Welcome to Year 1 5.9.25

Happy first Friday in Year 1!

Our first week in Year 1 has been absolutely wonderful! Everyone has come in so well, settling quickly into new routines and showing great enthusiasm for learning. The children have worked incredibly hard, shown lovely manners, and impressed us with how polite and thoughtful they are. They've been asking great questions, eager to learn more, and it's been such an exciting week filled with energy, curiosity, and smiles. We're so proud of how well everyone has started their Year 1 journey!

In English this week, we had a very exciting start when we received a letter from Ruby, who kindly offered us a present. We all wrote letters back to her and were gifted with a magical book that comes with one special rule – we must read it VERY slowly (so please do not read this book with the children at home). We have loved exploring its pages, discovering posters and messages from other characters. Everyone has been busy writing letters to Ruby to help the Goose, and some of us even recreated the story in the small world area or helped stick the Goose's feathers back on. It has been such a magical experience, and we cannot wait to see what happens next in the story!

In Maths this week, we were introduced to Roo, who helps us with our maths challenges and makes learning even more fun! We have explored new resources like Numicon and Dienes, practised lots of counting forwards and backwards to 10, and worked on representing numbers in different ways. We also had the chance to do a little bit of work in our brand-new maths books, which was very exciting. It's been a great start to our maths learning in Year 1!

We have also had plenty of time in continuous provision, where we have been learning through play and exploring in lots of different ways. The children have loved building castles and dens in the small world, crafting lighthouses, helping the geese, cooking, reading, and tinkering at the tinker table. We have also enjoyed lots of dancing time together, which has been such a fun part of our busy days!

We have had such a fun-filled week in the afternoons! In our first PE lesson with Coach Beth, we read the story Stick Man and then enjoyed an exciting snowball fight game that got us all moving and laughing together. In Art, we began exploring sculptures and discovered that we are all going to become sculptors! We looked at different examples and learnt that sculptures can be made from anything, as long as they are 3D. We even drew our own pictures of the Paddington Bear sculpture. In Computing, we started learning all about technology, finding out that it isn't just electrical but anything made by people to help us. We went on a technology hunt, talked about staying safe online, and listened to the story Chicken Clicking. In Geography, we started with the story Poles Apart and learnt about the North and South Poles. We sang a song to help us remember the 7 continents, then looked more closely at Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean. We discovered that penguins live in the South Pole in Antarctica, while polar bears live in the North Pole in the Arctic. We also learnt about the equator and how places closer to it are hotter. It has been such an exciting start to our afternoon learning!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Miss Willis