Our P1 children have had a wonderfully busy and exciting start to our new World Around Us topic, “Day, Night, Colour and Light.” They have been fully engaged in their learning-through-play journey and have loved exploring light, colour, art, sounds and numeracy in creative, hands-on ways.
In our dark tent, the children investigated different sources of light and experimented with coloured torches. By placing coloured acetates in front of the beams, they were able to change the colour of the light—an early introduction to scientific thinking! At our Colour Mixing Station, the boys and girls became scientists, using colour-mixing fans and wearing special glasses with coloured lenses to discover how colours can combine to make new ones.
We have also been developing fine-motor skills, including activities with tongs to pick up and sort Compare Bears. As part of our art focus, the children learned about the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky and studied how he used shapes and colours to create beautiful pieces of abstract art. Inspired by his famous work “Concentric Circles in Squares,” the children created their own stunning versions, now proudly displayed on our classroom board alongside their Day and Night plates and photos of their colour-mixing with red, yellow and blue water.
Our light tables have provided even more opportunities for exploration. Children enjoyed investigating transparent shapes and numbers, forming letters with counters, and writing in black sand. They also used tongs to copy colour patterns with balls in test tubes—another excellent fine-motor challenge!
Alongside our WAU learning, P1 have been consolidating their sounds. Through a fun sound carousel, children sorted items by their initial sound, matched picture cards using pegs, and practised letter formation with magnetic counters and rods.
In Numeracy, the children have been exploring capacity through water play, learning about the concepts full and empty. They have also been introduced to money, focusing on recognising and using 1p coins. Our class shop has been a huge hit, with everyone taking turns as both customer and shopkeeper. The children further developed their skills on the interactive whiteboard, paying for digital items by counting out the correct number of pennies. They then worked in pairs to sort 1p coins from other coins using sorting circles—fantastic problem-solving in action!
All of this, plus reading, worksheets and rehearsing for our upcoming Christmas play… P1 really are busy bees! We hope you enjoy looking through our photos and seeing just how much fun and learning has been happening in our classroom.
