Early Years Blog 2026/27

This week we have started talking all about “Who is special to me?” The children have loved sharing photographs of their families with their friends and talking about the people who are special to them. We have enjoyed listening to the children share their experiences, telling us about their families and what they like to do together. We have also been busy drawing our families, thinking carefully about who we wanted to include and adding details to our pictures. The children have really enjoyed seeing their friends’ photographs and drawings and finding out more about each other. It has been a lovely week of celebrating our families and the special people in our lives.

We have continued our phonics journey this week, and the children have been enjoying learning our new sounds through our phonics song and lots of fun activities!  We have introduced i – Insects are interesting, n – Nurse Nelly’s nice, m – Mice are munching and d – Dinosaurs are dancing , and the children have been fantastic at practising the sounds and spotting them in our green words. We have also been getting creative with our phonics learning through crafting, helping the children to remember each sound in a fun and meaningful way. It has been lovely to see their confidence growing as they join in with the songs, recognise the sounds and begin to spot them independently.

Last week we were exploring and learning all about the features of our local environment. The children talked about places they know and visit on the Isle of Wight, including their favourite places, shops, roads and the beach. We talked about the name of our village, Gurnard, our town Cowes and our county, the Isle of Wight, and shared ideas about places the children have visited with their families. It was lovely to hear the children talking about familiar places and recognising features that they see around them every day. 

This week we have been having lots of fun with our maths learning as we began our  ‘Match, Sort and Compare’ unit. The children have been exploring how to match identical objects, sort objects into groups, and compare different groups. We have used lots of practical resources and learning through play, encouraging the children to look closely, talk about what they notice, and explain their thinking. We have been exploring different ways to sort objects, including by colour, size, shape and type, and using mathematical language such as same, different, more and fewer . It has been lovely to see the children developing their confidence and beginning to explain why objects belong together. 

 This week we learnt our first set of sounds - s,a,t,p. Each sound has a song to help the children remember.  s - sausages are sizzling s,s,s a - ants on an apple a,a,a, t - tiger on a TV t,t,t P - popcorn popping p,p,p

Welcome to our Reception blog. We are just waiting for the last photo permission slips before we show you what we have been up to. Each week we post photos from our adventure time as well as what we have been learning in maths and phonics so please keep checking for updates.