“Every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfil their potential…experiences between birth and five has a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right. Good parenting and high quality learning together provide the foundation children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up”
Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage”, Department for Children, Schools and Families, (2017)
At Smithdown, we ensure the best possible start for children by:
Inspiring children through an imaginative and immersive curriculum, ensuring that the children are happy and enthusiastic to learn, that we foster and nurture the children’s imagination and curiosity
Providing a happy, safe, stimulating and challenging programme of learning and development for the children to experience as they begin their journey through school.
Providing a broad, balanced, relevant and creative curriculum that will set in place firm foundations for further learning and development in Key Stage 1 and beyond and enable choice and decision making, fostering independence and self-confidence.
Using and valuing what each child can do, assessing their individual needs and helping each child to progress.
Developing excellent relationships with parents and carers to build a strong partnership in supporting their children.
Providing a caring and inclusive learning environment which is sensitive to the requirements of the individual child including those who have additional needs.
Please click on the links below for further details of our EYFS curriculum.
SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD
Please attend all our parent/carer session or speak to staff members for advice helping your child. Below are some websites you might find useful.
EYFS Curriculum – EYFS Development Matters
A guide to your child’s learning and development in the EYFS – What to Expect When?
Videos and resources to support Phonics – RWI Phonics Guidance
Fun, educational games for children to play – Cbeebies
Free eBooks for children to read online – Oxford Owl
Simple, fun maths activities – Maths Activities
Wow we have had a great time for our Big Teddy Bear Sleepover! First we started with a super singing assembly with Mrs Naylor. It was fun singing and dancing with our teddies. Then we made our teddies a bed to sleep in. We could not believe what they got up too when we went home. This morning we woke our teddies up with a lovely breakfast.
Thank you for joining us this morning for our celebrations 🎉
We are lucky to have been able to share this year with your children and hope you all come back to say hello.
We finished the day with a party lunch and party games this afternoon. ☺️😊
We had lots of fun celebrating Spanish day, making Spanish flags and doing Spanish dancing 💃 
Thank you too everyone for joining us for our picnic and all of our delicious food 🥘 
We had a great morning for our sports day! Thank you to all of our families who came to watch!
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It was so lovely to see you all at our picnic and thank you for all the delicious food. 😋
keep those hearts topped up with love and we hope they help you all as you move onto new classes in September. ❤️ 
We were picnic ready last week as part of our Eid celebrations at school. We had a wonderful time and it was lovely to share so much delicious food from our parents.
We set the children a range of challenges to see if the children could complete the challenge before the timer ends. 
A fantastic community picnic. The sun shone.
An amazing community food table with so many lovely dishes to share.
Here is a link to this week’s story if you would like to share it at home.
We are having a great time with our new topic about pirates. We created a pirate ship outdoors and created our own treasure maps. Our focus story is The Pirates Next Door. 
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We had a great time creating dens at Forest School Club. Many thanks to all parents for coming along.
Banana Boat song.
We have been using 10 frames to help us count objects and also double numbers.
We really enjoyed celebrating Eid at school. We made cards and talked about how it is celebrated.
Please remember our Forest School Club begins today at 3.30 until 4pm for parents and children in Reception. All siblings welcome too. Many thanks, Miss McFarlane
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We have been enjoying playing in our ice cream role play area. We have made lots of ice creams and chose what topping we would like. We have made lots of fun combinations.
Our new topic this half term is At the Seaside and this week we are looking at The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch. We have been busy designing lighthouses using collage materials and blocks.
Today we had lots of fun making teddy bear bread , by spreading the chocolate spread and using bananas for the ears and raisins for the eyes. . 
We had lots of fun with our families at Calderstones Park. We played ring games, had a picnic, fed the ducks, rolled down a hill, explored the playground and looked at different plants and flowers in the sensory gardens. Huge thanks to all families for coming along.
Today we have made some teddy bear bread using chocolate spread , bananas and raisins.
If you are coming to Calderstones Park this morning please wait in the office and we will leave at 9.15. Thanks so much, Miss McFarlane.
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we enjoyed sharing our activities and rhymes with you all and look forward to seeing you next time. ☺️
We are munching our way threw one apple, two pears, three plums, four strawberries and five oranges ? 
In maths this week we are looking at which numbers up to 10 are odd and which are even.
We have worked hard to build this slide and have used our muscles to balance as we climb up and down it. 
RLMc had a great trip to Croxteth farm today. We saw lots of animals including goats from the Three Billy Goats story. We loved brushing the horse and holding the rabbit and Guinea pig. We had a great day outdoors.
Today we have enjoyed making fruit kebabs after listening to our new story.
We have been learning about spiders this week and have been looking at similarities and differences.
We have learnt all the Makaton signs for the animals in our story and then used them to retell the story.
We have been loving this week’s book! Look at all of our fantastic work!
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This week we have been looking at the story ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. Outside we built a bridge to cross to the green grass. We made signs for the goats from the troll showing they can’t cross the bridge.
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Reception have been listening to Mrs Naylor play the harp in our music lesson today!
Today we welcomed parents to stay and learn, we had a lovely morning! This week we have been looking at the book “Aaaarggh Spider” lots of our activities had a spidery theme. ?️
This week we are developing our composition skills by sorting items by size, colour and shape. If you would like to have a go at this at home we would love to see this. Can you sort out some items by colour or size?
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We have started to share the story of The Little Red Hen and we began by making our own bread. Here is a link if you would like to share the story at home.
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To celebrate the end of learning of Goldilocks and The Three Bears we hosted our own Teddy Bears Picnic. We had party food and danced with our teddies. We had a wonderful afternoon!
Look at our fantastic teddy bear biscuits that we made today. They tasted so good.
Today we talked about what makes a good friend. We wrote about the different things we can do.
We have started to learn sign language each week and are doing so well at learning greetings, colours and animals thanks to Hands.
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This week we are having lots of fun outdoors in developing our imaginations and communication and language skills.
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In maths this week we are learning about how some numbers can be made up of two equal parts. We are looking at arrangements of numbers to spot and make equal and unequal parts.
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Maisie Mouse in our story is having a birthday! ? ? ?
We had lots of fun in P.E today. We had to jump and stop when directed while playing the frog game.
Today we have really enjoyed making porridge as part of our Goldilocks and the Three Bears learning.
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We have started our Traditional Tales topic and our first book is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Here is a link to a song about the story to share at home.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-when-goldilocks-went-to-the-house-of-the-bears/zbkrf4j
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This term we have really enjoyed learning difference dances and moving to music and also creating our dance movements.
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We have had lots of fun practicing our counting skills by measuring each others using a selection of objects.
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Today we have been enjoying our outdoor area. We have been using the blocks to create different buildings and even a strawberry ice cream. We have been working together with our friends to build castles in the sand.
We are having a great time playing in our Easter area. We have been creating Easter cards and decorating eggs. We decorated our Easter tree with our favourite Easter eggs.
On Monday Miss McFarlane painted our feet to create carrot footprints.
In Reception we have enjoyed planting beans as part of our Jack and the Beanstalk/ Jasper’s Beanstalk learning. We talked about how to plant a bean and how to take care of the beans. We have also planted sunflowers and poppies in our mini sensory garden.
The children independently measured how long the carpet was using our toy vehicles.
Reception parents and families, please remember to come along to our Maths Stay and Learn today which will begin at 2.15pm until 3pm. We are looking forward to seeing as many of you there. Many thanks for your support.
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We have had lots of fun building with our large 3D shapes outside. We built a water slide with different shapes and found what combination made the cars and boats go faster.
As part of World Book Day, we shared The Enormous Turnip story in class this week and made our own turnips to take home.
We’ve had a fantastic day today celebrating World Book Day!
We have had lots of fun outside building and exploring the magnetic tiles. We built houses, campfires and castles.
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This afternoon we have been using the pens and pencils to mark make under the table.
This week we have been working hard with our friends to put our Supertato story pictures into the correct order.
We have been having lots of fun outside using the boxes and our imaginations. We have been to the supermarket, space and more!
This afternoon we created Supertato’s house using icing sugar and gingerbread. We mixed the icing sugar and water to use as glue to stick the house together.
We have created a pictogram of our favourite character from Supertato. We counted to see how many children liked Evil Pea and how many more liked Supertato.
We have been practicing our throwing and catching skills in a group. We worked together to see how quickly we can move the beanbag around the circle.
On Monday we made Evil Pea gloop from our story Supertato. You can make this at home by mixing cornflower, water and green food colouring.
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This morning we have had lots of fun playing in our Asda supermarket. We have been writing shopping lists and paying for our food with money.
Thank you to our parents who came to our Reception maths parental workshop this week! We look at how to support your children with their shape knowledge at home. 
To celebrate the new lunar year, we have been getting crafty in class making representations of dragons using a variety of resources. Look at our fabulous dragons! We also made our own lanterns after learning about the significance of the colour red.
Last week we made vegetable soup with the items we bought from the shop. We used our cutting skills to chop up the vegetables.
This week we have been learning all about chefs. We took a trip to Tesco to get ingredients to create vegetable soup.
To continue learning about chefs, we’re going to become chefs and make our own soup! To prepare for this, we went to Tesco to buy the ingredients we need.
This week we have been learning about how chefs help us! Our lovely school chef came into class to answer our questions. We learnt about the special clothing chefs have to wear and the different equipment she uses to cook our tasty lunches!
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Reception had a wonderful morning listening to the story of Noah and the Ark
This week we are learning all about chefs. This morning we had a visit from our school chef Miss Monica. We talked about her chefs outfit, the kitchen and menus. We then chose to create our own menus
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Thanks so much to all parents and families for coming to see our Nativity performance today.
Our next performance will be on Thursday 14th at 1.30pm.
Many Thanks.?
Thanks so much to all parents who attended our Nativity performance today.
Our next performance will be on Thursday 14th at 1.30pm.
Many Thanks
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We have really enjoyed our post office role play area and writing letters independently.
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We are learning all about different types of transport. We have been making our own hot air balloons using different materials and decorating them.
Yesterday RLMc had lots of fun visiting Speke Hall. We looked at the changes for Autumn and we even saw a sleeping giant! We visited the giants house, kitchen, music room and even his playground. It was lots of fun!
We have printed trains with blocks and made marks to represent train track, trains and signals.
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Parents and families just a reminder that Miss McFarlane’s class will be visiting Speke Hall tomorrow 20.11.23. The children can bring in wellington boots for the trip.
Many Thanks
Happy Thursday from reception. We have been mark making outside and playing with our friends?
This week we are comparing numbers and groups of objects saying which group has more than, fewer than or the same amount of objects. We have been building walls for Humpty Dumpty and saying which wall has more, fewer or the same amount of bricks.
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This week we are learning how to rhyme and make rhyming strings in literacy.
We have been learning all about the festival of Diwali this week. We made Diwa decorations and cards for Diwali. We also found how Diwali is celebrated and how Diwali means Festival of Light.
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Please remember to join us at 2.15pm for a creative arts and crafts afternoon to celebrate World Nursery Rhyme Week.
Here are links to the focused nursery rhymes
Jack and Jill https://youtu.be/FYojUSFfuMg?si=SDUiqsd9OnNF5GM3
Hickory Dickory Dock https://youtu.be/yxoSyFkX_eA?si=MJGU2Ya8p0VhAVPG
The Wheels on the Bus https://youtu.be/xWyxe_QGq_g?si=_plPFxNqmR2Yn20d
Heads, Shoulder, Knees and Toes https://youtu.be/9S0_trHxcnk?si=FaZt14pGbqb7jctD
Reception had a lovely afternoon visiting Speke Hall! We followed the Giant trail and spotted lots of the giant’s clothes high up in the trees! We tiptoed past the sleeping giant, making sure not to wake him! We then walked around the grounds, looking for signs of Autumn.
What a fantastic first morning we had in Reception! #smithdowneyfs
We had lots of fun in music this morning dancing and freezing to the beat. #smithdowneyfs #smithdownmusic @ResonateHub
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It’s been a busy afternoon looking at big and small. We worked hard sorting acorns. #smithdowneyfs #smithdownmaths @MasterTheCurric
Today we have read The Leaf Man and made marks to represent the different places he passed in the wind. We then made our own leaf man. #smithdowneyfs
We have been busy using Autumn nature to create our faces. #smithdowneyfs
It’s been a busy morning learning dances to Disney classics. I just can’t wait to be king! ? ? our roar’s are amazing! #smithdowneyfs
Today we have been looking at ourselves as babies and talking about our families. #smithdowneyfs
We have been busy filling our jars with colours to sort and represent our feelings. #smithdowneyfs
It has been a busy day sorting colours and making rainbows in Nursery today. #smithdowneyfs
We have been using the colour monsters from our new book to match the monsters and investigate five frames. #smithdowneyfs #smithdownmaths #smithdownreaders
Recognising our emotions and placing how we feel on the zones of regulation board. #smithdowneyfs
It’s a busy morning at the zoo today! Preparing food for the animals and learning new vocabulary from our story. #smithdowneyfs
The story box brought us lots of animals from the zoo. We enjoyed guessing which one was behind the door. We then went on an animal hunt and painted our favourite animal. #smithdowneyfs
Counting how many children are in school today and then drawing what we like doing in school. Playing with the dinosaurs, balls and friends are what we enjoy the most. ? #smithdowneyfs #attendancematters
Today we have been looking and learning about different colours. #smithdowneyfs
We have been busy today learning Incy Wincy rhyme and using our motor skills to manipulate dough into spiders. ?️ #smithdowneyfs
Today has been all about Incy Windy Spider ?️ we learnt the rhyme, used our hands to paint spiders and manipulated dough to create Incy Wincy. #smithdowneyfs
It’s been a busy afternoon in Nursery! We have been singing the wheels on the bus song and making marks to represent the different choruses of the rhyme. ? #smithdowneyfs
It has been a busy day making lots of new friends in Nursery. ?#smithdowneyfs
This afternoon we have been singing the wheels on the bus and then made marks to represent the bus. #smithdowneyfs
We have been practising breathing and relaxing exercises and then made our own mindfulness jar to help us breath. #smithdowneyfs
We have been so busy playing and learning on our first full day in Nursery today. I am so proud of our fantastic superstars. #smithdowneyfs
We have had lots of fun in the sun today welcoming our friends back for another busy year in Nursery. We look forward to making lots of new friends over the next few weeks. ?☀️ #smithdowneyfs
We had lots of fun in Reception on our Santa Dash!
