Wow, what an exciting start to the school year! You've already done something so important—your "Helping Hands" activity! Let's talk about what that means and why it's so special.

What is a Helping Hand?

A helping hand is someone who you can trust, someone who cares about you and is always ready to help. These people make sure you feel safe, happy, and loved. During our activity, each of you thought about trusted adults you see in your school day and wrote their names on your very own Helping Hand for the class display. Great job!

Maybe you could spend some time with your adults talking about who your trusted adults are in Year 1! Think about:

-     Your teacher

-     Your teaching assistant

-     Other teachers and adults in the year group

Knowing who you can talk to when you're feeling unsure or need help is very important. Trusted adults are there to help us when:

• We have a problem.
• We're feeling sad, scared, or confused.
• We just need to talk to someone.

Remember, it’s okay to ask for help! Whether it's something big or small, your helping hands are always there for you.

Keep up the great work, Year 1 - you’ve already shown how thoughtful and caring you are!

Today we were very lucky to have the Skipping Ninja come into school. At the beginning of the day, we went up and the Skipping Ninja gave us a demonstration of his amazing skills. We were all very impressed!

We then went for a special skipping workshop. We completed different types of skips and exercise with the Skipping Ninja and managed to do all of this to music. Finally, we played a game similar to musical statues where we had to skip when the music was on a freeze when it stopped. 

All the children were talking about how great their time with the Skipping Ninja was and are excited about doing more skipping!

We had a great Science Day doing lots of science related activities. We started by having Ethan, a STEM ambassador, coming to talk to us about climate change and things we can do to help.

We then looked at the book 'Greta and the Giants' and talked about the importance of trees and how they help us. We discussed how cutting down lots of trees can cause climate change and how it impacts us and other animals.

We then looked at the scientist Dr Angie Burnett who is a plant biologist. We found out this meant that she completes experiments with plants, such as seeing the best environment for them to grow. We then had our own seed to plant which we will watch germinate and then put into soil and continue to watch it grow.

Finally, we looked at the author and illustrator Eric Carle. We used collage to create our own flower picture making sure to include the different parts of a flower.  

We had great fun on our STEM Discovery Centre trip. We took part in lots in exciting activities including making our own rockets and launching them outside, watching some cool magic tricks that were actually science and learning about the Mars rover. 

We first learnt about the different parts of the rocket, including the nose cone and tail fins. We had to make sure we included these on our rocket we made. Once we had created our rocket, we went outside and launched them using air, some of them nearly went on the roof!

We had time in the exploration room which lots of interesting things to look at and use, including a robotic arm which we loved. At the end of the day we had a magic show, our favourite experiment was when the flame heated up the gas inside and caused the lid to fly of in a flame.

Our favourite part of the day was making slime! We learnt about the reaction between the materials and how slime is a liquid because it takes the shape of what it is in. We had good fun playing with our slime once we had made it too!

Today we had our second session with Stevenage FC. We have started to look at our 'A, B, Cs'. Today we began looking at 'B' which stands for balance. We started by recapping parts of our body and then balancing on different parts of our body. For example we might have had to balance on two hands and one foot. We then worked in pairs to get across the stepping stones, making sure we stood still balancing when there was the call 'danger'.

This week we have be writing the story of Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion. Everybody has done an amazing job and we have been wowed by the super writing! 

In our stories we included sentences using 'and' and 'because. We also included exclamation sentences such as 'What tatty hair you have!' We have been writing in our neatest handwriting and remembering our punctuation. 

Everybody has loved learning about this story which is a twist on the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood. It has sparked our imaginations and we have been reading other alternative stories as we have loved it so much!

We have had an awesome day celebrating World Book Day. We started by sharing the character we came as today and talking about the books they were from. 

The book we looked at as a class today was 'The Jolly Postman or Other People's Letters'. We have been learning about all the traditional tales and fairytales in English this half term. We came across lots of the characters we knew, including the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, the bears from Goldilocks and the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. 

We had a closer look at the letter the witch received. It was a poster about all the witch supplies she might need. We knew that these were so she could make her potions. There were lots of ingredients at the front to make our own potions with! We had super fun adding different things to our potion bottles to make a variety of amazing potions, including flying potions, evil milkshakes and crystal spells. Once we finished making them we then wrote a set of instructions on how to make our potions. 

After that, we looked at the Jolly Postman's journey that day. We drew him a map so he would know where to go to post the letters. We used directional language to help tell the Jolly Postman where to go on his journey.

Finally, we thought about the letters he would have to post and thought about the most efficient way to deliver them. We decided to that he should deliver them in order so that he is not running around everywhere! We had to help him by ordering the house numbers on the envelope so that he could get home in time for tea. 

Today we have started looking at a new book in English. It is called Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion. This story reminds us of the story Little Red Riding Hood and we are interested to know if it ends the same way.

So far we have read the start of the story and have been looking at the character Little Red. We had a go at hot seating, where we role played as the character Little Red and answered questions about our morning, this was great fun!

We then completed a Role on the Wall with Little Red, thinking about what she looks like and what type of person she is. Looking back at the book, we decided Little Red was a kind person as she went to look after her poorly Auntie Rosie and she is brave because she jumped over the crocodiles on her way. 

We were super scientists this afternoon. We had to work out which material would have been best to use for Eddy's raincoat. We decided we needed to test some different materials and find out which of them were waterproof. To make it a fair test, we added the same amount of water and waited for the same amount of time before checking to see if the water had gone through the material. We found that plastic and foil were waterproof but decided plastic would be the best material for a raincoat as it doesn't easily break. 

Today we had lots of fun in our computing lesson. We have been learning about using the paint app to create pictures. We have learnt how to fill, draw, undo, erase as well as using shapes and lines. Today we created a flower picture in pairs, taking turns to add to our drawing. We think our pictures look amazing!