A Wonderful Start to Reception's Traditional Tales Topic!

Hello Reception Families and Friends, 

Over the last two weeks, Reception have been fully immersed in our Traditional Tales topic, and what a magical journey it has been! Through stories, play, exploration and creativity, the children have been building key skills and developed a real love of storytelling.

Our focus stories so far have been:

The Three Little Pigs
Jack and the Beanstalk

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Gingerbread Man

These familiar tales have given the children a shared language, strong story structures and lots of opportunities to talk, think, create and problem-solve.

Bringing Stories to Life

Storytelling has been at the heart of our learning. Through a range of engaging activities, the children have been developing vital Communication and Language and Literacy skills.

We designed and made and decorated our own Gingerbread Men, encouraging children to talk about their ideas, follow instructions and use descriptive language.

Reception took part in an immersive audio role-play experience of The Gingerbread Man, helping them to retell the story, predict events and join in with repeated phrases.

We created story maps using quick sketches to represent key parts of the story. This supports our early writing by helping children sequence events, recall vocabulary and understand story structure.

Using finger puppets, the children retold traditional tales in their own words—building confidence, narrative skills and expressive language.

Understanding the World: Exploring, Investigating and Growing

Traditional tales are a fantastic springboard for real-world learning!

Inspired by The Three Billy Goats Gruff, the children designed and built their own bridges, experimenting with materials and testing what worked best. This supported problem-solving, critical thinking and early engineering skills.

While learning about Jack and the Beanstalk, we explored how plants grow and planted our own beanstalks using ‘magic’ beans. The children are learning about change over time, caring for living things and using scientific language.

These experiences link closely to Understanding the World, encouraging curiosity, questioning and hands-on learning.

Maths and Physical Development

In Maths, we have been focusing on one more and one less, using practical resources, stories and games to develop number sense and confidence with counting.

In PE, the children have continued to develop their gymnastic skills, working on balance, coordination, strength and body awareness—key aspects of Physical Development.

Learning Through Play and Independence

Alongside adult-led activities, the children have been learning through our continuous provision, making independent choices and following their own interests. It has been wonderful to see them demonstrating the Characteristics of Effective Learning by:

Playing and exploring

Having a go

Thinking creatively

Persevering with challenges

We are so proud of how confident and curious they are becoming!

Chatter Bags (Show and Tell)

Our chatter bags have been a real highlight. Sharing special items from home has helped children build confidence in speaking to a group, listen respectfully to others and develop strong links between home and school.

Supporting Learning at Home

To continue building momentum, we encourage families to spend a little time each day sharing books and short reading activities at home.

A great focus at this stage is:

• Reading and blending CVC words (e.g. cat, dog, pin)

• Quick writing opportunities, such as writing labels, captions or simple sentences linked to stories you read together

Short, regular practice helps children: Build reading fluency, recognise sounds more quickly and gain confidence and stamina when writing

I have shared some additional videos below that you can do with your child at home to support this learning.

Speedy Reading at Home

Again, thank you so much for your ongoing support,

Miss Godden and The Reception Team