Coxhoe Primary School

Reception Topic Webs

Find our topic webs here.

Our topic webs will give you an idea of some of the experiences that your children will have throughout their time in Reception.

As many opportunities are child led, the topics we explore are chosen by the children and our curriculum is weaved through, focusing on what the children are interested in.

Reception Reading Meeting Slides - Autumn 2023

Useful websites, Links and Apps...

* Useful Maths links:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b08bzfnh/numberblocks

https://numbots.com/

* In reception we follow the Little Wandle letters and sounds phonics scheme.

Please find below a link to the web page which will allow you to see how we teach your child specific aspects of phonics in class.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Notice Board

Please ensure your child brings the following to school every day...

• Labelled water bottle containing water. 
• Their book bag containing their planner, reading book and sharing book.
• Your child may also want to bring in their own snack each day. Please ensure that this is a healthy snack such as fruit or a cereal bar.
• Our PE day is a Thursday. Children must come into school in their kit with suitable footwear. Please ensure your child has jogging bottoms for colder days, as we spend a lot of our time outdoors.

Poetry Week

This week we read 'Zim Zam Zoom' and focused on the poem, 'Funny Faces'. We looked for patterns in the poem and practised all week, ready to perform to Year 1. 

They loved it! We did so well when using loud and clear voices!

Take a look at McKee's performance below!

Robots and Rockstars Day 2024!

Measuring Time

Today, we measured time in simple ways as we thought about special events that were happening soon. We worked out how many sleeps it would be until events such as our Nativity performance and Christmas. Can you believe it is only 2 sleeps until our Nativity and 18 sleeps until Christmas?! We used out advent calendar to help us with our countdowns. Lots of the children thought about other special events that were coming up, including ice skating and birthdays! We created countdown posters to help us remember how many sleeps were left.

Day and Night

This week in Maths, we have been thinking about things that we do in the daytime and things that we do at night. We have been busy with some challenge activities including sequencing our day amongst other sorting activities in provision. We discussed how our sequence maybe different to someone else's whereas other parts of our day will be the same.

Combining Squares and Rectangles 

We have been thinking about squares and rectangles this week and today we have thought about combining these. We first experimented with squares and rectangles to see what other shapes we could make by combining them, then we made some lovely pieces of art using these shapes. We even did some shape printing too!

Milkshakes!

During milk time last week, the children engaged in discussion around adding fruit to milk to make milkshakes and explained that they would be interested in trying new fruits in school. We had lots of fun trying different fruits before choosing our favourite for our milkshakes. We tried kiwi, pineapple, pomegranate, blackberries and mango.

The children also engaged with observational drawings and created some beautiful pictures of the new fruits that we had tried.

Finding One Less

"5 currant buns in a baker's shop, round and fat with a cherry on the top!"

Today we found 1 less than numbers to 5 by singing familiar number songs. We used sentence starters including, 'one less than ___ is ___.

Adding One More

Today we enjoyed our Maths lesson outdoors and practised adding one more in a practical context. The children sang 'The Wheels on the Bus' as the bus driver collected one passenger at each stop. 

"One more than 3 is 4!"

Diwali

This week at school, we have been celebrating Diwali - the festival of light.  We learnt all about what Diwali is and the different things people do to celebrate this all around the world. We have done lots of fun activities this week including using clay to make our very own diva lamps. We dressed up in our role play area and made some beautiful rangoli patterns. 

Shape Hunt

This week in Maths we have been thinking about circles and triangles - so today we had a shape hunt! We looked all around our classrooms trying to find examples of shapes in our environment. We did absolutely brilliant at this and we were so excited to share what we had found!

I have a wonderful collection of yellow, spotted bows! Who am I?

This week at school we have had a visitor in our classrooms who has been leaving clues! We were given lots of tasks to do to help us to find out who had been visiting. We were given a list of spooky items to find and match to the phonemes we've being learning. We found bats, rats, hats and frogs! We then had to make potions to try and help our visitor - this was lots of fun! We also had lots of Halloween tasks in provision too - you can see some of our creations below. We can't wait to find out who has been giving us all of these challenges!

Gross and Fine Motor

This week we have been busy working on our gross and fine motor skills. We enjoyed lots of pre-writing activities such as mark making in flour, balloon games, fiddly turn taking games and more name writing practise.

Owl Babies

In topic we have been reading the story "Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell. We have thought about nocturnal animals, as well as habitats - we even recreated an owl's habitat! We've had lots of fun around the different areas in our classroom too. We have created some fabulous owl artwork, made nests and owls out of playdough and made yummy food for the owls in our tuff tray.

PE with Mr Todd and Mr Flatman

We have loved our first two PE sessions with Mr Todd and Mr Flatman. We have been working on our core strength skills as we practised lots of different ways of moving. We slithered like snakes and shuffled on our bottoms. We have also been practising our throwing and catching skills with beanbags. This was very challenging but we tried our best!

Settling In

Wow - what a fantastic start the newest members of our Coxhoe family have had! We've been blown away with how well everyone has settled into their new environment and we have really enjoyed getting to know each and everyone of the children. We have enjoyed exploring new surroundings and have been busy in all of our areas, both inside and out. We have adapted so well to new routines and have shown resilience and enthusiasm as well as amazing personalities! We are so excited to share their first school experiences with them and can't wait to continue watch them grow! 

The Early Years Team

Mrs Barron, Miss Snowball, Miss Smith and Miss Bell

Our Nativity!

Wow! What a performance! We are so incredibly proud of the Reception children. They have worked very hard over the last few weeks, learning new songs and lines. Thank you to so many of you for joining us - we hope you had a wonderful time.

We wish you a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Corner!

Some of us have been very busy in the role play area this week. From wrapping gifts and adding name tags to writing our own letters to Santa and his elves, we have been working on lots of different skills including fine motor, composition, transcription and  problem solving. Our communication and language skills are developing as we negotiate and organise activities and games.

Friday 1st December - More snow, hooray!

Fun in the snow!

Today we had lots of fun playing in the snow! We put on our wetsuits and wellies and headed to the field. We made snow angels, built snowmen and enjoyed just having a play. What an exciting time!

Squares and Rectangles

In Maths this week, we have been learning about the properties of squares and rectangles. We identified shapes in our environment and had a try at building our own shapes using loose parts.

Stepping into Christmas!

It is beginning to look very festive in Reception this week. The children took great pride over their Christmas tree and assembled it themselves. They even created their own Christmas decorations to add to it. 

Anti-Bullying Week

This week we participated in 'Anti-Bullying Week'. We read the story 'Stick and Stone' and thought carefully about how the characters were feeling throughout the story. We talked about ways to be kind friends and worked hard to make our friends smile throughout the week. We created our own posters to share rules around how to be a good friend.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

This week in Maths, we have been focusing on the numbers 4 and 5. We have thought about the different ways we can represent 4 and 5, and we have recapped subitising. We have had fun doing lots of different activities such as arranging unifix cubes in different ways and printing to create art work, singing number songs, and we even had an outdoor lesson where we could show off our subitising skills. 

It's a Long Way to Tipperary!

This week we have been practising our song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" for Remembrance. We learnt that one way people stayed happy during the war was through singing and playing music, so we thought we'd learn one of the most popular songs of the First World War, create our own instruments and walk in our very own marching band!

Remembrance Day

In topic this week, we have been learning about Remembrance Day and the reason why we wear poppies. We loved learning about why this day is important to lots of people, as well as what children did to help during the war and how people stayed happy. In provision, we even created some beautiful poppy artwork.

Kandinsky Artwork

As we've been looking at circles and triangles this week in Maths, we also had a look at some artwork by Kandinsky. We looked at lots of pieces of his work and identified the triangles and circles we could see in them. Obviously, we had to have a try at creating our own pieces and they were absolutely amazing!

We've solved it! Our visitor was...

We've done it! We have found out who our visitor was!

In class, we read 'Room on the Broom' and thought we might have guessed who the visitor was. Today we had one final task to complete - make a new broomstick! We all worked together to think of ideas of how we could make a broomstick using the materials the visitor had left us. When we had finally finished, we had a special visitor - a witch! She loved the new broomstick we made for her! We wonder if she'll visit us again?

It's me... 1, 2, 3!

This week in Maths, we've been very busy! We have been subitising and representing numbers 1, 2 and 3 (test us, we're very good at this!). We played bean bag games and recorded our scores using tally marks. We were also introduced to Numbots this week - our logins are in our planners so we can play this at home too!

Name writing!

This week we have been practicing writing our names. We practiced in lots of different ways including using buttons, sequins and pompoms to trace our names. Lots of us are able to write our names independently now and with a little more practise, we will all be able to soon!

Mini Mash!

We really enjoyed using Mini Mash to create some beautiful autumn artwork as we used the iPads in school for the very first time. We logged onto Mini Mash and created our own amazing autumn pictures. It was lots of fun trying out a new way to show off our fabulous drawing skills!

Autumn Fun!

What a busy week we have had! We have enjoyed Autumn stories and songs and even went for a wander to collect materials and search for signs of Autumn in our own outdoor area. We noticed that the leaves were changing colour and were falling from the trees! We collected twigs, pine cones and a range of leaves, ready to create our own wonderful pieces of artwork a little later. We have also started to explore our online platform, Minimash. We learnt how to access different parts of the programme and used a painting tool to design our own Autumn trees. We were experts when using the iPads! Stay tuned for our Autumn artwork...

Our Autumn Artwork

This afternoon, we used all of our collected materials to create leaf prints, rubbings and collages. They turned out beautifully! Look how busy we were!