Our first school trip!

Mrs Gaied's class at the 'Winter Campfire'

We were very excited to be invited to Everton Early Years Centre to join their forest school 'Winter Campfire' session.  This would be a great introduction to all the winter festivals we are planning to explore and celebrate in the coming weeks leading up to Christmas.

When we arrived, we dressed in waterproof suits then we set off to help prepare the campfire!  We listened carefully as we were told how to behave safely and sensibly, then we were all given a job to do, scrunching up the paper for the fire.   We sat still as the fire was lit then we watched and listened as the fire crackled and the flames began to get bigger!

We really enjoyed taking turns to kneel by the campfire and toast our own marshmallows and crumpets!  We discovered how much the marshmallow had melted when we squashed them in between two chocolate biscuits...we had made our own 'smores'!  It was so exciting sitting back around the fire and enjoying our hot sticky treats with a mug of chocolate milk. Mmmm!!

After our campfire, we were invited to play in Everton's amazing outdoor environment, exploring the water features, sandy beach, giant musical instruments and adventure equipment.  We were all so disappointed when it was time to get back on the bus to come back to school!!

What an exciting morning we had!  Despite the approach of stormy weather, we had so much fun gathered around the winter campfire with our friends.  Lois declared that this was "the best day ever!"

Thank you to all our helpers and the Forest School staff at Everton Early Years Centre for braving the weather and helping make  our first ever school trip an unforgettable experience.

Reception Welcome Service

We shared a very special morning with our families this week when we invited them to join us in our 'Welcome Celebration'.  Our friends in Year 4 talked about all the things that make our school special and our parents/carers lit a candle for each of us as Father Kenny and Rev Alistair said prayers and blessed us as we begin our new journey at Emmaus.   We joined in by singing two songs about our special friend, Jesus.

We are so happy to be part of  a very special family in our new school...

Starting School in Reception

We all started school last week and have done fantastically well settling in, making new friends and learning so many new things every day. 

Here are our first day at school photos - a day we will never forget!

Lunchtime is Fun!

Starting school full-time provided another brand new experience for us all - lunchtime!

We are learning to be independent at lunchtime - eating with a knife and fork, chatting with our friends, clearing our trays and keeping our belongings tidy, most of the time! 

As the children begin their first half-term in Reception, we will explore the theme of ‘Happy to be ME!' in each of the seven areas of learning: 

Personal, Social & Emotional Development

The children will develop a sense of their own identity when we cover the themes of ‘Myself’ and ‘Welcome’ in R.E.  We will research the children’s names and discover why they were chosen especially for them.  During circle time, we will talk about the qualities that make each of us special and the children will begin to understand that they are all special and unique in God’s eyes.

We look forward to officially welcoming the children to our Emmaus family when our families join us in school on 14th  October (please note this is a change to the original date).  During our celebration, the children will learn about the values that make our school unique and they will make their own very special contributions to the service themselves.

As the term progresses, the children will begin to find out more about the sacrament of Baptism when we perform a ‘baptism’ in school and discover the important symbols and meaning of this special celebration, when we are welcomed into God’s family.

In addition, we will continually encourage the children to develop crucial skills of independence and taking responsibility for themselves and their belongings.  Every day, they are encouraged to attempt to do things for themselves before asking for help: finding their name labels on their clothes, books, tray etc; trying to button up, zip up their coats and uniforms at playtime and when getting dressed/undressed for PE etc. 

  Physical Development

Our PE lessons take place on Wednesday mornings.  The children are taught by a specialist sports coach every week and the theme for this half term is ‘hall athletics’.  As well as developing gross motor skills, they will also practise listening to instructions, performing as a member as a team, developing self control, understanding how to keep fit and healthy and improving fine motor skills as they dress and undress themselves.

Our outdoor classroom is available every day for the children to develop their physical skills.  We have also been very excited to watch our brand new climbing frame being constructed and once completed, we will be using this and our existing trim trail daily to practise physical skills of climbing, balancing, travelling and negotiating space and surfaces of differing levels.

  Communication & Language

Speaking and listening activities are planned every day to allow the children to confidently make their voices heard and to listen to the opinions of others.  We will learn about the importance of waiting our turn to speak and showing respect by not interrupting.  The staff will model how to talk clearly and confidently, using expression and correct pronunication during daily activities and story telling sessions.

We will assess early phonemic awareness prior to starting our daily ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonic lessons.  The children will enjoy participating in activities which will allow them to practise their skills and demonstrate how competent they are in the following areas of Phase 1 of our phonic programme: listening carefully in order to differentiate between environmental and musical sounds; joining in with familiar rhymes; remembering rhythms and continuing rhyming patterns; tuning into the sounds they can hear in sentences and finally, identifying the sounds they can hear at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of simple words.

 Literacy

The children will be encouraged to develop early reading skills through sharing books in our reading area, locating and gaining meaning from print in the school environment, listening to traditional tales and familiar stories at storytime and identifying their names on signs and labels within the classroom. 

As the half-term progresses, we will begin our letters and sounds phonics lessons.  Every day the children will learn a new grapheme (letter) and its corresponding sound (phoneme).  We use the Jolly Phonics synthetic phonics programme to deliver our lessons and the children will really enjoy singing songs and performing actions for all the phonemes they learn.  We will quickly begin to orally blend sounds together to read simple C-V-C words (eg c-a-t = cat).

In writing, we equip every area of provision to allow the children opportunities to practise holding mark making tools and equipment and ‘write’ confidently and for a purpose.  We celebrate every effort made by the children to write emergently and encourage this as often as possible.  During adult-directed activities, the children will focus on their names, sorting the letters and forming them correctly and consistently.  We will then explore writing labels in many different contexts.

 Mathematical Development

Early number recognition will be explored as we distinguish between numbers and letters by going on a ‘number hunt’ around the school.  We will find out about numbers significant to the children themselves when we talk about how old the children are, when their birthday is, what size shoes they take etc

The children will join in with counting rhymes and songs and listen to stories with a number or counting theme.  They will begin to match quantities with the numerals 1-10 by reliably counting groups of objects which can be moved.

 Understanding the World

We will introduce early scientific concepts relating to the children themselves i.e. how they have grown and changed since they were a baby, looking at their bodies and naming and labelling different body parts.  The children will be encouraged to observe themselves and each other using mirrors and describe what they see!

In ICT, we will teach the children how to use the ipad and PC correctly and safely.  They will learn about the different parts of the computer or device and practise operating them in order to complete a simple programme with support.

 Expressive Arts & Design

Using mirrors and ipads to take photographs of themselves, the children will create their own self portraits with paint, chalk, pastels or felt tips to display in our ‘Art Gallery’.

Our home corner role play area will provide the children with imaginative play opportunities based on their own real life experiences, copying what they see adults doing and taking on different roles.

In our creative workshop (red base), the children will be supported to use a variety of different media, materials and tools.  They will know where to find the equipment they need to complete their creative work independently.

We look forward to a very busy first half-term in Reception.  All of the children have settled in amazingly well and are coping brilliantly with all the new routines and situations they find themselves in.   Remember to check our 'class page' on this website for our 'first day at school' photos and please do not hesitate to ask of you have any queries or worries about how your child has settled into school.

Thank you for your support

Reception team