Blackfell Primary School

Welcome to reception

A very big welcome to all our Reception children. What a fantastic first week they have all had. They have been making some new friends as well as maintaining other friendships. They have settled into their new classroom environment extremely well and we are so proud of them. They have been learning lots of new routines and have been taking part in a range of activities within the indoor and outdoor environment. We are all looking forward to a busy and exciting year in Reception. What a fantastic start to your time in Blackfell School. 

Magical me!!

In Reception we have been making ourselves as part of our topic Magical Me!. We talked about our features and how everyone is different, we set of creating our faces by firstly painting a paper bowl then we added on our    features with different materials such as wool, buttons sequins. We then created our bodies using a   variety of collage materials. We really enjoyed creating ourselves can you guess who is who?

PSHE Week 1 - Belonging

During our first week of PSHE, we joined with Reception to share our thoughts on our weekly topic of 'belonging'. In order to help us to understand our theme we listened to the 'Owl Babies' story, which was read by Mrs Stockman. We discussed the feelings of the characters and how their feelings changed throughout the different parts of the book. We shared our thoughts, as part of a big group, on what it felt like to feel welcome and also on what it means to belong in places such as our family, our local community and in our school community.

Esh Group Visit 

Children in Reception enjoyed a visit from Claire Davison who is employed by the Esh Construction Company. Claire’s role is to help deliver Esh Group’s ‘Get into STEM  programme’ which supports schools in the area to improve their career provision and prepare the children for their future. Claire brought along some super resources which she shared with the children such as clothing, building materials and story books. Claire talked about the different job roles that are available within their company and encouraged the children to take on some of these roles. Claire very kindly left some resources with the children in order for them to gain further experiences of working in different roles within a construction site. The children thoroughly enjoyed Claire’s visited and have had great fun using the resources.

Happy Diwali 

The Reception children have been learning all about Diwali, they have been taking part in many activities such as creating their own Rangoli patterns using rice pasta and other materials. The children have also been creating Mendi hands by drawing around their own hands and creating patterns with plenty of different colors. The Reception children have enjoyed this weeks activities. Happy Diwali everyone!! 

Music- Charanga!!

Over Autumn Term one the Reception children have been taking part in a range of music activities using a programe called Charanga!! The children have been listening to various songs from the past and present and learning how to keep a rhythm and beat using different parts of their bodies. The children have been listening to action rhymes and trying to keep up when the actions got faster!! The children have had great fun learning about rhythm and beat and are really excited to see what they will be learning in music in Autumn Term two.

Autumn Crowns

Reception made some headbands using a range of Autumnal items which they have collected. They have worked hard practising the song  they will sing in our Harvest Festival assembly. The whole school came to watch them perform their song along with some actions. It was their first time singing in a whole school assembly and they all did extremely well, showing how confident they all were on this special occasion. They helped others by donating food to go to Washington food bank. They also enjoyed watching other year groups performing and they joined in singing some more songs. What a great way to celebrate harvest time! Well done everyone!

AntiBullying - Change Starts With Us 

As part of our Anti-Bullying week we introduced the children to the classic story about Elmer the elephant, The children have been learning about 'change starts with us' There was a range of activities for the children to take part in such as making Elmer's and friends in the play dough. Some children worked together to build stories around Elmer. All the children have had a great week showing kindness, working together and sharing. Take a look at the childrens  fun week!!  Well Done Reception 

Jack Frost 

On 6th December, Nursery and Reception went on their annual trip to Washington Art Gallery to see Jack Frost. Before they went, Nursery enjoyed eating their lunch in the dinner hall alongside Reception and the rest of the school. 
At 12:30 we made our way outside and got onto the coach which took us to the art gallery. At the gallery we were all very sensible and well behaved. We enjoyed watching and joining with the performance - and we were even invited up onto the  stage to join in with a song. We all had a fantastic time and there were lots of smiles throughout the day. It was a great start to our Christmas celebrations.

Oh Christmas Tree

We were really excited to get our Christmas Tree up in Reception. We each took it in turns to put a bauble on the tree which we really enjoyed, some of us even brought in baubles from home to put on our tree. Mrs Hutchinson put on the Christmas tree lights and our tree looked lovely bright and colorful.

Christmas jumper/Christmas Lunch Day 2019

The children were so excited as they came into school wearing their Christmas jumpers and accessories and couldn't wait to show them off to their friends. They all looked lovely and enjoyed the day as the festive theme continued at lunchtime where they all enjoyed a traditional Christmas lunch with the rest of the school!

Christmas Activities 

Over the last few weeks we have been really busy enjoying lots of different Christmas activties in our classroom. We have been painting Christmas trees, writing a list to Santa Claus, counting Rudolph noses and ordering Christmas presents by their size! We have really enjoyed our role play area which was turned into a Santa’s workshop and enjoyed listening and reading lots of Christmas stories. We have all worked very hard over the last few weeks and are looking forward to Christmas with our families. We would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year!!.

We love school dinners!!

Another important first part of our day is choosing our dinner. First thing on a morning Miss Forrest tells us what there is for dinner,  we look at the pictures then we select our meal by putting our peg pictures into one of the boxes. At lunchtime we line up in the correct order and go to collect our knives and forks. We wait to be served our chosen meal then choose from a selection of desserts. We always remember to say 'please' and 'thank you' to our lovely kitchen staff too. We have more choices to make when we arrive at the salad bar to add some more healthy options to our meal. We sit down then finally choose a drink. We are really enjoying our school dinners!! well done reception.

Our first trip to the library

We were so excited to visit our new key stage one library. We all set off the library to choose a book. We listened to the rules about how to behave in the library and chose our books quietly. We enjoyed sharing our books with our friends and found each others books funny and interesting. We can’t wait to visit again to choose another book to take home to share with our family.

 
 

PSHE Week 2 - Self-Awareness

On our second week of PSHE Nursery and Reception joined together to share our thoughts on Self-Awareness, we split off into four groups to discuss our theme and to participate in an activity. We began our morning by talking about our different features, we all got into pairs to see and talk about how different we looked from each other. We then took it in turns to describe our friends to our groups. We then all worked together in our groups to put ourselves in order of height smallest to tallest! We have had a great morning working with our friends on our PSHE theme, stay tuned to find out what our theme will be for next week!! 

Well done Nursery and Reception!!  

PSHE Week 4- Social Skills

This week in PSHE our theme was Social skills. We split off into our Friday morning groups to have  a discussion and take part in a group activity. We discussed what social skills were and what it meant. we had some different picture cards with different scenario's  on and we had to decide as a group if it was friendly or unfriendly and to sort them into the relevant groups! We had a great morning with our sorting activity and talking about how to be friendly and not unfriendly!! 

Well done Nursery and Reception!!

D.I.S.C.O

Reception really love to dance . They all looked fabulous as they arrived at the disco in their ‘party clothes’. They listened to the music and showed off their amazing dance moves as they joined their friends on the dance floor. Everyone chatted to each other. They enjoyed going to the tuck shop to buy their ‘DISCO' treats and have a little rest from dancing. It was lovely to see everyone having fun, We are really looking forward to the next disco!!

PSHE Week 5 - Rights and Responsibilities

The theme for our fifth week of PSHE was ‘Rights and Responsibilities.’ During our group time we looked at different jobs that we do around Nursery and Reception and looked at symbols to represent the different areas in which we work in. Firstly, we discussed what our ‘rights’ were in each area—so what we are entitled to do and what we should expect to see in that area when we enter it.
Next, we discussed our ‘responsibilities’ in that area. Our   discussion involved talking about; what we should be doing in that area, what we should behave like in the area and what we need to do to make sure that area is kept the way it should be when tidying up—how we would replenish the area.
We all shared some excellent ideas and are all fully aware of our rights and responsibilities in our areas around Nursery and Reception.

Autumn Fun 

Autumn is here and Reception have been enjoying a number of Autumn activities within the classroom, The children have been very busy making hedgehogs in the play dough area, working together in the fruit and veg shop, counting Autumn items and re telling the story of  Percy the Park keeper in the reading area. All the children have had lots of fun and have enjoyed all the activities, please take a look at what the children have been up to this Autumn!!

Odd Socks Day 

As part of our Anti-Bullying theme 'Change Starts With Us' all the children participated   in Odd Socks Day the children really enjoyed coming into school with their odd socks on and they all listened to a fantastic story about Simon the Sock. The children learnt that everybody is different and unique in their own way. 

Festive cards

We have been making our festive cards for our families, we had great fun making them. We could choose to do a christmas tree angel or an elf!! Some of us used our hands to create our design or we used different objects and plenty of different materials. We really enjoyed making our cards we hope our families liked them!. Take a look at us making and showing our festive cards!.

Christmas Community Afternoon

On the 9th of December we had our Christmas community afternoon where all parents and carers were invited into our lovely school to take part in some Christmas activities throughout the year groups, In Reception we were making reindeer dust and Christmas cards. There was refreshments on sale and there was a special visit from Santa Claus, everyone had a great afternoon!! Many thanks to everyone who came to the community afternoon it was a great success.

Christmas Party

We were really excited as it was our Christmas party we got all dressed up in our party clothes we all looked lovely! We were so suprised to see that Santa had left us all a present!! We got into the hall where there was music playing and we all showed our best dancing moves. We enjoyed playing the party games such pass the parcel, corners and best dancer there was some great prizes to be won. We were very hungry and thirsty after all the dancing and fun we went into our classroom where we got to sit with our friends at the tables  we each recieved a party box which contained lovely foods and treats. We really enjoyed our party, take a look us dancing and having fun!

Our first PE lesson!!

We had so much fun in our first P.E lesson. We warmed up then we listened to instructions on how to play a game. We had to pretend to swim around the hoops and pretend to be different types of  fish and when Mrs Stockman shouted  shark we had to run and jump into the nearest safe pool. Each time we swam around the hall a hoop was removed and we had to hold each other and work as a team as the group in the hoop was bigger and tighter than before. We tried very hard not step out of the hoops into the shark infested water. If we didn’t make it into a hoop in time before Mrs Stockman counted back from ‘5’ or if we accidentally stepped out of the hoop we were out. After running around using up so much energy we talked about the effect exercise has an effect on our bodies. We put our hands on our chest and felt our heart beating faster and talked about exercise keeping us healthy.

We really enjoyed our first P.E lesson and can’t wait until our next one.

Chatter Chatter Chatter

As our topic in Reception is Magical Me we were asked to make a chatterbox at home with our family's to bring into Reception to share with our friends and our Teachers. We put in all our favourite special items. We each had a chance to talk about our special box which contained items such as our favourite toys etc.. We really enjoyed listening to all our friends chatterbox's and learning different things about everyone.. Take a look at us showing and sharing our chatterbox's.

PSHE Week 3 - Managing Feelings 

In our third week of PSHE, our theme was managing feelings. We worked in our four groups, with an adult and each group were given a feeling to look at in depth. We either had happy,sad, angry or scared. 
Before we could start to learn how to manage our emotions, it was important that we learned how to recognise and name them first. We each looked at our emotion and discussed with our adults what that emotion is and discussed how to recognise when we are feeling that emotion. Each group read a book which helped us understand happy, sad, angry or scared. By using the books they helped us to understand what each emotion feels like, when we might feel that emotion and how to identify if others are feeling like that. 
Lastly, we took turns in our circle to hold a feeling stone whilst we shared our experiences of emotions and things that make us feel happy, angry, scared or sad.

Throwing and Catching- PE 

In our P.E lesson we have been practising our throwing and catching skills. We got in pairs and each pair had a bean bag,  We enjoyed trying to catch the bean bag and found it quite tricky but we know we will get better at these skills the more we practise them in our fun P.E lessons. We had lots of fun developing our throwing and catching skills.  Great work Reception!

Relationship Winners!!

Congratulations to reception's relationship winners. The focus of this term was about showing good relationships and Anna and James were this terms chosen winners. They collected their elephant trophy and their certificates in a whole school assembly and were so happy to be awarded their prize. They will join the rest of the 5r winners at the end of the year for another fantastic treat! WELL DONE!

PSHE Week 7 - Friendships

The theme for our seventh week of PSHE was ‘Friendships.’ During our group time we discussed what a good friend is and what makes a good friend. We identified the personality traits of a good friend and shared our ideas on how we could all show good friendship to people around  Nursery and Reception. Some of our ideas included; helping people when they need help, playing together, drawing together, helping friends when they fall over, sharing toys together, using nice and kind words, looking after everybody, sharing snacks with people, asking how our friends are feeling and eating together.

After our discussion, we made a friendship web—using some string. We each took turns to hold the ball of string and shared a sentence on how we can be a good friend in school. We then had to hold onto the piece of string and roll the ball of string to one of our friends for them to share their ideas. We had lots of fun making the friendship web and we have all shown an excellent understanding of what makes a good friend.

P.E- Firework Frenzy

In PE this week the children have been moving like a firework, firstly they done a warm up with Mrs Stockman stretching, jumping and running on the spot. The children listened to different music and had to think of ways to move their bodies, they each had colored paper in their hands so they were all nice and colorful. The children worked hard listening to the music and worked together to perfect their firework moves, The children moved around the hall showing slow fast loud and quiet movements. The children really enjoyed been fireworks. Take a look at the children been colorful fireworks!!t...

A King is Born

It's Christmas production time again and  the Nursery and Reception children were first to take to the stage to begin our Christmas celebrations. They told the traditional story... A King is Born! and they all looked fantastic in their costumes and performed brilliantly in front of all their families. The children all had a part to play and worked hard rehearsing the story and learning their lines. They did really well to remember when to go on and off the stage and they enjoyed singing a range of songs to accompany the story. Well done to each and everyone of them for being brave little superstars!

Hand print Calenders

We have been really busy in reception making our hand print calenders!! First we chose what coloured card we wanted our hand prints on, then we painted our hands four different colours so it looked nice and colourful,We really enjoyed making our calenders for our parents and carers. Take a look at us with our calenders!

Election Day!

During circle time, on election day, we discussed what voting was and what it means to vote. Just like our country, we also had a very important decision to make in Reception. We had to vote for one boy and one girl each - from Reception - to win the 'Resilience 5R' award for this term. We had to sit at our Reception polling station and choose one boy and one girl's name to write on a piece of paper and then put it into the box. We each choose the boy and girl which we each thought had worked very hard, who had not given up and who had always followed our school rules this term. 

Reindeer Dust

We have enjoyed making our very important 'Reindeer Dust' ready for Christmas Eve. We put plenty of oats and glitter in our envelopes to make sure that Rudolf will find his way to all of our homes on that special night. We are so excited and counting down the days until Christmas Day finally arrives. Great work boys and girls