Reception - Elephants
Elephant Class 2023-2024
Our Class Teacher is Miss Williams
Our LSP is Miss Phipps
For additional information all about Reception, please see the attached information which was shared during our Meet the Teacher meeting. If there are any additional questions, feel free to come and speak to either Miss Slater or Miss Williams.
Important Information
Uniform
The children in Elephant Class look so smart in their school uniform!
We know how expensive they can be, so we kindly ask you to label your child's uniform to eliminate the risk of any items being lost.
Children can also bring in a named water bottle for use throughout the day.
P.E
Children in Reception have P.E. every Friday.
Please bring the appropriate P.E kit into school in their school P.E. bag. This will stay in school and be sent home half termly to be washed. The children should wear a plain white/blue t-shirt, black jogging bottoms or leggings or black shorts in appropriate weather and black P.E pumps or plain black trainers.
Homework
Children will be sent home with a writing book and name card to practise forming their names correctly. These do not need to be handed in, your child can keep them at home or in their book bags.
We will also send letter cards for your child to practise saying the corresponding phoneme (letter sound). Please encourage your child to practise saying these phonemes as often as possible!
Homework Menu
In addition to this, a homework menu will be sent out each half term with a variety of learning activities for your child to choose from. The activities aim to compliment and consolidate learning that has taken place across the half term.
To showcase this, we would love for you as parents/carers to send us images or videos of the children's learning. The 'EvidenceMe' app on your mobile phone is the place for this. Simply take a photo or video and upload this to the app with a comment about your child's learning.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask the Reception staff.
Thank you for your support with this.
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Reading at Home:
Your child will be sent home with a book and reading record. Children will begin with picture books and progress towards books with words, which match their phonics teaching and learning. Please share these books with your children at home as often as you can. You can comment on the book and ask your children questions about what is happening or what might happen next. Please record any comments in your child's reading record.
Remember! The more your child reads at home, the closer they will be to achieving their bronze, silver or gold reading awards and will be displayed on our trophy wall in class!
Bronze - 45 reads (45 comments in your child's reading record)
Silver - 90 reads (45 additional comments in your child's reading record)
Gold - 135 reads (45 additional comments in your child's reading record)]
Remember! You can also achieve more read to succeed points when you read the books allocated to you on Bug Club!
Reading in School:
We love to read together in Tiger Class and have lots of opportunities to read and share stories throughout the day.
We have a voting station in our classroom, where children are encouraged to vote for the book they would like to share at the end of the day. The children enjoy taking part in this and are getting much better at voting fairly!
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Reception Tigers 2022-2023
Below, you will find learning from last year's Reception Tiger class...
End of Year Fun Day!
Enterprise Week - W/B 17th July 2023
During 'Enterprise Week', we learnt about the word 'enterprise' and it's meaning. We then took part in our own enterprise - making sweet cones to sell at our mini market! During the week, we learnt the names of a range of British coins and explored their value. We researched our product and talked about how we could make a profit. We wrote instructions for our products, an advertising poster and invitations to give out to our grown ups! Finally, we were able to sell our products at our school mini market. Our product was a very popular one and we raised £39 from our product alone, with the school total being over £430 in support of 'Project Gambia'! Well done Elephant Class. You worked so hard!
EYFS Summer Term Gold and Silver Behaviour Champion Trip
Our gold and silver behaviour champions visited Haden Hill Park on Thursday 11th July, as a reward for their consistently good behaviour. They played field games, challenged themselves on the play equipment and completed a scavenger hunt, where we surprisingly found a frog! We all had a fantastic day! Take a look a the photographs of our wonderful rewards trip below...
Sports Day
Tuesday 11th July 2023
On Tuesday 11th July, we took part in our 'Sports Day'. We had been practising the skills involved for several weeks and were all very excited to be taking part in this competitive event, which was attended by our very proud parents and carers. Well done to Mars, who were the overall winners on the day!
Our Visit to Cradley Heath Library
On Tuesday 9th May, we visited our local library. We had a lovely walk to Cradley Heath Library and spotted some other important buildings on the way! We listened to a spring time poem, read by the librarian, as well as a story about gardening, before exploring the books. We also took part in some craft activities, designing some wonder underpants for the dinosaurs from another story! Before we left, we each got to borrow a book of our choice to bring back into school. Mrs Leach is going to read a different one every day, before returning them back to the library so that other children can borrow them too!
The Kings Coronation Celebrations
On Friday 5th May, we all came to school wearing red, white or blue to celebrate the upcoming coronation of our King. We had a lovely day learning about the coronation and all of the jewels that King Charles will be presented with during the ceremony. We enjoyed a lovely tea party, whilst listening to a playlist of the King's favourite music, before creating some lovely mug designs to commemorate the event!
Spring Behaviour Champion Trip
On Thursday 27th April, we finally managed to visit Haden Hill Park to reward our fantastic behaviour across the spring term. We had such a wonderful time and were all impeccably behaved. Take a look at some of the photographs from the afternoon...
Earth Day
We celebrated Earth Day during the first week of our summer term. Each year group chose a country to learn more about. In Reception, we chose to learn about Brazil, specifically the Amazon rainforest. We had such a lovely time learning about all the different layers of the rainforest and the variety of animals that live there. We finished our learning with a wonderful Brazilian samba dance!
Our Learning
Summer 1
During this term, we will be thinking about the question, 'Can a plant grow in the dark?' We will be learning about the natural world around us and discovering the things that plants need in order to grow healthily. We will be learning about plant life cycles and growing our own fruits and vegetables. Look out for the wonderful photographs of our experiments and discoveries!
Our Butterfly Release
During the Easter holidays, Mrs Leach took the butterfly habitat home and waited patiently for the rest of our butterflies to emerge from their cocoons. After a few days, the butterflies slowly emerged, dried out their wings and began to explore their habitat. Mrs Leach made sure to feed them with sugar water and slices of fresh orange! After two days, the butterflies were ready to be released. They warmed their wings in the sun and finally flew from their habitat to explore the outdoors and start the process all over again. Take a look at the photographs below from the release...
Our Easter Egg Hunt
We were treated to a treasure hunt on the last day of term to begin our Easter celebrations. We were all very excited, especially when we saw the Easter Bunny! When the hunt was over, we all went back inside and were sent home with a special chocolate treat from the Easter Bunny!
Our Visit From the Animal Man
British Science Week 2023
During the week beginning Monday 13th March 2023, we celebrated British Science Week. The theme this year is 'connections'. The children have had the opportunity to explore a range of connections throughout the week. They have explored the connections between people of different ages, drawn maps of their journey to school, explored the similarities and differences between different animals, made booklets about the 'field to fork' journey and used their senses to make connections with prior experiences. We completed our learning with a paper aeroplane investigation, where we explored the connection between weight and distance! What a fun week of learning we have had!
World Book Day 2023
On Friday 3rd March, we celebrated World Book Day by dressing as our favourite character from a book. The children looked fantastic and we saw some very creative outfits! We shared the story, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and completed activities based upon this book. We visited our school library and were so excited by the range of books we could choose from! We also took turns to share our favourite stories with the rest of the class throughout the week. We love to share stories in Elephant Class! Congratulations to Noah, who won our best dressed on the day!
World Down Syndrome Day
In preparation for World Down Syndrome Day on 21st March 2023, we have planted some sunflower seeds to show that, whilst we all grow and develop differently, we all grow beautifully! Each class across the school have planted their sunflowers and we are looking forward to watching them grow!
Our Learning
Spring 2
During this half term, the children will be exploring the topic, 'Amazing Animals'. They will be introduced to different groups of animals, their names and the names of their young. They will be exploring the question, 'Can a wild animal be a pet?' The children will learn about the behaviours of different animals and their habitats and will learn about the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly. We are lucky enough to have live caterpillars in our class at the moment and the children are excited to see this process in action! Take a look at our Spring 2 gallery to see our learning in action...
English Inspire Workshop
It was wonderful to see so many parents and carers at our most recent workshop. The children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their learning with you! The children enjoyed orally retelling the story, 'Handa's Surprise' before helping to write a sentence about it. Thank you to all who attended - it was great to see you supporting your children with their writing development.
Clean Hands and Teeth
We were lucky to have 2 nurses visit our Reception classes! They taught us how quickly germs can spread from our hands to other places and showed us how to wash our hands effectively. They brought in some giant teeth and a large toothbrush and taught us how to brush our teeth properly. Some of us even got to practise with the model teeth!
Our Learning
Spring 1
During the first half of the spring term, the children will be exploring different types of maps. They will be looking closely at their local environment and exploring some of the special places within their community. We will be learning about the similarities and differences between urban and rural environments, as well as exploring similarities and differences between the UK and other countries. What a busy half term! Look at our Spring term gallery to see our learning in action!
Our Spring 1 Gallery
Christmas 2022
We have had such a fantastic Christmas week! We have created beautiful cards and calendars to share with our families and enjoyed lots of festive activities in the classroom with our friends and teachers. We visited Santa and his elves in their pop up grotto, watched a Christmas movie, enjoyed breakfast with Santa, had lots of fun at the Winter Wonderland disco and danced our hearts out at our class Christmas party!
We cannot forget the four amazing Nativity performances in between. We are so proud of all of the children for performing so proudly and confidently. They performed brilliantly and we were bursting with pride! Well done Reception! We wish you and your families a very happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all again the new year.
Our Christmas 2022 Gallery
Behaviour Champions
On Monday 12th December 2022, our bronze behaviour champions were rewarded with an hour of fun in our EYFS playground. We had so much fun together! We used our fancy dress clothes to become superheroes and had a lovely time 'saving the day'!
Maths Inspire Workshop
It was lovely to see so many of you attend our Maths Inspire Workshop. The children were so well behaved and enjoyed sharing their learning with their parents and carers. Thank you for your continued support.
Our Learning
Autumn Term
We are very proud of the children in Elephant Class. They are settling into school life so well and are all trying so hard to remember our school rules! Our Autumn topic is 'Marvellous Me'. During the first half term, the children will be exploring the question, 'Are we all the same?' We will learn about different body parts, similarities and differences between different age groups and will explore the life cycle of a human!
During Autumn 2, the children will discovering how to keep our body and minds healthy, as well as learning about Armistice Day and taking part in activities for UK Parliament week and Road Safety week. Take a look at our gallery to find out more, including the very special visit we had from a baby and his Mother!
Our Autumn Term Gallery
Dates for your Diary
Phonics Club After School Club - Every Monday from Monday 25th April to Monday 23rd May 2022
Multi-Sports After School Club - Every Monday from Monday 25th April to Monday 23rd May 2022
May Day Bank Holiday - Monday 2nd May 2022
The Queen's Jubilee Celebrations - Friday 27th May 2022
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End of Year Fun Day
Sports Day
'Reach for the Stars' week
During the week beginning Monday 27th June 2022, pupils were introduced to a variety of occupations. The children in reception enjoyed an assembly where they were introduced to the role of a paramedic. They enjoyed learning about all of the important things that paramedics do to help others. Take a look at the photographs as the children explored the inside of an ambulance!
Reach for the Stars!
World Music Day
On Tuesday 21st June, the children in reception celebrated World Music Day by creating carnival masks and learning a samba routine! We had lots of fun learning the routine and enjoyed an afternoon of musical activities!
World Music Day
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
We had so much fun taking part in the Jubilee celebrations. We made flags and crowns and learnt the National Anthem, which we sang in the playground to begin the celebrations. What a lovely day we had!
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations
Our Summer Term Gallery
Our topic this term is...
The children will learn about maps and using a map to identify where we live, explore our local environment and identify special places in the community. We will also look the similarities and differences between Town and Country as well as the similarities and differences between life in England and in other countries.
We can't wait for you to see what we have learnt, look out for pictures of our fantastic work!
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Clean Hands and Teeth Nurse Visit
Sports for Champions 2022
World Book Day 2022
Our Spring Term Gallery
Focus Rhymes
Learning and singing rhymes and songs is very important in the development of early language and literacy skills. We love to sing in Elephant Class and practise our focus rhymes daily. Click on the links below to hear some of our focus rhymes from this term.
Winter Focus Day
On Friday 7th January, we learnt all about the season of Winter!
We talked all about the changes we could see outside and what the weather might look like. We even discussed that the ground outside was slippery and frosty outside!
In the afternoon, we developed our painting skills by making our own snowmen. We used care and control when painting our snowmen and their features.
Take a look below at some pictures of our amazing work!
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Our Christmas Gallery
Children in Need 2021
Thank you to parents and carers for supporting such a worthy cause! The children had a fantastic day dressed up in their favourite costumes.
Star of the Day!
Each day, teachers will be looking out for the children who consistently exceed our expectations. These children will be awarded our 'Star of the Day' certificate. Star pupils from w/c 22/11/21 and 29/11/21 were:
Mehvish, Ahmed, Lonimi, Mohammed-Zakariyya, Levi and Rohaan.
Well done! We are so proud of you!
Our Autumn Term Topic
Marvellous Me!
During our first term in Reception, we have been learning about how wonderful we are and have thought about the question, 'Are we all the same?' We discovered that we all have similarities and differences and this makes us unique! We learnt about the human life cycle and a real baby came to visit us. We were so welcoming and asked the baby's Mum lots of insightful questions.
We learnt about the famous artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo and created our own fruit portraits! We have also been taking part in celebrations, recently learning all about Diwali and Bonfire Night.
Take a look through our gallery to see our learning in action!
Our Autumn Term Gallery
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End of 2021/2022 page.
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Our new topic for Summer 1 is 'Exploring Change'
We will be learning all about life cycles, seasonal changes and planting.
In Elephant Class, we currently have some caterpillars. At the moment we are watching them grow and develop - they are getting bigger and bigger each day! We are looking forward to watching them spin their cocoons and turn into butterflies 
In Expressive Arts and Design, we learnt about the artist Kandinsky. We learnt that he liked to paint using different colours and shapes. We carefully mixed primary colours to create the colours we wanted to use. We then painted a small circle in the middle of each square and painted bigger circles around each one.
Don't you agree that our art work looks fab?!
The children have enjoyed exploring and playing in the milk bottle igloo.
Welcome back to school, Elephant Class!
It is so lovely to see you all back in school. We are so proud of how well you did on your first day back after lockdown; you have all been absolute super stars! Keep up the good work! 
Mrs Norton, Mrs Stevenson, Mrs Buthelezi, Mrs Kaur and Miss Tiwana.
Please meet your new Class Teachers and Learning Support Practitioner (LSP).
ACADEMIC YEAR 2019 - 2020
Update 12.6.20 Hello Elephants! Just a quick update about what we have been learning in Elephant class at school and what has been made to support learning at home. If you go to the PARENTS section on the school website, then click HOME LEARNING, you will find the Reception section with a weekly plan and resources. The work set is based on a theme and a story. Over the next few weeks we will cover all the learning areas in the Early Years. This week our focus was physical development. At school the children completed some of the activities which are on the home learning plan. We had great fun in school this week and I have received some great pictures of home learning on 2Simple, FANTASTIC!. Thanks for sending in the pictures using 2Simple and please continue to do so. I have been really busy preparing activities for each week. They are all on the HOME LEARNING page. If you prefer a paper copies, they can collect be collected from school each Monday. Continue to keep in touch by using the class email.
Keep Safe and Keep Learning!
Mr Wilkes
For help, advice and queries, you can email your child's class teacher at Elephants@reddalhill.sandwell.sch.uk and they will assist you as soon as they can.
11.05.20 Reception home learning ideas and resources
WB 20.4.20 Hello everyone, Click on the links below to download the Reception ideas for home learning for the next few weeks. Paper copy packs will be available from school.
WB 20.4.20 Paper resources to support home learning. Theese resources can be requested from school. Feel free to contact using the class email.
Hello Elephants, I hope that you are all keeping safe and enjoying time at home with your families. All of the adults are missing you!
However, we can still have lots of fun learning new things. Here are a few ideas.
Keep practising the days of the week by singing our favourite song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKqAblcwFOA
You can also learn the months of the year using the song that we sing in maths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5enDRrWyXaw&list=PLqv4y60m_3_BsDssdzvrCueiho5Tc-1j8
Telling the time video- Keep learning o'clock and half past times.
Phonics
Practise reading words and match the words to the correct picture.
https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/match-cards?phase=2
Practise building words playing Forest Phonics
http://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/forestPhonics/index.html
You could download the app "Mr Thorne Does Phonics" or watch clips on YouTube. He teaches children how to segment and blend sounds together to form words. He is really good.
Maths Activities
Practise ordering numbers playing the Caterpillar Sequencing Game or Coconut Ordering on Top Marks.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/coconut-ordering
Practise making repeating patterns.
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns
Remember to keep an eye on the weather each day. Sing our weather song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD6FRDd9Hew
Maybe you could keep a weather diary. Here is an example
Update-The caterpillars have made their cacoons and are now in the Chrysalis stage. I will keep you updated and send a video when they change into butterflies. Mr Wilkes
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.mp4
Other useful sites...…….
www.phonicsplay.co.uk username: march20 password: home
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games?page=3
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories
Please look after yourselves over the next few weeks.
Upcoming Events
Remember every Monday we have a Parent Workshop at 2.30pm.
Elephant Class enjoyed dressing up for World Book Day! We celebrated the day with activities about different book characters!
The children enjoyed investigating what minibeasts they could find in the soil. They found millipedes, beetles and worms.
During the Spring term, we had a visit from "Spike" the Animal man. The children learnt about the different animal groups and enjoyed touching the animals.
Winter Focus Day
On Friday 10th January 2020, Miss Phipps and Mrs Beard taught us about winter. We also practised our scissor control when making snowflakes and snowmen.
Yoga
Today, we have been exploring Cosmic Yoga with Mrs Beard. Look at our moves!
We had a great time at the Reception Christmas Party! Thank you for the donations to the party.
We had a great time on our trip to Ash End Farm! We weren't lots about farm animals and we even saw Santa!
PE day for Elephant class is on a Friday afternoon.
Please make sure that your child has the correct PE kit.
This consists of a white T-shirt, black or navy blue shorts and black plimsoll shoes.
Our PE lessons will be focused on "Movement and Dance" during this term.
On Wednesday 26th September the children enjoyed taking part in Rubgy Tots.
Thank you for all of the homework that has been sent to us so far. It is lovely to see how busy the children are at home. Remember you can email us photographs or videos at any time. Just photograph your child learning or playing at home and email it to the address that we have provided. Remember to add a comment to explain what your child is doing e.g. Tim enjoyed writing his name using chalks on the garden wall. Remember to use the email address that you have registered with your child's 2 Simple account.
Each week we celebrate our successes in
'Praise Assembly'.
We have a Writer and Reader of the Week,
Maths Mind, Sports Player and a VIP!
Our Very Important Person this week is....
CONGRATULATIONS
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2018-2019
We had a great time during the Friday Fun Day!
Thursday 11th July-The Parent Inspire Workshop. Everyone enjoyed making fairy gardens!
On Monday 8th July, we went to Haden Hill Park for the day. The children took part in a nature hunt and played with lots of sports equipment. The children really enjoyed playing in the playground and eating lunch together. Everyone had a great time!
On Thursday 27th June, we had a great time at sports day. Well to done to all the children who took part and a big "THANK YOU" to all the parents!
On Friday 17th May the children went on a trip to Cradley Heath Library. They enjoyed listening to stories and looking at lots of books. The children were given their own library card so they could go again and take books home to read.
We all went to the school hall to look at the new mosiac. The children enjoyed talking about the mosiac and they asked the artist questions about how it was created.
On Tuesday 19th March we had a visit from the Animal Man. We learnt about different types of animals. We enjoyed touching an owl, a snake and a salamander. Miss Hardy was very brave to hold the tarantula.
Talk For Writing
From March 1st 2019, we have been focusing on
'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' in our Talk for Writing lessons,
in preparation for writing our own stories.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Handa's Surprise .mp4
On Thursday 6th December, we went on a trip to Ash End Farm. We had a fabulous time and met Santa!
The children enjoyed taking part on World Mental Health Day on the 10th October. We talked about keeping our minds healthy and tried out some "Cosmic Yoga" moves.
EYFS Maths Inspire Workshop
On Wednesday 10th October, we enjoyed our first Inspire Workshop. The children really enjoyed learning to read, write and use numbers to 20. Take a look at the fun we had!
