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.