This week in RDT we have been thinking ahead to when we move into Year 1 and getting ready for these changes with our ‘jump up’ days, where we spent time with our new teachers in our new classrooms. Although this is a very exciting time, we have also talked throughout the week about how we are feeling, as change can bring out many different emotions. We all thought about our favourite parts of our jump up days and shared them as we came back together in our RDT classroom. You could spend time this weekend talking together about thoughts and feelings linked to our transition to Year 1.
Car Wash Water Play!
We started our week with a very hot day, so we enjoyed exploring water play together in the outdoor area! Using paintbrushes with water on the bikes captured our interest and this quickly developed into our own ACE Car Wash! We worked as a team as we played cooperatively to take on roles within the car wash and lined up our ‘cars’ to be cleaned. We used different types of paintbrushes and rollers to wash the bikes as we continued to develop narratives together. It was wonderful to see the children so engaged as they used their imagination to bring their ideas to life!
Dear Teacher
This week, we spent time writing letters to our Year 1 teachers. We thought about the things that we wanted to share and made our own plans on spider diagrams. We then used our plans when writing, referring back to our own ideas as we put them onto paper. We sent them to our new teachers on the jump up days!
Spending time in Year 1
We all enjoyed visiting our new Year 1 teachers and classrooms on our two whole-school ‘jump up’ days. When we returned, we all shared our favourite moments about each day to reflect on our experiences as a circle time activity. “I liked playing outside, lunch and playing teachers. And tidying up!”, said Hooriya. “We played basketball outside and played with tennis balls”, said Aiden. Zayan shared, “my favourite thing was playing Mummies and Daddies with Sama”. Sama agreed that it was her favourite part of the day too! Maria said, “My favourite was everything! We played with animals!”. Toby added that they also played with minibeasts. Dayton said his favourite part was, “playing with a huge dice”. Over the weekend, you could spend time sharing the highlights of our jump up days together!
We thought that the children themselves would be the best at sharing what happened in our three Year 1 classes on the jump up days! Here is what they had to say…
Jumping up by Bonnie
“We drew a self-portrait and we did all the planets to show where they live in the night sky! We had bananas and carrots for snack. It was Year 1 and Year 2 at lunchtime. We told the teacher what we are good at and the things we like. We did some writing about Little Rabbit Foo Foo. We had a dog called Isla and we stroked her!”
Jumping up by Zidane
“We played with lego and it had tyres that could move. We made fives… one and four, three and two! We had a snack on the carpet. We drew a self-portrait on black paper and white card and coloured paper. We had breaktime, we played outside. We drew black skies with moons, stars and the wind in colours. To get pink, we mixed red and white pastels together!”
Jumping up by Elielle
“We did writing about getting a star. We drew aliens and coloured them in. We did drawing. Then we went outside. We did skipping and football. We had some new friends. We looked at stories and played with our friends. We sat together to do drawings. We went to lunchtime and had a snack!”
We will continue to think about and discuss our move up to Year 1 over the next two weeks. Please continue to provide opportunity to share these thoughts and feelings at home too, and speak to a member of the Reception Team if you wish to discuss your child and their transition. We are incredibly proud of RDT and the confidence they showed when introduced to new people, places and experiences this week!