Welcome to Y1- 03.09.21

It has been a fantastic two days welcoming you back to school as our new Y1s. We have spent the week getting to know each other and exploring our new topic of TRANSPORT. I was amazed to see your confidence shine through, your eagerness to work hard and the kindness you have shown to each other.

On Thursday, you entered our classroom smiling away and there was a buzz in the air as you were telling your friends and your new teachers all about your summer. I have loved hearing all about your adventures! We started our Monday off with a story called 'Monty the Manatee' and this story was all about starting school and the worries you may have. You all shared what you were worried and excited about and then we came up with some ideas about how we can overcome these worries. We understood in the story that Monty was a little bit different from everyone else in his school so we talked about how we are all different to each other but how we should accept and celebrate diversity. This book led us onto our first activity where you all drew a self-portrait that will be put on our class board. You thought very carefully about your hair colour, eye colour and even the shape of your face. I was so proud of your drawings! In the afternoon, you were introduced to your topic and you were all very excited to hear that we were learning about transport. We thought about our favourite types of transport and even the types of transport that we may have used over the summer. I then introduced you to our big art and told you that in a group you were going to make your own hot air balloon. To underpin this activity, you learnt that the Montgolfier brothers were the first people to invent the hot air balloon and we learnt about how they made the first ever flying machine. Did you know they put a duck, rooster and a sheep in the hot air balloon first? You then spent the afternoon creating your hot air balloons out of mod roc and paper mache.

On Friday, you finished your hot air balloons by covering them with another layer of paper mache and mod roc. We then learnt how a hot air balloon works and watched an eye opening video of a hot air balloon taking off. You were all amazed about how big they are! We looked carefully at how bright they were and the different colours that are used. You then worked hard to design your own hot air balloon and thinking about the different colours/ patterns you are going to use. Next week we will build upon this learning by painting our hot air balloons and attaching our baskets onto them so we can then display them in the classroom. We also did our first bit of writing on Friday and we looked at how we can use our Fred talk to spell different words. You tried to do this independently so that you can show me everything you know about writing. I was so proud to see all of your amazing letter formations and I can tell you have worked super hard in reception!

As well as completing lots of transition activities and big art, you have spent a lot of time exploring our provision indoors and outdoors. You have loved digging in the mud pit, creating delicious dinners in the mud kitchen and even creating different types of transport in the making area. Your imagination and creativity amazes me every day!

I hope you all have a superb weekend and I am excited to see you all again on Monday for a whole week of learning in Y1.

Miss Haynes