Reception - Fun at the farm!

What glorious weather we had today for our first trip in Reception. We had a fantastic time and learned a lot form Hazel. We had a tour of Maiden castle Farm, learning all about harvesting crops, the combine harvester, wheat, barley as well as learning about the animals and vehicles used on the farm. The children were wonderful and asked and answered many questions. It was a long walk but the children coped fantastically and showed very sensible behaviour and super listening! Well done!


Remember to wear school top and leggings or play trousers tomorrow as the other half of the class will be doing forest school.

Tapestry will be up and running again very soon, I will let you know when it is.

Finally, a big thank you to those parents and grandparents who accompanied us on our trip today, we couldn't do it without you! And another huge thank you to Hazel for teaching us all about harvest on the farm.

See you all tomorrow,

Mrs. Johnson and the Amazing Reception Team!

Reception: Special Delivery, Home Learning, Food and Farming..........

We had a special delivery on Friday.................a police van with lights and sirens came speeding into school and out jumped two special agents, Special Agent Spracklen and Special Agent Bascombe, to deliver the POW Passports!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was super exciting..............we will be keeping the passports in school but if you achieve one of the special milestones, please bring in some evidence and you can get your passport stamped at the Passport Control Desk!


It was also Paddington's 5th birthday on Friday so we had a party, playing games, eating marmalade sandwiches and opening his cards and presents.

A red exercise book came home on Friday. This is for the children to practise writing the sounds we have been learning. If they want to extend it by drawing pictures to match the sounds or stick in pictures that match the sounds, please feel free. They may also like to make words from the sounds learnt so far. I would like the books back in on Thursdays so that we can add the next sounds/words to read. We will continue to send time to talk home but may alternate it so that there is not an overload!!!!!!!

Don't forget the farm trip on Tuesday! NO SNACK required, we will provide snack that day. Old, warm play clothes (clothes that can get messy), wellies, warm coat or all in one. Most wellies are at school, so come in with trainers/school shoes and we will change into wellies before we go. We will be back to school in time for lunch.


Food and farming fortnight.........watch out for all sorts of exciting events, culminating in our morning harvest celebration assembly, afternoon cafe and Autumn Fest in the evening - Friday 5th October!

Reminder/request: donations of conkers, vegetables for chopping/printing/investigating, crockery/tea set all greatly received - thank you!

We hope you are having a wonderful week-end and look forward to seeing you all tomorrow - The Excellent Reception Team!

Reception........sounds, conkers and vegetables!

Sounds that we have been learning this week are:


"i" as in "insect"- short bouncy sound
"n" tongue to the roof of the mouth and make a sound (do not drop the tongue) - the picture and phrase that goes with the sound"down Nobby and over the net".
"p" lips together and push the air through them (no voice) "down the plait and round the pirate's face".
"g" "round her face, down her hair and give her a curl".

Tomorrow is "o" as in orange.

If you have experienced any difficulty with Tapestry, it will be rectified tomorrow.

It was a challenge to get all children to experience forest schools in 1 hour, so we will be taking half a class on alternate weeks until half term - therefore send in the same clothes and we will alternate each week. After half term we will give children a block of weeks before alternating.

If you enjoy a windy walk, then we would very much appreciate lots of conkers for next week.


Further requests: we would really like to replace the plastic plates, cups, tea-pots and cutlery in our home corner with real crockery, tea set, tea-pt and cutlery - if anyone has some old sets that they would like to donate that would be wonderful. Secondly, if anyone has any fruit or vegetables that they would like to donate for vegetable printing, investigating, chopping next week that too would be very much appreciated! Thank you!




There is still time to volunteer  for our farm trip next Tuesday morning!

There has been a lot of excitement this week as it was Paddington's birthday, so we decided to hold him a party tomorrow.............children have been writing invitations, birthday cards and even wrapping him presents as well as making cakes.

There was some fantastic problem solving this afternoon where several children built an obstacle course!

Mrs. Johnson and The Wonderful Reception Team!!!!!!!

Reception Reminders!

A reminder that it is Forest Schools tomorrow, so please wear your school t-shirt and jumper/cardigan with trousers or leggings that can get muddy! Bring named wellies and coat too!

Tomorrow we also have the new to reception echo school photo.

Thank you for some wonderful wows and time to talk home learning, they are super and the children are very proud of them!

Please have a go at adding images or comments to Tapestry to show us achievements at home - I had my first video added today from a family showing some brilliant independent singing and dancing.

I have 3 volunteers so far for our farm visit next Tuesday morning, thank you to those parents........if any other parents or grand parents would like to join us they would be more than welcome!

It has been wonderful to see how many more settled children we have, especially in the morning - well done!

Today we had a visit from the town crier in assembly and also our first whole school fire drill!

Mrs. Johnson and the Reception Team.

A busy first week in Reception.

Our first full week and haven't they done well?

Although there were many tired faces today, we still enjoyed lots of outside learning including music, art and everyone rode the balance bikes today too!

Well done to Otis, Henry C, Rufus, Isaac and Asimina who were praised in assembly today as well as all the children who had reached 10 tokens this week. We have also been amazed by all the WOW moments that have come in, Mr. Spracklen has really enjoyed celebrating them too!

We have displayed all the superb Time to Talks from last week and a new one has come home today. We looked at it in class today in order to spark some thoughts! Have fun!

Yesterday we learnt the sound "d". Teeth nearly together and touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind the top front teeth, then drop the tongue as you make the sound. It is a bouncy sound. The picture to go with the sound is a dinosaur. As we write it we say " round his tummy, up his talk neck and down to his tail."

Today we learnt the sound "t". The mouth shape is the same for "d" but don't drop your tongue and there is no voice, simply force air over the top of the tip of the tongue. The picture to go with the sound is a tower. As we write it we say "down the tower, across the tower."

Our farm trip is the morning of Tuesday 25th September. We will be walking to the farm providing it is not raining, when the trip would be postponed and we would make the decision that morning. If any of you would like to volunteer to join us for the morning that would be wonderful, just let one of the team know next week. Children will need to wear warm, old play clothes that can get dirty (trousers or leggings), wellies and a warm coat. We will take fruit snack from school, so no snack will be need to be sent in that day.

Just to clarify, everyone will participate in forest schools every Wednesday.

Have a lovely week-end and well done Reception, you should be very proud of yourselves!


Mrs. Johnson and The Fantastic Team!

Reception - We found Paddington........phew!

We lost Paddington this morning!!!!!!!! We were very concerned and had many ideas of where he might be..........Mrs. Hall went to look for him and found him in Mr. Spracklen's office.........having a bath!!!!!! Well, he was TRYING to have a bath...............ask the children what happened?

Well done to Asimina, George, Sebastian, Isaac and Marissa who all reached 10 tokens and got to choose from the treasure box.

Yesterday we learned the sound "a", open your mouth wide and say "a" as in "apple". It is a bouncy sound "a, a, a". When we write "a" we start top right and say as we write "round the apple and down the leaf".

Today we learned the sound "s", put you teeth nearly together with your lips apart and put your tongue behind your teeth and say "s". It is a stretchy sound. When we write "s" we start top right and say as we write "slither down the snake".

Tomorrow we will be learning "d".

We will be having forest schools EVERY WEDNESDAY so please could every child COME TO SCHOOL WEARING their school top and jumper/cardigan with "play bottoms" (tracksuit bottoms or leggings) and have a named waterproof coat and wellies in school which we will store under the eaves at the back of our classroom. All in one waterproofs are fine too. We will be outside whatever the weather.

We all did Charanga music today, learning to recognise the pulse and singing.

Some of us used the chrome books to explore the cbeebies website and develop their mouse pad control.

We have been interested in the signs of Autumn, so please do bring in autumnal items and we will display them on the "I wonder" table to be investigated!

Mrs. Johnson and the Fabulous Reception Team!

Reception Parent Information Session.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lnrbbdJU2rwQCzkUaFs38zoZ0qEGegfo3GnlA53XJl8/edit?usp=sharing

Please find the presentation here.

Our first RWInc sound!

Thank you to those of you that were able to come along to the Parent Information session this morning. I will add the slide show for those that couldn't come.

Today we began Read Write Inc. Our first sound is "m", press your lips together and say "mmmmmmm" "m" is a stretchy sound. The rhyme and picture that matches "m" is "maisie mountain mountain". We also practised writing "m" while saying the rhyme. It is very important that they form the letter correctly, start at the top and go down and up maisie then over the two mountains. You could practise this at home or think of words that begin with "m".


Tomorrow we will be learning "a".

We had a big focus on drinking our water today.

See you all tomorrow,

Mrs. Johnson and the Reception Team.

Reception.............first few days!

We hope you all enjoyed your first three days and are energised for our first full week!!!!!!


We had a mysterious suitcase left for us on Thursday with a rather sticky mess of marmalade sandwiches as well as a blanket and pillow, a map and a letter. We were able to match the country to the one on the world map on our TV and discovered it was Peru in South America. Needless to say, our visitor revealed themselves on Friday..........it was Paddington!!!!! The children decided we should make marmalade sandwiches to cheer him up as he was feeling a little home sick!!!!!
Paddington has moved into the house in Reception and we are going to make him feel very welcome!
Edie even designed a raincoat for him!

Congratulations to Henry C and Edie who reached 10 tokens and were able to choose a prize from the treasure box. It was also lovely to praise the whole class during praise assembly, celebrating how settled in they were. Years 1 and 2 welcomed us as we stood and bravely waved at them all.


We are focussing on our tidying up skills and being kind to others at the moment.

You should all have received an email sent yesterday asking you to create an account with Tapestry. This is an electronic learning journey which will track the children's learning against the early learning goals and will notify you of this as well as you also being able to add your own evidence. This is different to Marvellous Me which will be used more for WOW moments.

A junk modelling plea..........please could you collect a few items of card board packaging or plastic containers that are clean, and simply add them to the junk modelling box in the classroom - we would like to replenish it daily as the children love using it and it is such a valuable resource. (NOT toilet rolls - thank you)

We hope you have found time to enjoy your time to talk home learning and look forward to reading what you discussed. There is no hurry for this to be in, but we will be sending home a new one each Friday.

The first Parents Information session is tomorrow morning at 9:00am in the school hall.

See you all tomorrow,

Mrs. Johnson and the Reception Team.

Our first day in Reception!

What a fantastic first day!!!!! The children were so calm, happy and confident.........a real pleasure! Mums and Dads, thank you to all of you for your super smily welcomes and for feeling happy to leave your child so swiftly, they really settled so well.

Strangely, over the holidays, something or someone seems to have moved into the cupboard!!!!!!! We don't know who, but they left a lot of tissues and we were obviously very upset. The children decided they could cheer them up by giving them a big hug and by writing to them and making cards!!!!! Hopefully this works and we may meet them tomorrow if they're not too shy!!!!


Not only did we take part in the daily mile with the whole school, we were accompanied by our year 4 buddies! We went and had our lunch in the dinner hall and used wonderful manners..........lots of us were able to cut up our food with a knife and fork! After lunch we did some yoga which was wonderful exercise as well as very calming! We even went to a whole school assembly!!!!!!!!

Consequently, there were a lot of yawns by the end of the day ( as well as smiling faces! ).

We will be changing for PE tomorrow.

Thank you for waiting patiently at the end of the day, due to the letters we had to hand out. Letters will be coming home electronically from next week.

I will endeavour to use Marvellous Me tomorrow so please do download the app.

We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.


Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Cura.

Welcome to Reception!

We would like to wish you all a very warm welcome to The prince of Wales School and to Reception!

The Reception Team and I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are ready to start your exciting journey with us...........






It is going to be a fun packed year, full of learning new things, fun, laughter, adventure and happiness. We are all excited and feel very lucky that we have been given the privilege of teaching in Reception...........one of the most important years of your school life!

What will I need to do on my first day????????

1. Come in with a big smile!
2. Find my peg and hang up my coat and bag.
3. Put my book bag in  the book bag box.
4. Put my water bottle and healthy snack in the water and snack box.
5. Choose an activity that I would like to do.
6. Wave good bye with a big smile to the person who brought me in!



We will see you all in the morning for your very first day of school!

Mrs. Johnson and the Reception Team.