Thursday 25th November

This week the children have taken a real interest in puppets and performing a show. The photographs above show some of the puppets being made during activity time.

In year 1 the children have been looking at the story 'Little Red Riding Hood'. They have been practising using describing words to describe the setting in the story and the wolf. Year 1 have also been rehearsing retelling the story of Red Riding Hood using expression and following a story map to help.

Reception have been looking at 'The 3 Billy Goats Gruff' and today they thought of their own versions including different animals. These included 'The 3 Snakes' 'The 3 Dinosaurs' 'The 3 Crocodiles'. We have also been looking at measures with the children, talking about heavier and lighter.' The children enjoyed a visit from the school nurse to measure their weight and height.

The 'Landlords Cat' is now in full swing. Listen out for the songs at being hummed and sung around the house! Remember that costumes need to be in by Friday 10th December. Any problems with costumes, please do come and see me as there are possibly parents who have a costume from last years performance that you may be able to borrow.

REMINDER: Christmas Bazaar sweetie bags need to be returned to school tomorrow.

Woodland Adventures

Creating more woodland stories using the finger puppets.

Today the children began writing their woodland adventure stories using their characters that they created with Hannah Shaw. Their story setting was also based upon a woodland theme, inspired by their walk on Tuesday. FS2 have written a group story and the year 1s have been writing separate stories.

The children have been writing up their stories to be displayed on the wall. These are not quite complete yet but keep an eye out for them next week on the yellow display board.

FS2 have been reading 'I love you Blue Kangaroo this week and have been thinking about their special toys. They have also been estimating and guessing in maths.

NOTE: Keep an eye out for more WOW! vouchers that will be sent home tomorrow. Please return at least 2 before the end of the Christmas term. Thank you very much for the vouchers recieved this term.

Back to School!

The children and staff were back in full swing today at school. This week is a special week as it is Book Week and this morning the children met the author Hannah Shaw. Hannah read lots of her stories to the children including 'Evil Weasel' and 'Erroll the Squirrel'.

http://www.hannahshawillustrator.co.uk/

The children then had a go at creating their own characters for stories that we will be writing later this week. These stories will then be typed up and published in a whole school book that will be available to buy. They also made up new sandwiches for Erroll.

This afternoon we went on a woodland walk to inspire us for our story settings that we will be using in our stories. We found a 'T-Rex bone', thought about magical woodland trees and other creatures that we might meet in the woods!

REMINDER: The local paper photographer will be coming to take a group photograph of the Reception children on Thursday. Please come and see me if you would like to talk to me about it or if you have any concerns.

NOTE: We will be going on a trip to Gloucestershire Airport next Thursday (11th). Letters will be sent out later this week.

Over the last few days!

Apologies that the blog has not been up and running over the last few days. Here is a little update of what we have been doing in Class 1.The children made wind birds to investigate and explore the wind as a pushing force.

Reminder: Class 1's Assembly will be at 2:45pm in Class 3 on Thursday. Come and see what we have been learning about this term.

Year 1 went to see Nick Sharratt at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Friday.

Thursday 7th October

Year 1 working together on measuring different objects using cubes.

FS2 measuring the length of different snakes and comparing them.

Otto made a picture of Kasper to go with his text.

Thank you for your support with our art sale. We hope you liked the paintings. The children had been so excited about holding it at the end of the day.

Year 1 have continued writing lists today and talking about length and height.

FS2 have been playing the next number name game which they really enjoyed.

This afternoon we have been practising our song for harvest festival and the year 1 children typed some text up on the computer about Kasper and what he will learn when he starts his training.

REMINDER: Cake Sale tomorrow. 25p per cake.

NOTE: We have been so busy this week that we haven't heard year 1 read as much as we would usually do. We will ensure that their books are changed ready for the weekend.

ART SALE - Tomorrow after school

The children's 'Art Sale' is to raise money for Kasper our class guide dog puppy.

This morning the year one children created fliers to advertise their art sale that they will be holding tomorrow at the end of the day. They thought carefully about what they needed to include on these fliers. You should find a flier in their bags advertising the sale.

The children will each be selling their own piece art work to their parents/grandparents etc at the cost of 25p.

Please support the children after school as they are very keen to collect money for Kasper.

This afternoon we went on a learning walk to the village green. The children were investigating all the autumn leaves and natural materials. They collected leaves and made repeating patterns such as leaf, conker, leaf, conker. We also did lots of counting of the leaves and managed to collect more than 100. The children will have brought home a special object that they found on their walk.

Fundraising: Art Sale

Receptions topic this week is based upon air transport. They have been learning about one more and making number sentences to match.
Some of reception make paper aeroplanes, following instructions and drawing a given number of cats on their plane. They also practised writing the numeral.


Today the children were thinking about how they could raise their first 25p for Kasper this month. We have decided to have an art sale of the children's work on Thursday after school. The children this afternoon spent a very long time creating beautiful paintings that they are sure you will love and will want to buy in aid of Kasper and his training. The children have been incredibly enthusiastic and are so keen to help Kasper. The paintings are based upon the work of Wassily Kandinsky as this fits into our topic of 'repeating patterns' in art. Keep an eye out for a flier inviting you to come and view/buy their art work.

Year 1 have been very busy today measuring different lengths and finding objects that were longer/shorter than each other. We also had a go at alliteration and describing pictures on t- shirts such as

a beautiful butterfly shirt (Sid)
a racing rocket shirt (Elyse)
a daft dog shirt (Amy)
a daring dinosaur (Elliott)
a fun football shirt (Otto)

Growing and favourite clothing

Practising sounds and becoming aware of letters whilst playing teachers. This is 'Mrs Ayling'!

Year 1s have begun a new topic in Literacy this week. They are looking at non-fiction writing and investigating labels, lists and captions. We began this topic by talking about our favourite item of clothing. Later this week and during next week we will be looking at clothing labels and shop sale captions.

Reception have shown a real interest in digging, planting and growing so today they talked about growing plants with Mrs Wallace and had compost, gloves and seeds to be gardeners outside. We were also looking at one more, which the children really enjoyed and we introduced the idea of a number sentence to record one more e.g. 3 + 1 = 4.

Today Reception began their first phonics lesson and were introduced to the letter 's'. This is now in their book bag to practise the action and write the letter each night. Please note that the sound is not 's' pronounced with an 'u' after it. It is pronounced 'ssssssssss' like the sound a snake would make. We will cover 4 sounds each week.

Thursday 30th September

This morning the year 1 children worked with their photographs that they had brought in from home. They really enjoyed trying to identify each other in the pictures! Even Miss Fogarty and Mrs Wallace and their baby photos! They then wrote sentences about when they were little and things that they did.

We have been spending lots of time preparing the reception children before they begin learning their sounds and making words. We have been doing lots of sounding out and game playing such as 'Put your hands on your h-ea-d, ch-ee-k-s, t-oe-s, b-a-ck. This will prepare them for hearing sounds in words and putting sounds together to create a word. I spy can also be played like this at home.

Year 1 created some beautiful transport images on the computers today using paint. Come and see them on display in our classroom tomorrow morning. They are fantastic and the children demonstrated some very good mouse skills.

Reception thoroughly enjoyed their learning this afternoon, playing on the bikes outside and helping Mrs Wallace to make pastry.

REMINDER: All reception children will be in full time from tomorrow. If we have any concerns about your child and how they are coping full time we of course will have a chat.

Wednesday 29th September

We went to PE this morning in the Village Hall. The children are getting much quicker at changing into their PE kit. Some of the Reception children just need to master the art of putting their coats on! When we got to the village hall we played lots of games with hoops, including the run away dog! The children thoroughly enjoy using all the space and being active in their learning.

Reception today continued to look at the story 'Mr Gumpy's Motorcar'. They talked about their own reasons why they couldn't have helped Mr Gumpy push the car like the animals had done. They came up with some very good excuses!
This afternoon we looked at Barnaby Bear's holiday to Paris. The children thought about all the different types of transport that their teddy could use to get from their homes to Paris. Danny and Oliver made a fantastic Eurostar train, which they have very kindly photographed above for you!
DO YOU HAVE? If you have any children's magazines that have been read at home and are about to go in the recycling please don't throw them away, send them into school. The children would love to have the magazines in their book box. Sadly, children's magazines are very expensive and also very popular. We just can't meet the demand!

REMINDER: Year 1 need to bring their photograph in tomorrow of when they were a baby or toddler.

Reception are settling in well and making new friendships

Some of the children working together and forming new friendships.

Reception have begun their learning journeys, drawing a picture of themselves as an introduction and writing their name.

The year 1 children had a very special letter from Humpty Dumpty this afternoon. He was in hospital after his accident. The children had to help him to understand why he had fallen off the wall and what other things they could think of that fall to the ground and why this was the case? We talked about gravity and all the different objects that fall to the ground including us when we are on the trampoline, conkers and leaves from the trees and plates when we wash up! The children then wrote a card to Humpty to wish him well and explain what happened.

REMINDER: Year 1 please remember to bring in your photograph when you were a baby/toddler in on Thursday.

Reception will begin to stay full time this week. Your child will begin to stay full time on the day of the week that they originally started school. This will be either Wednesday , Thursday or Friday of this week.

Monday 27th September

Amber drew a fantastic picture and talked about a problem that she had on a journey.

Reception this week are reading the story 'Mr Gumpy's Motor Car.' Today we talked about Mr Gumpy's adventure and the problems that he faced when he got stuck in the mud. Some of the children talked about their experiences when they had car problems.

Harry - 'I went to Bristol Zoo. It took 17 hours!'
Eleanor - 'I got stuck in the snow with my mummy, daddy and sister.'
Oscar - 'Daddy's car is old. It broke.'

Elyse wrote a lovely piece of work about her grandparents

Year 1 are looking at a story called 'Grandma's Bill' this week. They started by talking about their grandparents and writing words to describe them.

This afternoon year 1 continued talking about Barnaby Bear and his travels. We made passports for our teddies so they can now go on holiday to different countries with Barnaby.

Thank you to Elliott for looking after Crispin the class bear over the weekend. He had a fantastic time at Elliott's house. Elliott looked after him very well, taking him to a restaurant for tea and collecting 43 conkers!! Crispin also has a lovely new bed to sleep in when at school and some fantastic warm socks and a woolly hat for those cold winter nights!

Have you noticed our 'WOW! Wall in the classroom? We have all the reception childrens learning on display and current photographs about what they have been learning. Come and have a look?

Extra WOW! vouchers if you need them are also pinned to the board so please help yourself.

Thursday 23rd September

Yesterday we had PE at the village hall. The children practised listening and responding to a musical instrument when warming up. We also travelled in different ways including like crabs, bears, snakes and rabbits. We then used beanbags, playing games and balancing them on different body parts.

The year 1 children now have literacy targets which they are being encouraged to practise and remember when doing their work. Their targets are on their table. They also have a 'I can..' book in their trays. This has a collection of flowers in showing what they can do already. Ask your child their target, they should be able to tell you what it is!

FS2 had a fantastic time acting out the story of 'Oi Get Off Our Train' today outside with chairs and making animal sounds. We have been practising recognising dots on a dice and matching our fingers to the number

NOTE: If you did not attend the Class meeting last week, please come and collect a copy of the powerpoint from the meeting.

REMINDER: Mrs Southall would like the children to bring in a photograph of their family for tomorrows work.

Tuesday 21st September

This morning we continued looking at the stories that are the focus for this weeks learning. The year 1 children have been looking at stories and identifying the beginning, middle and end. Today they were given a story about Crispin and asked to talk about a good ending with their talk partner. The children recorded their ideas as a drawing and tomorrow they will write their endings.

Reception did a super job at counting today using their fingers and working with number fans. They boys discovered a new construction toy outside and enjoyed building all sorts of exciting things. We also had the balancing beams and they had a fun time playing 'sharks' if you fell off.

REMINDER: WOW! Vouchers. Please remember to return your wow vouchers to school. If you need more, we will make sure more are available on the display in the classroom.

Today we had the school photographer. He took some beautiful pictures of the children whilst working. We also had a whole school photograph. We are looking forward to seeing the pictures and the proofs arriving at the beginning of next week. The children thought the photographer was fantastic and great fun! He even went away with a drawing by Sydney and inspired Millie to be a photographer for the duration of the morning!!

FS2 have begun looking at the story 'Oi get off our train' in their literacy and their maths. They were thinking about the sounds that the different animals might make as they travelled on the train. We also counted all the animals who got on the train one by one and some of the children worked on matching amounts with numerals.

Year 1 are looking at 'Where's my teddy?'. They told stories about their experiences of losing something precious with their talk partners. They thought about how they felt and where they found their lost object. We had a fantastic 'experience' where somebody had lost a toy monkey at the zoo, found it in a tree in the monkey cage and the monkey passed it back to them. A very creative story to say the least.

This afternoon the year 1's began thinking about journeys. Today we learnt about Barnaby bear and the different countries that he has visited. The children were very knowledgeable about the world.

REMINDER: Please keep sending in any junk that we could use for junk modelling.

Thursday 16th September

Funbrain Playground

Poisson Rouge

Class 1 had a very busy day today. We finished our literacy work this morning where the year 1's have been creating and writing about their own characters from dinosaurs to witches.

FS2 recapped the class rules and drew a picture of themselves to go up next to the rules to show that they agree to the rules and will try hard to remember them.

We did maths outside this morning. FS2 continued to practise their days of the week whilst chanting and matching around the playground. The year 1's looked at which number out of two was more. We got a little stuck on numbers such as 17 and 71. We have been doing lots of practise with teen numbers, writing and recognising.

This afternoon the year 1's had computer time upstairs. They enjoyed a website: http://www.funbrain.com/brain/SweepsBrain/sweepsbrain.html They played some games to practise their mouse skills. They also learnt how to turn on the computers, find internet explorer and search on google.

Another fantastic website for both year 1 and FS2: http://www.poissonrouge.com/poissonrouge.php

(sadly we don't use this one at school because it is filtered for some unknown reason!)

Mrs Southall will be the class teacher all day in Class 1 tomorrow as Miss Fogarty and Mrs Shiner are on a course.

Wednesday 15th September

Today we did PE for the first time this term. For the new FS2 children this was the first time that had encountered PE in school. We talked about all the rules that we have to remember on the lane such as holding hands with your partner and no talking. The children also tested out our new yellow jackets that every child must now wear when out of school as a class.
The children walked up to the village hall and we played some games together before walking back to school.

FS2 talked about the days of the week, which ones are school days and those that are not.

REMINDER: Please make sure your child's clothes are labelled. We had lots of clothes today that were brand new and had no name. These are now sitting in the classroom unclaimed after just the first PE session!

Tuesday 14th September

We had a go at bouncing a ball on the floor and talked about the force being used.

Playing 4-pin bowling

Tug of war - we hope to go and have a proper tug of war on the green when the weather improves later this week!

This afternoon the year 1's explored pushes and pulls. They used a variety of equipment to investigate what force they were using and which body parts they were using to carry out the movement.

This morning, the year 1 children wrote lists of food that the tiger might eat at their house. These will be up on our tiger display on Friday morning, so come and see!

FS2 were focussing today upon sequencing and ordering language such as first, next, then, after that, later on and finally. They watched a film clip about a boy who went on a trip in the holidays to a museum. They have also begun looking at ordinal numbers and sequencing pictures.

Monday 13th September

All the new FS2 children are beginning to settle into school life and form new friendships in the classroom. They are also beginning to learn the routines of the class.

Reminder: FS2 children will begin staying for lunch this week. Their first day staying for lunch will be the day they started school. E.g. If they started last Thursday, they will begin staying for lunch on Thursday.

FS2 started their topic today thinking about journeys on holiday and days out. They all talked about their holidays and what they had done. They have also begun to look at the different seasons.

Year 1 have been working on ordering the story of 'The tiger who came to tea'. They were learning about the beginning, middle and end of stories.

We have been doing lots of work on teen numbers, writing and recognising.

Thursday 9th September

Welcome to Millie, Molly, Amber and Oliver who all started school today. They listened so carefully to things that they needed to remember and settled in very well!

This morning the year 1 children wrote invitations to invite someone special to an event of their choice. They had to remember key features of an invitation including who the invitation was for, what it was for, where it was going to happen, and when.

In maths we began to learn how to count in tens. The children did this so well and even began to add 10p coins up by counting in tens.

This afternoon we went on a walk around the village looking for text in the environment. The children soon realised that text is everywhere. We also on our journey spotted a cockeral, giant root, and estimated how many chimney pots we could see across the valley!

Wednesday 9th September

Welcome to Danny who started in FS2 today. The year 1's throughly enjoyed looking after him and showing him around!

Today we practised working with our talk partners more. The children have continued to look at 'The tiger who came to tea' and today they thought about special people who have come to their house for tea. We talked about who those special people were and what they ate when they came round. Visitors ranged from grandparents to special friends.

In maths we talked about estimating and the children enjoyed playing an estimating game together.

This afternoon we started our science topic 'Pushes and Pulls'. To introduce the topic, the children explored different movements outside and collected data in the form of a tally about the movements that they could see.

REMINDER: Class 1's parents meeting will be after school on Monday 13th September, It would be lovely to see you all there.

Tuesday 7th September

Today the children began reading the story 'The tiger who came to tea'. They really enjoyed the story and we talked about what the tiger might find to eat in their house if he came to tea. The children did this with their talk partner.
We then thought up new story titles based upon the idea of 'The tiger who came to tea'.

Some ideas included:

• The lion who came to lunch.

• The lion who went to The Lamb.

• The crocodile who came to the cafe

The children are very excited about meeting the new FS2 children from tomorrow onwards.

Reminder: Parents are still more than welcome to come into class on Friday mornings for your child to show you their work and around the classroom. They have pictures of 'Kasper' that they would love to show you on the wall!

Meet Kasper our guide dog!

Meet Kasper, Class 1's sponsored guide dog. Kasper is a guide dog puppy and is about to begin his training. It takes 2 years for a guide dog to become fully trained and matched to a blind person. Kasper is about to begin his journey, which costs over £40,000!

Class 1 will be following Kasper and his training over the next two years. The children will be encouraged to make contributions towards his training through raising money (in small amounts!) in a variety of ways. This will encourage them to raise money for charity and demonstrate giving and generosity.

There will be lots of ways that we will encourage the children to raise money including earning money doing jobs at home, selling their artwork and holding charged events.

We will keep you posted about their next task in order to raise money!

Class 1 - Sponsor a Guide Dog

Misty

Julia

Kasper

Who will the children choose?

This year Class 1 will be sponsoring a guide dog from a puppy until it becomes a fully trained guide dog.

More information to follow!

Friday 3rd September

Photographs being used in the classroom to help the children tidy and remember where things go. They can check the picture to see what it should look like.

This morning Mrs Southall taught the children while Mrs Shiner and myself began the home visits for the new reception children.

With Mrs Southall, the children began to learn about working with a talk partner. This is something which we are developing across the school and will encourage the children's speaking and listening skills.

The children have also been rehearsing classroom routines over the last two days including the new tidying routines at the end of the day and lunchtime routines.

This afternoon we practised some word work in preparation for setting word lists for homework next week. The children also had their 'Golden Time' this afternoon and enjoyed looking for minibeasts outside.

Welcome Back!

The new term began today and the summer holidays are already a distant memory. All 9 new year 1's arrived this morning refreshed and ready to go.
You will notice that there have been a few changes in our classroom. We now have areas including a construction corner, home corner, book corner, writing table and a creation station. All these areas give the children access to resources of their choice throughout the day. Here are a few photos of our new classroom design.

Book Corner

Construction Corner

We talked a lot about our class rules this morning and then drew pictures of ourselves this afternoon to agree to these rules. Our class rules are:

- We are honest, we don't cover up the truth.
- We are gentle, we don't hurt others.
- We listen, we don't interrupt.
- We look after property, we don't damage things.
- We are kind and helpful, we don't hurt other peoples feelings.
- We work hard, we don't waste time.

We also talked about the rules that we find tricky to remember and that we need to work hard on.

Year 1 will now be having their lunch upstairs in Class 2 along with FS2 and year 2. It will be nice for them to still be able to play with some of their class friends from last year.

Well done for all your hard work reading over the summer holidays. It has really payed off and means that we can continue where we left last term rather than working on all the things forgotten over the holidays.

Wednesday 30th June

As the end of the school year draws closer the timetable and routine is beginning to become more flexible to accommodate the school performance practises and various other end of year things happening in each class.

This week Class 1 have been writing some 'Wind in the Willows' adventure stories based upon those adventures had by Mr Toad, Mole, Ratty and others. The year 1 children have written up their stories ready to be displayed at the performance so keep an eye out when you come to see it.

Reception this week are looking at the story 'The Sand Horse'. Today they painted watercolour pictures and added images of the horse and the white horses in the waves. They have also been making sand sculptures in a large tray.

Reception have also been looking at 3D shapes including pyramids and cones. Yesterday they had a go at making their own pyramids.

Year 1 have been trying to understand the concept of numbers being made of tens and units.

REMINDER: On Friday the year 1 children will be going into Class 2 for the day in preparation for their transition into class 2 from September.

Wednesday 23rd June

Preparations for sports day were well under way today. The children had their final practise and had a go at running in a lane. We spent the morning having fun with sports day related activities including the relay, jumping in sacks and the egg and spoon race. The children are now fully prepared for tomorrow and very excited.

Sports day will begin at 9:30am at Bussage Primary School playing field. Bring your trainers! There will be a mums race and dads race!!

Welcome to Tammi who has joined us in year 1.

REMINDER: Please come in PE kit tomorrow with a t-shirt that is the right colour for your house team. Scott=blue, Grace= red, Morris= green. Don't forget to bring your PE kit bag back with your school clothes to change into.