, school lunches, and making friends!
