We have had a very busy term settling into P1/2. Everyone has worked hard to make our classroom a kind, helpful and safe place where we always try our best!

Play

Through play we have been getting to know each other – we have lots of similarities, but also differences and that’s what makes us unique! Some of our favourite things to do include den making, construction and arts & crafts.

Literacy

We have begun learning our sounds through the Jolly Phonics programme. Our favourite part of this is singing the songs and doing the actions, but we are working really hard to recognise and form the letters, and to blend the sounds together.

Story time is also a big part of our week. We love visiting the library to find new books, and often come together to read a story for enjoyment. We have been learning to identify rhyme as we listen, and have even manage to pick out some alliteration!

Using this to support our writing, we have also just started Drawing Club. This is where we listen to a story together and then discuss it. We think about some of the vocabulary and create actions to help us remember some of the big words, and then we sit down to draw a picture based on the book. Within our pictures we must include special codes (of our own choice) that make our picture do something wonderful (think flying houses and monsters that can turn into flowerpots)! This supports our imaginations, mark making, and helps us practice skills we have been learning about, and most importantly teaches us that writing can be fun!

Maths and Numeracy

In numeracy we started the term by looking at number formation. We used Number Zoo to help us do this and enjoyed making a new animal with every number. This also helped us with our fine motor and cutting skills as some of the shapes were really challenging! For some people, the best part was getting to express ourselves by decorating our animals – have a look at our display and you may see ‘Greedy Zero’ wearing a dress, or even ‘Snappy Six’ getting married!

We have now moved on to looking at Numbers to 10, 20 and 100. This focuses on recognition, counting and sequencing.

For practical maths our main focus has been shape. We have been learning to name 3D shapes (cube, cuboid, sphere, cylinder and cone), and have spent time identifying them within the environment. P1 have also been experimenting with physical shapes to understand what makes a shape roll, stack or slide, whilst P2 have been learning to identify the shapes by their properties (number of faces, vertices and edges). We are now all looking at 2D shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles and circles + hexagons for P2) – their names and how to identify them by the number of sides. We are beginning to recognise these in the environment.

Overall, this has been a super term with lots of enjoyable moments. Our confidence and independence are growing, and everyone fills the classroom with such joy. Everyone is looking forward to a well earned break, but can’t wait to see what Term 2 brings!