Reception

Gruffalo Maths

In maths this week we have enjoyed counting up to 5 Gruffalo characters and saying the number names in the correct order.

The Gruffalo

This week in our literacy, we have enjoyed sharing the story of The Gruffalo.

PE Gruffalo instructions

We had to listen to instructions and be a stomping gruffalo, a slithering snake, a  tip toeing mouse , a flapping owl and a running fox.

Reception Stay and Learn Autumn 1

Huge thanks to all parents, carers and families for joining us for our first Stay and Learn of the year which was based on autumn and Room on the Broom.

Pumpkin Exploring and Magical Wands

we explored a pumpkin and made magical wands by dipping breadsticks into melted chocolate.

Room on the Broom

We had a fun time sharing the story of Room on the Broom in class. We re-enacted the story, ordered broomsticks by length, and created magical spells.

Speke Hall

We had a great time on our autumnal walk around Speke  Hall. our

Our trip to Speke Hall

We went on a trip to Speak Hall today and had the best day ever!  We went in search of a friendly Giant at the outdoor nature trail. We found lots of giant objects and musical instruments .

PE Fun

We ended our LSSP sessions with lots of different activities!

Stay and play

A great big thank you  to everybody that came to our Stay and Play this afternoon. We had so much fun making magic wands, playdough hedgehogs and decorating room on the broom characters.

Music

Using scarves and instruments to make sounds and dance.

Diwali celebrations

We made some special Diwali sweets, Diwali cards and shared some Diwali foods . Happy Diwali to everyone!

Reception’s first campfire

We had a fantastic time at our campfire. We toasted marshmallows, ate s’mores, sang songs and drank hot chocolate. A big thank you to all the parents and carers for attending.

Diwali lamps

We have been leaning all about the celebration Diwali. We made Diwali lamps out of salt dough and decorated them with bright coloured paint and glitter. Don’t they look amazing!

Funnybones

We have had a great time sharing the story of Funnybones this week. We have talked about where our heads, shoulders, knees, toes, hands and legs are and have had fun sharing a skeleton dance. We have also talked about clothing names when dressing a skeleton.

Outdoor Imaginations

We’ve had a super time dressing up outdoors today!

Reception Campfire

Thank you to all parents for joining us at the campfire yesterday. We had a great time toasting marshmallows, making s’mores and singing and dancing!

PE shaking skeletons

We have been shaking different parts of our bodies fast and slow just like shaking skeletons.

Session 4- Parent Literacy Workshop

Thanks to all parents for coming along to session 4 of our parental literacy workshop which focused on writing.Please join us on Wednesday 22nd October for our final literacy workshop. The time will be 2.15-3pm. Many thanks.

Happy Birthday Lucky Labubu and Billy Bear

We had a great time celebrating Billy Bear and Lucky Labubu’s birthdays! We had a party with delicious party food, played party games and sang happy birthday!

Reception Maths- who has more?

In reception this week the children have been working out who has “MORE” toys. We shared the toys with Teddy and Jigsaw Jennie, we counted how many each one had and then we worked out who had more and talked about who has less.

Funny bones in the playdough area

We have been using straws to make skeletons in our playdough area. We used our creative skills to think about where bones need to go.

Funny bones

This weeks story is called Funny bones. We decided to dress our skeleton and sing and dance with her. We talked about different parts of the body and what clothes we wear.

Birthday Week 🎂

The children have been reading “Happy Birthday Maisy” this week. We had lots of celebrating this week as it was Lucky Labubu’s birthday as well as Billy Bears, Jesse, Ayah and Elias [RSMc].

We made special decorations, decorated birthday cards and made party hats for the birthday celebration.

This afternoon we played super fun party games and shared some party food together to celebrate – what a wonderful way to end the week!

Happy Birthday Lucky Labubu & Billy Bear 🎂🌈🍀

Outdoor Imaginations in Reception

PE in Reception

This week we are using equipment to help us retell Jack and the Beanstalk! #lsspcoachtom

Subitising in Maths

This week we have been looking at arrangements and deciding how many there are. We then matched arrangements to numbers.

Parental Literacy Workshop Session 3

Huge thanks to so many parents who joined us for session 3 of our literacy workshop which focused on phonics.

Five Minutes’ Peace

This week we have enjoyed sharing the story of Five Minutes’ Peace. We have sequenced the key events in the story and created a bubble bath for Mrs Large!

Parent Literacy Workshop Session 2

Huge thanks to all parents for coming on Tuesday for session 2 of our literacy workshop which focused on nursery rhymes. We made Humpty Dumpty play dough and jigsaws! Please join us if you can this coming Tuesday 7th October at 2.15pm- focus will be phonics. Many thanks!

Composition of Number

This week we have been making 2,3 and 4 in Reception!

Outdoor Games

We created our own game outdoors today!

Music Time

Using instruments to make animal sounds!

Outdoor Imaginations

We used the blocks to create a large scale bridge

Composition of numbers ✋🏼

The children have been exploring how numbers are made of 1s 🧮

Phonics in Reception

We are working hard on our phonics in Reception.

The Tiger Who Came to a Tea Party

We had a great time at our very own tiger tea party after sharing The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

Parent Literacy Workshop Session 1

Huge thanks to parents for coming along to our first workshop on Tuesday. We shared Shark in the
Park and made telescopes with our families. Please join us this Tuesday 30th September at 2.15pm for more fun and ideas for home.

You Choose

We enjoyed sharing the story of You Choose and talking about our own homes. We also chose our favourite homes from the story.

PE in Reception

Using lots of equipment with our sports coach to practice key skills and having great great fun!

Outdoor Fun in Reception

Matching Numbers to Quantity

We had a great time practicing matching numbers to quantity up to 5. 

Homes

We decorated biscuits to depict homes on Friday.

Cake Sale

Thank you so much for all your donations towards MacMillan Cancer Support. Children had a lovely time – a lot of cake was enjoyed : )

You Choose….

Our book this week was You Choose. The children had lots of fun making different choices. We talked about how we make lots of choices every single day.

They choose what job they would like to have when they are older and we made special crowns to show this. They choose what what type of house they would like to live in and we painted some beautiful pictures for our home area. 🏡

They even got to choose what type of chocolate chips they would have their biscuit 🍪

Cake sale

We ate our yummy cakes after the cake sale. 😋 🍰

Maths

We used our counting skills to put the correct amount of people in the house.

PE

We have been practicing how to sit in a space and how to follow instructions. We played a game called traffic lights and had lots of fun.

Investigators

We used magnifying glasses to look at all the different thing that had fallen down off the trees.

Our first PE lesson

Today in PE we learnt how to get into a space and how to follow instructions. We played the beans game and had to be walking beans, jumping beans and runner beans.

Sharing Songs

Sharing Songs in Reception. We’ve had fun singing number songs and a Gruffalo song!

Enjoying Reading

We are having fun choosing a book at the start of the day.

Outdoors

We are developing our physical, communication and sharing skills outdoors.

Maths in Reception

This week we looking at counting and making arrangements of numbers to 3.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

We are enjoying The Tiger Who Came to Tea this week.

The tiger who came to tea

We listened to the story ‘The tiger who came to tea’ today. Later we painted pictures of the tiger. What a busy Monday we have had!

Music

We had a great time learning a new song about a teddy today.

Phonics in Reception

We are working hard on our sounds in Reception.

Music

We are enjoying singing animal songs in music!

Reception Fun

It’s been great to have seen the children settle into school life in Reception.

Our First Days

We are having a lovely first few days in Reception.

150 Birthday Party ~ best day ever! 🌟

What an absolutely fantastic celebration for our schools 150th birthday celebration! 🎊

The children enjoyed playing on the inflatables with their friends , they had a visit to the ice cream truck for some lovely I whipped ice cream and they also played party games with lots of prizes in their classes!

The children finished off the day with some birthday cake and sang happy birthday to Smithdown Primary School. What a lovely day from start to finish. 🎂

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week we have enjoyed sharing the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Below is a link if you’d

like to share the story at home. Many thanks.

https://fliphtml5.com/zfycw/hxzl/basic

Measuring Time

This week we have had lots of fun using timers to freeze, see how many jumps, claps and hops we can do before the time ran out!

Teddy Bear Sleepover

Lights out for all bears!

Time

We had a great time learning all about the o’clock time and days of the week in maths.

Happy Birthday Smithdown Primary!

We have had a great day celebrating Smithdown’s 150th birthday party! We played on a bouncy castle, had ice cream and had such great fun playing party games! Thank you very much for all of our lovely treats.

Hands Assembly 🖐

Thank you to all of the families who attended Receptions Hands assembly this afternoon. The children have been working so hard for the last 10 weeks and they were absolutely fantastic!

We are so proud of all the effort they have been putting into their signing, singing and dancing.

We hope you all enjoyed it!!

And a big well done to Deny from Miss McNally’s class who worked so hard throughout these sessions with her fantastic signing. She won a love hands jacket – how amazing!!

🙌 🙌

The Very Hungry Caterpillar 🐛🍎🍐🧁🍭🌱

Today we read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” – the children worked together in pairs to recall what the caterpillar had eaten on each day of the week.

They also used some of the fruits that the very hungry caterpillar had eaten to make their very own fruit salad that they enjoyed during snack time. 🍎🍐🍊🍓🍉🫐

In the creative area the children were making their own very hungry caterpillars using green and red circles. They made these completely independently- how fantastic! 🐛

Cooooooool down 🧊

Reception enjoyed some freezing cold ice pops in the sun. What a perfect cool down on a Friday afternoon!! ☀️

The Big Teddy Bear Breakfast 🐻🥞

Oh the children could have never guessed what their Teddy’s got up to once the lights went out… what mischievous Teddy’s🐻

The children got to see the Teddy’s journey throughout our school & then enjoyed a lovely breakfast in the garden!

Lots of giggles and full bellies in Reception today! 🌟

Teddy Bear Sleepover 🐻 💤

What a fantastic afternoon we have all had! We have set the teddy’s off to sleep with a lovely lullaby… let’s see what they get up to tomorrow! 🐻

Thank you to all of the families who attended & got creative with the children – I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

Roll on the Teddy Bear Breakfast 🥞 🐻

The big Teddy bear sleep over

Shark-infested biscuits 🦈

The children had a busy afternoon and had worked up an appetite for some shark-infested biscuits, after a busy morning for sports day! 🦈🌟

Reception Sports Day 2025🏆🎖

Thank you to all of the families who came out to cheer the children on – they had a blast! 🏆

The children worked so hard as part of a team to complete all of the races and we are so proud of all of them for showing great sportsmanship!

Well done to everyone 🌟

Butterfly, fly away 🦋

The butterflies have been released today in Reception! 🦋

Making 🔟

The children have been exploring different ways to make 🔟

They used numicon, cubes and counters to show different ways to make the number 10!

Active Adding🎲

The children were using their adding skills today to add the numbers from the dice to work out how many jumping jacks they needed to do. ⭐️

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch

The children had lots of fun choosing what to send the Lighthouse Keeper for lunch. They choose what food and sent it down in a basket – all while trying to avoid the seagulls. We talked about what healthy choices we could make and choose his lunch very carefully. Oooooh! 🧺 🏝

BeatleMania 🎶

We loved taking part in BeatleMania today!

”We all lived in a yellow submarine!” 🎶

Ice Cream Shop

We are having a great time developing our imaginative role play skills outside at the ice cream shop! We also dressed Billy Bear for the summer and thought about what kinds of clothes and items he might need.

Forest School

We have had a lovely time in Forest School club with some of our Reception children and parents and families. We have used natural materials to make journey sticks, played listening games and created dens. Tomorrow-Thursday 26th June is our last session where we will be having a campfire. All welcome and hope to see lots of you tomorrow from 3.30-4pm. Many thanks.

The Big Teddy Bear Sleepover

On Wednesday 9th July at 2.15pm we are inviting all parents and families to our Big Teddy Sleepover! We invite all of our children to bring in a bear 🐻 and they will make a bed using a selection of boxes and materials. We be sharing songs and putting our teddies into their beds ready to spend the night at school! We hope to see as many of you as possible there. Many thanks.

Singing in Music

We are practicing songs for our big teddy bear sleepover coming up on Wednesday 9th July at 2.15pm! All parents and families welcome.

Making 10

The children were exploring different ways to make 10 using numicon.

Celebration Picnic

A few more picnic photos

150 year celebration picnic

Thank you to everyone wo helped make our family picnic such a success, from the generous items on our community table to the fantastic Henna work in aid of Alder Hey hospital to the very generous sharing of food with staff, the day was fabulous.

Ahoy!! 🏴‍☠️

Reception have been super crafty over the last few weeks reading all about Pirates – they have been making paintings of pirate ships, telescopes, pirate flags and even treasure maps! 🏴‍☠️

Happy Father’s Day🌟

Thank you all for coming to our Father’s / Special Person assembly 🌟 the children worked so hard practicing both songs and making their lovely art work. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Smithdown P.S 150 Year Celebrations

In Reception we have been learning all about our school and it’s 150th birthday 🥳

We looked at old pictures of the children from our school – they were all in black and white.

We made a picture of Smithdown P.S to celebrate and printed with sponges using the school colours 🎨

Reception @ The World Museum

Reception had a fantastic day at the museum on Tuesday. We had a wonderful time seeing all of the amazing things – our favourite was the aquarium. The children even spotted Nemo and Dory!

Double facts!

The children have been working hard during their morning work to recall double facts. They wrote the number sentence to match – using the adding and equal sign. Great job Reception 👍🏻

World Museum

We had a wonderful time at the museum!

Forest School

Reception families everybody is welcome to our Forest School club today from 3.30-4pm.
Many thanks!

Weekly Challenge

In Reception the have been working extremely hard every week with a new weekly challenge – which they must complete independently!

The children were given a challenge this week to help out The Jolly-Roger’s family to see what items of treasure would float and which would sink. They experimented with different objects – coins, rocks, kids and rubber bands.

Smithdown’s 150 Years Celebration

150 Years Celebrations

In Reception we have talked about how our school building is 150 years old. We’ve looked at old photographs of the building and have drawn pictures of our school using photographs.

Eid

This week we are having a great time making Eid cards and learning about Eid celebrations.

Pirates Ahoy!

This week we have really enjoyed learning all about pirates! We have made hats, eye patches, designed ships and created our own treasure maps.

Doubling Numbers

In maths this week we are doubling numbers up to 10.

Music

This week we have really enjoyed using the claves in music and singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ using actions. IMG_2093

Hands Signing

This week we have been learning nursery rhymes and having great fun!

Reception Family Visit to Calderstones Park- Tuesday Afternoon Visit

Huge thanks to all parents who were able to come along to the park.

Water play

Weekly Challenge!

This week in reception the boys and Girls have been very hard at work making a map for Little Red Riding Hood. They made their very own map to help Little Red to stay away from the Big Bad Wolf 🐺 They have made these maps all by themselves… well done boys and girls for working independently!

Reception Family Visit to Calderstones Park- Tuesday Morning Visit

Huge thanks to all parents who were able to come along with their child to the park.

Reception Family Visit to Calderstones Park- Monday Afternoon Visit

Huge thanks to all parents who were able to come along with their child to the park.

Reception Family Visit to Calderstones Park- Monday Morning Visit

Huge thanks to all parents who could make coming along to the park this week with their child.

Instruments in Reception

We have been using the claves to make different sounds.

Music Time

Using different instruments in music today.

The Little Red Hen

Here is a link to The Little Red Hen story if you would like to share it at home.

https://pubhtml5.com/hmeo/tnap/Little_Red_Hen_%28Ladybird_Read_It_Yourself%29/

Odd and Even Numbers

Here is a game to play at home to help your child understand odd and even numbers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zvwq2v4

PE in Reception

Over the last few weeks, we have been practicing our skipping skills, trying to throw and catch and even having a go at tennis! We have also been practicing our listening skills and following instructions in PE when playing games.

The Little Red Hen

This week we have been sharing the story of The Little Red Hen. We have made bread just like the hen and have written instructions for making bread.

Odd and Even in Reception Maths

This week we have been practicing odd and even numbers up to 10 in maths.

Challenge – Make a pigs house

For last weeks challenge the children had to make a house out of straw, sticks or bricks. The children had to do this independently.

Look at their wonderful work. 😃 🌟

Tasty bread!

Yesterday we made bread just like The little red hen. Today we ate it with butter and jam. It was so tasty!

Hand Signing

We are practicing signs for food names this week in Reception during our Hands time.

Subtraction Number Bonds to 5 in Reception

This week we have been practicing learning subtraction facts of number bonds to 5.

VE Day

Reception made flags today to mark VE Day.

PE playing a game of freeze

PE using our senses

In PE today we looked at using our senses to move around. We used our ears to hear the birds ,our noses to smell the dinner, our eyes to see our friends and feeling mud in our toes

The Three Little Pigs

This week we are sharing the story of The Three Little Pigs and we have had lots of fun making houses for the pigs using a selection of materials.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

We ha We had lots of fun sharing the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We created a bridge, made billy goat collages, practiced our number bonds to 5 using goat counters and made cheese and cress crackers.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Our current topic is Traditional Tales and we shared the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We wrote sorry letters

Croxteth Farm

We had a wonderful time at the farm!

Croxteth Farm

We had a wonderful time at the farm!

Our trip to Croxteth farm

We had the best day ever visiting Croxteth farm. In the morning we saw lots of farm animals and in the afternoon we had a play in the play area.

Earth Day in Reception

Today we celebrated Earth Day in Reception by using sun paper to make natural pictures. We also talked about ways to save and conserve energy and used a parachute to use the power of the wind to have lots of fun outdoors.

Hands Signing

We have started to learn sign language in Reception. Today we have been learning signs for colours.

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!

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! ⭐️ 🌟 💫

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.

Red Nose Day

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.

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.

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.

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.