To get in touch with the Reception team, please email :
reception@parkspringprimary.co.uk
Teachers– Miss Brearey (Monday and Tuesday) and Mrs Fotherby (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)
Teacher– Miss Butler and Miss Horner
Teaching assistants (both classes) – Mrs Adams, Mrs Herron, Mrs McAtear, Mrs Parker, Miss Spencer
Reading records: Please ensure these are signed when you hear your child read (at least 3 times a week). They should be sent to school on a Monday to be checked and sent out.
PE: Thursday is our PE day. Please send your child to school dressed in their correct PE kit.
PE kit is;
· Round necked white plain t-shirt
· Plain black or navy shorts
· Plain black or navy tracksuit (tracksuit bottoms and jumper)
· Plain black trainers and black or white socks.
Home Learning: There is an expectation that children in Reception;
Children can also complete the following:
If your child completes 20 minutes of Reading Eggs or Numbots then they will receive extra Class Dojos!
Tapestry: This is the platform that we use for recording your child’s development through the Early Years. Please check this regularly to see what your child has been doing at school. If you do any additional learning or activities at home then we would love to see them!
Click the LINK
2024 – 2025
Summer 1
Author of the half term – Jez Alborough
Books we are reading this half term
Week 4
As part of our spring activities, we planted a bean using damp cotton wool in a clear cup. we talked about how Spring is when things grow!
We gently placed the bean on the cotton wool and talked about giving it water and sunlight, we are curious to see what happens next!
Week 3
What a busy week we have had this week! We have celebrated the 80th Anniversary of VE day by wearing red, white and blue and learning a bit about what VE day means. We loved waving the flags that we made in assembly as we listened to songs from the time from each year group and sang ‘Daisy, Daisy’. We also had a wacky hair day to raise money for Zarach, an organisation that is tackling bed poverty in Leeds and across the country!
We even had time to learn about numbers beyond 20, playing a game where there were 30 counters and we had to see how many were left!
Week 2
We love our outdoor area and we are always building different things in it. This week some of our children worked together to build a McDonald’s. “What would you like?” I replied I’d like chicken nuggets. “You like a Happy Meal?” I said I’d love one and was given a bean bag in between 2 construction hats. “Enjoy!”
Week 1
We have had a great first week back after the Easter break and it has been brilliant hearing all about the signs of Spring that the children found over the holidays.
Spring 2
Author of the half term – Julia Donaldson
Books we are reading this half term
Week 6
We have read The Gruffalo and talked about all the language that we weren’t sure about (like lake, stream, prickles, poisonous, tusks, claws) and used what we know to write some fantastic sentences. We have had to remember our capital letters, finger spaces and full stops as well as using our segmenting fingers to make sure we get the whole word. Our writing has improved so much since the beginning of the year and we are really proud of ourselves!
We have also been learning about celebrating Easter and what Christians believe and how they celebrate. We are all looking forward to our Easter break and especially the chocolate eggs that we might get!
Week 5
Week 4
We had great fun on Comic Relief Day wearing red! There were not red noses as in previous years but Mrs Parker managed to use face paint for the children and Mrs Fotherby’s red wig proved very popular!
Week 3
As part of Science Week we did an experiment with 3 cups. There was an animal in each cup but they were trapped in ice! We put one cup on the radiator because it was the warmest place in the classroom, one cup in the fridge because it was the coldest place in the classroom and one cup on the side in the classroom. We made predictions about what would happen to the ice in the different places and then did evaluations to see if our predictions were right. Once we had discussed ice melting, we talked about other things that melt and were lucky enough to make a crispy bun with melted chocolate each!
Week 2
We have continued with our History learning about Kings and Queens this week, focusing on looking at castles and knights. As Julia Donaldson is our author of the half term, we have read Zog and looked at Gadabout the Great, the knight in the story. We built lots of castles fit for a king, queen, princess, prince or even a dragon!
Week 1
What a fantastic start to the term we have had with a Reception trip to Temple Newsam House! It is a very impressive building and we were lucky enough to look around the house, even in rooms where you are not normally allowed! We had 2 workshops- one on Kings and Queens and the other on Nursery Rhymes. In the Kings and Queens workshop we made crowns, learned how to walk and wave like a monarch and dressed up as some historic characters, including Queen Elizabeth I! In the Nursery Rhymes workshop we worked in the kitchen and counted Hot Cross Buns as well as putting the kettle on, watched the mice run up the clock and discovered a special playroom where poor Humpty fell off the wall! In between, we learned about the house itself and what life was like hundreds of years ago. It was a busy, brilliant day!
Spring 1
Author of the half term – Jill Murphy
Books we are reading this half term
Week 4
This week the Library Bus visited our playground. It’s not a normal bus and it’s not a normal library! We loved singing songs, having stories read to us, reading lots of different books and exploring the bus. We really do love libraries and, now we are beginning to read by ourselves, we are looking forward to reading lots more books!
Week 3
Week 2
This week we have been looking at the theme of Past and Present. To help us to understand how things change over time, we have been looking at photographs of the children as babies and the staff when they were at the age that we would have been in Reception. Can you guess which EYFS members of staff are in these photos? We have had great fun looking at all the photographs and guessing who they are!
Week 1
Autumn 2
Author of the half term – Eileen Browne
Books we are reading this half term
Week 7
We have really enjoyed our Christmas activities this week. We have been learning about how people celebrate Christmas around the world and thought that it was really funny that Romanian children put their boots out to be filled with presents at Christmas. We were also very proud of our Christmas performance of ‘It’s Baby!’ We learned 10 songs and have all been singing them at hone as well as at school! It was lovely to see lots of our grown ups in the hall to watch us. We are looking forward to a visit from Santa!
Week 6
Some of us have been lucky enough to take part in Forest School with Mrs Ward this term. We have been on bug hunts, searched through all the different types of leaves, built dens and had hot chocolate. We have loved being outdoors in the fresh air and learning about nature with our friends.
Week 5
This week we have started to think about Christmas. We have been rehearsing for our Christmas performance and there are a lot of words and actions to learn but we are very excited! We have also been thinking about writing letters and looking at the book The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. The postman in the story has to deliver lots of different mail including a card, a sorry letter, a catalogue and a postcard. We had a Stay and Play session where parents came to join us in Reception. We enjoyed lots of different activities including making our own cards and writing our own letters to put into envelopes and post! We also decorated biscuits as wreaths, used our fine motor skills to decorate a tree with pompoms, coloured Christmas pictures and made snowmen pictures from cotton wool!
Week 4
This week we were really lucky to meet Izzy who came to talk to us about being a librarian. She explained that a librarian works at a library and that she works in the libraries that are closest to our school in Pudsey and Bramley. She explained that we could join the library for FREE and we would get a special card that would mean we could borrow books so we would never run out of stories. Izzy then read us The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson and we helped to make up a story about a lion using Tell Me a Lion Story by Kara Kramer. We had a great time and are hoping that we can visit the library with our grown ups soon!
Week 3
The children have loved wrapping up warm and playing outside in the snow early on this week. There wasn’t quite enough to build a snowman but we enjoyed looking at how we could shape the snow into balls. We looked at where the snow stayed for the longest time and talked about why we needed to wear our coats, hats, scarves and gloves.
This week we have also been comparing Handa’s Surprise and Rosie’s Walk. The characters in both books go for a walk but their walks take in very different surroundings. We looked at our environment and went for a walk around the school. We tried to spot some animals but only saw some crows. Can you spot them in the photos?
Week 2
This week we have been reading Handa’s Surprise. It is a lovely story and the surprise is worth waiting for! The children have been lucky enough to try some of the fruits that are mentioned in the story and have been talking about the different tastes – sweet, sour, juicy – and whether they like them or not!
We have also been doing a very exciting activity in our Commando Joe’s session where we have been building the highest tower that we can. We have worked as a group and built some very impressive towers!
Week 1
This week we have been enjoying learning about different celebrations including Bonfire Night and Diwali. We were lucky enough to hold and play with a sparkler each- being very careful to follow all the instructions about how to keep safe! We wore gloves and held the sparkler in a carrot. We also made pictures of fireworks by spinning paint on the paper to make different shapes.
Autumn 1
Author of the half term – David McKee
Books we are reading this half term
Week 1
It has been fantastic to welcome our new Reception children to Park Spring this week. They have all settled in really well and we have had great fun playing, learning and getting to know each other. We have read lots of stories together about starting school – we loved Harry and the Dinosaurs Go To School and we have been learning about dinosaurs in provision too. There are dinosaur puzzles and even dinosaur dancing to enjoy!
Week 2
This week in Reception we have been settling into our routines. It can be tricky starting Reception as it is a big change for us all and we sometimes have lots of different feelings. We have been reading the book The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas to help us to identify our different feelings. How many different types of feelings can you think of? What c
olour do you think of when you have that feeling?
Week 3
We have been looking at the book Elmer by our author of the half term, David McKee. Elmer is different and this makes him even more special than the other elephants, even though he sometimes doesn’t like being different. We have talked about how we are all different but how this makes us all special!
We have also been spending more time exploring our outdoor area, using the climbing tree and ‘cooking’ in our mud kitchen.
We had a fantastic time celebrating Park Spring’s 60th Anniversary- the school was opened in 1964! We took part in lots of activities; dressing up as characters and watching the film Mary Poppins, making 1960’s snacks (cheese and pineapple sticks) and having a picnic with our grown ups. It was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Week 4
This week we are looking at the story of the Little Red Hen. We have read the story and learned the actions to tell the story ourselves with the parts that repeat.
We have also been looking at where our food comes from and discovered that we had food growing in our outdoor area. After digging up the potatoes that we had grown in the Early Years garden, we made chips. Mrs Ward brought in her air fryer and the children all had a turn at cutting the potatoes with Mrs Jones. Some of us found it quite tricky but we persevered.
Then we got to eat them, they were so yummy!
Week 5
This week Reception have been looking at the story of the Little Red Hen. We have used this to help us talk about where our food comes from. After digging up the potatoes that we had grown in the Early Years garden, we made chips. Mrs Ward brought in her air fryer and the children all had a turn at cutting the potatoes with Mrs Jones. Some of us found it quite tricky but we persevered. We also made our own bread rolls, sprinkling the flour, kneading and shaping the dough then snipping the ball of dough so it looked like a hedgehog. Mrs Jones baked them in the oven for us. We got to eat the chips and the bread rolls that we made, they were delicious!
Week 6
This week in Reception we have been reading the story Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. We have used this as a stimulus to talk about our feelings and the Zones of Regulation. Percy misses his mummy in the book and keeps saying “I miss my mummy!” We talked about Percy being in the Blue Zone and what made us feel in the Blue Zone. We then talked about what we could do to get into the Green Zone. The children came up with some fantastic ideas like sitting with their friends, hugging a teddy or reading with mum.
We also did some amazing paintings of owls using pompoms!
Week 7
Autumn is here which means lots of colourful leaves in our playground! The children have been helping us sweep up the wet leaves, placing them in the tyres and stamping them down to compost. We hope it makes some lovely mud for our mud kitchen!
Week 8
We had a visit from some owls on Wednesday to support our learning this half term. We saw different owls, big ones and small ones and got to hold a tiny one called Bobby! We felt owl feathers and learned that they were different depending on the type of owl, soft for silent and smooth for speed. We have loved reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and we can all tell you about Sarah and Percy and what Bill says (“I want my mummy.”)! It was amazing to see some owls in real life and we were all really brave when we held Bobby.
Summer 2
Author of the half term – Martin Waddell
Books we are reading this half term
If your child has been offered a place in Reception for September 2023 from the admissions team at Leeds City Council, please email Mrs Houghton (EYFS Leader) at admissions@parkspringprimary.co.uk to accept or decline their place. Read more…
A big thank you to Reception for collecting Toys for some Afghan Refugees. They also recently wrote letters to the children which was so special. What a loving caring family Park Spring is.
9 Reception children created their own Stegasaurus drawings in drawing club on Monday. They demonstrated resilience, creativity, enjoyment, good fine motor control and excellent listening skills. They followed Mrs Houghton’s instructions to create their pictures Read more…
Reception had a great day celebrating World Book Day, diving into the story The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet! The children created rockets and imagined where it would fly to, made their very own bookmarks Read more…
Wow, what a busy half-term! A BIG well done to Reception for settling back into school so brilliantly. We have learnt lots of new sounds to help us read (21 to be exact!) and we Read more…
March 19, 2025
