We made it, and the children have been incredible. The Year One team would like to say a massive thank you for all your support. As the national picture changes with Coronavirus, our everyday routines continue to be challenged. However, we thank you for being so flexible and we will always try to keep you up to date as soon as guidance evolves.
Now the children have had a few days to settle in, we wanted to say thank you for a successful return to school. As ever, we continue to learn and adapt our routines to make sure that school life operates as smoothly as possible.
We appreciate that there has been a lot to take on board, so we wanted to outline some of the key information for you.
Coming into school.
As you are aware, entry times into school are staggered to minimise the numbers of people on the school site. Year 1 entry time is 8:55 from the SureStart gate.
Siblings
If your child is in Year 2 – 6 and they have a sibling in Year 1, they can come through the SureStart gate at the earlier time of 8:40 and go to class. We ask that this only happens if you have a sibling starting at the earlier time.
Things that can come into school.
Packed lunches can come into school alongside a separate water bottle so that this can be filled up and used throughout the day.
A sensible coat – we aim to teach outside as much as possible (even in the drizzle).
Sensible shoes – the children will still spend time in the Outdoor classroom and on the field – so mud is inevitable.
Daily Reading books – this will be organised in due course.
Things that can’t come into school
We kindly ask that children don’t bring in rucksacks, bags, book bags and P.E. bags – this will help us clean the classrooms regularly.
Unfortunately, Birthday cakes, sweets and invitations can’t be handed out in school at this time.
Cuddly toys and other things such as pencil cases and play things can’t come into school.
P.E time table
As P.E. kits cannot come into school, we ask that children come in wearing their P.E kit currently outside on a Thursday – we will update you if this changes.
As this isn’t our normal routine, we understand that this will take some time to get used to. In order to cover all weather, we ask that children come into school in:
Joggers or tracksuit bottoms (preferably school colours)
Trainers.
T-shirt (preferably school colours)
School Jumper
Indoor P.E – in order for each year group to have access to the school hall and for it to be cleaned, each year group will have an allotted day throughout the week. This will change weekly, enabling all year groups to have access. You will receive a text the day before each indoor P.E session so that the children know when to come into school wearing their P.E clothes. Outdoor P.E days will stay the same each week (See above).
Reading
In order for the children to be really successful, fluent readers and after having an extended break from their book bands, we feel that it may benefit children to re-visit their previous colour bands. We want to make sure that the children can confidently access a range of reading books whilst regaining some of the skills that they may have forgotten during lockdown. We believe that this will really help children to regain their confidence and continue their love of reading.
Please continue to help us with as much reading at home as possible. This can be reading any material from shopping lists to ingredients and a bed time story is always a great way to finish off the day.
We are here to help
Whilst there is always an adult on the playground at drop off and pick up times unfortunately, we won’t be able to chat during these times. This is to keep our school environment as safe as possible whilst minimising people on site. We kindly ask that, if it is urgent, please ring the office where you can arrange a time for a teacher to call you to discuss your concerns.
Kindest regards
Year One Team
Worry Monster Art
Did you know that Monsters seem to be appearing all over Warren Park. Our exciting new phonics scheme, all around monsters, witches and ghosts, seemed to have opened the doors to a whole host of new friends.
Year One have been reading some lovely worry stories this week to help them understand our emotions and how we feel. We decided it would be great to make our very own worry monster.
The aim of our worry monster is to help catch and take away worries that we might be feeling throughout the day. If we can share our worries with someone, it often helps us to feel a little bit better. The children have been amazing at this and we are working hard to instil our class moto, Hakuna Matata – It Means No Worries!
We decided to combine collage work with Papier Mache as a starting block for our ‘worry monster’. The children loved getting stuck on and they worked really hard to follow instructions to help start their art project.
Have a look at some of their work and don’t forget to check back to see the finished result.
Here are a few links for you if you would like to join in at home.
Papier Mache for beginners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPSlrKZwvYI
Lion King Hakuna Matata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pbs4En0tI
Boy did we have fun. We wanted to explore different paints and brushes so we thought, why not have a bit of a painting party! Year One used poster paint and watercolours as our choice of media and then fun really started. Using inspiration from ‘Squiggle Whilst You Wiggle’, we used various strokes and hand exercises to practice brush and pencil control.
These are all really useful things to do at home to help children develop strong hand muscles. This will help their handwriting and fine motor skills. Have a look online for ideas if you would like to try this at home. There are lots of videos on Youtube.
Things you could try at home:
Paints, colours and different pens
Playdough, soft dough
Water and jugs
Threading beads
Monster Phonics
Excitingly, we have joined a new phonics scheme called Monster Phonics and the children are loving our new monster family. We understand that phonics can always be tricky to get your head around so we will try to offer as much support as we can throughout the year.
Here is a short power point to explain our new monsters and a link as well which explains each one.
In order to help children, keep up and catch up from lockdown, we will be sending home key words for the children to practise. They will need to be able to read and spell these fluently in preparation for the statutory phonics decoding checking later on in the academic year. We can’t emphasis enough how important phonics and reading is for the children and no so more than ever given the time of that they have had off school. As much help at home as possible will always be greatly received.
Meet the Monsters vid https://youtu.be/5u0N7LJIW0Q
Words to Learn
Science
In science we are going to focusing on weather and seasonal changes. We thought it would be a great idea to go on a leaf hunt and collect some samples to look at the changing colours of Autumn.
Children discussed a range of things that they associated with Autumn and we were able to bring some of these ideas together with our art curriculum. We wanted to sort some of our colours into shades of light and dark to make a contrasting collage. The children then carefully selected their own leaves to have a go at making a fantastic collage of one of our new Monster Phonics family, Brown Owl.
Have a look at some our amazing Brown Owls.
Well Being Theme
As ever, we try to navigate our way through some unusual times but always want our lovely children to be as settled as possible, whilst also gaining an understanding of what is happening in the word in a child safe way.
With a well-being focus, we have been exploring a range of emotions and this will continue to be a theme throughout the year. This week we have been talking about things that make us happy and excited, as well as things that make us worry.
We have been reading some lovely stories this week but we thought it might be nice to put a story online so that parents and carers could also do some ‘worry work’ at home.
Have a read of the story ‘The making of Milton’, it’s a great way to explore and talk about some worries that the children may be feeling during their new transition into school.
There’s even a great craft activity for you to do at home if you like.
The-making-of-milton-ebook-pdf