Welcome back to school and welcome to the new Year R project – World of Wonder.

On Tuesday, the children spent some time in each class learning about one of the themes within the project. It sparked some imagination and creativity!

Pirates – With Miss Cleaves, the children were introduced to some of the language related to pirates and made their own pirate hook.

Space – With Mrs Benson, the children thought about whether aliens were real or not, and if they were what they would look like. Each child then made their own alien.

Superheros – With Miss Pike the children thought about the sound words linked to superheros and acted out what these words might look like. Words such as POW! BANG! KLANG!

Celebrations – With Mrs Kennedy, the children thought about Guy Fawkes day and created fireworks in the classroom and in the garden.

We will be posting updates on the blog of what the children are learning within this project.

On Thursday 24th October, we would like to invite all Year R parents in to your child’s first project outcome.

Please go to your child’s class where they will share their memory boxes with you and you will have the opportunity to make a photo frame, placing their first school photo on.

Project outcome will start at 2.45 and we look forward to seeing you there.

Year R team

We have been reading the story ‘Leaf Man’ We talked about where Leaf Man might go when the wind blows.

As part of our learning we talked about autumn colours that we could see outside. The children then made their own Leaf Man.

Last week in phonics the children were learning about rhyming words and syllables.

We played lots of games in phonics to help us to hear the rhyming words and the children especially liked silly soup!

We then challenged the children to extend rhyming strings:

log, dog, fog …

pip, hip, lip, zip …

cat, hat, rat, chat …

rug, tug, mug, hug …

If we came across new words, we talked about what they meant in context.

This week we are looking at alliteration and practicing the rhymes:

She sells sea shells on the sea shore.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.

On Friday children in Year R had a special treat – Year 6 children came to visit and share their stories with us. The Year 6 children had written and published them, and wanted to share them with a real audience.

The Year R children listened really carefully to the stories. They answered questions from Year 6 and told them what they thought of their work.

It was lovely to see Year R and Year 6 working together.

Before your child can learn to write letters and numbers correctly, they need to be able to ‘write’ these shapes. This helps them to hold writing tools correctly and ensure they start and finish shapes in the right place.

We have been working on these shapes in class. We have also looked at x-rays of hands from children of different ages and talked about how doing exercises, including drawing, can help build strength.

Have a look at the shapes below and practice them with your child. You could turn this into a game or leave secret messages to other people in their family.

The Year R team would like to say a huge welcome to the new Year R children.

This week most of the children have completed their first full week at school and have been making new friendships within their classes. They have been exploring the school and learning where things are.

The children have been showing how they can be a Proudasaur and Stickasaurus this week and moving their names up the learning ladder.

We look forward to showing you some of the work we will be doing soon.

The children in Year R are starting a transition project that will continue into Year 1. The project is based around the Dr Suess story ‘The Cat in the Hat’.

Children will be listening to the story and finding out about the characters. They will be completing some artwork and writing ready to show their new teacher in Year 1.

So far we have introduced Thing 1 and Thing 2! The children love that they get up to mischief!!

Watch out for more work….

In our linked provision this week, the children have been creating pictures using collage materials. They have had to think about the shape they need and the texture. Here are some pictures they have created.

This week the children listened to the story ‘The Tine Forest’ in which an old man is fed up of looking at other peoples rubbish so he decides to build a forest from all the tin laying around. When a bird perches on one of his trees and drops seeds, real plant life starts to grow and animals move in to make it their habitat.

From this story as a basis, we looked at the human impact on the world and the impact we are having on the natural environment. The children became eco-warriors, sorting rubbish to be recycled and rubbish that couldn’t be recycled. This led into a discussion about why we can’t recycle everything, which the children couldn’t understand.

From the work this week, it opened children’s eyes into what humans do to the world, but that it can be changed if everyone helped.

Watch out, they may get you involved!