Reception Rules!

Rationale: After becoming settled and familiar with the classroom routines, a new member of the class arrives. His name is Austin the Orangutan and he is unsure how to behave at school. The children are challenged to teach Austin how to be a responsible, kind and friendly member of the class. During the project they will learn four key Reception Rules alongside our CIRCLE values. They will show their parents how to learn in Reception through a stay and play session and how to be an amazing St Mark's pupil, where Reception does indeed 'rule'!

Hook: New class member Austin arrives in a hot air balloon in the playground. Over the following weeks he gets in a muddle, e.g. breaks toys, messes in the toilets, runs in the corridor, so Reception need to help Austin to be a responsible, kind and friendly member of Reception.

Austin arrives!

Mrs Woolley told us she had seen something unusual on the playground. We rushed outside to see what it was. We found an orangutan and one of our friends guessed it was sitting in a hot air balloon. The orangutan had a note telling us his name is Austin and could we look after him. We spoke to the orangutan and he explained he had been flying his hot air balloon around the world when he crash landed on our playground. He asked if he could become part of Reception but he was a little worried that he did not know the Reception Rules. Reception agreed he could stay and that they will teach him the rules.

In our classroom, we gave Austin a school jumper and taught him how to sit on the carpet.

Austin showed us photos of his home and we told him about ours.

We made models of our homes out of junk modelling to show Austin.

Walking feet

Mrs Woolley found Austin crying in the library. He had been running in the corridor and fallen over. After putting a plaster on Austin's knee, we learnt the first Reception rule - walking feet.

Looking after our things

We came back from lunch to discover Austin had been exploring and had broken some of our resources. We taught Austin the next Reception rule - looking after our things.

Austin disappeared during exploring time. One of our friends found him in the toilets. He had made a mess and had been playing with the water. We reminded Austin of our rule to look after our things and how that includes the toilets.

We came back from lunch to discover that Austin had been exploring but did not tidy up afterwards.

We showed Austin how to tidy up.

Kind hands and feet

Austin and his friend Flora have had a falling out which has made Austin sad. Austin wanted the toy that Flora had so he hit her and snatched the toy. Now Flora does not want to explore with Austin. We taught Austin the third Reception rule - kind hands and feet.

Gentle words

Austin saw that no one said please or thank you at lunchtime. He also told us he saw lots of friends shouting at each other rather than speaking gently. He taught us the final Reception rule - gentle words. We practised using a gentle voice and gentle words with our friends.

Austin ripped a book and said he didn't. We found out that being honest in an important part of the Reception rule 'gentle words' and our CIRCLE value of integrity.

Part of gentle words is listening to others. We practised this by following instructions to make chocolate crispy cakes.

Outcome

Reception hosted a stay and play session for their adults. The children taught the adults the Reception Rules and showed them how to explore. Everyone had lots of fun!

Home learning

Our home learning for our Reception Rules project was to make a chatterbox at home filled with things that are special to us. We then shared our boxes with our friends.