Topics in Reception

In line with the rest of the school we follow the Cornerstones topic style of learning.

We look at a variety of topics which young children find interesting and stimulating. You can see some of the topics we have looked at previously in the table below.

However, we recognise that the best way to engage young children is to have them play an active role in their learning and we therefore follow and develop their interests by having mini topics or lines of enquiry alongside or as part of our main topics. For example, this year as part of our Autumn ‘Why do leaves go crunchy?’ topic we incorporated the children’s favourite traditional tales, during ‘Will you be my friend?’ we looked at birthday parties, and during our ‘How many colours in a rainbow?’ topic we also looked at superheroes as the new Batman movie peaked interests.

Term	Imaginative Learning Projects
Autumn 1	- Would you like to be my friend? This topic focuses on getting to know our new friends at school.
Autumn 2	- Why do leaves go crunchy? – an Autumn tale We begin our topic learning about Autumn and all the changes it brings to the world. We then move on to focusing on traditional tales such as Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood.
Spring 1	Why can’t I have chocolate for breakfast? We learn how to keep our bodies healthy with a focus on healthy eating and exercise. How many colour in a rainbow? We learn all about colours in the world around us.
Spring 2	Can I have a dog yet? This topic focuses on pets: what they are and how we care for them. Our current pets in reception are fish, stick insects and a hamster but we try to have visits from other pets too.
Summer 1	Why do spiders eat flies? This topic is all about lifecycles and mini beasts. We learn about the lifecycles of butterflies, ladybirds and frogs. We also search for and study other different mini beasts from snails to slugs, worms to woodlice.
Summer 2	Which was the biggest dinosaur? This topic is all about dinosaurs, what were they, what did they look like, where are they now?