Mrs H's blog
Friday 19th July/Blog 22
I know the academic year has not finished for teachers and we will have a lot to do next week, it feels like a finish. It was a great finish. The whole last 2 weeks were extraordinarily positive and I tried to capture the moments of pure pride I felt looking at the Remarkable Rabbits doing something that marked their personal progress this year. It might have been independently getting on with a task (without needing reminding or further support), making a friendship problem better not bigger or just applying themselves because they wanted to grow their brain. #SOProud
Of course, not all the credit is mine and Mrs Woods. Your support is fundamental in their success at school and all those Little Wandle or split vowel digraph or number bonds moments made all the difference. Year 2 is often looked at as the year of big academic progress and I hope it is because every single one of my Remarkable Rabbits has exceeded targets in one way or another.
I will still be around for them. I will see them daily in Worship and when I am on playground duty. We will be doing Nativity together, trips etc. And my transition notes have been very comprehensive as you can imagine! They’ve already promised me that they won’t thunder down the corridor next year on their way to the playground as we didn’t like it when other classes disturbed our learning. Oh it’s so hard to let them go!
Thank you again for the thoughtfulness and generosity of your gifts. And some of the notes you and they wrote- I was a little overwhelmed! I will enjoy reading those again and again over the next week or so…and then I have a big holiday with my girl to prepare for (Canada to crash with my cousin) so I wish you all very well and keeeeeeeeeeeep reading!
Holiday self entertainment ideas:
- Shut the box (paper copy)
- Doubles wipeout
- Hangman
- Reading anything, anywhere (road signs, cereal boxes, house numbers and names, tickets)
- Use their Reading Records to revise their Year 1/phase 5 GPCs. (the pictorial section in the middle)
- Finish 'The Enchanted Wood'. We got to Mr Oom Boom Boom
- Copy write anything! (Some are still writing a couple of graphemes incorrectly so stamp on this like I have.)
- Create a memory box diary of part of the holiday. It doesn’t have to be daily. They could create their own Ray of the Day?
- Counting on and back in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s to 100. Just as you’re walking around, count; as you go up and down stairs, count; as you’re waiting in a queue, count.
- Looking at (to revise) and counting coins. We didn't do notes (didn't have any!!) so that could be an exciting for you to show.
And ask them every night, what have you done today that’s made you feel proud? (It might take a couple of weeks before they can answer so in the meantime, provide them with your reasons for them having made you feel proud.)
Thank you for being Remarkable.
Signing off…
Mrs H
p.s. I’ll be refreshing the class page in a week or 2 FYI.
Friday 5th July
Mrs H here. I wanted to write a blog to all the Y1 parents to tell you about the last 2 days. We had a fine old time!
We spent all our time as Year 1 (Squabbits) and most of it in the Otters' classroom, just using the Squirrels' area for table space.
We loved looking around the 2 classrooms to investigate similarities and differences and the big chairs were a novelty! We sat where we could on the carpet, not choosing specific friends to sit next to, but any Year 1 friends. I didn't make them have to play or sit next to someone they usually don't (I wouldn't want to do that in staff meeting!) but they naturally gravitated towards each other. In fact, it turned into an informal transition time really! So in August when you/they feel a bit wobbly, remind them that they have all the tools to be fine and maybe even enjoy this next coming year!
I was impressed with the combined knowledge in phonics and maths. We revised all our GPCs done so far and practised (both days) reading words with the same phoneme and different grapheme (bruise vs few vs rude). We practised our number bonds and doubles playing Doubles Wipe Out and Shut The Box. They can tell you how to play it and it can be single player or multiple. Actually Miss Jones said that the Y2s were playing it at bedtime on their residential!
I wonder if they have told you about our musical extravaganza? We learnt a (Zumba-style) dance to Reach and then used pencils as our percussion with Act My Age (One Direction). Put the song on and see their amazing rhythm. Our focus this year has been identifying and keeping the pulse. We showed it to the Receptions yesterday afternoon and Miss Selwyn was blown away! Miss Jones witnessed the wonder this morning and loved it. If we can film it...
We also did some art meets science. As we are growing sunflowers, we learnt how to draw them, then we used water colours to paint them and the background. It was a bit of a challenge painting with 46 but we made it work. We also sketched them in our sketch books with less support this time and coloured in with a different medium. Now let's hope the real ones grow and we have drawn decent replicas.
Finally, I introduced them to The Faraway Tree. Rabbits caught them up on the few chapters, Squirrels had missed and we read about the rocking land and Saucepan man (#Next Year's World Book Day Costume for me!). The next few chapters will really get them hooked.
So it has been a great couple of days with a great load of children. I consider it a pleasure to have got to have had the opportunity to know them all better and to facilitate the wonderfulness that was Squabbits! They all really let their light shine.
Till next time...
Mrs H
Blog 21
This is probably the penultimate blog for this academic year. Time is running away with us, right? The children are getting tired and it's time to start mentioning the 't' word (year Two). I am good at this transition stuff- I nurture, I encourage questions and spend a lot of time considering what each child needs from me over the last few weeks. Some need a lot of reassurance that I am going nowhere and will still be around for them, some need to know that they will be ok- they've done this moving on before and they will do it again, some need to know where they will put their book bag and when they will have PE. Often they just need to hear what they actually already know- it will probably be me, Miss Jones or Mr Brown, they know where to line up at 8.40, they know where to go to the toilet, they know what the lessons will be, that playtimes are the same, that they will see their friends. In fact, once the intial - gosh it's change- feeling has subsided, the excitement can start and we can go and wander round their potential classroom, talk about how wonderful Year 2 will be. Your own excitement will be crucial (often it is harder for us carers to grapple with the change than it is for our children!Th). You will find out with the report in the last week and I will go full throttle with the excitement and transition for those last few days.
In the meantime, they're still mine and we are still working hard to grow our brains and remember to choose kindness. Last week we started our writeaway (English writing assessment piece for our Let Your Writing Shine board). This is to be a factfile about a sea creature. We have already practised the style with whales, seagulls and jellyfish so we have chosen turtles (because in our Stanley book, he got swallowed by a turtle). have you noticed that they are talking about why these creatures are endangered? They seem very interested! I did have to make a special point that turtles are not known to lay eggs in North Wales!
Maths is full of partitioning and place value. This is a vitally important part of the curriculum that enables such a strong foundation for the rest of their maths lives and we are expanding it from 50 to 100 this week. At home you can help by:
- noticing numbers around (on house doors, in shops)
- talking about 50-100 numbers in terms of their tens and ones (68 is 6 tens and 8 ones units . If 81 has 8 tens, how many tens does 91 have?
- encourage writing PPW of the number (they will show you. We'll be doing a lot of this over the next few days)
- Start considering strategies for adding and taking away these larger amounts (86-11 = 86-10 = 76, 76-1=75). Letting them see the tens and ones and discouraging counting on and back in ones.
- counting on and back from 50-100. 'Normal' way and also '5 tens and 1, 5 tens and 2, 5 tens and 3 etc)
- I'm thinking of a number that has 7 tens.It has more than 3 ones but less than 8. What could my number be?
We have Mrs Griffiths (y4) coming to take a look at our computing on Monday. Some of us are striding away with programming; some of us needing support to log on and know the difference between username, password and cursor control. We are using mazes to programme an object to navigate around the maze. Such fun! I have 'programmed' ;) Purple Mash so that these exercised can be done at home on their account weekly alongside some other learning games.
In short the rest of the curriculum:
geography- atlas mania! (did you see the Twitter video?)
science- growing our sunflower and understanding classification keys
RE- how to Muslims welcome babies into their faith?
art- making our 3D birds
music- keeping to a pulse
phonics- the Grow the Code y1 is almost complete!
This week will be a little different because Y2 have their residential on Wednesday and Thursday. I will have the pleasure of the Y1 cohort for these 2 days (with TA support!). We will move to the Squirrels/Otters classrooms for some of the time (transition start and practicality). I have planned a possible mini sports day (#weatherdependent) and a potential y1 carer show case on Friday 3pm (#halltimedependent). Wish me lots of luck!!
I get a bit emotional thinking of them leaving me so forgive me. I love them.I will miss them. I will be there in autumn for them (but will allow them space to bond with their new teacher first). The next few weeks ramps up for staff in terms of busy-ness but my focus will be on the transition for them, squeezing out every possible bit of learning and enjoying them to the maximum.
Mrs H
'A love of reading is the biggest indicator of future academic success.' (The OECD- the organisation of economic cooperation and development)
'Children are made readers in the laps of their parents.' Emilie Buchwald
