Kingfishers in action!
Kingfishers in Action!
Week 2
Today we tried a whole class lesson. Although it was lovely to be all together again, even though remotely, it was not easy to include everyone who had comments to share. The smaller groups are working really well though and the children are all impressing me with their work ethic. 🙂
Week 1 Home and School Learning:
Spring Term 2021
Here are some examples of writing, by the children in school today, about the rubbish find.
And here are some pieces of writing about real and imagined rubbish by children at home.
This week we had a shock when we went outside to look for signs of winter. We found a load of rubbish in the reflection area. The children had lots of ideas about how it got there and suggested we should pick it all up and see if we can recycle any of it.
Birdfeeders in action!
Autumn 2020 Topic – Inventioneers
Look at what we have been up to …
Week 13 – 7th December
The Year One children started the week revisiting their knowledge and understanding of 2D and 3D shapes. They were very good at naming many of the common shapes and could find examples of them in our school environment.
On Tuesday, we made our own Christingles for the first time. We managed not to eat too many of the sweet treats before putting them on our oranges, and then enjoyed celebrating with our wider school community in the afternoon.
We have all designed our own snowman using a range of materials and papers but Mrs Eland jumbled them all up so we had to write a description to help others identify which is which. Here are a few.
Thank you for all the recyclable materials you donated. This week, we made our birdfeeders. The children sorted and gathered the items they would need and then set about building an attractive birdfeeder that would be fit for purpose. We learnt a lot about different methods of cutting and joining a range of materials. After making them, we carried out an evaluation which allowed us to make plans for imporvements and strengthening. We hope you enjoy watching the birds as they feed from these wonderful creations.
We are very excited about our new talking whiteboards. These have a simple-to-use recording/playback device so children can record a sentence they want to write and get help with any tricky spellings. Thank you to Felix for trying one out during our birdfeeder evaluation.
We have also been preparing for our Christmas Fair on Monday, by making some delicious gifts. I don’t want to give too much away!
We finished the week with a Santa Dash, courtesy of Mr Colbeck.
Week 12 – 30th November
What a busy week! In maths, we learnt about using column method to subtract a two-digit number from another two-digit number (without needing to borrow).
Mr. Colbeck organised a friendly curling match against Thurton and we linked up with them via Teams video conferencing. Our children thoroughly enjoyed the competition and played really well. Thurton won one match and we drew the second. Kingfishers did us proud with their sportsmanship and effort, especially considering we were playing against a Year 3/Year 4 class.
The children enjoyed some free time with the construction toys.
And, of course, we have been busy filming our Nativity… have you watched the trailers on Stream?Here are the links: Kingfisher’s Trailer and Robin’s Trailer.
Week 11 – 23rd November
This week in maths, we took our learning a step further and found out how to exchange ten ones for one ten. First we used Base 10 (ten-sticks and one-cubes) to see what exhanging looks like. Then we used the Base 10 equipment to help solve calculations with exchanging. For example, 24 + 18.
We have all been working really hard on Phonics since September to catch up on any missed learning through Lockdown. The Year 2 children missed their Y1 Phonics Screening (a Statutory assessment of phonics learning) which would have taken place in June. In line with government instructions, we have now carried out that assessment and we are extremely pleased with the results the children have achieved. All the Year 2 children have made amazing progress since September and they are all to be celebrated for their hard work. Thank you for continuing to support your child’s learning at home – it really does make a big difference. Here is some phonics learning in motion – a game involving ping-pong balls with the graphemes on them, and a Sounds Discovery lesson.
This week’s Fruit of the Spirit is Self-Control. In Collective Worship led by Owls Class, we watched Michael Rosen’s Chocolate Cake. In this dramatic poem, Michael is surprised to discover that, instead of just eating the loose bits and crumbs from around the edges of the cake, he has eaten the WHOLE THING! Follow this link to Michael Rosen’s official YouTube channel where he performs his own poetry and stories as well as many by other authors. It really is worth a visit (or ten), but please watch with your child as links to other videos from YouTube may not be suitable. Speaking of which, we have done some work on internet safety this week – more on that in the next paragraph – but first, here are some photos of your children enjoying the Chocolate Cake video.
As I mentioned, we have been thinking about our safety online this week. Mrs Hemmant read the children the story of Chicken Clicking who uses the farmer’s computer to order all sorts of things and ends up sending everyone away from the farm. Realising she is lonely, Chick looks for a friend online by putting her name and photo on the internet. She finds someone just like her and agrees to meet her new friend in the forest. When she arrives in the forest, there’s no sign of another little chick, just a mean and hungry fox! The children discussed what Chick did wrong and came up with some rules to help us stay safe while using the internet. They then produced some lovely bright posters which we will put up around school to help remind the rest of the children about e-safety too.
You might have noticed in some of our pictures that we have decorated our classroom. The children worked really hard on Thursday morning making paper chains – little did I know the cheeky monkeys had a plan! Once each group had made a chain, they joined them all together to make the ‘world’s longest paper chain’ and were really pleased with themselves when they presented me with a never ending length of sugar paper chain … needless to say, I had lots of ‘fun’ hanging it!
Week 10 – 16th November
This week in maths, we have been learning about adding using tens and ones.
In history, we carried out some research last week and continued with it this week before compiling our information into fact sheets about Thomas Edison.
On Thursday, we had our sponsored activity challenge. All 29 children took part and continued our ‘chase the ball’ game for a whole hour, taking it in turns to run around the outside of the circle of children and trying to beat the ball as it was thrown from one person to the next around the inside of the circle. Well done, Kingfishers!
In preparation for our nativity play, we have been thinking about some of the words used by the people in the story of the first Christmas. The children picked a character and wrote a speech bubble for that person.
We have also been having a go at role playing parts of the nativity story, thinking about gentleness, and learning about vowels and consonants (ask your Y2 child to sing you the alphabet song, standing up for vowels, sitting down for consonants).
Week 9
This week in maths, we have been using different ways to find ten more and ten less than a given number. We used tens and ones, a hundred square and counting in tens to help.
We have been presented with a problem to solve: because of social distancing, we will not be able to perform a nativity play for our parents and carers as we would normally. Kingfishers put on their thinking caps. We thought about whether we had met a similar problem in the past and realised that in the previous lockdown, many of us couldn’t come to school. So how did we solve the problems back then? We used video chat, the website and videos to help us learn. Next we asked whether any of these ideas could be adapted to help us with our current problem. We looked at pros and cons and decided that the best option would be to do a nativity play and video it then put it on the website or make DVDs. Phew! Problem solved. Now all we’ve got to do is … put on a nativity play and video it!
The children set about working in groups to think of all the things we would need to make, do or ask. What a list the children have made!
We need to practise our phonics ready for the phonics screening we were not able to do last year. These children are working hard in our outside area.
For Children in Need day we wore our favourite clothes to school – since we don’t do PE on a Friday, we were able to put on all our sparkles! We had the opportunity to talk about our outfit and why we had chosen it.
On Friday afternoons, we have ‘Must Do, Can Do’ where the children take responsibility for completing ‘must do’ tasks before choosing from ‘can do’ activities. It is working well and everybody worked hard and played hard. This week, we got out the playdough, the printing stamps and the pompom maker – this was a very popular activity so we have invested in some more pompom makers – if anyone has any balls of yarn or pompom makers they no longer need, please send them in (we will quarantine them before use!). We would love to make some Christmas decorations with pompoms.
Some children chose to colour Rangoli patterns to celebrate Diwali; others played ‘schools’ or built things out of Mobilo.
Week 8
This week in maths, we have been using the part-whole model to find different ways of making the same number.
We took a walk around school to find out about where the light comes from when we are inside. We found a variety of sources including a large number of borrowed light windows. We were surprised at how many light bulbs and computer/interactive whiteboards we use. After our investigation, we discussed methods of saving energy eg. turning off lights and computers when not in use. We discovered that Mrs Welch is leading the way, as she was teaching in Owls and everything in her office was turned off.
This week, we also earned some free time and used it to make models and play with others.
Week 7
This week we finished trying out Professor Madcap’s challenges. I was very impressed with the children’s perseverance – they kept trying.
During some free time the children enjoyed making structures with wooden blocks and mobilo.
On Wednesday afternoon, we reviewed our learning from this half term. The children have remembered so much about the Wright brothers and inventions, and the maths and science learning they have done.
The children have started finding out about British wildlife (animals) and recorded their learning as bubble diagrams.
Week 6
We made our inventions, using the designs we had planned last week and making adjustments and improvements along the way. On Wednesday, Professor Madcap came back to class and was very impressed with all our hard work. She asked if she could use our plans to inspire her inventions, so we evaluated our contraptions and sent the plans and evaluations to her.
On Thursday, we arrived at school to find all our desks had disappeared and there was an enormous den in their place. We spent the day creating story plots and characters and even did Guided Reading inside the den.
On Friday, we spent the morning having a maths marathon with lots of activities about fractions. This one was a pizza cafe, using quarters and halves.
In the afternoon, we received three challenges from Professor Madcap:
- Light up a bulb
- Float some plasticene
- Transport a toy car from one side of the room to another without touching the car or the car touching the floor.
Week 5
We started this week by preparing for our Harvest festival. We all made a leaf in Autumn colours. Some of us used paint, some used felt tips and pencils, some cut out fabrics and some collected real autumn leaves. Once finished, we cut them out and assembled them into an Autumn wreath to present at church.
On Wednesday, we had a special visitor in class. Professor Madcap came to ask for our help to invent something useful – her recent attempts have not been very successful. She left us with a large box of bits and bobs which the children enjoyed sorting, categorising and then using to inspire ideas for inventions.
Throughout the week, we have been counting on in tens from any number, counting in fives to 50, representing addition using a part whole model and thinking about the commutative nature of addition – the ability to add numbers in any order without altering the answer e.g. 7 + 3 = 10 and 3 + 7 = 10. We even tried putting the equal sign before the sum, like this ~ 10 = 3 + 7 and 10 = 7 + 3.
Our week ended with a reward for 100% attendance for a whole week. The children came to school in pyjamas and onesies and worked hard through the morning. In the afternoon the classroom transformed into a cinema and the children voted to watch Robots. They enjoyed the film while munching on popcorn and Haribo sweets.
Weeks 3 and 4
In our collective worship this week, we have been thinking about patience. We experimented with patience by drawing the tiniest house we could and putting in as much detail as possible. Some of the children then cut them out to make our very own Tiny Town
We have continued to find out about aeroplanes, this week reading about the Wright brothers and their journey toward the first flight
We have made paper aeroplanes and tested them for amount of time afloat and distance travelled forwards from the starting point
Our science is continuing to learn about the food animals eat including constructing simple food chains
In maths we are learning about tens and ones in two-digit numbers in all sorts of ways
We have also started using the greater than and less than signs when comparing objects
We have been finding out about light, reflections and shadows
Week 2
We have been counting in 1s, 2s and 5s
We have also been matching quantities, adding one more and finding one less than numbers to 30
In English, we are learning about the apostrophe of possession.
Week 1
In science, we are finding out about seasonal changes and what better way than to go outside and get our hands dirty? – don’t worry, we washed them afterwards!
