Reception Spring 2026 Curriculum Overview

Our topics this term will be ‘Traditional Tales’ in the first half term and ‘Ready, Steady, Grow!’ in the second.

In the first half term, we will be looking at a range of traditional tales including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs. We will use these stories to develop the children’s ability to recall key events in stories, practice their storytelling and promote oracy across the class. We will also learn about winter and the changes in the weather and our environment.

After half term, our topic will become ‘Ready, Steady, Grow’. In this unit, the children will learn about plants and the natural world around them. The children learn about different types of plants and how they thrive, and will have opportunities to explore growing and caring for plants. The children will read books such as ‘Ten Seeds’ by Ruth Brown, ‘Errol’s Garden’ by Gillian Hibbs, and the traditional tale ‘The Gigantic Turnip’. We will also begin thinking about how the weather is changing and begin to learn about Spring.

Alongside adult led teaching and small group tasks, the children will take part in two sessions during the day where they can choose the areas they want to explore. They will have access to a variety of provision and resources, which will be changed regularly to reflect our learning and the children’s interests. There are multiple areas including arts and craft, writing, a home corner, maths and puzzles, sand and water, sensory play and construction. Adults are present to support the children in their play and learning. 

Reminders:

Please send a named water bottle in every day.

PE is on Tuesdays. Children will change at school. PE kits can remain in school until half term. Please make sure all the children’s uniform and PE kit is named as they can get a bit muddled when the children are changing!

In Early Years, children will be spending lots of time outdoors in all weathers. Please provide children with a pair of named wellies to keep in school and send them in with a waterproof jacket. They will need wellies to access our mud kitchen and water area outside too.

Library books will be changed every Friday.

Reading books and reading records need to be in school every day. Reading books will be collected in on Thursdays to be changed and re-issued to you on Friday.

Any questions – please, please ask!

Subject

Teaching and Learning

Parental Involvement

Physical Development

Fine/gross motor

To develop fine motor control.

To hold pencil effectively with comfortable grip and form recognisable letters.

To cut along a curved line, like a circle and zigzag lines.

To climb, balance, jump and land safely.

Gymnastics 

Children explore basic movements, creating and holding different shapes and balances, jumps and rolls. They begin to develop an awareness of space, levels and directions. They copy, create, remember and repeat short sequences.

Ball skills and games

Children will develop fundamental ball skills such as throwing and catching, rolling a ball, using targets, dribbling with feet, kicking a ball, bouncing and catching a ball.

Continue to provide opportunities for children to strengthen their hand muscles at home: threading, cutting, weaving, playdoh, kneading bread, rolling biscuit dough etc.

Where, possible give children opportunities to move their bodies in different ways such as dancing together, balancing and jumping at the park, playing ball games using a ball of socks!

Communication and Language

To understand and use question words such as why, when, who, what, how?

To answer questions to share ideas and retrieve knowledge

To make up stories with themselves as the main character.

To record stories through picture drawing/mark making.

To read simple phrases and sentences made up of words with known letter–sound correspondences and a few exception words.

To sequence stories, lifecycles and timelines.

To begin to use prosody after adult modelling.

To re-read books to build up their confidence, fluency, understanding and enjoyment.

To develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or events.

Continue to model questions by asking the children or other members of the family about their day and their opinions. The more children hear it, the more likely they are to use it themselves.

Read stories together at home and act them out. Make capes out of tea towels to become the characters in the story. Bring the stories to life and encourage the children to talk as though they are living the story.

Read at least 3 times a week at home to help children practice their segmenting and blending skills. Model how to use prosody (expression) when reading and get them to try.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We follow the Kapow PHSE scheme and will be teaching the following units:

Taking on Challenges

In this unit, children will understand why we have rules, the importance of persistence and perseverance in the face of challenges, learn how to communicate effectively with others, practice 'grounding' coping strategies, and to learn new skills that will help them show resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge.

Listening and Following Instructions

In this unit, children will learn why it is important to be an honest, thoughtful and resilient active listener who can respond to instructions and how they can become one.

Play games with your child and discuss the rules and why it is important to follow them.

Support your child to discuss their emotions and ask them about the strategies they have learnt to help regulate themselves when cross, sad etc.

Encourage your child to persevere when they meet challenges.

Verbalise and model your thinking when you feel emotional or when you meet challenges e.g. ‘I am feeling a bit cross at the moment so I am going to make myself a cup of tea and have some quiet time’.

Maths

To continue to develop their subitising skills for numbers within and beyond 5 and increasingly connecting quantities to numerals.

To introduce zero.

To understand one more and one less than a given number.

To learn their number bonds to 5 and be introduced to the part whole method.

To be able to find and represent different compositions of 6,7 and 8.

To sort odd and even numbers.

To talk about time and explore sequencing of different events.

To compare objects based on their length, height, mass or capacity.

To find, compare and represent numbers 9 and 10 and to explore the composition of numbers to 10.

To begin to learn their number bonds to 10,

To understand that two equal groups can be called a ‘double’.

To explore 3D shapes.

To continue to develop their understanding of patterns.

To confidently count to 10 and joining in with verbal counting beyond 20.

Play board games with your child, such as snakes and ladders. Children will recognise the number of dots on the dice and be able to practice 1:1 counting as they move their counters.

Play games with your child, such as snap and dominoes. Children will recognise the dots on the dominoes, and this will help them practice their subitising of different numbers.

When sharing toys or sweets, talk about being fair or equal when you have the same number. Use the language of more than, less than and fewer than.

When out and about, go on a number hunt, what numbers can they find? Can they record what they see? This helps them recognise different numbers in their environment.

Literacy including phonics

Phonics

To read, segment and write words using Phase 2 and 3 graphemes

To read and write Phase 3 tricky words: was, you, they, my, by, all, are, sure, pure.

Handwriting  

To use a range of small tools competently and confidently, including a strong tripod grip

To develop the foundations of a handwriting style which is fast, accurate and efficient

To develop letter formation using Little Wandle mantras.

Sentence construction and grammatical accuracy 

To sequence stories.

To write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others, using taught Phase 2 and 3 graphemes.

To begin to use finger spaces, capital letters and full stops.

To write for different purposes, including captions, lists, speech bubbles and information.

To write Phase 2 and some Phase 3 tricky words such as I, me, my, like, to, the.

Speech

To discuss words or ideas linked to texts children have been learning about.

To verbalise ideas in well-structured sentences.

To retell stories in the reading/writing area.

To use full sentences orally as part of everyday play.

Please listen to your child read at least 4 times per week. Children who read regularly at home make the most progress, not just in reading, but right across the curriculum. Please ask us if you need any support. We are happy to help.

Use the Little Wandle website to access resources and videos to help you pronounce the phonemes (sounds) we are learning: Little Wandle Parent Resources

Provide your children with pens, chalk, pencils to encourage mark making and writing.

Help children to practice writing letters with the correct formation. Please refer to the letter formation videos on our website.

Writing ideas – shopping lists, birthday lists, labelling things around the house, writing about their day/weekend/and event, writing about their own drawings.

Understanding the World

To learn about Lunar New Year and when, where, how and why it is celebrated.

To learn how Easter is celebrated and talk about signs of new life.

To compare and contrast celebrations to our home traditions.

To observe seasonal changes in the winter/spring.

To learn what a plant needs to grow.

To document changes in growth over time.

Notice seasonal changes outside i.e., “It gets dark early now because it is winter”, “Look at the buds on the tree, Spring is coming."

Go for nature walks together.

Talk about time using terms such as ‘in the past’, ‘yesterday’, ‘in the future’, ‘next month’ etc.

Expressive Arts and Design

To make child led collages using mixed media.

To make landscape collages inspired by Megan Coyle.

To explore malleable materials and their properties.

To explore fruits and the differences between them.

To design and make a fruit kebab.

To safely use tools, follow instructions and prepare ingredients.

To learn about beat, pitch and timbre in Music.

Where possible, provide opportunities for children to create at home. Provide old newspapers and magazines for children to tear up or cut and stick into collages.

Use playdoh to create sculptures.

Involve children in making food together. Allow them to help prepare food before cooking or making fruit salads and baked goods together.

When listening to music, talk about how fast or slow it is. What kinds of sounds can they hear? Is it high pitch or low pitch?