Gotherington Primary School

Reception children celebrated their first year at school by attending a graduation party. It was a fantastic success and the children thoroughly enjoyed receiving an official certificate from Mr Jordan. Thank you to all the parents for coming to celebrate with us!

The children are taking part in an Art Project this term where they will be using different artistic techniques to create a large art piece for our Infant Area.

Reception celebrated their new topic 'All Things Wild' by coming to school dressed as different creatures. We had animals ranging from minibeasts to dinosaurs! The children took part in lots of activities including making a snake and lion using resources, painting a range of animals using handprints and designing their own minibeast.

Reception class had a fantastic day at 'All Things Wild'. We did some pond dipping and learned about different pond wildlife, handled some animals, went on a dinosaur hunt and explored the other animal exhibits. A wonderful learning opportunity!

We have been learning about how plants grow and so we planted mini beanstalks. We have been keeping a bean diary of how they have grown.

The children have been working hard to ride the bikes at school. They have all made excellent progress, well done Reception class!

Reception class visited 'Nature in Art' for a trip and took part in lots of different nature based art activities. The children had lots of fun and learned lots about different living creatures!

The children have been learning about life cycles in Reception and this week we released our butterflies into the garden. We started by observing the caterpillars which turned into cocoons and then finally they turned into beautiful butterflies!

We have invited parents into Reception class this month to take part in lots of planting activities related to our topic. The children brought in lots of plants relating to their senses and we have created a sensory garden in the Reception outdoor area. We are also planted sunflowers and bean plants like Jack in the beanstalk!

The children have been learning to ride their bikes in school by taking parting in balancability sessions once a week. They are really enjoying using the bikes and playing lots of fun and interesting games in improve their balance and coordination.

The children celebrated the end of their travel and journeys topic by coming to school dressed up to represent a country. They took part in a range of activities including making a Chinese dragon mask, creating an African necklace, make a British double decker bus, Aboriginal dot painting and making snowman biscuits! Thank you to all the parents who offered support for the day, the children had a fantastic day!

This week the children have been learning all about gingerbread. We have learned how to make gingerbread by writing a recipe, labelling the ingredients and we have also made gingerbread men! The children had to be clean and tidy when they were cooking and decorating. They also learned how to follow several instructions. We made some fantastic gingerbread people!

On Friday we invited parents into class to help the children make gingerbread houses and decorate gingerbread men. It was a lovely sunny day so we also spent some time playing in the Reception Garden. Thank you to all the parents for coming to visit!

On Friday the children came to school dressed in red to raise money for Comic Relief. We did a whole school wake and shake in the hall and talked about why we were raising money.

On Thursday a travel agent called Faye Jones visited our class. We asked her lots of questions and she told us about her job. The children were then super keen to use our class travel agents to book lots of holidays!

The children went on a welly walk this week and they worked in groups to make plant pictures using sticks, grass and other outside resources. They created some fantastic pictures!

On Friday we invited parents to come into class and take part in 'We're Going on Bear Hunt' activities with the children. We had lots of fun and it was great to see so many parents in class!

The weather was nice and sunny so we decided to head outside to practise some games skills. We practised bouncing a ball and catching a ball. We also practised throwing the ball the a partner. Great work Reception!

The children have been learning all about 2D shapes this week. They have used multilink cubes to create shapes that they know. We have also traced shapes, sorted foods that are different shapes and hunted for shapes in our outdoor area!

The children celebrated World Book Day by coming into school dressed as their favourite book character.

The children used syrup and fruit to create tasty pancakes for pancake day!

Reception class visited the National Waterways Museum at Gloucester Quays. They took part in a canal workshop, looked around the museum and had the chance to use lots of the interactive exhibits. The children were superstars and were very well behaved throughout the long and busy day!

For the start of our new topic. 'Off we go' which is all about journeys and travelling, we went on a Bear Hunt around school! The children came up with actions to help them retell the story and then we created a story map when we got back into class.

Today the children have been learning the sound 'j'. We decorated jumpers in our phonics books and then we wrote the sound 'j' in jelly! It was very messy but super yummy too!

Reception children and staff would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas!

The children in Reception had a special Christmas surprise today. We had Christmas elves (the children's parents) come into class, while we were out, to decorate it! Thank you to all the parents who came, our classroom looks fantastic!

The children dressed up in spotty clothes and donated money for Children in Need day. We took part in a whole school wake and shake.

This week as part of our celebration topic the children have been learning all about Diwali. We have drawn some fantastic Rangoli patterns using chalks and made Rangoli patterns using different seeds. We have created a lovely display of our artwork near Reception class. Please come in and see it!

The children have been learning lots of different sounds. We learnt the sound 'g' and talked about the country Greece. The children got to try different Greek food including pitta bread, houmous, tzatziki and olives. Some of the food was yummy!

This week we have been learning all about firework celebrations! We decorated biscuits using lots of different coloured icing and added some sweets for sparkly firework decorations!

The children have created brightly coloured firework paintings using cardboard tubes and lots of glitter!

The children went exploring on the school field. We put our welly boots on and played in the Autumn leaves. It was so much fun! We made leaf angels, collected treasure and made big piles of colourful leaves.

The children used different materials to create their own paper plate face. We talked about what colour eyes we have and what other features are on our faces. We also talked about how we are all different and we don't all look the same. Children used cutting and sticking skills to make their paper plate faces.

Reception children have been trying really hard to learn how to get changed into PE kits. We have started to develop our fundamental movements skills like running, skipping and jumping. The children followed instructions really well and thoroughly enjoyed our colour action game for the warm up!

Reception has a new outdoor water area called 'Water World'. The children have thoroughly enjoyed playing with the water features and new pipes!

The children in Reception have been settling into their new classroom. They have explored the resources and settled in to the new routines really well. Well done Reception!