Class Teacher: Mrs Gaye Classroom Assistant: Mrs Orton
Hello and welcome to Class 1 where we have plenty of fun learning through play.
PE is on a Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon. Please make sure your child comes to school in full PE kit which is navy blue tracksuit bottoms or shorts, a red polo t-shirt and plimsoles or trainers.
Homework and reading books are given out on a Monday. Please return them to school on a Friday.
Helpful Heroes
This term we will be exploring the topic of Helpful Heroes by learning about people who help us. We will look at different people who help us in different situations; people who help us at home, at school, that help to keep us safe, help us to get food and help us to stay healthy. We will be looking at different books every two weeks which will include stories and lots of non-fiction. We will be doing lots of talk and discussion, thinking of questions and Reception will be doing some great writing too.
We have already completed an art project based on the work of Anthony Gormley where we designed our own superheroes based on an art work called ‘Field’. We made them out of clay and gave them superpowers!
We will be talking about what history is and will compare what school was like in Victorian times with how it is today. We will talk about what is the same and what is different. Nursery will be talking about who might have helped us when we were babies and who might help us now.
We will be learning lots of science about how we stay healthy. We will be naming parts of the body, inside and out, and we will learn about what we can do to stay fit and eat well. We will also talk about what happens when we are poorly and who might help us.
We will be doing some geography through a project on our local area. Where do we get our food from? What countries do some of our food come from if we can’t grow it here? We will be drawing maps and talking about how we can be superheroes to help our planet.
In maths for the first half term we will be exploring numbers; finding out how to make numbers, recognising numerals and counting. We will be learning what happens to numbers when we add and take away objects and we will be spotting patterns in number. In the second half term we will be doing lots of investigations into measuring length, height, weight and capacity.
In PE we will be rescuing a Princess! We will be practising all sorts of skills like throwing and aiming, climbing and balancing, through an obstacle course, avoiding the knights shooting arrows to rescue the princess from her tall tower.
And throughout the term we will be exploring and learning through our play. We will have some different role play areas, creating lovely art and crafts and hopefully spending lots of time outdoors, growing seeds, learning about nature and getting messy in the sand, water and sensory trays.
We have been learning about what history is. Reception had a look at some old photos of schools 100 years ago and thought about what was the same and what was different about our school now.
We then found lots of old photos from our school with lots of past pupils on, We recognised some of them. We spotted some of our mams and dads and aunties and uncles who came to this school when they were little too.
People Who Help Us in School
We have been finding out about all the important people who help us in our school. We thought of some questions to ask them then invited them into our class for an interview. They let us visit where they work too and we got to find out about all the important things they do to help keep our school running.
We spoke to Miss Ellison, the Head Teacher, Leanne the School Cook, Mrs Stockdale, our Lunchtime Supervisor, Mr Robinson, the School Caretaker and Miss Irwin, the School Secretary.
We talked about and drew who helps us at home and who our real life super heroes are.
We talked about the story of Pentecoste today and about how we have a friend in the Holy Spirit. We talked about how we can't see the Holy Spirit but we can feel it, like the wind. We had a good run around the playground with windmills to remind us that the Holy Spirit is all around us.
We looked at the work of ANthony Gormley, the artists that made The Angel of the North. We create some superhero artwork out of clay that was based on Anthony Gormley's work; The Field.
Myths and Legends.
In our Autumn Term we are learning about traditional tales. We have doen lots of learning each week through different stories.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Gingerbread Man
The Princess and the Pea
The Elves and the Shoemaker
We have been practising balancing on one or two parts of our bodies.
Then it was a lovely windy day so we had a good run around on the field with our ribbon streamers. It really got our hearts pumping fast and made us feel out of breath. We know this is good to keep us fit and make our muscles strong.
We have had a great first few weeks of school. The children seem to be really enjoying themselves and have adapted to the new routines (and teacher) brilliantly. They are making new friends and having great fun playing and learning.
by
Oliver Jeffers
For the first two weeks this term we have been looking at the book Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers. We have learnt about where we live on the Earth and what we do there. We have learned about how to take care of ourselves and about how everyone on this Earth, no matter what colour, shape or size, are all people and we all have to be kind to each other. We have learned about the animals on our planet and how we should take care of them. We have compared quiet spaces to loud, busy places and have talked about how they make us feel and how we can enjoy both. It has been a really lovely book to share.