Pioneers children are Reception and Year 1, aged four to six years old. Children enjoy a range of creative and engaging play based activities, as well as formal inputs, to support their development and growth. Children in Pioneers are taught by Mrs Hann, Mrs Gurney, Mrs McGill and Miss Greaves.
Learning begins the minute they walk through the door. The classroom is a carefully curated collection of wonderful things to allow the children to flourish. The classroom is theirs and everything in it is there for a purpose. What they chose to do may be completely different for each individual. This is when the learning happens. The resources are ready to use and accessible and the team work together to create, to communicate, to count and to grow
Each day starts with exploration of the resources and suggestions for learning set out around the room. The Pioneers will come together for teaching. This will happen in small groups, as a whole class and often one to one. Across the day we will gather for mathematics, reading, writing and phonics sessions, to share stories and to learn about the world.
PE kits are in school all week to allow us to do PE at any time. This term, the Pioneers have dance on a Tuesday afternoon.
Mrs Gurney teaches computing on a Thursday morning.
We are rolling with phonics and children will bring a book and their reading record home each day. Please read little and often and write a message in the reading record. All reading is good reading. This is such an exciting time.
Please look out for a text message to let you know when we will go to the forest. We will use our wonderful outdoor space as much as we can and this will not always be on the same day each week.
Children’s progress and activities are recorded in their own Learning Journeys. These act as a summary of the journey children embark upon during their time in Reception and Year 1 and demonstrate the progress and success that has been achieved, as well as the next steps that may need to be taken.
Circle,Square,Rectangle,Triangle
The Pioneers have been making shapes with Meccano,with blocks and with magnetic rods and balls and Geoboards and elastic ba They have sorted a huge number of shapes and noted and discussed the similarities and differences. They noticed that there are a variety of types of triangle and that not all four sided shapes are squares or rectangles.
They have printed with 3D shape and noticed the shapes of the faces.
The Feely Bag has been a big hit.
This Week in Collective Worship
This week we read together the story of Loaves and Fishes. When I said loaf,the Pioneers thought that I said love. Maybe they really understood the story! Love and Fishes.
Our story,The Red Hat continued our theme of thankfulness and those who are thankful for us. The little girl is given a red hat by her grandfather and they have lots of fun sharing time together.
We took a look at the church in our village and talked about what happens there. We spotted it from the classroom window.
We now have a prayer space with the church and the trees. This will build up over the next week.
The Enormous Turnip and other Vegetables
We have pulled and yanked and heaved and dragged a selection of vegetables from their soil. The Pioneers looked over the root systems and pulled off the stems and the leaves. The spiders and woodlice ran for their lives. We read a number of books about vegetables and talked about our experiences of planting,growing,harvesting and eating.
We read different versions of the old favourite, “The Enormous Turnip” and retold our version with a story map and puppets to help us.
It’s been a very lovely week of learning together.
Pioneers Make The World A Better Place
Our Christian Value is Thankfulness and this week we asked,”Who is thankful that we are here?”
We revisited the story The Digger and the Flower where a kind digger saves the seeds from a flower to replant in a green space when new building happens right where it had been growing. The flower was thankful for the digger.
The Pioneers knew that their families were thankful for them.
Our Thankful Bear whispered in my ear and everyone overheard him telling me how wonderful the Pioneers were.
Great fun and thoughtful learning.
Six Dinners Sid in Sleights
Six Dinners Sid has had quite an adventure around the village. The Pioneers spotted him in every picture and then we talked about where he had been and what he could do there. They identified places they had visited and described where they lived in relation to places Sid had been. They spotted maps and commented of the difference between a road map and the network map at the train station.
Sid is now in the classroom and he has his own name label written specially for him
The Pioneers then built their own version of our village,cutting out road signs and pictures of our shops and sticking them on blocks. The train line went right around the room.
Such wonderful learning.
What a Wonderful World
After reading What A Wonderful World and listening to the song we created our own prayer to let everyone know what we are thankful for.
Each Pioneer said what they were thankful for and we topped and tailed this with a “Dear God” and an “Amen”.
Rain for the plants,the moon to help us sleep and rollercoasters all made it into our thoughts.
A Wonderful Week of Learning Together
The Pioneers have had a wonderful week of learning together-our first full week of school. This is something to be celebrated.
We are learning lots about ourselves and our place in the world,taking a look at our village to get us going. We have built houses from blocks and made pictures of our faces from all sorts of little things. The new routines are becoming second nature and sorting and tidying is a breeze.
Well Done Pioneers.
Happy Learning
This Week We Have Been Reading…
Lots of our work begins with books and the classroom is full of wonderful texts and illustrations. We are listening out for rhyming words and spotting alliteration. The Pioneers have done really well to learn lots of the parts of Superworm and to use some of the new vocabulary like”Lasso”.
Six Dinners Sid will be used again next week when we take a look at our village and decide where Sid might want to go for his dinner. I think that he may fancy a trip to Radford’s,Botham’s or the Spar!
Happy Learning