We have taken part in lots of fun activities this week related to the Olympics.

Sports day went without a hitch and today we enjoyed singing with year one children from four other schools, St Julian’s, Peasedown St John, Twerton and Camerton.  

As you will be aware on Friday 6^th July we are going to the

Royal Crescent

for the ‘Schoolympics.’

Please remember to read the letter already sent and send your child to school in full school uniform including a waterproof coat. We are having lunch at school before we go and will be back before the end of the school day. PLEASE remember a full plastic water bottle also!   

AGAIN, PLEASE remember that we go out to play in most weathers so your child always needs a coat at school. A few children had no coat again this week.

Can we PLEASE ask again for children to use pencil when doing their maths homework.

Finally, all year one children will, in the coming weeks, be given the opportunity to work with their year two classmates in the safe environment of a year one class. The children are already really looking forward to September.

    



This week in Numeracy we have been counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Please reinforce this at home by helping your child to chant forwards and backwards to help them with their learning.  

PLEASE remember that maths homework is due in each Wednesday and that we do also need to see your comment sheet each week. Please also ensure that your child uses a pencil, so that they can rub out any mistakes.

In Literacy we made a sandwich and then wrote our own ‘Instructions for making a sandwich.’ You might like to ask your child to help next time you make a sandwich by instructing you how to do so. Teachers also completed the Phonics screening. The results of this will be fed back to you in your child’s report.    

As you will be aware on Friday 6^th July we are going to the

Royal Crescent

for the ‘Schoolympics.’ We still need parents to accompany us on the day, so please think hard if you are CRB checked and able to help.  

PLEASE remember that we go out to play in most weathers so your child always needs a coat at school. A few children had no coat today and it rained each playtime.

PLEASE also remember that Tuesday 26^th June is our sports morning so your child needs their named P.E. kit.

Finally, it seems like a long time ago, but thank you for sending your child to school dressed as a King or Queen. We hope you enjoy the photos.    

The whole school has decided to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in various ways. In year one we are asking the children to come to school dressed as a King or Queen (if they are able to) on Thursday May 31^st. We are planning exciting ideas for the day but are also asking the children to think of activities that they would like to do.

                    

We have been working our socks off this week doing our maths, reading and writing assessments. It hasn’t all been work though because on Tuesday we welcomed the Olympic torches to our school: one from the 1948 Olympics and one from London 2012. The children were so excited……..and so were the staff. How lucky are we??

We had such a wonderful time learning about the torch relay, following the live feed and making our own torch crowns. Foundation Stage and Key Stage One joined together at the end of the day to have our own Olympic parade.  (Photos to follow)

PLEASE REMEMBER that there will be maths homework and spellings as normal tomorrow. 

This week in Numeracy we have been working hard to try to remember number facts up to ten. Please ask your child if they can tell you all of the ones we have been learning. We have also been counting in 5s and 10s and adding a 1 digit number to a 2 digit number, e.g. 13 + 6, 35 + 3.

PLEASE remember that maths homework is due in each Wednesday and that we do also need to see your comment sheet each week. Please also ensure that your child uses a pencil, so that they can rub out any mistakes.

In Literacy we have been working with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and trying to learn it ‘by heart’. We have been using actions to help us re-tell the story. Again, please ask your child to show you the actions and re-tell you the story.     

We have designed and made our miniature gardens and they look beautiful. Monet is the artist we are studying next. 

  

This week in Numeracy we have been working with ordinal numbers. We had fun taking part in different races, then talking about who came first, second etc. We have also been putting ourselves into order, followed by putting numbers into order. Finally we looked at ‘between’ numbers e.g. think of a number, say 7, and say two numbers that have 7 is ‘between’.

PLEASE NOTE that the first maths homework will be set on 27^th April. There is a letter to follow.

In Literacy we have read the story of ‘Princess Smartypants’ and have begun work on mini beast poems. Our topic work is also based around the story. Part of this work involves going on a mini beast hunt around the school, so PLEASE send your child to school on Monday with named wellingtons in a carrier bag. Thank you.       

Our first Science experiment is stopping slugs from eating plants in our garden – this is the first task that Princess Smartypants asked a suitor to complete. Please save your plastic or card containers so that we can make miniature gardens etc. 

Welcome to our Norland Nannies Charlotte, Annie, Jess and Emily.   

Here comes the sun

This week in Numeracy we have been adding describing position by using words such as ‘above, below, beside, left and right’. We have also been describing direction by using words such as ‘forwards, backwards, up, down, left and right’. We have been talking about things that turn and make whole turns, half turns and quarter turns. Please ask us to show you our turns and how we can move left and right.

We have been using the Bee Bots as part of Numeracy this week. We created a short program to move it from one point to another. We recorded steps on whiteboards and then tested our steps to see if the Bee Bot moved as we’d expected and if not, why not?

In Literacy we have continued to use actions to help us remember the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We drew story maps and changed the story to create our own version for example ‘The Chocolate Bunny’ and ‘The Gingerbread Penguin’. We have started to write an interesting story opening based on our version of The Gingerbread Man.

Have a wonderful two week break - don't eat too much chocolate!

This week in Numeracy we have been adding by counting on. We used number lines and hundred squares. Please ask your child to tell you how Max helped us with our counting. We then used our ability to count in tens to help us to add multiples of ten. We found it helpful to use ten pence pieces to help us.

In Literacy we have had great fun being storytellers using different props. In 1MB we have a storytelling chair and a cloak. We used actions to help us remember the story (please ask your child to show you the ones they can remember). We have also drawn story maps for ‘The Gingerbread Man.’       

We have been investigating what force makes rockets fly, and learning why some things fall down. In small groups we were exploring gravity by dropping different objects from the same height then answering the question ‘What happens when we drop a heavy and a light object?’

N.B. We have Norland Nannies coming to work with us after the Easter holiday and will give you more details then. 

This week in Numeracy we have been learning to count on and back in 10s, from any number to 100. We used the large hundred square in the playground, then small hundred squares on our tables. We were all fantastic at counting from zero, e.g. 0, 10, 20, etc, but found it a bit tricky when using a different starting point, e.g. 7, 17, 27. So any extra help you can give us at home would be very useful please.

In Literacy we have really been using our imaginations to create story maps and then to write our stories. There was SO much for us to remember, including an interesting setting, some characters and a problem for the ‘goody’ to solve. Then we made a long list of all of our brilliant ideas for the story opening. (Please ask your child to tell you their wonderful idea). All of this as well as linking words, capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, PHEW!     

Thank you for looking at Jupiter and Venus in the night sky with us this week to further help with our understanding of ‘Space’. Our Art work has also been based around the topic.

N.B. We need some empty cereal boxes next week only please. 

Big Pedal

This week in Numeracy we have been learning to tell the time. We have been reading the time to the hour and half past the hour on analogue clocks. We have been remembering to look at the hands of the clock and use the numbers on it. We had great fun timing ourselves using a sand timer to see what we could do in 1 minute. For example we went into the play ground and timed how many star jumps, skips, hops etc we could do in a minute. Ask us how many seconds there are in a minute!

In Literacy we read a ‘The Kiss that Missed’ and used the story to create our own fantasy story. We realised that some stories have problems that the main character needs to solve. We worked with a partner to think of a problem for our story and how it could be solved. After discussing characters and settings we took on the role of the main character in our story and re-enacted the story. This gave us lots of good ideas for story language to use in our stories. As we were acting we also thought about are setting and how our character might be feeling.

In Science we have been thinking about pushes and pulls and finding objects that move by applying one or both of these forces. For example, toy cars, boats in water with string attached and scooters. Perhaps we could look at home to find other objects that move by using pushes and pulls.

We have continued to think about Islam this week and what it Muslims believe. We know that know that Allah is the Islamic name for God. Muslims believe that Allah created all things and that humans have a responsibility to care for Allah’s creation. We learned that Muslims pray five times a day to say thank you to Allah.  We enjoyed looking at a prayer mat and seeing the beautiful designs on it which includes things like flowers, temples and patterns from the world but not people. We then had the chance to design our own prayer mat.

This week school started The Big Pedal where we will be cycling and scooting to school as much as we can for 15 days.  More of us would like to be involved please! Perhaps if we live too far away, we could bring our scooters in the car, park a few streets further away from school and scoot the rest of the way? What do you think? That way we can take part. It would also ease some congestion around the school! See http://thebigpedal.org.uk/ for more details.

Good luck to all Year 1 parents taking part in the marathon on Sunday!

Fantasy Worlds

This week in Numeracy we have been working on doubles, trying to remember them by heart and instantly recalling them. We then used ‘Numicon’ to go onto working out near doubles, e.g. If we know that 5 + 5 = 10, then 5 + 4 must equal 9.

In Literacy we have read a number of interesting books including ‘Here come the Aliens!’ Please ask your child to tell you some of the other titles. We compared and contrasted these fantasy world settings, including the objects found in those settings. We created our own fantasy settings and are now beginning to think about characters.

Thank you for all the information and objects you have been sending in for us to share and help with our understanding of our topic ‘Space’. Our Art work has also been based around the topic.

  

A week of Jamaican learning

What a fantastic final week we have had learning about Jamaica. On Tuesday we were visited by two chefs from Boom Taste, a new Caribbean take-away in Bath. The children had great fun making fried plantain and dumplings. They had even more fun tasting the finished products! This really helped our Jamaican topic come to life. The chefs really enjoyed working with the children and were impressed with their knowledge of Jamaica.

Learning about plantain

The chopped plantain ready to be cooked

Making dumplings

Tasting the dumplings

We also had a visit from Una and Ryan who are both from Jamaica. The children asked lots of interesting questions and found out lots about what life was like growing up in Jamaica. We even got to try some Jamaican treats!

Miss Hurley and Miss Granato are sadly leaving us at the end of the week. They have been with us since October and we have all loved having them in 1B. The children have learnt so much from them and I know that they have learnt lots from being with the children! We wish them the best of luck as they move on to their next school placement. I know they will both be brilliant teachers!

Please note there will be no spellings sent home this week as next week is half- term.

Have a lovely break!

Money money money!

We have had another busy week in 1B

In Numeracy we have been exploring money. We have been identifying and sorting coins and have begun to exchange coins. See if your child can tell you all the ways we made 20p and 50p. It would be great if you could let your child look at and explore real coins at home. Next week we will be moving on to giving change so the more familiar the children are with money the better.

In Literacy we have been continuing our topic on Jamaica. We used all the facts we have learnt to make some wonderful information posters. We have also been learning about Jamaican 'patois', see if your child can remember some of the words they learnt. Next week we will be having a special visitor who will be coming in to talk about life in Jamaica. Please take some time to talk with your child and come up with a question that they would like to ask our visitor.

In phonics we have been learning the alternative pronunciations of the graphemes ‘ch’ ‘y’ ‘a’ and ‘ou’. We are also continuing to practice our joins in handwriting.

The children have been enjoying the challenge of learning their spellings, please continue to support your child to learn them. Please note that the ‘look, say, cover, write, check’ grids do not need to be returned to school they are just to support the children at home.

Next week is the last week that Miss Hurley and Miss Granato will be with us in 1B and we are all looking forward to a fantastic final week together.

Have a lovely weekend!

What a busy week!

All of our Literacy this week has been based around our trip to the Pantomime. So, we have re-enacted the story of Dick Whittington through drama and drawn story maps. Do please ask your child to explain what a story map is. The Theatre commented on how well behaved our children were throughout the day – well done.

We also did some ‘serious’ work during ‘Letters and Sounds’: alternative pronunciation of g (as in got and giant); u (as in up and put); ow (as in cow and blow) and ie (as in pie and chief).

PLEASE remember that tomorrow is our first spelling test.

In Numeracy we have been using our problem solving skills to make up our own number games. We thought carefully about the rules needed and then played the games with a partner.

The children are also continuing to ask questions about Jamaica and thinking how to find out the answers.

Our Science and Music is combined – we have been keeping a steady beat, sorting instruments and investigating how we hear sounds.

He's behind you!!!

What a fantastic start to the week we had in Year One. The children took part in the first part of the ‘Panto Project’. Each class completed a fantastic pantomime workshop in which they learnt about and pretended to be traditional pantomime characters, acted out the story of Dick Whittington, and practised their loudest ‘he’s behind you’ in preparation for our visit to the theatre next week. Did you know that the good fairy always come on from the left of the stage and the baddie always comes on from the right?

Please note your child will be bringing home a letter on Friday 13^th to recap what is needed for the trip to the theatre next week.

Children will be bringing home their first set of spelling along with a letter explaining how they should be practised. The children will be using the ‘look, say, cover, write, check’ method to learn them which will be explained to them on Friday. If you have any questions about this after reading the accompanying letter then please get in touch.

Our role play area has transformed into an airport and Jamaican beach to link to our topic on Jamaica. If anyone has any suitcases, luggage labels, model planes, or deckchairs that we can borrow for the term, please come and speak to Miss Burns. Thank you!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back and happy New Year! Thank you so much for all the wonderful cards and generous gifts, I hope you all enjoyed the holiday.

This week we have introduced our topic on Jamaica. The children have been sharing what they already know and asking questions that they would like to find the answers to. If you have anything at home linked to the topic we would love to see it.

Next Monday sees the first part of our ‘Panto project.’ The children will be taking part in a pantomime workshop and we are all really looking forward to it.

Spellings will begin next week. The children will receive them next Friday, together with a letter of explanation which will also be posted on the blog next week.