Early Years Foundation Stage

Lots of Easter fun today

Easter egg hunt

Egg and spoon race

Our trip to Central Library

Central Library Visit

On Tuesday we visited Central Library in our city centre with some of our families and we had a great time sharing books, having a look around the children section of the library and even going onto the roof to see the skyline of  Liverpool.

Happy Eid!

The children had a wonderful time celebrating Eid at school. We had a dance party to celebrate!

It has been a busy day celebrating Eid we have drawn henna hands, made party hats, played games and enjoyed dancing together.

Happy Eid!

Today we continued with the Eid celebrations. The children looked amazing in their special Eid clothes and had some fun doing some lovely Eid activities! We finished off the day with a dance party to celebrate Eid

Central Library

Reception families and parents if you are joining us at Central Library this week, please meet us at 9.45 at the main entrance of Central Library on William Brown Street.
Miss McFarlane’s class will go to the library tomorrow Tuesday 1st April and Miss McNally’s class will visit on Thursday 3rd April. Below is a map link for our school to the library.
The postcode for the library is L3 8EW.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Smithdown+Primary+School,+Chatsworth+Drive,+Liverpool+L7+6LJ/Central+Library,+William+Brown+St,+Liverpool+L3+8EW/@53.4053523,-2.9861237,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x487b21022e52ea2d:0x4c6d8550a6cc4176!2m2!1d-2.9511929!2d53.3992227!1m5!1m1!1s0x487b213b05a3aa69:0x5f4ca882f45b6b5d!2m2!1d-2.9802884!2d53.4098392!3e0?hl=en-gb&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMyNS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Many thanks.

Eid Mubarak

Eid Mubarak to all of our families and children.

Carrot Footprints

We have had fun making carrot footprints today as part of spring and Easter.

PE in Reception

We had lots of fun playing games using hoops in Reception.

We enjoyed making cakes for our mums and special people on Friday.

Mother’s Day Story Time

Thank you very much to all parents who cam along to our Mother’s Day story time on Friday.

Bronze Dojo awards

We got 100 dojo points this week. A big well done

Star of the week

Our star of the week certificates go to two fantastic hard workers. Well done!

We have been looking at signs of spring and have been learning the different parts of the daffodils.

Fantastic work today

This week we have been looking at rhyming strings in literacy and subtraction in maths.

Happy Mother’s Day

Wishing you all a very happy Mother’s Day!  A big thank you to everyone that attended our special Mother’s Day story time this morning. We hope you enjoyed it.

Peg Board Play

We are enjoying playing with our new peg board games in Reception.

Making play dough frogs

Red Nose Day

Painting sunflowers

We enjoyed painting sunflowers as we watched our own sunflower seeds begin to grow. We shared a story called Camille and the Sunflowers and looked at a famous sunflower painting by Vincent Van Gogh to help us with our painting.

Slimy Rhymes!

We enjoyed playing a rhyming game this week!

Rhyming in Reception

In Reception literacy this week we are practicing continuing a rhyming string and enjoying lots of rhymes. We are sharing a story called Oi Frog and below is a link if you’d like to share the story at home.

Subtraction in Reception

This week in Reception maths we are practicing subtracting and writing numbers and subtraction number sentences.
Below are some links to some subtraction number songs to share at home.

https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/bottleTakeAway/index.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/articles/zjjbnrd

Eid and Mother’s Day Card Making

We are busy in Reception making Eid cards and Mother’s Day cards.

Here we are finding the baby spring animals to match to their mothers. We learnt new animal names and discussed the animal features.

Red Nose Day

We sequenced our story and had lots of fun joining in with the repeated refrain.

Ready to launch our shape rocket 5 4 3 2 1 Blast off!

Railway safety

We watched an assembly about how to stay safe at the train station.

Violin in Music

We listened to the lovely sounds of the violin and sang along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Jack and the Beanstalk

This morning we voted as to whether we would climb the beanstalk or not! The children standing said they would climb and the children sitting down said that they would not!

Claves in Reception

We have had a great time playing the claves in music. We had to keep to a beat and then stop!

Jack and the Beanstalk

This week we are learning about Jack and the Beanstalk. Below is a link to the story if you would like to share it at home.

Painting and Planting Beanstalks

This week we are learning about Jack and the Beanstalk as part of our topic of Growth. We have painted a beanstalk and have planted beans and peas. We will be watering them to watch them grow.

Addition in Reception

This week we are practicing adding 1 using the part whole model.

Creating a beanstalk

We created a beanstalk using green ribbon and paper. We imagined it was leading up to the giant’s castle.

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down! We have been busy designing and building houses for the three little pigs today.

Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread man.

Decorating sunflower biscuits

We had fun decorating sunflower biscuits this afternoon.

Silly hair day

Decorating sunflower biscuits

Science week

To celebrate science week, reception read The Gingerbread Man and talked about what might happen if the gingerbread man fell into the water. We decided to see what would happen if we dunked biscuits into milk, oil and water.

Crazy Hair day! What wonderful creative hairstyles we have in Nursery. Thank you for the chocolate donations so far. We will be wearing home clothes next week and taking chocolate donations for our Bingo night.

Mark making in different ways to support our story The Gingerbread Man.

PE. Using ropes to balance

PE. Balancing skills using beanbags

PE. Balancing skills

Using our balancing skills in PE today.

Planting Outdoors

This week we have planted sunflower seeds, made scented play dough using lavender, rosemary and mint and planted vegetables, daffodils and herbs. We will be watching the changes to the seeds as they grow.

Biscuit Experiment

As part of Science Week we did an experiment about which biscuit is the best for dipping! We have used a variety of biscuits to dip into milk, water and oil. We looked to see which liquid was the best to use. Thank you Mrs Kelly for giving us great ideas for a fun afternoon!

Science Week

This week we are celebrating Science Week at school. Reception are learning about a scientist called Sarah Boone who helped to create the modern day ironing board.

The Gingerbread Man

Today we have made our very own Gingerbread Man ……. Run run as fast as you can

Taking care of our sunflower seeds

We will water our seeds everyday and watch them grow into beautiful sunflowers.

Planting sunflower seeds

After carefully listening to the instructions, we planted our sunflower seeds.

Errol’s Garden

This week our focused story in literacy is Errol’s Garden. If you would like to share it at home, here is a link to the book.

Planting Sunflower Seeds

We have had a great time beginning our topic of Growth by planting sunflower seeds. We will observe the changes to the seeds over the next few weeks. We are also celebrating Science Week at school this week.

We are balancing in different ways to move around the obstacle course.

Pancake Day

We had a great time making pancakes last Tuesday!

World Book Day in Reception

We enjoyed World Book Day! We found lots of Dalmatian dogs and hid from Cruella de Vil!

World book day

What a fantastic day we had dressed up as our favourite book characters.

Stars of the week

We are so proud of our super stars Well done!

World Book Day

We loved celebrating World Book Day!

World book day!

World book day

Super fingers

We used our fine motor skills to rescue the princess and Spider-Man.

Sharing a book together.

It’s been a busy day celebrating World Book Day in Nursery.

Pancake picnic

We chose different toppings for our pancakes and had a picnic!

Pancake day

We used flour, eggs and milk to make our pancakes.

Today we have been reading Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. We have drawn Mr Wolf and made pancakes just like his recipe!

Super sentences

What a fantastic start to the day! Look at our super sentences.

We have been busy making teddy bear bread. it was very tasty!

Evil pea fruit kebabs

We made Evil Pea inspired fruit kebabs.

Star of the week

Well done to this weeks super stars. You are both amazing

Superheroes at Work

We had lots of being superheroes and creating dens outdoors for the superheroes to live in.

Name writing

Getting creative with Supertato

We made some fantastic Supertato pictures using real potatoes to print with.

Porridge making !

Today we have had lots of fun making our very own porridge after reading our new book Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

International Mother Language Day

In Reception we have celebrated International Mother Language Day by counting in other languages and learning the names of our snacks in different languages.

Making 6 and 7 in Maths

This week we are counting up to 7 objects and making 6 and 7 using other numbers including 5.

Supertato

This week we are learning all about Supertato the supermarket hero! Thanks to all parents who have helped their child to make their own Supertato at home. We have also had fun making them at school and below is a link to this week’s story if you’d like to share it at home.

Superheroes

Our new topic is Superheroes! How many superheroes can you spot in Reception?!

Valentine’s Day Story Time

Huge thanks to all parents for joining their children in celebrating Valentine’s Day. The children had a lovely week creating cards, hats and hearts in cookery.

Teddy bear bread !

Today we have been making teddy bear bread using chocolate spread, bananas and raisins after reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Superheroes

We dressed up as superheroes today.

Valentine’s week

Valentine’s Day story time

A big thank you to everybody who attended our Valentine’s Day story time. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. ♥️

Happy Valentines Day

Thank you for joining us in Nursery this afternoon, it is always lovely to have you in class.

Thank you so much for coming to play with us this afternoon and helping us understand the Zones of Regulation.

2-D Shape in Reception Maths

This week we have practiced learning about 2-D shapes. We talked about shape names and what they look like, created police car pictures using 2-D shapes, found real  2-D shapes outside and problem solved by making shapes using string.

People Who Help Us-The Police

We have been learning all about the police and what they do. We have dressed up as the police, cut out police cars and talked about how important they are.

What the Ladybird Heard

This week as part of our People Who Help Us topic, we have been learning about the jobs of the police. We have also shared and re-enacted the story of What the Ladybird Heard as part of our learning. Below is a link to share the story at home.

Reception Parent Maths Workshop

Our last parents maths workshop was all about measures and the children took part in a range of activities with their mums. Huge thanks to all parents for coming along each week and hope to see you for future workshops.

Cosmo the Therapy Dog

Reception had a great time meeting Cosmo and learning all about what he likes.

Working out outside! My muscles are so strong

Question time

We asked the policeman questions about catching Lanky Len.

PE moving like different forms of transport

We had to move around the hall like a car, a train or an airplane.

Shape printing

Cosmo the therapy dog

We had a very special visitor today. His name was Cosmo. We loved getting to know him.

Slow and fast music

Using our body to to move fast and slow to the music.

What the ladybird heard

This weeks story is called What the ladybird heard. We dressed up as police officers and looked for ladybirds.

Making pizza

We had such a good time on Friday making pizza.

It’s been a busy week celebrating Lunar New Year.

Stars of the week

A big well done to our stars of the week. You have been great

Dragon Dancing

The children have been inspired by the dragon dancing workshop they attended yesterday. They got creative and made their very own dragon costume – they took turns being at the front of the dragon and dancing to the music.

Lunar New Year Story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/lets-celebrate-chinesenewyearperformance

Here is a link to the story about Lunar New Year if you would like to share this at home.

Lunar New Year Dance

The children enjoyed the dragon workshop today and had lots of fun doing a lion dance.

Tesco Shopping Trip

We had great fun shopping for pizza ingredients in Tesco today!

Our trip to Tesco

We had a great time shopping for pizza ingredients. Tomorrow we will make pizza!!

Reception celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year 2025

Reception learned about the Chinese Lunar New Year this week. We celebrated by doing some Dragon Dancing.

Wow! How lucky are we to experience the Chinese Dragon workshop this afternoon.

Re-enacting the story of the great race.

We have been busy celebrating Luna New Year.

Celebrating the Lunar New Year

This week we are celebrating the lunar new year. We have been making lanterns, mark making and playing in our Chinese restaurant. We have been so busy!

A visit from Chef

A big thank you to our school chef who came to visit us today. She told us all about the different food she cooks for us. We love our school lunches.

Year 1 and 2 Outdoor Club

IMG_7322 IMG_7321 We are enjoying playing lots of games in Outdoor Club!

Maths in Reception

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zf3r96f

The children have had fun counting objects and matching and recognising numbers to 5 over the last two weeks. The link above will take you to a game to play home to further support the children’s learning.

Reception Parent Maths Workshop

Thanks so much to all parents who have attended our maths workshop to support our children’s learning both at school and at home. Our next session is this Tuesday 28th January at 2.15pm.

PE in Reception

In PE over the last three weeks we have practiced ball skills, developing listening skills through games and developing fine and gross motor skills using hoops and bean bags.

People Who Help Us- Chefs

Last week the children had great fun creating their own menus and creating their own sandwiches. We also learnt about the job of a chef and how they help us. We had fun in our supermarket role play area too!

People Who Help Us- Doctors and Nurses

As part of our doctors and nurses week, the children had fun sharing the nursery rhyme Miss Polly had a Dolly and making fruit salads.

People Who Help Us- Doctors and Nurses

We began our People Who Help Us topic by learning all about the job of doctors and nurses and how they help us. We painted Ness the Nurse after sharing the story in class, created doctor bags, wrote prescriptions and helped Billy Bear to get well soon.

Outdoor Play in Reception

We have had lots of fun over the past three weeks exploring the different types of winter weather.

Making jam sandwiches

We made black currant and strawberry sandwiches this afternoon. Yummy!

Stars of the week

A big well done to our superstars this week.

We have been mark making the skunk and elephant from our book.

We have been busy getting to the beat with Skunka and Tanka.

Making Chef hats

PE – body parts

Playing a cone game to find our head, shoulders,knees and toes

Litter picking

Keeping our garden tidy.

We are getting down to the beat with our new book.

Stars of the week

A big well done to our stars of the week. You are fantastic!

The Animal Boogie

We have used the play dough and wooden sticks to make enclosure’s for the animals from our new story.

Plaster cast dolls

We have been using mod rock today . We wrapped it around the dolls arms and legs to make plaster casts.

Movement – PE

In PE today we tried different ways of moving around the hall. We practiced being Mr Tall, Miss Small, Mr Rush and Mr Slow.

Doctors and Nurses Numbers!

We ordered numbers 1-10 and found the correct numicon to match.

Ness the nurse

Our story this week is Ness the nurse. We have been painting pictures of her.

Doctors and nurses

This week as part of our ‘People who help us’ topic, we are looking at Doctors and nurses and finding out the things they do to make us better.

The Animal Boogie

Today we have read the story The Animal Boogie and we have been busy creating enclosures for the jungle animals using the play dough.

We have been exploring the ice today and thinking of different ways to help it melt. Some suggestions were “put it in the sunshine” “put hot water on it” it was lots of fun and we learnt lots of new vocab rescuing the animals and describing the ice.

Can we beat the timer to put on our winter accessories? We were determined to make sure the gloves were on properly!

Ice shapes

We used ice trays to make 3D ice shapes. We then added them to our winter tuft tray to have some messy fun!

Fun in the snow!

We had so much fun playing in the snow yesterday. We even made a little snowman.

Snowflake Making

As part of our winter topic, we are having lots of fun creating our own snowflakes using paint and paper. We have also been practicing our cutting skills in creating our very own snowflakes.

3-D Shape

This week in maths we are learning all about 3-D shapes. We have been learning some 3-D shape names and trying to find real life 3-D shapes in class and outdoors. We have also been building towers using 3-D shapes and seeing how many shapes we can use to make the tallest tower. We have also been problem solving about which shapes will be the best at the top of the tower!

The Snowman

We have been practicing reading words and using our phonic knowledge to match the correct words to the pictures.

Dressing Teddy for Winter

We dressed Teddy for the snow. We thought about what kinds of clothes Teddy would need and how he would need to wrap up warm to go outside.

Winter

We had great fun yesterday exploring the snow!

We have been working out how to rescue the animals from the ice. “we need a hammer to hit it” “we need to melt it” were some suggestions.

Making playdough snowmen

We rolled the playdough into sphere shapes to make our snowmen.

Recognising and counting numbers 1 to 5

We used our counting skills to make the correct amount of snowman buttons.

Eddie the elf

Eddie is going back to the North Pole. We enjoyed seeing all the things he got up to every morning . Goodbye Eddie,see you next year.

Star Pizza Making

Last week we had a great time making pizzas in Reception. We took our pizzas home after rolling out the dough and adding cheese and tomato sauce. Some of us also decorated our pizzas using tomatoes.

Christmas stockings

A busy day cutting and decorating our Christmas stockings.

Glitter fun

Lots of fun today decorating our stars.

Christmas pattern stamping

Today the children have enjoyed making patterns using the paint and Christmas stamps

It’s been a day a day full of fun and parties

Reception in Winter Time

Here are some of our activities this winter time.

Reception at Winter Time

IMG_6845

Here are some of our activities in Reception from this week.

Homework

Last week we had some wonderful stamp design homework!

2-D Shape

This week in maths we are learning all about flat shapes or 2-D shapes and creating pictures using a selection of shapes.

Christmas Dinner Day

Today has been a lovely day. We have had a visit from Santa and enjoyed a lovely lunch. We have played party games too. Everybody looks fantastic! Thank you Smithdown Primary for a wonderful day.

Posting Letters Home

We had a lovely time visiting the local post box to post a letter home. The children worked very hard on writing a wish for a special person/ people in their lives. Our learning had been about how to post a letter home. The children placed their letters into envelopes and put on a stamp. We hope that everybody has received their letters. Many thanks to all parents who joined us for the walk.

Retelling the story of The Polar Express

The Reception children of RAG have enjoyed listening to the marvellous Christmas story, ‘The Polar Express’. They even managed to retell the story in sequence, from start to finish, using pictures. Well done!

Christmas party and pantomime

We have had the best day today…

First, the children were visited by Santa who told the class how good they had all been. We were then all treated to the most tasty Christmas dinner. We then went back to class to enjoy yet another favourite treat of ice-cream whilst watching the ‘Beauty and Beast’ panto. What a great party day!

We have been busy making repeating patterns today.

Building using small blocks

We worked as a team this afternoon to make a landscape using big blocks.

Christmas card inserts

This week, the children have loved writing Christmas Card inserts to their families. They enjoyed practicing their early writing skills using the knowledge they have gained. This afternoon, they are excited to begin designing their cards…I am excited to see their creativity!

Making a shape picture

After our shape hunt, we created Christmas pictures using different shapes. We talked about all the different shapes we used.

Shapes in the environment

Today in maths we named and described the features of shapes. We went on a shape hunt and found different shapes in our playground

Sending a letter home!

We had the best time posting our letters this morning, Eddie the elf came with us too! I wonder where our letters will end up? Thank you to those parents who were able to join us at this busy time.

Christmas Twinkly Nativity

Reception and Nursery B have really worked hard to deliver a magnificent performance, full of wonder and magical singing in front of all our wonderful families this week. I would like to thank all of you for your support in taking the time to come and watch the children, as it really makes the difference to your child’s growth, as it builds their confidence. We loved learning all about the twinkly story, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed performing it to you.

Post Office Play

We are enjoying playing in the post office in Reception.

Elfie in Reception

This week we found snowy footprints and an elf called Elfie! He has flown into Reception to spread kindness all around.

Christmas Decorating

Patterns

This week in maths we are continuing and creating repeating patterns.

The Twinkly Nativity

Thank you so much to all parents and families for coming to watch The Twinky Nativity performed this morning by Nursery A and RLMc. We hope you enjoyed watching all of our wonderful children here in Smithdown Early Years.

Christmas elves

Eddie the elf has swopped our dressing up clothes for elf clothes!

Sequencing

This week in Mathematics, the children in class RJP have been focusing on sequencing. We explored the vocabulary, how ‘sequencing’ means to repeat a pattern. The children used paint to create an ‘ABBA’ pattern firstly, following the pattern, ‘red, green, red, green’. We then had lots of fun demonstrating the ‘ababab’ pattern using Christmas pictures, and designing a colourful paper-chain. To extend the learning, we explored different patterns, expanding on the number of picture cards, colours, and using shapes which have been learned previously. This helps the children problem solve sequencing in a fun way.
Why not keep up this learning at home, by asking the children to make repeated patterns using different objects.

A special visitor

Yesterday we saw some snowy footprints in our classroom. We followed the trail and found our special visitor. We called him Eddie the elf.

It’s beginning to look like Christmas…

It’s beginning to look like Christmas…

This week we have been busy reading the book Stickman and then created our own stickman.

At the Post Office

This week we are learning all about what happens at the post office and have shared a story called

The Jolly Postman. We are also writing special wishes to post home next Friday 6th December. We have a,so had lots of fun painting and creating a post box.

Wheels on the Bus

As part of learning about different types of transport, we made wheels on the bus biscuits and used photographs of vehicles to choose which ones we would use to help

Weighing in Reception

This week in maths we are finding out which items are heavy, light and the lightest and the heaviest.

Cutting skills

We made letters today. We used our fine motor skills to cut, fold and stick.  We then posted the letters in our new role play post office.

Painting a letterbox

We have been very busy using red paint to make a letterbox. We can’t wait to use it to post our letters.

Comparing weight of items, using mathematical language, ‘lighter and heavier’ than.

This morning, Reception have been using their problem skills to firstly estimate which objects will be heavy and which will be light. They had so much fun, pretending to be human scales, and placing objects in their hands, rocking the balance to show heavy and light. To reinforce the learning, the children were introduced to weighing scales, whereby they weighed different everyday items to determine which was heaviest and which was lightest. Some of the children took it a little further, by weighing three objects, then placing them in the order from lightest to heaviest. Good job,

Thank you to everyone that joined us this afternoon.

5 currant buns in the bakers shop.

Thank you for joining us for our Nursery Rhyme stay and learn.

We have been busy baking 5 currant buns this morning as part of World Nursery Rhyme Week.

Fun in the snow this morning

Snow Fun

  We have had lots of fun exploring the snow!

Snow Fun!

Great to explore the winter weather this morning in Reception! We’ve had so much fun!

How lovely to see these two sharing our class book together.

We have had so busy all day raising money for Children in Need.

Pudsey Bear Biscuits

We had fun making Pudsey Bear biscuits today as part of Children in Need.

This afternoon’s owl visit

This afternoon we had some special visitors Flint and Matilda the owls. We have been reading the Owl Babies and we were very excited to meet some real life owls.

This morning’s owl visit

This morning we had some special visitors Flint and Matilda the owls. We have been reading the Owl Babies and we so excited to meet some real life owls.

The Gruffalo

Last week we had a great time making Gruffalo Crumble in cookery!

Parent Literacy Workshop

Huge thanks to all parents for attending our group of workshops in supporting children with their early literacy skills. The children joined their parents for the last few minutes of our writing session and had lots of fun making unicorn play dough and threading pasta to raise the importance of developing fine and gross motor skills.

Speke Hall Trip

We all had a great time at Speke Hall! We walked around and found a sleeping giant on the Childe of Hale Trail, collected leaves, had a picnic lunch, sang songs and explored the maze and playground.

Children in need

Today the children have had lots of fun dressing up for children in need. We have been making spotty biscuits and Pudsey bear party hats.

Starting our Children in Need campaign in Nursery.

We have been busy making poppy art and poppy biscuits today to mark Remembrance Day.

Fireworks Today we have mage firework gloop, chocolate sparklers and glittery firework pictures.

Marking Remembrance Day with poppy biscuits and poppy art.

PE in Reception

We practiced playing listening games and moving in a variety of ways before half term in PE.

Magical Wands

We made magical wands before we finished for half term using food and we then took them home.

Comparison in Maths

This week we are comparing amounts of objects up to 10 to see which groups have more, fewer or the same.

Reception Literacy Workshop

Reception parents please remember our last literacy workshop will be tomorrow at 2.15pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!

The Gruffalo

We are enjoying sharing the story of The Gruffalo this week! We have painted The Gruffalo and are describing The Gruffalo as part of our literacy and writing about what we can see. We also shared The Gruffalo song and below is a link to share this at home.

We have been using new describing words whilst manipulating firework gloop.

We have been creating our faces using Autumn nature…

Pumpkin Exploration

We had great fun exploring a pumpkin in Reception.

We have been learning about Diwali and are manipulating salt dough into our own diya lamps.

Reception Parent Literacy Workshop

Huge thanks to all parents for coming along to session 3 of our literacy workshops which focused on nursery rhymes. The children then had fun with their mums making play dough to create Humpty Dumpty at home.

Room on the Broom

This week we are having lots of fun in literacy with Room on the Broom! We have made our own broomsticks, created spells in writing and sequenced the story using pictures.

Clothing Week

Last week we had fun making gingerbread biscuits and decorating with our school colour of blue to give the biscuits a uniform.