We continued with our enquiry "Are all bears real?" this week, focusing on the traits of real bears before we move onto fictional bears next week.Can you think of any famous bears that we might be covering?

On Monday Penhallow learnt about Diwali, the festival of lights. In an afternoon of activities, the children learnt who Diwali is important for and explored various arts and crafts to help them understand this festival.

In English, the children have been learning about Goldilocks and The Three Bears and the year 1s made some brilliant wanted posters. In maths, Y1 have been practising their number bonds to 10 and year R, the children focused on counting to and back from 5.

A special thank you to Mrs G and Ms Pickett for all of their help this week.

Wow!

What a busy week we have had in Penhallow Class. This week we were able to use the hall to eat our lunch, it was a really good experience for all children and we will continue doing this next week. We started the week answering our enquiry questions; What are bears like? In our outdoor learning session we made bear paw prints and tails. We used the IPads to research bears and locate where they live on a World map to answer the question; Where do bears live? On Wednesday we had a visit from Big Bear who introduced to us our story Goldilocks and the Three Bears which we will be learning, retelling and writing our own version over the next few weeks. We also answered the question; What happens to bears in the Winter? We learnt about hibernation, we made our own caves inside and outside, then practised hibernating ourselves! After lunch, we heard Big Bear snoring in our outdoor learning area where we discovered him hibernating in our shed! On Thursday we were left a note from him telling us he had found somewhere else to hibernate because we were all so loud and he needed peace and quiet. Continuing our enquiry in our provision, we have been naming the teddy bear, recognising numbers and beginning to blend consonant-vowel-consonant words. On Wednesday, we carried out a 2 minute silence on Remembrance Day virtually with the rest of the school and on Friday celebrated Children in Need. We especially enjoyed joining in with Joe Wicks in the final hour of his 24 hour PE challenge. We have been so impressed this term at how independent the children are becoming.

Please can we ask that the children only bring the minimum amount of items to school; lunch box, bottle, warm, waterproof coat and book bag. Other bags, such as PE kit remain on their bag until the end of half term. Large backpacks can make it difficult for the children to carry and organise at the beginning and end of the day and in light of the current situation only bringing the required items to school will help to eliminate risk of infection.

Thank you from us all.

Have a fantastic weekend

Mrs Counsell, Mrs Batchelor, Mrs G and Ms Pickett.

Are all bears real?

Welcome back. 

We have had a lovely first week back. The children were very calm, settled and full of enthusiasm for their new term of learning.

In maths, year 1 have started the addition and subtraction scheme of learning, starting with the part part whole model and in English we have all been learning about traditional tales.

We launched our new enquiry "Are All Bears Real?" with much excitement due to a bear in our classroom! We will be answering lots of the children's questions ranging from "Do bears like honey?" and "How do bears keep warm?" to "How old are toy bears?" and "Do bears hide in caves?".

On Tuesday we started our first afternoon of Forest School. We have decided to trial the session in the afternoon rather than morning to minimize the amount of things that children have to bring into school at the moment. This way children will complete their class based learning in their warm outdoor clothes in the morning and then go outside after lunch, without needing to change. The first session went really well. The children constructed a human sized nest out of foraged twigs, shared a autumn story and played some outside games as we got use to the safety rules and routines for or learning outside. 

We are looking forward to a jam packed few weeks to come.

Mrs Batchelor and Mrs Counsell.

This week has seen the ultimate week of our Autumn topic.  In English we finished writing our Autumn Poems and in Maths we have been practising our counting skills. We also explored the different types of events that happen during autumn, including Halloween and bonfire night. We spent an afternoon creating some brilliant art pieces based on our discussions. This included firework art by blowing paint with straws, spiders made with pipe cleaners (utilising our fine motor skills) and pumpkin collages. We ended our week with our Halloween gem party where we had two special spooky guests and lots of game playing and dancing! 

We have finished our class reading, we learnt about nocturnal animals that could be found around this time of year and created group fact files about them. Did you know the biggest our is a whopping 2m tall!  We hope the Reception children enjoy sharing their first school reading book with you at home and show you how fantastically well they are doing with their letters and sounds! We are very proud of the progress they have made since starting school! :) 

As the half term break arrives, we would like to say a huge well done to all of Penhallow for tackling what could have been a tough term of school with confidence and enthusiasm. We hope you have a wonderfully, relaxing break and look forward to seeing you all refreshed on Tuesday the 3rd of November. 

Mrs Counsell and Mrs Batchelor

Hello,

We've had a great week. We have been so impressed with how many children are coming into school on their own in the mornings. It's such an important and brave start to the day and shows us you're ready to learn. Well done.

The Reception children have been in school every morning and it's been fantastic getting to know them more and more. We look forward to learning with you more this week when you are full time.

This week we started looking at a book called Here We Are as part of our enquiry Who Am I?  We've spent time talking about ourselves as individuals and what makes us all special. We also spent time thinking about why The Earth on which we live is special too, What can we do and see here on Earth?
Here is a link to the story on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcjKbbF9JA

In Y1 we have been developing our reading skills by watching short clips on Literacy Shed. We've spent time discussing them and developing our comprehension skills. The children have been working so hard on this and as ever, we are very proud of them.

Derek, our class dinosaur has continued enjoying his adventures this week. He's been to the beach, read stories and visited children's gardens for a tea party. I wonder where he'll go this week?

Thank you to those who have engaged with SeeSaw our home-school reading app. It has been great to see how much the Y1s are reading. We are so excited that the Reception children will be getting their first school reading book in the next week or so. We change reading books on a Friday and will update their SeeSaw, please look out for that. 

While we understand that children can sometimes finish their books quickly at home, it's important to spend some time re-visiting the text together. Here are some questions for discussion which will further develop reading skills:
Which is your favourite part of the story?
Why did the character... feel like that?
Can you tell me why this word ... is used?
Can you find a word that means ...?
What do you think will happen in the end? Why?

Please email Special Helper photos to secretary@polperroprimary.co.uk

Attached at the bottom of this blog please find a list of books that are recommended for reading for Year One and Reception. 

We hope you received our important letter about drop-off changes starting from Monday 21st September. 

See you next week.
Mrs Counsell and Mrs Batchelor. 

Wow, what a fantastic week we have had!
We have welcomed the new YR children and our new teacher, Mrs Batchelor. We are so proud of the Y1 children for helping them all to settle in and explore in their new setting. We have spent time this week getting to know each other, establishing rules so we can all keep each other safe in our learning spaces. We have enjoyed reading 'The Colour Monster' which is a book which has helped us to talk about how we might be feeling about coming back to school and seeing everyone again. This week we went swimming in the sunshine and had our first online assembly with Mrs Hillman. It was lovely to see the other children in the school and spending some 'virtual' time with them. Derek our class dinosaur has enjoyed going home to different children's houses and share adventures with them.

We are looking forward to spending more time with the YR children this week. Here are the times for this week's pick ups and drop offs for them:
Mon 14th Sept - 9.15 - 1.00pm
Tues 15th Sept - 9.15 - 1.00pm
Wed 16th Sept - 8.45 - 1.00pm
Thur 17th Sept - 8.45 - 1.00pm
Fri 18th Sept - 8.45 - 12.45pm

* Our PE day is Thursdays and where possible we will go swimming, weather depending. Please make sure your child has their book bag in school this week. We will be sending home reading books with Y1 children. We hope you received the letter about SeeSaw and how we are using it to record reading, if you didn't please let us know.

* This week looks like it's going to be sunny, please make sure we have a named sun hat and cream in school for your child. Thank you for your patience this week in getting our class pick up and drop offs into place. The children are becoming so confident, it's wonderful seeing so many children coming in on their own. Well done.

See you tomorrow Mrs Counsell and Mrs Batchelor.