It’s been another action packed week in P1A!
We’ve been busy learning our Christmas songs ready to perform to you soon and we’ve started our new focus in P.E. which will be related to ball skills but we’ve also been learning different games that help us focus on movement and coordination.
We’ve had a revision week in literacy of the sounds we’ve learnt so far. Some optional home learning tasks were sent home for this to share what we’ve been learning and give ideas for things you can do at home if you wish to support further. We’ve also started exploring reading beyond just sounds and words and now into sentences. This has included talking about the difference between letters, sounds and words; exploring word boundaries and starting to explore features of sentences like capital letters and full stops.
In maths we’ve continued to explore 2D and 3D shapes as well as explore the numbers 6 to 10. This has mostly been related to understanding and recognising these numbers in different ways as well as forming them.
Two things have really stood out this week as part of our play and tidying up.
The first was the development of play from something that started in a way that had to be modified as it didn’t quite follow our classroom expectations but then helped us learn a whole range of social, environmental and academic skills! A few children had started using objects in the classroom to grate pinecones in the home corner (like grating cheese), this then extended into water being taken into this area and mixed with the pinecones. Neither situation was ideal as the pinecone bits got into lots of other resources and were hard to clean up and we’re only allowed water in the ‘wet’ area of the class where it can be easily cleaned/dried. After collaboratively cleaning up the dry area and resources we later had a discussion about how we could carry on with this but in a more suitable way. The children had some brilliant ideas that meant that no resources were damaged but they could still be creative and imaginative with the pinecones. They also discussed the environmental and financial impact of mixing the grated pinecones with water and then it needing to be disposed of including blocking the sink if the larger parts went down it. They then figured out a way that they could resolve this issue by removing and saving the larger parts, ensuring that no ‘human-made’/non-natural materials were mixed with the pinecones and water which means the small parts and water could be disposed off outside. They also very effectively devised a way to remove, separate and dry the larger parts (which included pinecones, sticks and bark) so they could be re-used another day. The sorting of this linked nicely to our work on grouping that we had been doing in maths last term.
The play itself that took place while the children were using these materials was wonderful to see both from an imaginative/creative perspective as it involved aspects like role-play, imaginative play and a lot of social skills. It was lovely to see different children sharing resources including offering each other resources and turn-taking as well as supporting each other with ideas. Well done P1A!
The second was related to tidying up and leadership skills being developed. The children have zones that they are responsible for tidying up at the end of a play session. Each zone has a leader. On Monday, the current leader of the construction area was demonstrating amazing leadership skills and their team were responding equally well by working together as a group to tidy their area. The leader was politely but assertively guiding their group with excellent instructions in relation to the specific aspect of the area they wanted each person to take care of which meant the area was tidied efficiently. The team members responded by listening well and following the instruction. When they finished their assigned job they either found another job that needed doing or went to the leader to ask what should be done next. This then rippled through the zones and each day leaders from other groups were doing this too and their team members responding well to the instructions. Great team work and leadership skills P1A. These are the skills that serve you well for life!
Here’s a selection of other photos from the week too.
Thank you for sharing a wonderful learning post.