We’ve had another fantastic day in Year 1 with a special visitor coming to see us!

We started off our morning practicing recognising numbers as words. We practiced recognising the number and then representing it on a ten frame. We also practiced matching the numeral, word and the number of objects together.

After lunch we had a special visitor for our History lesson! Our key question for our History unit this half term is “What was life like when our grandparents were younger?”.

Mrs McCloskey came to visit us in Year 1 to talk about what life was like when she was little. We spoke about the games she used to play (Jacks, Elastics, What’s the time Mr Wolf), how she used to play outside, the technology she had. We also talked about the food she ate and how her mummy didn’t know how to cook sweet and sour chicken or curry as they weren’t things people ate.

Mrs McCloskey told us all about her black and white TV with only 4 channels and how her mum used to wash her clothes. She even brought in her very special doll Shirley that she has had since she was a girl. We loved listened and asked some fantastic questions too!

Please encourage your children to talk to their grandparents about what life was like when they were younger as we would love to share lots of stories.

We finished off our day by counting up the pebbles on our book vote station to decide our story of the day. Today’s winner was the story the Lion Inside by Rachel Bright!

The joy and happiness of the first day of Year 1 has continued through the first two weeks of the year. I am so proud of how well the children have settled into Year 1 and the progress they are already making. They all come into school every day with a smile, ready to learn and enjoy their time in school. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for us as a class.

We have already packed so much learning into just a few short days!

Some of our highlights include:

Maths – sorting, counting and representing numbers in different ways, taking our learning outside to practice counting objects as part of a larger group.

English – writing speech bubbles for the colour monster, creating our own Colour Monsters, exploring the features of recounts and recounting our favourite day of the Summer holidays.

Art – Collecting leaves in forest school and using them to create autumnal hedgehog artwork outside. Exploring drawing spirals in many different ways – big, small, moving our whole bodies or just part, loud, quiet, fast and slow.

RE – Celebrating God’s creations by going on a creation walk, taking part in our first prayer service of Year 1, learning the creation story and sequencing it in the correct order. Celebrating Mary our Mother’s birthday and colouring in some beautiful pictures.

PE – Practicing getting changed independently and enjoying our first PE lesson with Mr Youson.

History – Talking about what History is and generating some questions for a special visitor next week.

Other learning – Spending time learning outside, visiting Forest school and playing on the trim trail.

Reminder:

The Teddy Bear Hospital is coming to visit on Wednesday, please bring in an appropriately sized teddy bear to take part in the activities. (We do have a few spares at school just in case you forget!)

VIP Reader:

We are planning to get our VIP reader started for the year. This involves a new adult/visitor coming into school on a Friday just before the end of the day to read the children a story of the visitors choice.

If you would like to volunteer, have a family member or know somebody that has an interesting job or hobby who would like to come to school to read to the class please email me so we can get you booked in.

As always an questions, queries or concerns please email me at [email protected]