We are there- our first half term of Year R and Year 1! Well done to each and every child, we couldn't be prouder of their start to school and how much progress they have made already. We're looking forward to sharing this with you at parents evening after half term.

Our theme this week has been "Marvellous Me".

With a history focus, we enjoyed sharing our baby pictures and looking at how much we have changed. We also reminisced about our time in Marwell so far using our floor book.

We have explored how we feel through sensory play.

We are starting to enjoy phonics including reading on Bug Club- we especially loved writing shopping lists for a special lunch using the first sounds.

We hosted "Marwell's Got Talent" and entertained Mr Flynn and our friends.

Our story of the week was 'Elmer' because he was so unique. You can see some of our Elmer creations we made, thinking about colour and pattern.

Year 1 worked collaboratively to create a giant map for cars linked to our geography. They thought carefully about where their houses were in relation to school as well as other points of interest.

We are now going to enjoy our half term break and a well-earned rest!

ROBOT WEEK

We met a real-life robot and enjoyed dancing with him, we all found it funny when he was walking around our classroom.We have loved building a maze for our Beebots (our own little robots) around the snug. In maths, we are becoming more confident when counting to 5 and we made groups of 5 objects to show what we know. In phonics, we were listening to the "sh" sound and shouted shhhh into a shell. Luckily, the weather has been nice enough for us to get outdoors again this week and make use of the mud kitchen and the big building blocks. Some children said "we made a bench to sit on".

Linking to our robot theme, we have been discovering what magnets are and what they do. Some children have learned new words like attract and repel. One child said, "I wonder why the gold things don't stick to the magnets". We think we definitely have some scientists in the making!

We ended our Friday with one member of the class saying "I wish it could be robot week every week" to which lots of children nodded. We couldn't have wished for a more perfect response.

This week has been a whirlwind of harvest festival preparation, big art work and lots of mark making. At lunch, we are becoming more independent in selecting our sides and are fantastic at showing respect to our friends. Everyone at school comments on how good we are at lining up and our teachers are very proud of us for trying to write our names and using our funky fingers for colouring. Mrs Aylward and Mrs Chaplen are especially proud of our Year 1 children for setting a good examples and being excellent role models to our Year Rs. They are demonstrating hard work and all the school values.

In week 4, we have had a visit from Ottilie's Mummy and her special friend Hatch who taught us all about mindfulness and using our star breathing to help us. She was so kind and gave us a cosy star to take home to practise with. Year 1 have worked so hard learning about living and non-living things and used their new knowledge to sort some pictures into categories. All of us are enjoying exploring more areas of the classroom like the sand tray, mud kitchen and creative area. We have also got better at tidying the classroom by working together so the whole class were awarded a red value brick for collaboration.

What a busy week we have had! This week we have built our finger muscles during dough disco and made some nature art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. During phonics, we listened to sounds on a nature hunt- we were very excited to find some conkers. In maths, we have been learning all about the numbers 1 and 2 so we made our own animal masks to be like the animals going onto the art "two by two".

This week, we have been continuing to settled into school and have enjoyed many fun learning activities including icing biscuits. Year 1 honored the Queen's by decorating their biscuits with Union Jack flags and Year R tried writing the first letter of their name in icing.

What a brilliant start to the year and a warm welcome to our new Year R children.

We enjoyed sharing a circle time and exploring our new environment. We settled so well, all of the adults at school were really impressed!