Class Blog for Class 1

Week ending 25th September 2020

As you can see, we have had some great learning experiences in Class 1 this week.

The children are very enthusiastic about the link to 'What a Wonderful World' as part of our 'Here we are' topic. This week we have been thinking of ourselves as part of that world and have labelled body parts and created different representations of ourselves for display. Everyone was suitably proud of the children around the world part of our display and we had many discussions about why we created this display and what it means.
We have also shared pictures of our families with our friends in class and everyone commented on the similarities and differences which they noticed. Everyone agreed that while individual families may be different, we all have the same need for food, water and being safe, warm and comfortable.
This led to us comparing the needs of humans and animals in our wonderful world and everyone agreed that animals also need food and water and to be comfortable in their natural environment. We had some wonderful chats around this and it is wonderful to see such curiosity displayed by the children.
Therefore, this coming week we shall be investigating the different habitats of some of our favourite creatures because our discussions led us to understand that different animals may need different environments in order to live safely and comfortably.

We made links to the needs of different animals in our autumn senses work, when we referred to our 'Don't Hog the Hedge' story to think about what some creatures need in order to hibernate safely. As you can see, Hattie the Hedgehog was built some great houses during our outdoor learning!

During maths this week, the children in Reception have had a week based around counting. There was some great work to count, recognise numbers and match the correct number of objects to a number. The Year 1 children were also counting - forwards, backwards and investigating one more and one less. They made and labelled some great backwards counting numberlines to 10.

In phonics the Year 1 children are continuing to re-cap their Phase 3 digraphs using games, Phonics Play and in their writing, while in Reception we have focussed on s,a,t,p,i,n,m & d. we also played games and the children started to blend these sounds to read some words. It was great to see some independent word building during LTP Time too.

As you can see, Mrs G and I witnessed lots of super learning this week - very well done to everyone for their focus - so many skills are being built on, including communication and language, PSED, physical and thinking skills.

During the coming week we shall be starting some work on the story of Little Red Riding Hood which will be a whole school focus as a writing project. For our youngest children this will involve learning the story, recognising events and characters and re-telling the tale. We shall begin by learning songs about the first few events in the story this week; this will help the children to become familiar with a version of this well known traditional tale.

A few things to note for this week:
Tuesday - we are starting 'Trainer Tuesday' in Class 1 from this week. Each Tuesday we have a longer period of exercise in class and have been using the field for this. As the autumn weather increases, the grass will get wetter and we may need to use the playground instead so in order to keep running on the hard surface as safe as possible please send your child into school wearing trainers suitable for running in, every Tuesday.
For Thursday - I would like to begin a themed show and tell session each week, yet due to the Coronovirus guidelines, we cannot have items brought into school. Therefore, I would like to ask that you send me a picture which your child can share with us each week, in time for a session on Thursday. This helps to develop the use of talking in complete sentences, listening to others and asking and answering questions. This week's theme is for a picture of something linked to autumn. Please email to: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk
Friday - wear forest school clothes into school instead of uniform.
Each day - please keep sending reading books and records in for us to change.

Week ending 18th September 2020

It feels like autumn!

We have had a great week of learning in Class 1.

The children have settled into the daily routines well and are enjoying learning through play in our indoor and outdoor environment.

Our bubble work continued in literacy, when we watched a short story about a girl who found some bubbles. The Reception children drew their interpretation of the story and verbally described what happened, while the Year 1s sounded out to write about the story. Great job!

Maths has been all about repeated patterns - recognising them, saying them, repeating them and creating them! We used paint, actions, bricks, pine cones, sticks and stones to create them! The Year 1s also worked hard to sort and count objects. Well done everyone.

Everyone has also embraced our 'Here We Are' theme and we have focused on how wonderful Earth is. We started to think of our own place on Earth and the children were fascinated to zoom in on our school using Google Earth. We even found some people's homes!
They also enjoyed the song, 'It's a Wonderful World' and were particularly interested in the David Attenborough film clip of the same name. We had several discussions around what makes the world wonderful for us as individuals and realised that we all love creatures but different people prefer some over others.

We also began to think about the changing seasons this week and recognised that we are now in autumn. We took our learning outside for our first senses 'welly walk' and everyone worked in pairs to find autumn treasures as part of a treasure hunt. We thought about which of our five senses we were using and everyone spoke in complete sentences to describe what they could see, hear, smell and touch.

Miss Edwards also took the children to forest school on Friday, which was about learning rules and staying safe while having great fun at the same time!

We spend a great deal of time outside and the grass is wetter now - please do send in a pair of wellies for us to keep at school if you haven't done so yet.

Thank you for sending in reading books and records each day - we change books daily as needed and quarantine books before sending to a new household.

Please do remember to drop off and collect your child at your agreed class time (or that of an older sibling) - we keep each class bubble apart throughout the day, therefore we need to ensure this happens at the gate too.

Thank you for helping us to minimise what is brought into school each day; everyone should be wearing their coat and be carrying no more than a lunchbox, water bottle and reading book. Thank you for your help in keeping everyone safe.

This week, we shall be continuing with our Phase 2 letter sounds and Phase 3 digraphs in phonics as well as our 'Here We Are' work. We shall also be thinking about what makes us good learners; most of all, we shall be learning together and having fun while we are doing so!

If you have any questions or queries, please email me: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk

Week ending 11th September 2020

What a great first week!

Hello everyone, what a super first week we had in Class 1. The children have all settled in beautifully, whether new to Reception, Year 1 or our school. We are very proud of you all.

As well as learning through play and exploring their new environment, everyone made labels for their coat pegs, welly boots, pencil pot and birthday chart as well as creating a bubble with chalk and card for our Class 1 bubble display. We talked about how we are all part of our class bubble and we also used bubble wands to observe bubbles and the children practiced their language skills to describe what the bubbles looked like, especially noting the colours for our artwork.
We also recognised that although we are all part of one bubble, we are all different as individuals. We used rainbows to highlight this, as you can see opposite. The Year 1 children created their own personal rainbows to show what colour their eyes, hair, favourite colours etc are, while the Reception children used the seven colours of the rainbow in their chosen orderto create their own rainbows. Everyone compared how the rainbows are the same, yet different, and acknowledged that in our class we are all different too.
To start off our discussions and artwork we read a story called The Rainbow Machine and the children all showed super listening; it is always a delight to see how stories captivate our children.

For the next two weeks we shall be basing our learning around another story - 'Here We Are', by Oliver Jeffers, when the children will be reflecting further on their place in school and the wider world on Earth. We shall be writing our own class version of the song, 'What a Wonderful World'; Children always amaze me with their creative ideas during learning such as this and I am really looking forward to hearing their ideas and singing our new song.
This unit of work has been produced to help us support our children to reflect on the significant events of 2020 so far and to make sense of the world; 'Here We Are' is a wonderful book and we will be basing much of our continuous provision around the Earth and planets in our solar system, to link with the text.

Last week we all played phonics games, with the children in Reception recognising rhyming words and also the sounds s,a,t,p,i,n. Year 1 learners played games to re-cap their Phase 3 digraphs and we shall be building on this learning for both groups this week.

In maths this week our number work for Year 1 will be based on place value - recognising and writing numbers correctly, estimating and counting to check. In Reception we shall be recognising, describing and creating patterns.

We have a great week to look forward to and lots of new things to learn. Mrs G and I are excited to start our learning journey together.

Parents, please remember to check the reminders on the email I sent out on Friday; if anyone has any queries please do not hesitate to email me: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk

Welcome Back!

Welcome to you all

Hello everyone, it is so good to be welcoming you back to school, whether you were last here at pre-school, in Class 1, or from somewhere different. We are so looking forward to our first week together and we have lots of settling in activities and games planned for you.
We shall, of course, be learning through play and we call this 'LTP time' (Learning Through Play time) and we shall be outside in the fresh air for this as much as possible.

If you are returning into Year 1 you will find that our classroom looks a little bit different, but the fun we have will be the same! You have probably noticed that the way we do things in the world around us has changed a bit and some of our routines will also be slightly different. This week will be all about learning those new ways of doing things together.

We are also very pleased to be welcoming back Mrs G, our lovely teaching assistant in Class 1. We will be remaining in our class bubble in order to follow guidelines and stay safe so Mrs G will also be in our bubble every day. We may have fun with actual bubbles too!

Our learning for the coming week will be to settle in, learn the rules and routines and above all, begin our learning journey through playing and exploring together.

Parents, these weekly blogs will continue - please check in every weekend to find out about what your child has been learning, what they will be learning for the next week and for other news and information.

As always, it is absolutely vital that we all work together for the benefit of your children and we are always here to help - if you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact me: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk.

Mrs G and I are excited at the thought of seeing you all very soon now; have a great weekend and see you all in the coming week.