On Friday, the children really enjoyed walking around our school grounds looking for art work and poems created by Year 6. We were given a map of the grounds and were tasked with finding the pieces of work labeled from 1-16. We noticed lots of beautiful art work and listened to lots of brilliant poems about Remembrance Day. We watched a short clip in class to help us understand a little more why we remember, and we also took part in the 2 minute silence at 11am.

This week in PSHE we have been thinking back to worries that we had when we were moving into year 1. We thought back to our Reception classes and teachers, classrooms and toys and thought about what worried us about moving up to year 1. Lots of children were a little worried about having a new teacher, new classroom, new toys, some children were worried about new phonics groups and maths work. We sat together as a class and wrote these worries on a piece of paper. Once we had talked through these worries and made sure that each one had been addressed – we ceremoniously ripped our worries up and threw them in the bin! We don’t need to hold onto these worries anymore. We may have new worries and we spoke about writing them down for our class worry monsters or telling a trusted adult.

Don’t be worried, the children were safe and supervised but we thought lots of children would come home and say we have been sewing and parents would just not believe it! It was unbelievable how many children were able to thread their length of sewing cotton through the very small eye of the needle. We talked about perseverance and trying our best, and the children were shocked at their own ability to thread their needle! We were so proud of the way that the children handled this DT lesson – they were confident and sensible. We learnt how to do a simple running stitch and the children each completed at least two independent stiches which is fantastic.

We had designed an animal print, thought about the resources that we would need, created our animal pattern and then sewed into our design. They looked fantastic!

Please don’t forget

If you could email me one photo of your child/family on a day out or holiday somewhere in the UK, we will turn them into a lovely display in class. If you could write your child’s name and where the photo was taken in the email that would be greatly appreciated. 

kate.fraser@allertonceprimary.com

Examples of what your picture could be:

• a picture at the beach
• a picture at the park
• a picture on a holiday

This week we have been looking at parts of a whole. We use our hands to show part part whole (hands come together for whole). The children have been very practical with their learning, using double sided counters to show each group.

We have also talked about what makes a good or bad secret in PSHE. The children listened to scenarios and decided which they would keep and which they would have to tell. This follows on from our previous lessons on safe adults and real dangers. We spoke about good secrets being ones that might make us or others feel joyful, happy or excited, whereas secrets that make us feel scared, worried or sad are ones that we must share with a safe adult.

This week we have been starting to use the language ’who’, ’what doing’, ’what’ when thinking about sentence structure. We call this an M sentence as it is a main clause sentence. We have colour coded boxes to help the children visualise their sentences. We have also introduced colourful punctuation to help the children remember that sentences need capital letters and full stops! When the children complete writing challenges or activities they have a coloured pencil and a normal pencil with them.

In PSHE this week we had a think about what a real danger is and how we might be able to tell if it is real. We sorted pictures into two lists – real or not real. We had discussions about children being on the internet unsupervised and why this could be dangerous, as well as how a picture of traffic could possibly be dangerous to us.

All week the children have been looking forward to Sam’s Safari coming in on Friday and getting to meet some of her animals. We have been learning about lots of different animals and have learnt characteristics of different animal groups. We were able to show off some of our knowledge on Friday and helped group the animals Sam brought to school. There were amphibians, reptiles and mammals ready to meet us.

We were all very excited but managed to stay quiet enough for the animals and enjoyed touching their skin. Some were scaly, some were slimy, some were soft.

Enjoy some pic collages of our time with Sam!

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This week in PSHE we have been thinking about the idea ‘pants are private’. This follows from our scheme of work and we have taken a fun video from the NSPCC website to begin our conversation around this topic. We first talked about the ground rules for PSHE circle time and the children all had some lovely ideas about how to make it a safe circle.

They talked about how we trust each other, we must listen, be kind, accepting and understanding. They each designed their own pair of pants after our session – some of them were out of this world!

The children have been getting stuck into our challenges this week. They have been very independent with their learning and are encouraging their friends to join in too. There has been a lot of lovely supportive talk in year 1 this week, with lots of children inviting their friends in to their games or activities and sharing kind thoughts.

We have been looking at being Team Ant in school this week and have been showing off some of our team ant skills such as collaboration, empathy and listening. We have stickers for the children if they are demonstrating any of these skills and they love working for one! Here is a photo from each class, showing us working collaboratively.

We are so delighted to welcome the children into Year 1 and the children have had a great start. This week, it has been great fun getting to know the children and for them to get to know their new classroom. We have enjoyed reading ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’, the children are learning it off by heart and have added some actions, they think it is very funny!

We have launched the topic of ‘Animal Kingdom’ and the children have been listening to some stories by Mwenye Hadithi for example The Lazy Lion and The Greedy Zebra. We are starting to think about where animals live and what they eat. Towards the end of the week we looked at world maps and globes and noticed the different features.

We are really impressed as to how well the children have settled into their new routines and we are looking forward to a full week next week when they will have PE and Assembly. please see the weekly email for more details.

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