Welcome to the F1 Sahara Page!
Hello everyone!
We just can't believe we have only one half term left this school year- time really does fly when you're having fun learning! We certainly have been busy bee's - scroll down to find out more. And please have a look through our photo albums by clicking on the stars at the top of the page.
Thank you
F1 Team
Key Groups and Staff
The FSU is a special place where F1 and F2 children enjoy their learning in collaboration with one another.
Meet the Team
Miss Brock - EYFS leader and F2 teacher
Mrs Elms - F1 Teacher
(Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning)
Mrs Atkin - F1 Teacher
(Thursday and Friday morning)
Miss Monger - F2 teaching assistant
Mrs Jackson - F1 teaching assistant
(mornings and lunch times)
Mrs Jeffrey - F1 teaching assistant
(mornings)
Mrs Benger - F1 teaching assistant
(afternoons)
Important Information
F1 PE sessions are every Thursday morning. F1 children do not need a PE kit, however they do take off their shoes, socks and jumpers and we encourage them to do this as independently as possible.
Please make sure your child has their book bag in school every day. Your child's key group will have a 'Library Day' on a Thursday, this is where they can choose a school story book to take home for the week. Please enjoy sharing this book with your child and make comments in the home/school diary.
We will sometimes send home a "learning at home" activity; the aim of these activities is to help improve our children's communication and language skills and so the activities will be largely focussed on talking. This could be a picture to talk about, a story map that is linked to the story we have been learning in school or a fun activity to enjoy at home. We ask that you share the activity with your child and make comments about the things they say in their home/school diary.
We also love to hear about the special things that your child does when they are not at school and ask you to fill in a 'Proud Cloud' so that we can share those special moments. Examples are: getting dressed by themselves, doing up fastenings on their clothes, riding their bikes without help. We are sure that there are lots more special things that your child does that we would love to hear about.
Welly Wednesday
Each Wednesday morning we don our wellington boots and head off into our wonderful outside area. We base this on the Forest School's ethos;
'Forest School is an inspirational process, that offers ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees.'
You can find out more about Forest Schools here.
One of our favourite Wednesday Wellie sessions was when we created clay faces on the trees in the garden. The creativity and enjoyment that the children showed was outstanding, we were so proud of them. Here are a few for you to enjoy, if you would like to see more click here.
Our Learning Journey
Please check back to see all of the exciting things that we have been doing.
wb 16.7.18
wb 9.7.18
What a busy week we have had! On Monday we had a special visit from Geoff who volunteers for the RLNI - we found out lotsof things about this very important job and we know lots of you went home and told your adults all about what you had learned.
On Wednesday we took part in Sports Day! It was amazing to see the team spirit the children have already in F1! And wow, there are some super speedy runners! We all enjoyed it and can't wait to participate in more races next year in F2.
wb 2.7.18
It has been so hot again this week, not that we are complaining - we have enjoyed having a paddle to cool off outside. We have noticed the grass turning yellow and our plants in our garden patch looking a bit droopy - so we watered them to help them grow.
wb 25.6.18
We have made the most of the glorious weather and spent lots of time outdoors, fortunately we have lots of trees to play under. The weather has sparked lots of discussion about looking after ourselves in the sun and the heat, the children have been really responsible about wearing their hats, playing in the shade and drinking lots!
On Monday we watched the Blue Planet 2 Prequel on YouTube, the children were wowed!! It was just wonderful to see their faces and the excitement in their discussion about what we had watched.
On Wednesday the staff were wowed by every single childs effort in Wednesday Wellies! We worked in two teams to create a nature scarecrow! They were amazing. The children loved it that much that they continued the acitivities independently.
wb 18.6.18
Wow! What a week! And it's only Tuesday!
On Monday a tank appeared in Mrs Elms' story corner, we looked inside but it was empty! We wondered why it was there?! On Tuesday it all became clear... one of our very kind families has let their pet lobster come on holiday to our school! We are all so excited about this amazing creature and have already spent so much time observing it and asking questions about it. How very exciting.
We have also been visited by the Fire Service, where we got the chance to use the hose and wear the Fire Fighter's helmet... it was so heavy!
On Wednesday we made our scarecrow ready for the Bilsthorpe's first scarecrow festival!
wb 11.6.18
During our Wednesday Welly session this week we talked about looking after our environment and to make sure that we put litter in the bin, we discussed how this could affect the animals that live in our garden. We also used natural objects to make faces in the garden.
wb 4.6.18
This week we introduced the children to our new 'Under the Sea' topic. We enjoyed the book 'Sharing a Shell' and spoke about the importance of being kind and sharing, the children offered some excellent answers to our questions about the story. In our Wednesday Welly session we explored our new areas: the bug hotel, our music area and our revamped creative and construction sheds. Our 30 hours children enjoyed weeding the growing patches and planting some new plants with Mrs Benger.
wb 21.5.18
The final week of this wonderful half term was ended in the most fitting way - a Royal Dinosaur Party! The children were excited to have received a very royal invitation to this extremely exciting event and set to work writing their own shopping lists for what we would need for the occasion - cake was at the top on most of our lists!
We have also been blown away by the outcomes from our 'learning at home' challenge - wow wow wow! What creative families we have... fabulous parent partnership!
During Wednesday Wellies we made crowns using natural objects from the garden.
wb 14.5.18
This week we have been getting ready to celebrate the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, we have even had a visit from the royal couple themselves. We have investigated, counted and worn the royal treasure that appeared in our sand tray. We have been creative with our golden royal playdough and we have been using 3d shapes to make royal castles. We have been enjoying the nice weather and spending lots of time in the garden, using the environment to enhance our learning.
wb 7.5.18
This week the we have done lots of speaking and listening activities as well focussing on our PSED. In Wednesday Wellies we went on a Spring Hunt and looked for all the new growth and life in the garden, the children had a checklist and spent time carefully looking for things to check off. The staff heard lots of wonderful discussion about what the children could see.
wb 30.4.18
The mysterious dinosaur antics continued in to this week too! BFHA CCTV captured images of the dinosaurs around the school building! Even by Mrs Ingle's office!!!!! The children were so excited about this and were looking for the dinosaurs everywhere! The language the children were using was fantastic and they were asking lots of great questions! We are dotty about the dinosaurs, so we added spots to our favourite dinosaurs, matching numeral to amount!
wb 23.4.18
Awe and wonder were at the heart of the unit this week... on Monday morning we walked in to discover that there were 4 huge eggs in a nest in the middle of the unit. We wondered: Where did they come from? How did they get here? What is inside?
Mystery continued throughout the week when we discovered dinosaur footprints throughout the unit... cracks appearing in the eggs... what will happen?
wb 16.4.18
This week we were pleased to welcome our summer F1 intake and their families; they have been settling well into Nursery and we are very proud of them all. Our older F1 children have also made us so proud by being so welcoming to the new children and showing them kindness. A big well done to you all! We have read the story 'We're Going on a Dinosaur Hunt' and learned to retell it with actions. We looked at the different settings in the story. We used 2d shapes to create dinosaur pictures.
wb 26.3.18
This week we were getting ready for Easter. The chidlren learned about new life and we read an information book together, looking at the simple features of the text. On Thursday we had an EGG-citing day: Our Easter bonnett parade, egg-rolling, decorating an egg. What a CRACKING day it was! Happy Easter everyone!
wb 19.3.18
Our story this week was the Enormous Turnip, we used Talk for Writing to innovate the story. The children thought of their own characters and ideas for the story - the team were overwhelmed by the creativity of the children and the team work they displayed in creating group stories... the social skills and collaboration was amazing! Well done F1.
wb 12.3.18
Science week - we continued our work on growing and planted our own beans - we hoped that they wouldn't grow into mean stalks. We were excited to have received a giant letter from the giant who lives at the top of the beanstalk. He set us lots of challenges and as a result of us completing them he sent us some potatoes to plant and grow in Wednesday Wellies.
wb 5.3.18
We read the story Jack and the Incredibly Mean Stalk. We created a story map together and learned to retell the story using actions. We spent time looking at the characters and describing them. We worked on our character voices and facial expressions when retelling the story. We couldnt believe it when a beanstalk... or is it a mean stalk?! Appeared in the classroom! We wondered why it was there. Some children collected leaves on their way to school to add to the beanstalk. A group of children made an impressive structure outside - the team work was just fantastic, real discussion about where pieces should go and why - well done!
wb 26.2.18
After a week off it was lovely to see the children's smiling faces again, there is always lots of news to share and stories to tell on the first day back. Winter struck this week and we made the most of it: throwing snowballs; making snow angels and ice ornaments. Lots of learning about the natural world took place this week; the children were so curious about the weather and snow and asked lots of questions. We enjoyed learning the story 'The Ginger Bread Man', we retold the story in the small world area and made our own play dough ginger bread men. We matched numerals to amounts by counting buttons to match the number on the ginger bread man.
wb 5.1.18 and 12.2.18
During the final two weeks we found an empty bowl of porridge and a broken chair - can you guess what our story was? That's right, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We continued using Talk for Writing to learn the story, but this week we went one step further... the children became authors!! We thought of own ideas to change the story, and what fabulous ideas they were. In the end we decided on the title of 'Goldilocks and the Dangerous Dinosaurs' - the children's ideas, language and enthusiasm shown in the challenge was BRILLIANT! The F1 staff were wowed by the outcome! In Maths we continued our work on measure, we used porridge to help us learn the concept and language of capacity. This week we invited our adults in to our special 'Onsie Upon a Time' morning, the children loved sharing this time with you.The last week of half term was a busy one with two extra special days, Pancake Day and Chinese New year.
wb 22.1.18 and 29.1.18
For these two weeks we focussed on The Three Billy Goats Gruff, we created a story map to help us retell the story and used the Talk for Writing actions to help us link the different parts of the story and understand the story order. We thought about the characters and decided that we didn't like the troll. The children were fascinated with wondering what ever could have happened to the troll after he had fallen in the water? They had some amazing ideas, including thinking that it was likely that the troll got washed out to sea and was eaten by an octopus. We continued to construct and this week we tried to make bridges out of many materials. In Maths we sang number songs and used the language of size, linking this back to the different sized billy goats.
wb 8.1.19 and 15.1.19
A lovely week back after the Christmas break, the children developed their speaking and listening skills whilst telling us about their Christmas experiences and were all excited to tell us their very favourite present. Of course it was hard to choose just one! We welcomed our new children and their families and enjoyed getting to know our new friends.
Our topic for this half term is 'Once Upon a Time', through this topic we will read lots of traditional tales and learn to retell three stories; 'The Three Little Pigs', 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' and 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. Our first book is ' The Three Little Pigs'. This week we transformed our roleplay area into the Three Pigs' Building Yard - here the children enjoyed dressing up as the characters and building their houses... but beware there are some big bad wolves ready to huff and puff and blow your house down. The children donned their builders hard hats and got creative building both large and small structures both indoors and out! We created a story map together and used character voices to retell the story.
wb 18.12.17
Our final week - this week we have spent time finishing our calendars, having fun dressing up for our Christmas photo booth style cards and also learning about technology and taking photos of our friends in their outfits. The children have wrote their own names in their Christmas cards. We also made some lovely wooden Christmas tree decorations... the more glitter the better. On Thursday it was our Christmas party - it was such a lovely, festive atmosphere.
wb 11.12.17
The week of our Christmas Performance, 'Wriggly Nativity'! Wow, wow, WOW! The children put on an amazing show! They have spent lots of time learning their lines, songs and actions and this showed in the final performance for our families. We are extremely proud of the children for all their hard work.
wb 4.12.17
This week we read several different books about the story of the first Christmas. The children were able to use their experiences from learning our nativity songs to help them order the story. We thought about story structure and what happens next. We learned a new number song about Christmas trees.
wb 27.11.17
Whatever Next - The children really enjoyed this week. In the past few weeks lots of our children have shown an interest in space and space rockets and so we thought this would be the perfect story to really capture their imagination. We retold the story using a story sack and outside we re-enacted the story using our den building equipment.
wb and 13.11.17 and 20.11.17
Stickman - the children were able to use their prior learning on rhyming words to really engage with the text and think about the missing words. We made our own sticky families outside during wellies and counted the people in our families. We have recently introduced a 'Letter of the Week' in our Monday phonics sessions, the children are really enjoying learning letter sounds and the Jolly Phonics songs.
wb 6.11.17
Room on the Broom and Remembrance Day
We continued our work with rhyming words this week and the children have become very familiar with the story and are able to filling in missing words. We introduced Letter Sound of the Week in F1, starting with the letter sound 'ssss'. We used a range of media to create poppies for our schools Remembrance service.
wb 30.10.17
Room on the Broom and Bonfire Night
This week our home corner transformed into a 'Spooky Cafe', whilst our themed role play became a 'Potion Station'. There was a huge focus on rhyming, which the children enjoyed. We made our own potions in the water and counted newts and frogs into our cauldron. We made miniature broomsticks in Wednesday Wellies. This week also saw our schools spectacular Bonfire night - with this experience we created some fantastic fireworks pictures and made firework voice sounds.
wb 9.10.17 and 16.10.17
Autumn and We're Going on a Bear Hunt
This week we read the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt', we then made a story map and enjoyed retelling the story with actions. Our Magic Maths this week was all about 2D flat shapes, we particularly enjoyed going on a shape hunt in our garden.
wb 2.10.17
Autumn and Owl Babies
We started this week by going outside on an Autumn Treasure Hunt, all of the children were excited to find out about and collect signs of autumn. We had another visit from the Mouse Fairy who asked us to help her with a special mission; making a blanket for her and her fairy friends. We made the blankets during Wednesday Wellies and used autumnal artefacts to make them colourful.
wb 25.9.17
The Selfish Crocodile
Our story this week led the way for some lovely discussion about friendship and kindness. We had a visit from a new friend this week, the mouse fairy, she wanted to find out more about crocodiles. The children helped the mouse fairy by sorting silly and sensible questions about crocodiles, they also began to learn the differences between information (fact) and story (fiction) books.
wb 11 and 18.9.17
All About Me and Elmer
During our Elmer theme we learned about colours and sorted objects of different colours. We thought about what makes us special and unique and about our qualities that are the same or similar. In our Magic Maths sessions we have been singing lots of different number songs. We have been using our fingers to count carefully.
wb 4.9.17
All About Me
A short but lovely week, this week we have been getting to know one another and finding out about our classroom and outdoor environment.
Thank you, F1 Team
Useful Websites
Take a look at the wonderful dinosaur section on the Natural History Museum website
Some lovely ideas for this imaginative story,
The official website for the rhyming story
Watch the animation of this wonderful story
The fantastic story's official home page
Find out more about the animals of Africa
During our Spring term 'Winter Fantasy Land' theme we will be reading lots of storiesm here are stories to listen to and watch online.
Lots of different online games that cover many areas of learning
We will be doing lots of number work during the Spring term - Here there are lots of counting games, many of which are tablet friendly and the children love them too!
The Official 'Letter and Sounds' website. Keep up with what your child is learning in school and support at home with games online. F1 learn Phase 1. F2 learn Phase 2 in Autumn then Phase 3 in Spring and finally Phase 4 in the Summer Term.
Online Literacy and Maths games to play to support learning
A great website with lots of fun games to play to support your child's learning of phonics at home. F1 learn Phase 1. F2 learn Phase 2 in Autumn then Phase 3 in Spring and finally Phase 4 in the Summer Term.
Lots of ideas of simple experiments to do at home, mostly with items found in your cupboards. We will be experimenting with ice during the spring term