They quickly worked out where the photographs had been taken and were then off on a mission to recover them. We visited the Nursery classroom and climbing frame, Mrs Tickner's office and Mrs Parker's desk. We collected the dinosaurs in our basket and brought them back to Form 1. The children were relieved that they had not done anything silly whilst loose around Russell House and are very glad to have them back!

This week in Form 1, we have been learning about the festival of Thanksgiving. The children loved hearing the story of the brave Pilgrims who travelled across the sea to start a new life in America. They were also fascinated by the Native Americans' way of life and thought about how kind they were to help the Pilgrims through that first winter. We read some topical books on the subject and watched a little program on the CTouch called My First Festival which explained even more about how people celebrate. The children loved watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade and spotting all their favourite characters that had been turned into floats.

We focused on the meaning behind Thanksgiving and that it is a time of year that people reflect on all the things they are thankful for. The children thought of the things in their life that they are grateful for such as their families, friends, teachers, pets, their homes and their toys. Each child wrote what they were thankful for on a piece of card shaped like a feather. We then put their feathers together to create a Form 1 thankfulness turkey! We displayed this in the cloakroom with all the lovely things the children had said in speech bubbles.

In Maths this week the children have been learning about teen numbers. We built upon our learning from last week and used the part, part, whole model. This supported the children's understanding that teen numbers all contain one 10. We then made teen numbers to 20 using Numicon and the children were great at spotting the pattern- each number has a 10! We have also been working on counting on from 10 as a strategy to speed up our counting. The children have worked hard on their number formation and learnt little rhymes to help them remember how to form them correctly. We have also revisited sequencing numbers 11-20 to think about where numbers belong in a number line.

The children have been very created this week and, after learning about Native American culture, made their own dreamcatchers. We used sticks gathered from outside to create triangular frames and then joined them together using wool. The children were great at wrapping the wool around their frame to create the web and they added fathers and beads for extra decoration. We also had fun making a teepee on the carpet using our den building poles and blankets! Some children also made teepees using a paper template, cutting around the edges carefully and then folding to create a cone shape. We added art straws for extra stability.

We have also made friendship bracelets to give to one another, as their friendships were something they were all thankful for. We sequenced the story of the first Thanksgiving and created little zig-zag books. The children were fantastic at retelling the events in the correct sequence and using some of the new vocabulary they had learned. 

The children are already very excited about Christmas so we decided to decorate Form 1 a little early. The children loved adding tinsel and baubles to the tree and hopefully we will make our own to add as the weeks go on. We have created a Christmas house in the roleplay area, complete with a space to write their letters to Father Christmas! This will also develop and be added to over the next few weeks.

Pre-Prep enjoyed a fantastic gymnastics assembly this week, thanks to Mrs Curling and the gymnastics team. The children were amazed by the wonderful routines, balances, cartwheels and loved the impressive work displayed on the vault. It was very inspiring for the children and many of Form 1 said they would like to be able to do this one day.

Another wonderful week in Form 1!