Welcome to Class 1!

Class 1 have had a super start to the Autumn term, as we have explored our topic ‘People Who Help Us’. We have been extremely lucky to have had a number of visitors to our classroom, including a nurse, fire fighters, police officers, a dental nurse and a veterinary nurse. We had the opportunity to find out all about their jobs, what they do each day, and how they help us and our communities. We also had lots of questions to ask them! One of our very special visitors was Mrs Gent’s dog, Nelly, who came to show us all how she helps people and makes them feel happier.

Alongside learning our school rules and routines, we have been learning how to use our new classroom to it’s full potential. From making boats, kites and chicken houses with the junk in our creation station; to listening to stories in our listening station; to celebrating birthday parties in our home corner and picking sunflower seeds to strengthen our fingers. We have been very busy learning, playing, sharing and creating.

One of our stories this term was ‘Ness the Nurse’, by Nick Sharratt. We linked this story to science and learnt all about the different parts of our body, making sure we knew where each part was, in case we needed a plaster! We got to play with plasters and make sure there were 10 in Ness the Nurse’s case.

Another of our stories this term was ‘What the Ladybird Heard’, by Julia Donaldson. This story was already a firm favourite of some children in our class, which made learning all about it even more fun! We have created our own maps for the thieves to follow, drawn ‘wanted’ posters to help the police to catch the thieves, and devised with our own plans to stop the thieves from stealing the fine prize cow. We learnt a story map of the story and loved making all of the animal noises!

In maths, year 1 have been securing their knowledge of numbers to 10. We have made the numbers, found 1 more and 1 less, compared the numbers, ordered the numbers and used ten frames to find number bonds to 10. Now that Year 1 are confident with numbers to 10, they will begin to work with numbers to 20. This will include using tens and ones, and gaining confidence using the ‘teens’.

EYFS have done lots of matching and sorting in maths; they’ve sorted by colour, size, shape, and even type (aeroplane, boat, van, car…)! We have been investigating the number 1, watching Numberblocks episodes and exploring the ‘oneness of one’. Before half term we will be exploring number 2 and discussing what is ‘2’, and what is ‘not 2’.

Class 1 have loved their circle time sessions this term, where we have explored our values of respect and kindness. We have shared a number of examples of times that we have been kind, and of when others have been kind to us. We also like to share our plans for the weekend during circle time (and Bumble loves to hear about them too!).

EYFS have been doing lots of listening games to prepare them for phonics, and are now ready to start learning phase 2 sounds. They have been on sound walks, experimented with their voices, explored some musical instruments, played sound bingo and joined in with lots of rhyming stories and nursery rhymes. I’m sure they will be a class full of super duper readers in no time!

Year 1 have been continuing with their phase 5 phonics learning, as they begin to get their head around alternative graphemes for each phoneme. Keep it up year 1, you’re doing a wonderful job!