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Kingfishers in Action!
Spring Term 2023 – Dungeons and Dragons
Week 18 – 23rd January
This week started with an amazing workshop about Knights and Castles run by the Time Jester. We had lots of wonderful opportunities to get our hands on replica objects and clothing as well as playing games and participating in a medieval style dance. In the morning, we picked our way through chests belonging to a jester, a king, a nun and an archer – looking at and handling items such as arrow tips, a wrist guard, clay tiles, quill scribed manuscripts, a leather purse, rings, juggling balls and a marotte (ask your child to tell you about which items were used for which job). We also handled and tried on various items of clothing and armour used by archers and knights. We were shocked at how heavy the chain mail hood was – imagine wearing a whole body piece! In the afternoon, we experienced some of the sights and smells of a medieval banquet and played some games that would have been part of the entertainment in a castle. After this, Robins and Kingfishers joined together to dance away the rest of the afternoon, stepping and clapping to the beat of the drum. For more information and photos, please see Tapestry.
In our writing, we used key words and phrases from our history learning to write job adverts for an archer and a jester.
Year 1 phonics this week was the sound ‘er’ spelt ur – surfing smurf, ir – the third bird, and er – swerve around the germs. We are making really good progress at using the alphabet letter names to talk about spelling choices.
In maths, we are learning about addition. Number bonds to 10 (and 20 and 100) are key facts that we all use as adults without really thinking about. The children are currently working on knowing these facts and having rapid recall of the pairs of numbers that add up to make a given total (e.g. 6 + 4 = 10). The Year 2 children have been using these facts when adding across the tens. For example, to work out 6 + 7, we take 4 from the 7 to make the 16 up to 10, then add the remaining 3 to make 13. The Year 1 children have been finding out about the numbers 11 to 19 and how they are ‘ten and some more’. We used lots of resources to make numbers in different ways, always thinking about them being one 10 and some 1s. The Year 2 children used ‘Show Me’ videos on the iPads to add 10 and multiples of 10 using 10s and 1s as well as hundred squares to support concrete to abstract learning.
In music this week, we continued to learn about playing the glockenspiels. This week we used notation to play specific notes along with our song of the week – Brush Our Teeth.
We are continuing to build our dance skills in PE and this week, began to create our own routines by sequencing moves.
In our class Collective Worship, we acted out the story of Adam and Eve disobeying God in the Garden of Eden.
Week 17 – 16th January
In maths this week, we have been looking at addition and subtraction and how we can use the same 3 numbers to make lots of calculations. We have also all been practising counting in different steps – 1, 2, 5 and 10, and building rapid recall of number bonds to 10 – the Year 2 children have been working on using this knowledge to make other facts e.g. number bonds to 20 or 100.
Year 1 phonics this week was finishing off the ‘or’ sound spelt aw (crawl on your paws), au (astronauts love sauce) and al (walk and talk). We have also been learning to read the tricky words: work, laughed and because. We can remember how to spell because with this little memory prompt: Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants.
In art we have been looking closely at Axel Scheffler illustrations to see if we can work out his style. We discovered that he often draws eyes as a circle with a dot and sometimes a line eyebrow. We experimented by drawing eyes in this style and tried giving them different expressions.
We got to play our brand new glockenspiels this week, improvising along to a song we have learnt called ‘Dress Up’.
In RE, we watched a short video of a Christian infant baptism and talked about the parts and symbols in this milestone.
At the beginning of the week, we were shocked to discover that the Book Fairy had visited our classroom and was not impressed that some of our bookshelves were messy! She covered them over so we weren’t able to use books all day on Monday. During choosing time, some children decided to write to the Book Fairy assuring her that we would do better at looking after our books. The next day, Belinda, the Book Fairy, had written back and we were allowed limited access to our bookshelves. The children made posters to remind each other how to respect our books. On the following day we had access to more shelves and by Friday, we had the whole bookshelf back.
Using what we have learnt about Fergal, we decided to gather ideas to write a description about Zog. We played a game to help us speak and listen using adjectives to describe Zog’s appearance (more details on Tapestry).
Week 16 – 9th January
In phonics this week, the Year 2 children have been learning about doubling consonants when adding suffixes. The Year 1 children have been finding out about the ‘or’ sound family using the graphemes (spelling choices): or (the short fork), aw (crawl on your paws) and au (astronauts love sauce).
In maths, the Year 2 children have been exploring methods for adding and subtracting.
The Year 1 children have been using Numicon to find number bonds for numbers to 10, making up number stories to understand addition and subtraction and playing counting games to practise counting in 5s.
This week, we worked towards character description by playing headbandz and using adjectives to give clues about story characters. We read the story ‘Fergal is Fuming’ and talked about Fergal’s personality, appearance, feelings and actions, recording these inside or outside a picture of Fergal.
Our RE big question for this half term is ‘How do Christians show they belong to a faith family?’ This week, the children had to work in pairs to look carefully at a picture of a Christian activity and then come to the front to stand in one of three hoops. The children could decide to: ask a question, make a comment about their picture, or follow-on from something said by someone else e.g. answer a question, disagree or give an example.
In PE, we have started a new unit of work on dance. This week we were trying to use our body to make big movements in response to the tempo of music – slowly and quickly.
In science, we are finding out about materials. This week we talked about the similarities and differences between a pen and a pencil. The children came up with great suggestions and we put together a detailed answer to the question: why do we sharpen pencils but not pens? See Tapestry for more detail… We then explored the school to find 5 things that are made from each of the following materials: wood, plastic, metal and glass.
Week 15 – 4th January
Welcome back to the Spring term. I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We would like to thank you for all the generous gifts, cards and messages we received in the run up to Christmas – thank you from the Kingfisher Team.
We have had a super start to our new term with a surprise guest in our outside area – a dragon. She has told us that her name is Frosty and she has come from inside a book but she can’t remember anything about it. We are going to try to look after her and hopefully help her find her way back home. The children wanted to start by making posters to ask everyone at school whether they recognise Frosty and know which book she is from. Maybe your child has a book about dragons at home – if so, feel free to send it in for us to read – we are trying to read as many dragon related stories as possible to search for clues to help Frosty.
In music, we are learning about how music can tell us about the past. This week, we learnt to sing a Reggae version of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. We improvised with out voice and bodies to keep time with the steady beat.
Our maths learning this week was using fact families to help with addition (and subtraction). For example, 2 + 3 = 5. The Year 1 children learnt that it doesn’t matter which order you have the addition numbers the total will be the same. It also doesn’t matter whether the equals goes at the beginning or the end, it still makes sense – we think of equals as meaning ‘is the same as’. So, using 2, 3, and 5 we can write addition calculations in different ways. The Year 2 children have also started to learn how to use the same three numbers for subtraction as well.
2 + 3 = 5
3 + 2 = 5
5 = 2 + 3
5 = 3 + 2
5 – 3 = 2
5 – 2 = 3
In art, we have drawn a castle from our imagination. Every castle in the class was unique, some had towers or turrets, some had battlements and some had a moat.
Autumn Term 2022 – Night and Day
Week 13 – 5th December
What a busy week we’ve had! We started with a final rehearsal of our nativity which was nerve-settling and then went on to perform to the rest of the school and two halls-full of our special people. Such amazing children, to perform with so much enthusiasm and excitement all three times. I am really proud of them all.
You can find more photos of our nativity performance on the school’s Events page.
In RE we have been learning about the Jewish Shabbat. This week, we learnt about some of the things that happen before and during Shabbat. The children then talked about the sequence of lighting the candles, blessing the children, blessing and sharing the wine, blessing, salting and sharing the challa bread, and sharing food and stories together. We also made the connection between Shabbat and the story of creation.
We have also been learning the story of the birth of Jesus from the Bible, enabling us to sequence and retell the story using speech bubbles.
I particularly like the speech bubbles that said:
‘Look, there’s the star. Shall we follow it? It might be good news – we haven’t travelled all through the desert for nothing.’,
‘Oh Joseph the baby is coming. Quickly, get to the inn.’ and
‘There is the star. Melchior, stop moaning, we’re nearly there.’
In maths, we have been looking at the patterns in numbers when we count in 2s, 5s and 10s.
We continued our RSHE learning by adding to the self-portraits we had drawn. This week, we added the people who are special to us, for example people at home, at clubs, at school and at church. We then played musical partners and talked to each other about things that are the same and different – sharing similarities, valuing differences.
We have been putting our learning about Van Gogh’s and Jackson Pollock’s styles to good use this week in a secret mission – you’ll find out more in due course…
Week 12 – 28th November
This week we continued our learning about nocturnal animals. We took the expertise we had gained last week and shared it with our original groups. I was really impressed with how sensibly the children listened to each other and transferred their new learning onto their fact sheets. Using this information, we wrote letters to Plop to tell him about other nocturnal animals, hoping it will help him not to be afraid of the dark any more.
We have spent a lot of time rehearsing ‘Prickly Hay’ and we are really looking forward to performing to you all next week. In amongst our rehearsals, we have started to decorate the classroom. The children have been practising pen control with mindfulness colouring of paper chains and Christmas bunting. We have also started making a ‘little something’ for the children to bring home as a gift.
In maths, the Year 2 children used function machines to practise counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10. The Year 1 children were presented with a problem: three children want to share ten cherries – they don’t mind not having the same number each. How many ways can you find to share them? They used cubes for cherries and plates for children, and made a list of all the different ways they found.
Week 11 – 21st November
In maths this week, we have been learning how to count in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10. We used resources from around the classroom to help us understand that when we count in these steps, we are counting groups of the same number. The Year 1 children have also started to learn about addition using Part Whole Models.
We received a letter from Plop on Monday, asking us to find out about other nocturnal animals and write back to him with this information. To do this, we needed to learn how to write a letter – what are the features of a letter that we would need to use? Having learnt about the features of letter writing, we put it to good use by writing a letter to Father Christmas. We also needed to use our scientific thinking to sort animals starting with ourselves. We tried to sort ourselves into two groups – those who are 5 and those who are 6. Since we only wanted two groups, this caused a problem: what about if you’re 7? So we re-sorted ourselves using ‘5’ and ‘not 5’ as the criteria. The children then chose their own criteria to sort other animals by, for example: size, colour, herbivore/carnivore/omnivore, nocturnal/crepuscular/diurnal, lives above the ground or underground.
We then used our reading skills to research information about some British nocturnal mammals. The children put themselves into groups then chose one of the 5 creatures (fox, badger, bat, mouse or hedgehog). Then all the mice formed a group, the badgers formed a group and so on. In their animal groups, the children found out about where the animal lives, what it eats and how it is adapted or suited to be nocturnal. Next week, the children will return to their original group – which will now have one child from each animal – and feedback to the others about their animal.
In phonics, the Year 1 children have been revisiting split digraphs a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e and u-e. The Year 2 children have been finding out about using the trigraph ‘dge’ in words like bridge, edge and fudge (when following a short vowel sound).
In art this week, we watched a video of illustrator Paul Howard teaching us how to draw Plop from The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark. The children were not allowed to use a rubber so had to live with any mistakes and then look for ways to improve our illustration when we had a second go. We have ended up with a parliament of cute and quirky baby owls!
In RE this week, we have recapped the Jewish/Christian and Hindu creation stories and then used what we know to look for similarities and differences between them.
We really enjoyed sharing our learning during our open afternoon. Thank you so much for coming.
Week 10 – 14th November
In maths this week, we have been using greater and less than symbols to compare numbers, as well as putting groups of numbers in order from smallest to largest and vice versa. This photo shows the Year 1 children sorting themselves by the number of letters in their names.
This week in English, we have been learning how to write a set of instructions. We used several example texts to pick out the features of instruction writing. We tried out our own spoken instructions by drawing a simple picture then giving a partner instructions to draw the same thing. This made us think carefully about the clarity and sequence of instructions. We used what we had learnt to write instructions for how to get ready for bed and then rewatched ‘A Cloudy Lesson’ and wrote instructions for how to blow a cloud, finishing the week by writing our own instructions for how to get ready for school.
In art, we learnt about primary and secondary colours, mixing paint to make our own colour wheels.
In PE, we are doing gymnastics. This week, we practised balancing in different ways, and landing securely.
We have also been practising our nativity play, Prickly Hay. The stage is up, the children have been working hard to learn their lines and now we are working on projecting our voices and speaking with clarity.
In RE, we have continued our learning about the Jewish story of creation and have completed our list of ‘I wonder…’ statements.
On Friday, we all brought our teddies to school for Children in Need. The classroom was very busy with all the teddies wanting to help the children with their learning, although, after a quiet word from Miss Thompson, the teddies sensibly decided to sit in the book nook while we did our painting!
Week 9 – 7th November
We started this week by editing our Gunpowder Plot newspaper articles. We worked with a partner to check against success criteria.
Preparing for our trip to Norwich Puppet Theatre, we used the hall projector to cast shadows on the wall. We used our bodies to make shapes and learnt about profiles, drawing around shadows of our classmates. At the Puppet Theatre, we explored shadows, shapes, colour and size before making our own puppets out of black card and various decorative elements. Once these were attached to a stick, we used our puppets to make up and act out stories.
Also in science, we have been finding out about animals’ 5 basic needs for survival: air, water, food, sleep and shelter. First, we worked in groups to think of what 5 things all animals need in order to survive. Then, using the 5 mentioned above, we played ‘corners’ and talked about why these are so necessary. With our partners, we ordered them by importance and recorded our learning.
In English, we are learning about apostrophes (Y2) and question marks. We watched a short video called ‘A Cloudy Lesson’ and then wrote questions to ask the two characters in the film.
This week in maths, the Year 1 children have been using ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ crocodiles they made to compare numbers and groups of objects. Remember, the crocodile wants to eat the largest number.
Our Year 1 phonics lessons this week have been about the letters ‘ew’ making a long oo sound in words like screw, chew and threw. The children have practised reading words by playing a game with a partner.
In art, we have started learning about Jackson Pollock. We discovered that, at face value, Pollock’s art might look as though anyone could have done it, but he was an accomplished and innovative artist. We tried to make our own paintings using natural materials as our tools to drip and dribble paint onto a picture we had prepared. It was much harder than it looks!
Week 8 – 31st October
In science, we are carrying out some long term investigations. Rainbow Worry Monster thinks:
- It gets dark at the same time every day
- It rains more in the winter than other seasons
- All children are the same and have the same interests
We are going to find out whether he is right. Rainbow Worry Monster is helping us by going home with different children each day. Children are asked to record the same data for each day. When every child has had a turn, we will analyse the data they recorded.
This week, in our topic learning, we found out about the story behind bonfire night. We started by learning a bit of English history about the monarch’s affiliation with either Catholic or Protestant beliefs to understand the background to the gunpowder plot. The children watched videos and used puppets to explore the story before planning and writing a newspaper article.
In RSHE, we used our learning about the Gunpowder Plot to talk about tolerance and conflict resolution. We role played some scenarios and came up with solutions to solve the problems in a friendly way.
In art, we used natural materials we found outside, to make marks in different ways. Our aim was to create explosive art – like a firework on paper. We learned that different items make different marks and move in different ways.
In Phonics we are learning about the oh sound. This week, we have practised reading and writing words with oh spelt ‘oa’ (goat afloat in a boat), ‘ow’ (blow the snow) and ‘o-e’ (phone home). We are also beginning to learn the alphabet in British Sign Language.
The children in Owls Class are using Peace at Last as part of their science learning on sound – can they muffle the alarm clock so poor Mr Bear can get some sleep? We welcomed the Owls into our class this week so we could share our own versions of Peace at Last with them. All the children enjoyed reading and telling their stories and the Owls were excellent listeners.
In maths, the Y2 children have been using reasoning skills to work out missing numbers on a number line. The Y1 children have been using greater than, less than, more and fewer when comparing numbers.
Week 7 – 17th October
In science, we collected leaves and observed them closely using magnifying glasses. We used our senses of sight, smell and touch to compare our leaves with each other. We looked at the veins under a USB microscope.
After our close observations, we sketched our leaves, taking note of outline, shape and marks on our leaves.
On Friday, we learnt how to mix colours and painted our leaves with watercolour.
In computing, we have been using Scratch to learn how to code an algorithm (sequence a set of instructions). This week, we learnt how to change a background and a sprite (character on screen), we animated the sprite to speak and make a sound and used ‘change costume’ to show the sprite’s mouth moving.
We also used ICT in music this week when we listened to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on YouTube. We talked about how it made us feel, whether or not we liked it and, if it was film music, what would be happening in the film.
In RSHE, we continued our discussion from music about not everyone liking the same things. We found a partner and talked about 3 things we had in common about our appearance, 3 things that are different about our appearance, 3 things we like to do that are the same and 3 that are different. We then drew a self portrait and added to it with information about a group we belong to, an activity we enjoy, a favourite game or toy and our favourite food.
In maths, the Year 1 children have been using the language of comparison to talk about numbers – less than, greater than, more, fewer, same, equal to, bigger and smaller. They have also been matching things one to one – are there enough, too few or too many?
The Year 2 children have been looking at how to work out a hidden number on a number line, for example, by looking at the nearest 10s numbers to narrow down possibilities. Year 1 and Year 2 have also played games where one partner has to give clues about a chosen number, without giving the number away too quickly.
We created our own storymaps this week based on Peace at Last, but changing some details. We chose new characters, places and sounds – ask your child to tell you their story. We then used our storymaps to play musical stories – when the music stops, find a partner and tell them the next bit of your story – and to write our versions of Peace at Last.
In Year 1 phonics, we have continued with the ‘igh’ sound family: i-e (my nice trike) and y (fly by). We have also focussed on sight reading oh, their, people, what and water.
At the end of the week, we all made our own learning links to show what we have learnt this week.
Week 6 – 10th October
In science we are learning about the seasons and the weather, both of which will continue throughout the year. On Monday, we went outside to find the greenest tree. We discovered that some leaves are beginning to change colour and even fall off after the strong winds over the weekend. We started to keep a weather chart but realised that it isn’t easy being a scientist because you have to remember to collect your data – we will be courageous and try it a different way next week.
In phonics, the Year 1 children continued to learn about the ‘ee’ sound family with ie (Chief’s shield), ey (trolley donkey) and y (very happy). We then moved on to the ‘igh’ sound family with i (be kind to your mind), igh (night light) and ie (the spies untied the pie). The Year 2 children have been learning about conjunctions – and, but, because, so – and how to use them in a sentence.
In English, we have learnt the story of Peace at Last. The children have written Kennings poems (following on from our workshop last week), and have retold the story using pictures to help sequence events. We challenged ourselves to be resilient writers by using conjunctions to join sentences.
We have a class vocabulary book which we use to record new and interesting words we come across in our topic or guided reading. It is freely available for the children to look through. This week we added descriptions for ‘crepuscular’, ‘dawn’ and ‘dusk’.
In maths, the Year 1 children have been practising counting backwards from 10 in a variety of ways. The Year 2 children are finding new ways to partition two-digit numbers.
On Thursday, it was World Sight Day. We had some special visitors from Norfolk County Council’s sensory support team. They helped us to experience a little of what it might be like if our sight organs were impaired. We tried writing our names with blindfolds on and other sets of glasses designed to block or impair vision in different ways; we tried to play games, make jigsaws and tackle various fastenings while blindfolded; we made our own sandwiches using chocolate spread, ham and/or jam while blindfolded; and we learnt how to colour the dots to write our name in Braille. It was a very interesting and memorable experience which helped us to be empathetic and feel what it might be like for someone with visual impairments.
On Friday in our RSHE lesson, we thought about the things we might need to make us happy. We then used our Thoughtful value to review and explain why we thought happiness would or would not be possible with or without certain things and people. These are the groups final thoughts on what is necessary for happiness.
Week 5 – 3rd October
In phonics, the Year 1 children have moved on to the ‘ee’ sound family. We have recapped learning from last year about double e (green trees) and this week, have learnt ea (dream of the beach) and e-e (Chinese theme). The Year 2 children have been recapping the ‘or’ sound made by au (astronauts love sauce), al (walk and talk) and aw (crawl on your paws). They have also been using adjectives in sentences to write descriptions.
In art, we finished our Colour Monster collages and used these as inspiration for a diamante poem. This is a poem where you start with one idea – we used ‘sad’ – and half-way through the poem, you change to the opposite idea – ‘happy’.
On Thursday, we had a live online poetry workshop where we learnt about Kennings poems. We worked in small groups to write a poem about an animal. We chose from a parrot, a mouse, an elephant and a fox. We will apply this learning in our English next week.
Year 1 maths was about ‘one more’. We listened to the story ‘Cockatoos’ and helped Professor Dupont to find one more cockatoo on each page. We also used a ball pool to fish out a numbered ball and say the number that is one more. In the hall, we played a bus game where children were getting on and off, helping us to count one more while practising counting forwards and backwards within ten. We used counters and ten frames to represent numbers when counting forwards and backwards, and demonstrated our learning using number cards to complete the sentences: ‘one more than … is …’ and ‘… is one more than …’
The Year 2 children started the week practising writing numbers in words. They played a game in the hall where they had to identify a possible tens number from a given clue and then write that number in words on the appropriate sheet. We then used this to help write numbers to 100 in words. We discovered that the hardest ones are ‘eight’ because it’s a tricky spelling, and words where the spelling and pronunciation are not just the ones number followed by ‘ty’. For example, ‘sixty’ was easy but ‘thirty’ was hard because it isn’t ‘threety’.
This week, we said ‘farewell’ to one of our lovely Teaching Assistants, Mrs Sayer. The children made heartfelt messages for her saying what they have enjoyed or will miss about learning with Mrs Sayer.
Week 4 – 27th September
In phonics, this week, the Y1 children continued to learn about the ‘ay’ sound family. We are practising reading and writing the following spelling choices: ai (snail mail), ay (may I play?), a-e (celebrate with a cake), eigh (eight sleighs), ey (they are grey) and ei (beige reindeer).
The Y2 children have been continuing their learning about place value. Using part whole models, they have partitioned numbers into tens and ones.
In our Y1 maths, the children have been learning how to count on from any number to 10. They rolled the dice and stood on that number (for example 3), then counted on as they jumped along a number track (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). This skill teaches children to count on from a number when adding, rather than starting from one. So, if we are calculating 5 + 3 we put the number 5 in our head as a starting point (we don’t have to count it) and count on 3 more.
For 4 afternoons this week, we have been working in mixed-age groups across the school to learn about some of the world’s major religions. Follow this link to see what we have been doing.
Week 3 – 20th September
In Year 1 phonics this week, we have been using the letters ay to spell the end sound in play. We practised saying the letter names, writing the digraph and using it in words and sentences.
Our little Owl friend, Plop, found someone who thinks Dark is Kind so we have been finding out about feelings from ‘The Colour Monster’. This week we took a look at the word choices the author had made and spotted quite a few similes such as that happiness ‘twinkles like the stars’.
Our Year 1 maths this week was about matching objects with one to one correspondence, and matching the words and numerals for numbers to ten.
Year 2 children have been making groups of ten to help when counting up to 100 objects, recognising how many tens and ones in a two-digit number, and using a place value grid to show tens and ones using resources and written numerals.
We continued our work on Starry Night in art by using paint, pastels and collage to add more colour and shape details to our artwork. We thought carefully about the small marks used by Van Gogh to create an image and tried hard to replicate this in our own pictures.
Our RE this week was all about Christianity. This will provide us with a foundation on which to build further learning about world religions. Next week, the whole school will be working in mixed-age groups to learn about Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism during our ‘Faith Week’.
In RSHE, we have revisited our school’s anti-bullying policy, including the School Council’s video about recognising and responding to bullying. You can watch the video with your child here. There is also a quiz to show Mrs Welch how much your child knows about bullying. If you would like to complete this with your child the link to it is here.
Week 2 – 12th September
In science this week, we recapped our knowledge about life-cycles and used books to find further information. All the children could remember learning about the life-cycle of a butterfly last year and we applied this to create a life-cycle of an owl.
In English we have practised telling the story of the Owl Babies aloud and in small groups. We found out about nouns and adjectives and used them to write a sentence describing the spooky woods. By the end of the week, we were ready to start writing our retelling of the story.
Y1 maths this week has been about sorting by different rules – buttons with 2 or 4 holes, different shapes, colours etc. Can you find a group of things to sort at home? Ask someone to find something that would fit in one of your groups. Were they right? So, what was your sorting rule? We also practised counting objects from a larger group – this helps to ensure we are counting 1 number for 1 item.
Y2 children were exploring different ways of showing a particular number to 20, then to 100. Children used cubes, bead strings, place value grids, ten frames, part-whole models, number lines, hundred squares and tens and ones.
PE on Tuesday was all about throwing and catching.
We got out the glockenspiels and chime bars in music this week and took it in turns to play. We learnt how to hold and use a beater to give a sustained and sweet sound. We also learnt to locate the notes needed and play rhythmically.
We continued our learning about Van Gogh’s Starry Night by using different media to colour our sketches from last week. We divided our sketch into three sections and then chose which section to colour in which media – paint, pastels and collage. We will continue with this next week.
In Y1 phonics this week, we have been practising the alphabet – saying the letter name rather than the sound it makes – this will help us to talk about spelling choices where two or more letters work together to make one sound for example this week’s graphemes: wh and ph. We have also been learning to read and write the tricky words: oh, their, people.
Week 1 – 6th September
The children have shared their current knowledge about Night and we will add to this with our new learning at the end of the topic.
We have a little visitor in class – Plop, the baby barn owl.
You may have read the book about him – The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark. This week, he asked us to find out whether all baby owls are afraid of the dark. We watched the film of ‘Owl Babies’ and talked about how the baby owls were feeling through the story – we think they are scared when they are in the woods without their Mummy. We used a table to show how their feelings change through the story.
We then found a written copy of the story, but it was all jumbled up so we worked together to look for clues in the text to help us sequence the events.
In the middle of all this, one of our baby owls went missing. The childen thought it would be a good idea to make posters to put up around school so others could help look for him. Some children went to investigate a clue of seeds and feathers Mrs Welch had found in her office.
Thankfully, some children in Owls Class found him and returned him to Kingfishers. We think Bill had been looking for his Mummy and went into Owls classroom because he saw their logo.
In RSHE, we imagined our ideal classrooms and each child came up with an ‘I will…’ pledge to show how their actions will help to make our classroom a safe and happy place for learning. We wrote these on paper strips and used them to make a paperchain.
On Friday, we responded to the sad news of the death of HM Queen Elizabeth II by drawing pictures for her.
