Reception Focus W/C 7/12

In Reception this week we are celebrating Christmas by taking part in lots of different activities. The main activity is performing our Christmas play to our friends and family, which we are very excited about!!!

We will be making Christmas cards, choosing from a variety of 3 designs as well as making calendars for the children to bring home.

We will also be writing our Christmas list to Father Christmas/Santa and thinking about estimation in Maths, leading into our estimating activity next week.  

Nursery Focus w/c 7/12

This week we are focusing on our Christmas concert. The children are looking forward to performing to their parents/ grandparents etc.


Last week, the children enjoyed making their Christmas letters to Father Christmas. They then walked to the local post box to post these. This week, the children have the opportunity to play in our role play post office and to act out their own first hand experiences.


In addition, the children will be making mince pies this week.

Reception Focus 30/11/15

In Reception this week, we will be focussing on our Christmas play rehearsals ready for our performances next week and also discussing the First Christmas and what it means for those people who believe.

We will also be discussing the differences between nocturnal and diurnal animals and sorting them into sets; this carries on from our work on Owl Babies.

In Maths, we will be focussing on the concept of 'one less than' and recording a simple number sentence. 

Nursery Focus W/C 23/11/15

The children had the opportunity to vote for which book we would read this week in nursery. The choices were Goldilocks and The Three Bears or Hairy Maclary. The children voted on Hairy Maclary by Lynley Dodd.

The children will be watching a clip of a dog show and will then have the opportunity to take their own dogs on an obstacle course around the garden. The children will be learning positional language.

The children will enjoy playing in our role play vets and will be exploring different patterns of dogs.

Reception Focus W/C 23/11/15

This week in Reception we are focusing again on the story Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.
The children will be sequencing story pictures from Owl Babies and retelling the story. They will also have the opportunity to do some cooking and will be investigating the change of state from a solid to a liquid back to a solid. They will do this by making their own owl nests using shredded wheat and melted chocolate. In Maths, we will be re-focussing on one more and one less. The children will do this practically in whole class carpet time and complete our differentiated focus activity.

Nursery Focus W/C 16/11/15

This week we are continuing with our bear theme and will be reading 'We're Going on  a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen. On Tuesday, the children will be going on their own bear hunt around the school grounds. They will then enjoy making teddy toast for their snack afterwards.

On Friday, the children are invited to bring in their own teddy bear from home into nursery to share a teddy bears picnic. The children will be making sandwiches.

This week our maths focus will be exploring positional language such as over, under and through. The children will be taking part in an obstacle course in the nursery garden.

Reception Focus W/C 16/11/15

This week in Reception we will be reading the story Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.

The children will be painting owls using the stippling technique and creating owls using shapes.
In Maths, we will be focussing on size order and the vocabulary and understanding of one more and one less.

The children will also be going on an Autumn walk around our school grounds, looking at the changes in our environment and collecting natural objects they find for investigation and art work.

Nursery Focus W/C 9/11/15

This week in nursery, the children will be making big and small owl biscuits following on from our book 'Owl Babies'.

We will also be focusing on the books 'Can't You Sleep, Little Bear?' and 'Peace at Last'. The children will be exploring light and dark. They will be playing in our role play cave with torches and will be making lanterns. We will then take our lanterns with us to the woods for a story.

In addition, the children will be exploring different textures, for example, smooth and rough.

Nursery Focus W/C 2/11/15

In nursery, over the next two weeks we will be focussing on the story 'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell.

The children will be painting pictures of owls and making them using a range of materials.

They will be listening to the story in the woods following an Autumn walk.

In Maths, the children will be talking about size using the vocabulary big and small.

Next week we will be baking owl biscuits following a recipe and exploring light and dark.

Reception Focus W/C 2/11/15

This week in Reception we will be focussing on the story of Guy Fawkes and why we have fireworks at this time of year.

The children will be making firework pictures using a range of media and colours and also learning about safety when around fireworks.

In Maths, the children will be ordering numerals to 20 and be introduced to the vocabulary more or less when comparing quantities.

Democracy in Early Years

To coincide with our topic 'Why Britain's Great'  and People who help us, the

children in Reception were asked to vote.
We gave each child a voting form for the new Role play area which was to be set up inside. We gave them the choice of Fire Station, Baby clinic, Police station or Vets.
When the children had voted, we gathered them together to count the votes using a tally chart.
They were thrilled that the baby clinic won, closely followed by the Fire station.
The staff have now been busy setting up these new areas ready for our new topic.
Pictures to follow of them exploring, playing and taking on a role.

Learning About Our Senses

In Reception, we have been learning about our 5 senses linked to our topic 'All About Me'. The children have been investigating different smells, including coffee, strawberry, garam masala and peppermint. They then voted for their favourite as a class using a tally chart and their favourite was strawberry. They have also been tasting and talking about different flavours ranging from salty pretzels, savoury cheddar cheese, sweet lychees and sour lemon. Their faces were a picture! The taste which came out on top was the cheese, followed by salty pretzels as a close second. They then have been using magnifying glasses to investigate their finger prints, looking at the different patterns and lines they can see. With Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Wright, the children then created their own unique finger print paintings.

Welcome to the Early Years Blog

We take school-home communication very seriously at Hacton Primary. Parents should feel confident that their children are getting the very best education in our friendly, nurturing environment. Children's successes should be celebrated so that they feel proud of their work and motivated to improve. Magical moments happen every day at our school and we hope that this blog helps to capture some of them