End of Term and Happy Christmas to you all

Well done Reception on completing a very successful first term. Your teachers are very proud of the way you have all settled in now. You have learnt our routines and your confidence has grown enormously. This week we have learnt all about how children in Sweden celebrate Christmas from Leah's mum, eaten our first Luckwell Christmas School dinner and had fun at the party where we even had a special visit from Father Christmas who broke off from his busy work load to come and answer questions about his reindeer and his life at the North Pole. Finally, we would like to say Thank you for our fantastic gifts from you all and to wish you a lovely holiday. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Stars and Glitter

What stars Reception have been this week! The performances of the Nativity went extremely well and all your teachers are very proud of the way you danced, sang and behaved during the rehearsals and the concerts themselves. After the excitement of the shows, it was a relief to end the week relatively normally and to be able to enjoy playing outside again! Thanks to Isobel's mum who came and made angels with the children - our carpet is awash with glitter! The children were very excited to hear that Santa was on his way on Friday and after visiting him in his grotto, they told us all what they had asked for. Fingers crossed!

Keeping warm!

It's been a challenge this week to keep warm! Ice and icicles everywhere - even the sand would appear to have frozen! Practising our star dance has helped us stay warm and it's looking really good now, already for our performances next week. Special thank you to our Parent Helpers who have helped get our costumes ready in time too. The teddy hats have come flooding in and have been put up for all to admire in the classroom. Mrs Roberts came in for a sneak preview on Friday, but photos will be taken on Monday and then the competition to find the best hat will begin! Looking forward to seeing a full house at the Xmas play next Tuesday afternoon/Wednesday evening!

Exploring, watching and sharing work

What an exciting week! We enjoyed a wonderful trip to Leigh Woods where we became intrepid explorers amongst the trees. Thanks to Bill for taking us round, and to all our Parent helpers as well as the children for making it such a successful visit. Back in class, the children have been making maps of their walk and looking at the photos. Later in the week, we were entertained by the students of the Old Vic Theatre school who performed their brilliant version of the Nativity. Reception joined in at all the right places and were a fantastic audience. Then to end the week, we had one of our famous Luckwell 'mix-ups' when children from every class work together in smaller groups. This time it was to make Christmas decorations and it was a pleasure to watch the older children working so thoughtfully with their young colleagues. New friendships made!

Teddies and Wizards!

Another busy week in Reception! We have been making name labels for our teddies this week. In Maths we have been using words to do with position and have had fun playing 'Where's the teddy?' and 'Where's Foxy?' to help us learn. Our student teacher, Hannah, has helped to make a class book about our teddies in school too. And then to finish our week with a bang we had a fantastic Hogwarts day, dressing up as all kinds of wizards, witches and creatures to raise money for Children in Need. Some of us made spells to go in our class cauldron and other mixed potions!

Teddies

This week, after listening to the story of The Three Bears, we have had fun making beds and chairs for our teddies, acting out the story and some of us have been making porridge too. Some children thought they had better 'eat it all up' incase a certain young lady popped by and got there first! We have also been thinking about 'taller and shorter' and trying to find things taller and shorter than our teddies. Thanks to all our Parent Helpers who started 'work' this week, please come back next week! Don't forget to bring the teddies back too, and get working on those hats for our competition.

Festivals and Phonics!

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed your holiday! We have begun to learn 'Letters and Sounds' this week in our Literacy work and have also been looking at Pattern in Maths. This week too, we have been learning about some of the different festivals that take place at this time of year such as Divali and Bonfire Night. Those of you who came to the Halloween disco will have had fun celebrating that as well. Next week our Teddy topic starts properly, so please bring in a favourite teddy as we'll be doing lots of making things, stories and measuring using our bears!

Performances to end the first term

Here are the photos of our fantastic Nursery Rhyme performance on Thursday. Everyone performed brilliantly and it was a great way to end the first term at Luckwell. The teachers are so proud of you all. The children also introduced themselves in Friday's school assembly and Mrs Roberts thought that they were the best class ever! We look forward to seeing you next term. Have a fabulous holiday.

Work work and more work!

We have had a very busy week. We have done loads of activities this week, from using the writing cases to making obstacle races with the hurdles, hoops and skittles. We have also been thinking about measuring and have used metre sticks, tapes and rulers to find out how tall, long or indeed short things are. Some of us have had fun making paper chains to see who can make the longest. In Friday assembly, our first star of the week will be receiving a very special certificate in front of the whole school.

Full time

We are full time children at Luckwell Primary school! Well done Reception on completing your first week full time. All your teachers are very proud of you. We hope you will keep your certificates safe and feel proud of yourselves too!
This week we've been learning how to use the digital camera, we've done lots of counting and ordering numbers and we even made a delicious fruit salad. Thank you parents very much for your help in making this possible.

Staying for dinner

This was Reception's last week of part time, from next week we're all in full time! So this week we got used to staying for dinners. Everyone managed really well and we enjoyed having our parents come at the start of the week. We've spent the week looking at different sorts of shapes in class and we had 2 visitors from different countries; Julia from Germany and Teresa from our link school in Mozambique.

Hand, foot prints and PE

More firsts for Reception! We had our first PE session, remembering to change properly into our PE kits and exploring the huge space which is our Sports Hall. We learnt a game called 'Traffic Lights' too. In Big Book time we read 'Each Peach Pear Plum' and thought of lots of rhyming words. We talked about our favourite characters. We had lots of fun painting our hands AND feet to make prints for a display in our classroom as well as carrying on with our usual activities. Now we are looking forward to staying to lunch next week.

Gettin along fine!

We have had a busy week really getting to know each other and finding out about all the different things we can do together in Reception. We've thought a lot this week about our feelings and what makes us feel happy and sad. We also had fun learning how to use the climbing wall and we finished the week with our photos being taken for the Evening Post!

Our first week at Luckwell

Congratulations Reception on a brilliant first week! Your teachers are really impressed with how well you have settled in. You have been busy finding your way around the classroom, both inside and outside, and you've been on a tour of the rest of the school. You've even enjoyed exploring the agility trail in the top playground too! We are all looking forward to doing lots of exciting things together. Here are some pictures showing some of the things you've done so far. See you next week!