Hundred Decker Rocket
This week, we have continued to explore our topic ‘Let go’.
We have been reading the book The Hundred Decker Rocket.
This story is about a girl called Ivy who sets off on a mission to space. On the way, she meets some very messy aliens. When her rocket breaks down, all the aliens help to fix it and make their own deck.
In provision, the children were challenged to write their own sentences about a picture from the book or use their knowledge of the story.
Maths
This week, we have continued to engage in activities to draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the last number in the count tell us how many things there are altogether.
Phonics
This week, the children have reviewed air, er and longer words that contain double letters.
Write these words on paper and ask your child to underline the double letters before reading.
hammer shimmer cannot chatter muffin
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try.
Secret password
Write different tricky words on paper and stick them next to different doors around the house.
Each time your child enters or leaves a room they must press and say the tricky word password.
Poetry Picnic
Each week, we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. Watch here
Music
We began our lesson this week by listening to Beyond the Sea by Robbie Williams.
The children were amazing at recognising the instruments they could hear such as drums and the piano.
Then, they used xylophones to make low and high sounds.
Reminders and Messages
Monday 04 March- Class Trip to The National Railway Museum.
World Book Day 2024- Thursday 07 March Please join us in the classroom (9.00-10.00) where you can relax and read books with your child. We’d also like your child to share their favourite book with their friends. Please send your child into school with their favourite book and please ensure the book is named. As stated on the school calendar, this is a dressing up year. Dressing up is optional. Thank you.
These dates are also stuck to your child’s classroom door or window to view whenever needed.
KS1 visit from our lovely lollipop lady, Sue
Today, the whole of KS1 had a very special visitor. Our beloved lollipop lady, Sue. She came along to inform our history learning and shared her memories of shopping as a youngster.
The children all listened carefully as Sue told us how there were not as many shops as there are now and how there weren’t any supermarkets. You needed to go to lots of different types of shops for your groceries such as a butchers, a bakery or a green grocers. Sue’s father was a green grocer and he started out his business by selling tomatoes from a box which he carried around on his head!
Sweets and pop were a once weekly treat and snacks weren’t really readily available. It was mainly just three meals a day. There was no choice of meals either – everyone in the family ate the same thing and you rarely got to choose what it was. This was the same at school. There was only one choice of school dinner or you could go home for lunch. Meals were seasonal. You had to wait until fruits and vegetables were in season to eat them. You couldn’t get them in the shops all year round like you can today.
The children loved that Sue passed through the gates today to join them in class and the session was very interesting and informative. Thank you Sue!
Help at home – Talk to your child about what shopping was like when you were a child. You could also ask older family members, friends or neighbours to share their experiences with your child just like Sue did. Questions that may help your discussions might be:
- What kind of shops did you buy your food from?
- How did you pay? Were you able to pay with your phone or watch?
- What kinds of foods were available? Was there as much choice as there is today?
- What was your favourite meal? Is it the same now?
- Did you get your shopping delivered?
- Do you have any photographs that you could share together?
Flavoursome Fruit Salad
What a welcome back to school! Yesterday, Class 1A spent the afternoon working on the latest DT project. We made fruit salad… and delicious they were too!
We started the same as we always do with a food project – by washing our hands and making sure that they’re nice and clean. Bye bye germs! The children then worked in groups to prepare fruit for a tasty fruit salad. We thought about the word ‘ingredients‘ and looked at the selection that we had… bananas, oranges, kiwi fruit, strawberries, grapes, tinned pineapple and tinned peaches and orange juice. Mrs Brown demonstrated how to slice the fruit safely and then we used the bridge hold to slice our own pieces of fruit. We also used other skills such as peeling by hand and segmenting fruit.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the process and we shared the resources respectfully. Nearly everyone devoured their fruit salad giving a huge thumbs up. Others gave new fruits a lick to see if they liked it. Mrs Brown was very proud of them all!
Well done for great careful listening Class 1A!
Help at home – under careful supervision, you could give your child experiences of helping to prepare their own foods for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They could help to measure out liquids that you need for a recipe for the family. They could use child appropriate knives to prepare fruits and vegetables for meals or snacks. Perhaps they could begin to help to prepare their own healthy snack to bring to school?
The Magic Paintbrush
This week, our focus book was The Magic Paintbrush.
We began by listening to the story for enjoyment. After becoming familiar with the story, we were then able to discuss the main events and characters.
The children then explored what they would do if they had a magic paintbrush.
After reading, we also learnt about the Lunar New year and how it is celebrated.
They put up lanterns. Libby
They have fireworks. Violet
They have a new animal every year. Austin
Special dinner. Melissa
They clean the house. Sienna
Stay and Learn
On Tuesday, it was great to welcome adults into the classroom to share different ways to develop our fine motor skills.
Lots of activities can be done with items you already have a home!
Maths
During our lessons, we have explored weight using lots objects made from different materials and of various sizes.
We have focused on using mathematical vocabulary to compare different items.
heavy heavier heaviest
light lighter lightest
Poetry Picnic
Each week, we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. This week’s poem is Mrs Bluebird.
Phonics
We use the chunking method to read words with more that one syllable. We have also spotted words containing double letters (e.g. rabbit) – these are diagraphs too!
Ask your child to chunk and read these words.
sunset chicken carpet carrot
Your child will have come home with a grapheme mat and a tricky word mat. If any sounds are highlighted on the grapheme mat, these are those that your child is not yet secure on. Please keep practising these at home.
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! In Little Wandle phase 3, we learnt lots of new words. The children will continue to learn new tricky words fairly rapidly over the Spring 2 and Summer terms. We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try!
Musical tricky words
- Write the tricky words on individual pieces of paper, lay them out on the floor
- Play your child’s favourite song for them to dance around to
- When the music stops, your child should pick a word to quickly run to and stand on
- Your child reads the word they have landed on
- Remove that word and repeat until there are no words left!
Internet Safety
On internet safety day and throughout the week, the children have discussed ways they use the internet and how to stay safe online.
Here is a link you may find useful to help and support staying safe online.
More learning
Living and Learning – Internet Safety and harms
On Tuesday this week it was ‘Safter Internet Day’. This special celebration, which takes place in February of each year, aims to raise awareness of a safer and better internet for all, especially for children and young people.
We spent the morning off timetable learning about all of the different ways we can stay safe online and what to do/who to speak to if anything we see, hear or receive online makes us feel uncomfortable.
We looked at:
- the risks of online relationships with strangers
- understanding that everything you see online is not true
- the importance of keeping personal information (such as full name/address/school) private
- ensuring a balance of online and offline
The children engaged really well during these sessions and had lots of great ideas about how to stay safe online.
Supertato!
This week began with a vegetable based mystery!
Who had captured the vegetables and why were they trapped?
It could only be one thing… EVIL PEA.
After reading the story Supertato, we read true and false statements to show our knowledge and understanding of the story.
The children enjoyed creating their own.
Can they tell you which ones are true or false?
Evil Pea drew on broccoli’s face. Libby
Supertato trapped Evil Pea in ice. Austin
Evil Pea wrapped cucumber in toilet paper. Isobel
Supertato nearly got squashed by Evil Pea. Florence
Maths
This week, we explored the composition of five in different ways. Using the song Five Little Speckled Frogs, we were able to develop our understanding of one less as well as explore the number bonds of five.
We played a game by throwing beanbags in a hoop and creating number statements to say how many were in or out of the hoop.
Four in the hoop and one out of the hoop.
4 and 1 make 5
Poetry Picnic
Our sessions this week have been a little different as we learnt and recited a traditional nursery rhyme.
The children used gestures and expression to recite Jack and Jill.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 2 has focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi, ear.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; my, by, all.
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Splat
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper/sticky notes.
- Place around the room/floor.
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat. You might jump on the words, splat with a masher or create your own ideas.
Focus Artist: Yayoi Kusama
Over the next two weeks, we will be exploring the art of Yayoi Kusama. This week, we have been colour mixing and drawing different sized dots onto pumpkin pictures.
We visited a special one day only Scholes Art Galley and used sentence stems to talk about our opinions.
I like it because..
I don’t like it because…
I like it because it’s colourful. Kitson
I don’t like it because of the spikes. Sofia
I like it because of the flowers. F
I like the explosion of poppies everywhere. Myla
The children had an opportunity to observe before drawing their favourite piece of art.
Provision
Cancelled swim session
There will be no swimming (for Rainbow Class) on Wednesday 31.01.24.
Lost and Found
We began our learning this week by looking at the story Lost and Found. This will be our focus story for the next two weeks.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost.
Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg.
It’s ice in the water. Violet
A big chunk of ice. Frankie
It’s a big thing of ice that goes under the sea. It can ruin a ship. Kitson
It was wonderful to hear children using this new vocabulary in our small world area.
Let’s make the penguins dive off the iceberg!
This penguin is swimming around the gigantic iceberg.
Using props, we were able to retell the story.
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Let’s Put on Our Mittens.
Click here to listen to Reception recite the poem.
Music
Our song this week was We are Family by Sister Sledge.
This was very popular as lots of children had heard the song before when watching the film Trolls.
The nursery rhyme was Wind the Bobbin Up. As the children knew this one very well, they were able to perform confidently!
Check out our other learning
Dates
Tuesday 16 January 9- 10 Stay and learn
Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home.
Christmas in KS1
The children have been enjoying a lovely festive week in school this week. They performed their little socks off and displayed their singing and dancing talents at both of the Nativity shows. WELL DONE YEAR 1 AND 2!!!
Today, in all classes, we received a mysterious phone call to tell us that we had been sent a very special email. The big man himself, Santa Claus, had sent us an email with a video to watch. It turns out he had been to our school when we were at home last night and he had delivered some gifts to our classrooms for us. We were SO excited and searched for the presents in class. There was one for everyone. We’re even more excited now for the Christmas dinner tomorrow and for the party on Friday.
Merry Christmas everyone from all the KS1 staff.
Help at home: by taking some time to relax and recuperate after a long term and by enjoying some wonderful family time together.
The Jolly Christmas Postman
Literacy
This week we enjoyed the story, The Jolly Christmas Postman.
The children loved seeing the different letters, gifts and cards inside each envelope.
Inspired by the book, we wrote our own postcards with special messages. We learned about the journey of a letter from the post box to our front door and can’t wait for our own letters to be delivered!
Maths
We have looked at 2D and 3D shapes. We made shapes with lolly sticks, found shapes in our classroom, and discussed their properties.
In provision, we used shapes to create pictures. The children were able to talk about the different shapes they had used.
Music
Feeling the Christmas spirit, we listen to Michael Bublé – White Christmas.
We moved in time to the music, listened carefully to the lyrics, and the different sounds and instruments.
I can hear a trumpet. Rupert
I heard high voices. Charlotte
I heard some Christmas song. Heidi
I hear people singing. Asha
I can hear a drum and a tambourine. Sofia
It was really interesting. Finlay
Check out our other learning…
2C – making predictions
This half term, KS1 are reading ‘Not Now, Bernard’ by David McKee. Before reading the book, we had a good look at the front cover and made a few inferences based on the pictures. We had a discussion about what the book might be about before reading it. We used clues on the front cover to help us with this.
We then read the first part of the book. We stopped to predict what might happen next in the story and why. Here are some of our predictions.
