Welcome to Reception
In the Foundation Stage at St. Joseph's, the children are taught to share and care about others reflecting the Catholic values in our mission statement. Our dedicated Early Years team provide a happy, caring secure environment where your child will flourish.

Stockley Farm 

Reception had an AMAZING time at Stockley Farm, we were able to:

Pet the rabbits, lizards, lambs, calves, pigs

Groom a pony, 

See the birds of prey

Have lunch in the Party Room

Feed the pigs 

Ride on a Tractor

Go on a nature walk 

Visit the milking room and learn about diary cows 

Eat ice cream

Then finally play in the park before a long coach ride back to school. 

Term 6 

Dinosaurs 

This term we will be learning about DINOSAURS, we are all very excited!

Last week we chose some dinosaurs that we wanted to learn more about; 

Psittacosaurus

Archaeopteryx

Triceratops

Stegosaurus

Pachycephalosaurus

Ankylosaurus

Tyrannosaurus

Diplodocus 

Pterodactyl

When your at home why don't you see if you can find out any new facts about these dinosaurs?

Term 5

This term we will be growing lots of different flowers, fruit and vegetables in class and outside- (if anyone has any unwanted seeds we would love to plant them for you)

We are going to study the plants as they growing; testing growing conditions, labelling them, measuring the rate in which they grow and lots more.

St George's Day 

To celebrate St Georges day Reception decided to have a picnic. In the morning we made sandwiches and packed up the picnic baskets ready for the afternoon (we had our finger's crossed in the hope it would not rain!). Luckily it stayed dry, so we put on our coats and bought with us the crowns, shields, and dragon heads we had made in the morning. 

We had a wonderful picnic talking about St George and how brave he must have been to fight a dragon. After we acted out our own versions of the story. When we arrived back in class we had one more St George's Day treat, a child from year 5 came and read us a story about St George that they had written. It was fantastic and inspired us to write some of our own the following day. 

Term 3/4 Space 

This term we are going to be learning about space. 

We can not wait to find out all about space, this will include learning the planet names, finding out about the sun and moon as well as learning lots of exciting facts. 

I have also planned an amazing trip to Jodrell Bank, more information about this will follow shortly!

Why not have a look on the Cbeebies website to find out more about Space click on the link below 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/stargazing

Eggsperiments

This week in the build up to Easter we have decided to carry out some experiments on eggs.In our first experiment we want to find out what would make the best jacket for Humpty Dumpty to stop him from cracking. 

We decided on, paper, sticky tape, bubble wrap and a bandage 

we voted on which one we thought would protect him the best.  

We went outside and pushed them off the wall. We could not believe the results.... 

They ALL cracked!

Next.....

We put four hard-boiled eggs in different types of liquid. We then made predictions about what we thought might happen.

'The one in coke might turn green'    'They will get bigger'    'The one in Orange juice will be yellow'   'nothing will happen' 

The next day we were very excited to see what had happened...

St Patrick's Day 

We had a wonderful time on the 16th March celebrating St Patrick's Day.

We learnt the story of St Patrick travelling to Ireland to teach people about God and how he used the shamrock to represents God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, like we say when we make the sign of the cross.

We also learnt about Leprechauns and how they find gold at the end of the rainbow.

We decided to make our own special rainbow toast at snack time.

After snack Mrs Crompton took us to the hall with the Nursery and taught us some Irish Dancing.

I want my hat back

After reading 3 Jon Klassen Books about hats we decided to try on lots of different hats. We wrote some sentences about our favourite hats.

When we came back from lunch we noticed that one of the hats was missing….. then we found some notes

‘I stole the hat’ ‘it is my hat’ ‘find the hat’

After reading them, we decided to put on our hats and go in search of the missing hat.

We found different clues all over school, which we took in turns to read.

Eventually we found the hat in the Nursery garden.

We had lots of theories about what happen to the hat but in the end we decided it must have been a Leprechaun as he stole the green Irish hat and its nearly St Patricks Day!

World Book Day

We had a lovely day on world book day. We spent the day reading stories by ourselves and with our teachers.  At snack we made the bear from our favourite book 'I want my hat back'

Can you guess who we are?

Chinese New Year

In St Josephs we always enjoy celebrating Chinese New Year and this year was no exception.

In Reception we prepared the classroom by decorating it with lantern made (with only a little support from Mrs Armes) by cutting strips of paper and carefully attaching them with split pins.

We then read a story about a magical Chinese paint brush. This inspired us to learn about traditional Chinese Blossom Paintings. After looking at examples of these on the computer we decided to create our own. During Maths we decided to continue our learning about capacity by ordering bowls of rice, this was really fun especially when we tried to fill the bowls using chop sticks! 

We finished our learning by joining with Nursery for a Chinese feast. 

Pancake Day

On Tuesday we learnt about Shove Tuesday and why as Christians we celebrate this day. 

After spending the morning making pancakes we sat down and made our Lenten Promises, have a look for these in the classroom. 

In the afternoon we went in small groups to the kitchen and all tried flipping our own pancakes before eating them, they were delicious! 

SNOW!

We had a fantastic time making the most of the little bit of snow that feel over night, the children were determined to make a snowman 

ALIEN INVASION

There have been some strange goings on in Reception over the last few weeks.

It all began with Mr Knight giving us some pictures from the CCTV camera of something unusual in the sky in Ordsall.

We said we would look in to it for him. After some discussions, we decided it looked like an Alien spacecraft.

Then after lunch when we went outside, we noticed something very strange, the playground was covered in green goo and what looked like parts of a space ship.

We decided it would be better not to touch it and put up signs warning other people.

Thank goodness we made that decision because the next day we received a letter from NASA along with an observation tank, they wanted us to write down any information we could about what we had found to help them with their investigation.

We carefully recorded all the information we could and returned it to NASA, we are currently waiting for them to process the data.

Jodrell Bank

After an exciting term learning all about Space we took a trip to the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, home to the world famous Lovell Telescope.

We have been counting down the days until our trip for the last two weeks so as you can imagine we were VERY excited!

Our day began with a long Coach journey, but we made it fun by counting how many different types of animals and vehicles we could see.

When we got there we went to look at the clockwork Orrery, we were fascinated with looking at all the planets, watching them orbit the sun.

Sofia, one of the ladies who works at Jodrell Bank, spoke to us all about what we would need for a trip in to Space. She was very impressed with our knowledge of astronauts including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins not forgetting of course Tim Peake.

We packed our space packs and she took us on a journey through space stopping and talking about the different planets that orbit the sun.

After all that learning we were extremely hungry so we decided to eat our lunch.

Next we went to the discovery centre and explored the entire exhibition, we really enjoyed listening to the big bang.

Then for the part we had all been looking forward to the Planetarium!

It was amazing; we began by watching the sunset and waiting for all the stars to appear. We spoke about different constellation, some of which we could even tell the teacher about!

We then went on to look at some planets and finally the moon.

Next we went for a big walk around the Lovell Telescope it was HUGE!

Finally, we explored the gardens and played in the park before our long journey home.

10 Underpants 

The children have had a fantastic time making up a song about underpants on a washing line.

Sung to the tune of 5 Currant Buns 

10 pairs of pants on the washing line, 

blowing in the wind because it’s nice and fine, 

along came an alien with no undies on, 

stole a pair of pants and 

whoosh they were gone. 

9 pairs of pants.... 

We have sent a copy home for the children to sing with you, we hope you enjoy it. 

To extend your children maybe 2 Aliens could take away 2 pairs of pants. 

The Sleepy Shepherd 

After weeks of rehearsal the day of the Nativity finally arrived. In the morning the children got changed in to their costumes as the hall filled with friends and family eagerly waiting for the show to begin. 

The children performed AMAZINGLY and we are all so proud of them. 

They sang beautifully and spoke in clear voices. 

WELL DONE!

PARTY TIME 

The children in Foundation Stage love a 'good boogie' so after all an exhausting morning performing the Nativity we had a Chritmas Party to celebrate. 

We did some wonderful dancing 

                        Played Pass the Parcel 

    Enjoyed some party food 

Then had a visit from someone VERY special... 

Can you guess who it was?????

Term 2- 

People Who Help Us 

This term we are going to be learning all about the different people who help us in our community. 

Doctors, Nurses, Dentists, Police, Fire Fighters, Postal Workers, Priests, Teachers, Vets, Refuse Collectors, Armed Forces to name a few. 

If you or any of your friends and family work in any of these roles we would love to hear from you. 

Police 

The children had a fabulous visit from PCSO Mark and Officer Nigel, we began the visit by looking in the Police Van, some of us even turned on the sirens!

We then went back to class and Mark told us all about how the police help us in our communities, then we got to try on some of the equipment- Miss Woolman even joined in, can you spot her!

Dentist 

Today we had a visit from play Dental, a fantastic team to help teach the children all about how to look after their teeth. 

With the help of some brilliant activities the children learnt 

 “You need to brush your teeth twice a day”               “We brush ours at lunch as well”

               “Your brush your teeth round and round”                    “You need a pea size tooth paste”

  “Dentists wear glasses and a mask”        “Don’t eat too many sweets, chocolate is better...but only a little”

              “No coke”            “You need to drink water”          “Brush your teeth for two minuets”

The Floor is Lava 

The children have really enjoyed playing ‘floor in lava’ where they must walk on planks to navigate around the playground. 

But there was a problem... the spaces were too big and the planks too short!

The children came up with a plan "we need to measure it"

          “To find out what planks we need” 

" this is 10 we need a big one" 

"This one is 6 I can jump that" 

Children in Need

This year for Children in Need we invited children to come to school to dress up in spotty clothes, we had some fantastic outfits, well done everyone. 

We made some spotty cakes for our snack and loved our visit from Austin the Ice Cream Man at lunch time. 

During the day we spoke about why we donate money to Children in Need and how our money helps other people 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_fpIp20sRw

Bonfire Night 

We have been looking forward to Bonfire night and spent last week talking a lot about the gunpowder plot. In the morning we made some fruit rockets to have for snack 

They were delicious 

In the afternoon we had a bonfire party with Nursery

We made sparklers with popping candy and sprinkles then sat around the fire whilst drinking hot chocolate. 

The Woods 

This term we are learning about:

The Woods

British Animals

Harvest

Autumn

We will be going on lots of walks to observe the changes to our gardens over the coming weeks.

We will then use this to make books, create patterns, count, discuss how the changes makes us feel, create pictures, inspire our imagination and many more exciting activities.

Diwali 

In school we have been learning about a different religion, Hinduism so we decided to join the Nursery in celebrating Diwali. 

We began by reading the story of Rama and Sita then we acted it out  

Next we made some Diva's to help Rama and Sita find their way home 

Then we made some decoration to make the classroom look bright and full of colour 

On Friday we joined with the Nursery to have a Diwali celebration where we tried different Indian food and shared our learning from the week. 

Acorns

Yesterday we received a letter from Scampers the squirrel, he had forgotten where he buried his acorns, so we decided to look for them in the garden 

when we found them we counted them 

we then wrote Scampers a letter telling him how many acorns we have each found.

We then matched the correct amount of acorns to the numbers and ordered them. 

Pumpkins 

When we were in Nursery we planted some pumpkin seeds 

over the next few months we watered and cared for them

When we got back from the summer holidays we could not believe our eyes...

We decided to go on an early Autumn walk so we could look at all the things that have grown over the Summer and to help us compare the gardens over the next few weeks. 

We had a fantastic time,

"look a butterfly"                                       "Wow, so many apples"

                "I hope they aren't poisoned "

 "I found a snail"             "I love the purple flowers"

                                        "There's a bee"                  

MacMillan Coffee Morning 

For our MacMillan Coffee Morning we decided to make some gingerbread men. We began by looking up the recipe in a recipe book, we then made a list of all the ingredients we needed. The next morning we weighed and measured all the ingredients then mixed them in the bowl.

We then rolled out the dough and cut out our gingerbread men. 

After they were baked in the oven and they had cooled we decorated them ready for Thursday. 

Thursday morning we bought in a donation for MacMillan nurses. We then sat down with our friends to enjoy a lovely cup of tea and our delicious gingerbread  

Gingerbread Men 

After our MacMillan Coffee Morning we had so much fun making our gingerbread men we decided to continue playing with some. 

We began by cutting some out and putting different amounts of buttons on them. We then ordered them 1-10.