Autumn 1 - How have I changed?
Autumn 1
Weeks 1-3- Getting to know you!
We’ve had a fantastic few weeks with our lovely new children who have all settled into school so confidently. They have demonstrated resilience and perseverance with their new surroundings and tasks for their first few weeks of school. They have coped amazingly well with lots of new routines and many new faces to learn names for.
We have spent these weeks focusing on our school environment ensuring that they know where to find everything. We have played lots of circle games to help the children to learn each other’s names. Lots of new friendships have been made and it has been wonderful to watch the children interact with each other taking turns and sharing.
We have read lots of stories about starting school. The children could relate to many of the characters in the books and were very keen to talk about how they were feeling. We have taught the children a lovely Hello Hello song which we sing at the beginning of every day. Perhaps you could ask your child to sing it to you!
The children have been listening very well to instructions and have responded well to all staff. Such a wonderful and positive start to their school life.
We hope your children have enjoyed talking to you about their first few weeks with you. They are probably extremely tired after having so much fun and learning lots of new routines. We look forward to seeing them continue to grow and learn with us in up coming weeks.
Please enjoy the photographs. Remember, the children take a lot of these photos themselves. They take photos of their friends and also things they may have built or created. Take time to discuss with your child what is happening in the photos, this is the best insight you will get into your child's life at school and it is also a fantastic opportunity to develop communication, speech and language.
Autumn 1
Week 4
We introduced our first big question of the year this week. ‘How have I changed?’ The children listened to the story, ‘Once there were giants’. They discussed how the main character grew from a baby to an adult and then had her own baby! The children role played growing up, they started as babies crying and drinking milk and then crawled, toddled, walked, ran and then got old and needed a walking stick! The children did their first piece of focused writing. They reflected on their past and wrote about what they did as a baby and compared that to what they do now.
We have now met the first 8 letters in our RWI sessions. The children are enjoying learning the letter sounds and practicing forming the letters correctly. Keep a look out on our Marvellous Me app as we will be sending the links home to the RWI videos for you to share at home.
In Maths, we have been looking at matching, sorting and comparing. The children enjoyed listening to the story of ’The Button Box’. Throughout the week they have been using many different items to match, sort and compare. Their challenge has been to explain why some things match and why some do not.
We are now officially in autumn. The children went on a walk to look for signs of autumn and collected natural items to create autumn crowns and transitional autumn characters with leaves and sticks. We will continue to observe the changes in the trees and outdoor environment as the season moves on.
Week 5
This week we continued learning about ‘How have I changed?’ We read the book Baby Brains and discussed the life cycle of humans. The children sequenced and labelled pictures to show how we grow from babies to toddlers, children to teenagers and adults to elderly. The children were also challenged to draw themselves as a baby and what they look like now, they spoke about what was the same and what was different. We looked at items that they would have used as a baby and compared them to items they would use now. The children used their sorting skills to place each item in the correct column of a table.
Everyone has continued to enjoy looking after the babies in class, changing nappies, feeding them and taking them for walks. We then had a surprise visit from a real baby! Iga’s baby brother Leo came to class with his mummy to show everyone what he could do. The children asked lots of questions like what was his favourite toy?, what does he eat?, What does he sleep in? and can he crawl yet? Leo’s mummy answered the questions. The children then enjoyed copying Leo’s movements on the carpet.
In maths they were continuing to look at matching, sorting and comparing. They explored sorting rules by following rules such as big and small. The children then had to create their own rules based on size, colour or pattern. At the end of the week we looked at fewer and more.
Week 6
This week was all about teeth! The children discussed the changes our teeth go through from a baby having no teeth to being elderly and ending up with no teeth again! We watched videos about how to look after our teeth by brushing and eating healthy foods and what causes decay and cavities. The children used their cutting and sorting skills to show foods that make our teeth happy and food which makes our teeth sad. They practiced their teeth brushing skills by using toothbrushes to clean the laminated teeth. We read the book ‘Tooth’ and then discussed the tooth fairy. The children all wrote a letter to the tooth fairy to tell her how they will look after their teeth.
October is Black History Month. Mrs. Preston, the year 2 teacher from Chennestone, came to do an assembly all about BHM and introduced several influential black female role models. In Reception the children learnt about Mae Jemison, the first black female astronaut to go into space. The children listened to her book and looked at photographs of Mae in space. The children were inspired to create space shuttles of their own using paints, modelling, chalks and drawing.
Maths this week was all about comparing and pattern. At the beginning of the week we explored comparing size, weight and capacity and then we learnt about repeating patterns. We went on a pattern walk to discover pattern in our environment and then used various media to create our own repeating patterns.
We are continuing to introduce letters and their sounds in our phonic lessons. The children are enjoying the routine of phonics and are working very hard on their letter formation.
Use the links below to share this week’s learning at home.
Week 7
The last week of this half term was all about harvest. We learnt about why we celebrate harvest festival. We read the book Oliver’s vegetables and wrote a list of vegetables we would like to have in our harvest soup. We discussed how all the vegetables are healthy and good for our teeth and help us to grow.
Father Andrew came into school and delivered a service about harvest and how the church and everyone’s donations of food helps people less fortunate. The children sang the songs we had been learning and listened to readings by year 1 and 2.
At the end of the week the children chopped and prepared the vegetables to make their harvest soup. It went down extremely well with several children wanting seconds and thirds!
We continued looking at patterns in maths. The children had vegetables in the soil and were challenged to create repeating patterns using the vegetables. Our maths puppet, Mollie Maths, kept getting the patterns wrong and the children had great fun spotting her mistakes and correcting them.
We have had such a busy first half term, the children have now all settled and have got used to our routines. We hope you all have a restful half term holiday!
