Sussex

What a fantastic start to Year 1 the children have made!  They are getting used to writing in their books, and even using squared paper in maths lessons and are presenting their work very neatly.

In the first few days of term, we focused our learning on The Secret Sky Garden, by Linda Sarah.  It is a very inspiring book, all about nurturing and improving our environment and finding friendship.  The children used this to write some persuasive letters, encouraging people to look after the environment, and they also created gorgeous flowers out of tissue paper and drew gardens of their own.

Our book for the rest of the term is The Adventures of an Eggbox Dragon by Richard Adams.  We are using it to do a variety of different writing styles throughout the term.  It has already inspired the children to do some marvellous writing, describing a dragon. 

In maths, we have been building on the skills learned in Reception and have not only been counting backwards and forwards, and finding one more and one less, but we have been journaling about the different methods used and developing reasoning skills.

Pedro the Pondering Pup is staying in Reception this year, but luckily, his cousin, Sammy the Scientist has come to year 1 and is helping the children with their investigations.  We have already investigated germination and planted seed and monitored their growth.  Excitingly, we found the chickpeas germinate with astonishing speed! We also went on an Autumn nature walk with Sammy to investigate the changing of the seasons.

We have been learning about love in R.E. so far this term and have looked at the parable of the Prodigal Son.  The children loved learning Bible stories in Reception and it is great to see them extend the learning into their year 1 work.

The children should all be very proud of themselves for such a successful start to the year.  Well done!