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Important update from TheSchoolRun
For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.
What this means for subscribers:
- Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
- In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
- As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.
A few changes to be aware of:
- The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
- The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.
*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.
Reception Investigative skills worksheets
What colour are your eyes?
Let’s find out which eye colour is the most common amongst your family and friends! You can record your results on this pictogram.
Moving fish race
Can you move this fish across the carpet without touching it? Let's have a race...
Investigating sound
Fill a glass or some empty glass bottles with water halfway to the top. Now tap the side of the glass with a teaspoon. Can you describe the sound that you hear?
Grow a grass head
It’s easy to make your very own grass head. You can keep your head on the window sill, and you’ll be amazed at how fast it grows!
Find patterns all around you
There are patterns all around us. Take a large piece of white paper and a crayon and see if you can capture some!
Who’s living in your tree?
Put a large white sheet under a tree or a bush and give the tree a good shake. Lots of little bugs living in your tree/bush should fall onto the sheet for you to look at carefully under a magnifying glass. Can you draw some of the bugs you can see? Can you identify any of them?
Tree treasure hunt
Play a game with all the different trees in your garden or a park. First, walk around the garden with an adult. What is the same about the trees and what is different? Now try to complete these challenges.
That’s my stone!
How good are your observation skills? Have a go at this game which tests how good you are at spotting the similarities and differences between objects.
On-the-ground investigation
Throw a hoop or a circle of string around an area of grass and look really carefully at all the different things you can see there. Make a list or draw pictures of all the different things you can see. It might include bugs, different types of grasses, soil, flowers and stones. You can also do this with a friend to see if they can find different items to you.
Investigating bugs
Arm yourself with some small containers (see-through if possible) and a magnifying glass and find out what bugs live in your garden. Lift up stones and logs, look in dark corners near sheds, dig around in the soil and find cobwebs on the window sill. See if you can catch some bugs in your containers and talk to an adult about what each bug looks like.
How cool are you?
Go for a hunt around your house and find which places are the warmest and which are the coolest. Write the names of each place on these cards, or can you draw a picture showing the place? Can you put the cards in order from the warmest to the coolest place?
Be a poo detective
Poo is always a fascinating subject for children and definitely gets their attention! Why not go for a nature walk and find out which animals have left their smelly remains then answer these questions?
All about worms
Go into your garden and dig up two earthworms. Put them next to each other and see if you can find things that are the same about them and things that are different. Look at their length, their patterns, their colour Can you draw pictures of them both, showing the difference between them? You could also try building your own wormery.
Identify the loudest sound
A fabulous game to encourage discussion and develop your child's reasoning skills whilst learning more about sounds.
Draw a route map
This worksheet encourages your child to think about and draw the journey they take to school with sense of 'aerial perspective'.
Starting to collect data
Encourage your child to ask people about their favourite toys and record the information on this simple table.