Reception- PE- Jumping
In our PE session we started with a warm up game of ‘traffic lights’ to help focus the children and develop their listening skills. We then went on developing the fundamental skill of jumping by bending both our knees, swinging our arms and keeping our feet together to take off and land steadily in a position with both feet together.
Reception Autumn Activities
This week has been all things Autumn in Reception! We have been looking at seasonal change and how the environment around us is starting to look and feel different. We created hedgehog collages, counted Autumn treasures, finger painted Autumn leaves and used Autumnal colours to create patterns on leaves.
Reception PSHE - Who can I ask for help?
This week in PSHE, we have been following on our learning about Special People and have been thinking about who we can ask for help when we feel sad, worried, scared or unsafe. With help from our friend Harold the giraffe, We talked about who we would go to for help at home and at school and what to do if those people are busy.
Reception: Muddy Monday
For our Monday Monday this week the children in Reception have been finding Autumn treasures. They loved finding and exploring why the leaves have changed colour and saw a variety of different Autumnal leaves. The children also learnt what deciduous and evergreen trees were. We also found conkers and acorns. Mrs Wilkinson and Mrs Thompson were really impressed with the children's walking as they walked all the way to Whitehall Park. Well done!
Reception - Hello Yellow Day
Reception have enjoyed raising awareness for Young Minds through wearing yellow today and taking part in lots of activities that enhance our happiness. We took part in some cosmic yoga to calm our minds, created beautiful pictures and talked about different feelings from the film ‘inside out.’ The children were very thoughtful about their feelings and what we can do when we are feeling sad, scared or angry.
Friday Celebration Worship and Hello Yellow Day
This morning, we enjoyed an extra special celebration worship to mark ‘Hello Yellow’ Day for World Mental Health Day. We began by exploring the range of emotions we all experience and discussed ways to lift our spirits when we're feeling down, with thoughtful suggestions like listening to favourite music, taking deep breaths, watching a funny film, reading a book, singing wholeheartedly, having a cuddle, or counting to ten. To boost our mood even further, we had a joyful singalong to Golden by K-pop and lit candles to pray for those facing mental health challenges. We then celebrated our Value Award winners across the school—well done to Coban, Reggie, Olly and Percy in EYFS and KS1, and to Harry, Olivia, Carter and Jenson in KS2—for their outstanding attitudes to learning and for consistently demonstrating our Barney’s 4Bs. Congratulations also to India Mill for being our overall Value Award winners with an impressive 979 points, as well as to EYFS and Year 2 for 100% attendance in the infants and Year 3 for an excellent 99.3% in the juniors. Mrs Ham shared the fantastic news that we had 100% attendance across the whole school on Tuesday. We also celebrated the achievements of our pupils beyond the classroom—well done to Mason for swimming 5m, Chester for earning ‘Player of the Week’ as a goalkeeper at Darwen FC, Phoebe for her wonderful dancing, Callie for her gymnastics skills, Callie and Alice for completing the Summer Reading Challenge, Grace for excelling in a recent dance competition with acro, song and dance, classical and her own choreography, Harry for achieving his yellow belt in kickboxing, Thea for being named Star of the Week in gymnastics, Scarlett for being a superstar netballer and earning Player of the Match, Willow for achieving her Puffin award in swimming and Star of the Week in gymnastics, and Eleanor for earning her Stage 4 in swimming, her recycling badge at Rainbows and completing the Summer Reading Challenge. A huge congratulations also went to our brilliant Year 4/5 Girls Football Squad for their outstanding performance in the Girls DPSSA Football League, and to the group of eight Year 2 children who represented our school so brilliantly in the Key Stage 1 Multi Skills Festival. To finish our worship, Mrs Ham reminded us of the upcoming Harvest Family Service at St Barnabas Church this Sunday at 11am, and how we hope to see as many of our children there as possible for a joyful Harvest singalong. We are also proud to be supporting Year 5 and the Rotakids in their campaign to collect as many shoeboxes as possible filled with essentials for local refugees and The Bishop's Harvest Appeal 2025—please see Class Dojo for further information.
Reception Maths - Subitising Bingo
This week in Maths, Reception have been really focusing on their subitising skills and have applied this quick thinking to a game of Bingo! We took turns to roll a die of 1-3 and subitised the images on our boards to match the numeral to the amount. Once we had covered all the images on our board we shouted ‘Bingo!’ We really enjoyed playing this game together.
Reception: Muddy Monday
Wow! On Monday the children in Reception blew Mrs Wilkinson's and Mrs Thompson's socks off! They walked over 2km around Jacks Key. The children listened to sounds they could hear, looked at what they could see under a bridge and used their imaginations chanting trip trap and the bear hunt story. The children had lots of fun!
Harvest Appeal
This morning we launched our Harvest Appeal for this year by hearing from Bishop Philip about his Pedalathon on 17th October where he will be cycling to visit and pray at a school or church in all 14 deaneries across the Diocese. We will be supporting Bishop Philip's Harvest Appeal for Christians in South Africa by joining in with his pedalathon over the next few weeks, including half term. We are encouraging our school family to cycle on bikes or scooters just like we did for the Big Lent Walk and we would love for you to send your photos in and the distance. Donations can be made on parent pay shortly. Our RotaKids are also supporting Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise (DARE) and Darwen Rotary this Harvest by creating Winter Warmer boxes filled with toiletries, packets or tins of food and warm clothing for DARE families, the elderly, isolated, poor and vulnerable people in our community . They are also collecting winter coats for the homeless and poor through Darwen Rotary club. Please send in any donations and thank you in advance for your generosity. We then sang some of our Harvest songs for our Church Harvest Festival this Sunday 12th October at 11.00am- all welcome and our school Harvest Festival on Thursday 23rd October led by our WOW group and Reception, Years 1 and 2. All welcome.
Reception- Understanding the world- Our senses
During our understanding the world lessons we’ve been learning all about our senses. Today we have learnt about the job of our ears and that they are used for hearing so we are able to listen. The children closed their eyes and had to match the hidden sounds to the correct objects. We listened to bells, pasta, feathers and coins in different bowls to see if we could identify their sounds just by listening alone.
Reception - Our sense of smell
This week, for our understanding of the world, we have been focusing on our noses and our sense of smell. We have talked about the important job our nose has in helping us to identify different things from the food we eat to the fresh scent of flowers. It also helps to keep us safe if we come across a bad smell, we know not to eat it. We discussed what smells nice and what smells horrible, and how sometimes we might feel differently about those smells. We then used our noses to smell a range of different tubs which contained familiar and unfamiliar smells.
Reception - All about 3
This week in Maths we have been looking at numberblock 3 and the parts it is made up of. We know that we can make 3 by adding 1, and another 1, and another 1. We used this knowledge when thinking about the story Goldilocks and the three bears - there were 3 bowls of porridge - just enough for each bear! We then created our own ‘toy’s picnic’ where we checked that each toy had one each of everything. The children were great at spotting when we had not enough, just enough or too many things for the picnic.