Autumn Fest......"Read all about it!!!!!"

Come and spend quality family time, wrapped up warm and cosy, enjoying wonderful stories, warming yourselves by a bonfire, listening to music, eating scrumptious jacket potatoes........if you want to bob for apples, enter a carved pumpkin into a competition or take part in some Autumn art then why not have a go too!!!!!!! There's lots of family fun to be had at POWSA's Brand New Autumn Fundraising event - "AUTUMN FEST"...........Look out for posters around the school, letters will follow with options to buy tickets and food attached! We would love to see you all there......... "Celebrating Autumn, celebrating Families and Supporting the School."

Exciting Vardo Day!!

The children have had a very full and fun packed day!....  Building a bender tent, exploring the Vardo, dancing Romany style and decorating plates and milk churns.

A very big thank you to Mr Alan Duncalf, Chair of Governors, who again helped the Year 1's in their quest to build the perfect bender tent!  We think the above photograph shows their best efforts....

We learnt about the way of life of the Romany Gypsies and experienced the hard work by washing dishes by hand and washing clothes!  We also learnt that the boys of the family had to sleep outside either underneath the wagon or inside the bender tent....  The Year 1 boys were not impressed!!



Next Week is Vardo Week!

The Vardo has arrived! This old fashioned gypsy wagon would have been pulled by a horse but this one will be static at school, until the trailer returns to collect it. It is with us for the week at least and during this time the children will be finding out how the family would have lived.
On Tuesday we will be having a special day of activities including going inside the Vardo, learning some Romany words, making a bender tent, dancing, making paper flowers and decorating a paper plate. It should  be great fun.
We hope you all have a good weekend and the promised fine weather lasts until at least mid-week!



Yr 1 Recorders and ICT!

A quick message to state that Yr 1 recorder club is on a Monday lunchtime with either myself or Mrs Staddon. Please remind your child to bring in their recorder and book and meet me in the school hall after eating their lunch. We will finish early so your children can have a run around and break before lessons begin.



ICT lessons - Thursday morning. The children are becoming more familiar with typing their name and password to access our computer network. If you can follow up work we've been doing on recognising lower case letters to Capital letters on a keyboard then this would be brilliant! Don't forget also that they can access the School website from home and play on some of the fun learning materials hat are within the Year 1 folder in Pupil Links.

Please speak to either myself on members of the Yr 1 team if any questions about the above.

Thank you!

Mrs Mewett

Parent Information Session

Thank you for all of those parents who attended this mornings information session.  I do hope you found it useful.  If you didn't manage to make it and would like to know what was discussed, there is a parent information sheet available so please ask a member of the team or myself for a copy.

Mrs Moger

A trip to the farm!

We had a fantastic time at Maiden Castle Farm yesterday!

We learnt all about harvest and the crops that are grown on the farm......

Barley Wheat and Maize.

We learnt that every part of the wheat is used and it takes a whole year for this to grow!  We saw lots of machines and Hazel explained how they work!

This is a gigantic dryer that dries out the grain!  It was very noisy and very hot!

This is used when the wheat is harvested and is very wet. 

This is a picture of the grain going into the drying pit.  It was also very noisy and went on forever!!

We also looked at the different houses on the farm.  We saw the big farmhouse that was built in 1884. 
We also sat in the barn and thought about the animals that could live in there.  We looked at the cows and the sheep in the fields, and there were 2 VERY big bulls!!

 

A Great Week!

We have had a fantastic first full week in Year 1!  Everyone has settled in so well and we are all enjoying our new class.  We are at the farm on Monday which is always a fun and interesting visit.  We will keep you posted with the up and coming projects and topics happening in Year 1 via the blog.

On Monday we will be visiting Maiden Castle Farm.  Please can you make sure your child brings their wellies to wear and old trousers with school tops.  Can you also bring their school trousers/skirts to change into on our return to school.  We will be thinking and talking about this time of year on the farm and harvest time.

Your childs password for Purple Mash is now in their reading/home learning diary.  They are stuck on the back page so get logging on and enjoy the activities!

Please can you ensure your childs library book and group reading book comes to school everyday.  We will aim to change libarary books on a Thursday or Friday but if your child doesn't bring the library book back we can't issue a new one!  Thank you!

A date for the diary!

On Monday 16th September we shall be visiting Maiden Castle Farm.  Any parents who would like to come along and help on this day would be most welcome, please come in and see Mrs Moger.  More details will follow.

We have had another full day in Year 1 today.  After phonics this morning we had a session looking at and talking about photographs and books looking at different homes.

In Maths we are still looking at different shapes around the school, while others are learning to add together by counting on.

By tomorrow all children will have been given a new Home Learning Diary/reading record and we look forward to hearing about the childrens home learning including reading.

Welcome Back To Year 1!

Welcome back to Year 1. The children have settled in extremely well being very happy and enthusiastic. For our topic this half term we will be looking at houses and homes. We will study the size, shape and structure of the buildings, together with the materials, style and the different types of houses that are built. We will be sending home new Home Learning Record Books this week. Please write in these to tell us about the super home learning your child has been doing and feel free to bring anything in to show us! Each week your child will bring home a new group reading book together with a library book. These will be changed on a weekly basis. Please can you bring any recycling bits and bobs into the classroom for our lets explore art area job. This can be anything from plastic cartons to cardboard tubes, small cereal/cardboard boxes and yogurt pots. Anything that the children can be creative with will be much appreciated! At the end of this week we are sending home your childs Purple Mash login details. This means your child will now be able to access the Purple Mash Website to have lots of fun at home with the activities svailable.

ICT and Music in Year 1

I had a lovely day with Yr 1 on Thursday last week and am already excited to go back this week! I will be with Yr 1 every Thursday this school year to provide Mrs Moger with SEN time as the school SENCO.

In ICT we will be using the school ICT suite as a whole class. Your child has a password to enter our network of computers, they also have a password to access a fantastic package called 'Purple Mash', this can be done at home through our school website too!
So far we have been playing a game to develop our use of a keyboard. What seems to be tripping children up is their capital letter knowledge and relating this to lower case letters. Mrs Moger and I will be picking this up but any help in revising these at home would be much appreciated.
Last week we wrote about people in our homes (see class display board). This week the children will be using a Purple mash program to draw their favourite rooms in their home and to explain why.

In Music we sang some fun songs to warm up our voices and bodies, we then composed our own music just using hand sounds! The children worked well in small groups and some groups
performed these to their class mates. This week the children will be composing more music using a selection of percussion instrument and writing this onto a score! Clever stuff for Yr 1 already!!!

Please come and discuss with me any aspects above, likewise if you have skills to offer then again please see me.

Thank you!

Mrs Mewett