Ready, steady, September!

So here we are - survived the first week back after the summer holiday. We have met our new children and the second first impressions made (the first once were made during last summer transition day).

We are ready for the new year. We are sure that it will be a year filled with lots of learning opportunities for us but mostly for our children. We have worked very hard last year to get our continuous provision sorted, transformed to give the children a chance to learn, to challenge themselves and to be happy at school.

Our new Year 1 adventure starts with Percy the Park Keeper. We did this topic last year and children loved it learning about all Percy`s friends, making a hot chocolate and go on the treasure hunt. This year we have decided to incorporate Talk for writing into our topic. 

These boards will be soon filled with children`s work.

We have carefully planned how to teach foundation subjects. This year, just like the year before, we decided to stick to challenges. We planned just a few around core skills like printing, learning about seasons or electricity for a start.  These challenges will be facilitated by an adult, so the children are not only completing the task but also gain subject knowledge and learn new vocabulary linked to it.

There are some core areas in our classroom. STEM is one of it and it is one of the most popular areas in the classroom. 

Maths, construction, pattern making – all these create opportunities for collaborative thinking, to test ideas, analyse and get the children involved in maths and science. 

Small world is another place where children test their imagination. We have added wooden spoon puppets, little peg dolls which resemble Percy and his animal friends. This way, children get extra involved in the topic, can share stories with a friend and practise the language they will need in their writing. 

To get our children intrigue and keep them curious, we set up provocations.

We are advocates for outdoor learning and our outside area gained some new features. We have also improved some of the existing ones like a reading hut, where we added shelves to display books and a bench to sit on. All looks cosy and very inviting.

We changed and adapted our provision to the new topic and the new cohort. There is one thing we haven`t changed – being neutral. We minimised the use of colours in our classroom as we think it will impact how the children focus. Ambient light, hessian and lots of plants – that is our way for classroom decor which seems to be working with our new intake. The children are calm and happy. 

Aga and Lucy