Reception - Summer 1 - Week 1

Date: 15th Apr 2026 @ 2:04pm

Welcome back! We hope you all had a wonderful Easter break. The children have returned to school this week full of excitement and ready to learn, and it has been lovely to see so many happy faces and hear all of their news.

In RE, our focus has been understanding that Jesus had special friends called Disciples and that we are all Jesus’ friends. The children explored the idea of friendship by looking at familiar Disney characters such as Woody and Buzz, Dory and Nemo, and Shrek and Donkey. They talked about who their friends are and what makes a good friend, sharing some lovely ideas. This learning was followed by the children painting pictures of themselves with their friends.

In Phonics, we have continued learning new sounds and practising writing words in our books. The children have been working very hard on their letter formation and holding their pencils correctly, showing fantastic focus and effort.

In Maths, we have been learning about numbers beyond 10, starting with 11, 12 and 13. The children practised saying these numbers and used one-to-one correspondence to count objects beyond 10. We also explored how the numbers 1 to 3 repeat after a full ten, for example: 1 ten and 1, 1 ten and 2, 1 ten and 3. We are embedding this understanding up to 13 before moving on to bigger numbers. The children have also been encouraged to count forwards and backwards, identify what comes before or after a number, and place numbers in the correct order.

We also began our exciting new theme for this half term, ‘Growth and Change’. We used the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar to introduce our learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. The children have loved creating pictures and paintings of butterflies and discussing how their wings are symmetrical.

What a fun and busy week we have had! We hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Mrs Molloy and Mrs Bevin