30.11.14- The week ahead in Year 1- Writing poems about winter, addition, subtraction and the rocket wall!

In Literacy this week Year 1 will be using their imaginations and putting themselves in to a picture! We will be getting the children to think about what they see, hear and feel. Our inspiration will come from hands on experiences in our school grounds where we will crunch through the Autumn leaves and looking at Winter scenes.

In Maths we will be focussing on number. Recapping again on what resources we can use to add two numbers together and then also looking at what strategies to use to take away a number from another.

Spellings practice will still happen this week. Just a reminder that if your child brings in their practice sheet then they will get a rocket point.

Hearts and Stars spellings: are, my, her, play, spray, joy.

Moons: my, her, play, spray, joy.

Rainbows: do, water, what, snow, slow, chief, thief, you.

 

The rocket wall has such a positive effect on the children as they all really want to get to the moon and receive a certificate. We have changed this slightly now. At the end of the week we do not start every child on the earth again, instead the cycle carries on. This means that it isn't such a disappointment when they get so close to the moon but then are moved to the bottom again on a Monday. We have spoken to the children about this and they all seem to prefer the new way.

30.11.14- Whoops-a-Daisy Angel

This week in Year 1 we will start to practice our Christmas play. This Year we have chosen the play called 'Whoops-a-Daisy Angel'. We have already told the children what part they will play this year. Mrs Hall will be sorting out all of the costumes this week. We will send individual letters home letting you know any items of clothing that we will need your child to wear.

 

Year 1 have already learnt a number of the songs and are becoming very good at them!

 

Our Christmas performances will be in the last week of term from the Tuesday 16th December- Thursday 18th and will be from 10.10am.

2014 DT Christmas competition has begun!

Design Technology Christmas Competition! This year the DT competition is based around making a tree decoration and all classes are welcome to take part! ·       Your decoration must be able to hang from a tree
·       It must be made from as many recycled materials as possible
·       You must have your name and class on a label clearly displayed.
·       What type of decoration can you create which make it unique from other decorations before?!

The closing date for this competition is Thursday 11^th December. Please take the decorations to the hall; we will be hanging them ready for judges and assembly!  Good luck!  Finally, we do accept parent help will be needed for this but it should be clear that the child has been involved too!

Thank you all for your generosity!

Thank you so much to everyone that came to the Bring and Buy Sale on Wednesday. We were very grateful that so many of you donated some fantastic items that were no longer wanted.

 

Due to everyone's generosity on Wednesday and on the non school uniform day on the 14th of November we have raised over £340 for Children in Need!

 

I would like to say a big thank you to all of the staff and children that helped on the day. Well done!

 

Mrs Thorpe

27.11.14- Year 1's picture clue maps around castle park.

This afternoon Autumn and Winter group used the picture map that the Spring and Summer group made for them to find a house. The children had to work as part of a team to think about what picture clues they could take. We discussed whether or not taking a picture of a recycling bin was a good idea. The children have taken some very interesting picture clues that got them all looking carefully in their environment.

 

We have also been trying to locate all of the children's homes on a map of Dorchester. This, along with their picture maps will be added to our Geography display board in our classroom.

Wild Life Club...an exciting opportunity

Here's a lovely day out for all the family. Come along to RSPB Arne (go to Wareham, across the river to Stoborough and turn left into Nutcrack Lane and follow the road for 5 miles) on Saturday 6th December. It's "Pull a Pine Time". By helping to clear this wonderful heathland habitat of invasive pine trees you can also get the reward of taking home a beautiful, authentic Christmas tree, absolutely free! If you have tools such as a bow saw of loppers, bring them along. There will be Christmas crafts, barbecue and drinks and glorious views over the Purbeck Hills and Poole Harbour. Stay as long as you like and set off your Christmas to an outdoor start!

Wild Life Club...an exciting sighting!

I was very surprised today when one of the Year 1 Wild life Clubbers suddenly shouted, "Look Mr Farrington, a hedgehog!" We were busy putting the thrid storey on our "Bug Hotel" in the school pond area. Sure enough there was a hedgehog happily walking across the grass, over the path and through the fence! The children got a good long view of this lovely creature. I just hope it is now getting ready for its hibernation.

Bring and Buy Sale- Items needed please!

This Wednesday (26th) the Children's Voice have arranged a Bring and Buy Sale to help fundraise some more money for Children In Need.

 

We are hoping that you have been able to have a sort out of any unused, unwanted; toys, clothes, books etc ready for Wednesday.

 

Please bring any items for the Bring and Buy Sale to Mrs Thorpe in Year 1.

 

The hall will be open to parents from 3pm on Wednesday afternoon so that you can have a look around without your children! Then the sale will carry on until around 4.30pm (unless we have sold everything!)

 

Items will be reasonably priced from 20p- £2.

 

We hope to have lots to sell and raise as much as we possibly can for children who need our help.

 

Mrs Thorpe and The Children's Voice

23.11.14- Picture maps and some brilliant spelling practice!

This week we have been carrying on our work looking at maps. We split in to two teams and walked around the houses closest to the school to try and make a map using pictures. Year 1 had to think about which picture clues would be the best to use and why! Each half of the class took 10-15 pictures which we will assemble as a type of map for the other class to go and find. We will evaluate each others maps after and talk about 'What Worked Well' and 'Even Better If'.

 

We are always encouraging the children to sit correctly a the table and show their best handwriting. Every Friday we practice our handwriting, looking at the different letter families. During this time we also do our spelling practice. It is so fantastic to see how enthusiastic Year 1 are about their spellings. If you are curious about what mark your child gets in their spellings on a Friday please do come and see me. Also some children may come home with extra sheets on a Friday with some sounds on. These sheets are the sounds that your child might be struggling with still. If you have the time and want to work through the sheet with your child then that would be fantastic, it isn't however a set Home Learning.

 

 

18.11.14- Learning in Year 1 this week...

Monday was such an experience for us all. It was a honour to see Prince Charles at our school and get to perform our Prince of Wales School rap.

This week in Literacy we have been reading and writing about The Jolly Postman. This book is such a brilliant book for developing talking and questioning about characters. We will be writing letters to other characters in traditional tales and writing our own beginning of the story.

In maths we are still looking at measuring in centimetres and using the language of longer, shorter, taller. We have used the tally information that we collected last week to make pictograms.

We are trying to encourage super sitting on the carpet and at tables. This in turn makes the children's handwriting so much neater. We continually remind children about cursive writing where all letters are formed correctly. It can be quite tricky, but the children are getting much better! It's great to see some many children practising their spellings!

Year 1 team

CHILDREN IN NEED 2014

 

CHILDREN IN NEED 2014

 

It is Children in Need tomorrow. Just a reminder that children can come in their home clothes and give a small donation. Next week a letter will be coming home explaining about a Bring and Buy sale that we will be arranging in a few weeks so if you are having a sort out of old clothes (adults and children), books and toys please keep hold of them!

13.11.14- Making stone soup and helping the Jolly Postman

Stone Soup

 

We carried on looking at the story of stone soup. This is a Romani gypsy story where a traveller helps some hungry villagers. Mr Farrington took a group this morning to the roundhouse area and prepared and cooked this vegetable soup. After hours over the fire the children got to taste this. I must say it was delicious and had so many flavours.

 

In Geography this week we have been looking at maps and postcodes. We used Google maps to find all the children's homes. We have also been looking at the story of The Jolly Postman.

He wrote us a letter and asked if we could deliver a letter for us. All we had were some picture clues! Luckily we found the house and delivered the mystery letter.

I thought I would also share a recent picture of our grass free lawn that we are helping the Dorset Wildlife Trust to develop for the Borough Gardens.

11.11.14- Vardo Day!

 

Wow what a fantastic experience we have all had today! We all learnt about the Vardo and about the life of Romani Gypsy Travellers. The children had lots of activities that they all really enjoyed. We got to go in the Vardo and see how a family would sleep in there. The children washed up and even did some washing in the basins outside. Some children collected water in a large container, this was very heavy!

 

We learnt that if you were in a large family then the Mum, Dad and daughters would sleep in the Vardo but the sons had to sleep outside in a bender tent. Mr Duncalf was very kind to help us build our own bender tents using hazel chopped from our trees. This was such a fun activity.

 

Bender tents are surprisingly warm once you are inside and actually proved great shelter for us today from the rain!

 

Mrs Hall and Miss Richards worked with the children in the classroom making paper flowers and their very own Vardo models. These all looked brilliant and can be seen in Year 1.

 

This afternoon we carried on finding out about different traditions for the Romani Gypsy Travellers including dancing. Karen Hunt (who brought the Vardo) taught the children a very energetic dance! Miss Richard's groups decorated milk churns with beautiful patterns and flowers.

 

Mrs Hall explained about the Romani flag and the children made their own flags that symbolises them. Miss Munro taught the children lots of Romani words. I wonder if your child remembers the Romani word for: car, horse, teeth, man, rabbit?

 

I hope that your child has talked to you about all of the exciting activities we have been doing today. We will be carrying on with looking at Romani Gypsy Travellers by reading and acting out the story of 'Stone Soup', and hopefully (weather depending) will be cooking on an open fire in the roundhouse area on Thursday . If your child would like to do some writing or make some of the things we have been making today for home learning I would love to see it!

 

 

 

10.11.14- Warm clothes for Vardo tomorrow

Vardo day tomorrow

Children to come in their home/ play trousers. Please make sure they have a warm coat and wellies as well as normal trainers/shoes.

7.11.14- Vardo experience on Tuesday

On Tuesday we will be having the Vardo in school. Year 1 spend a whole day learning about this vehicle and who uses it and why. We will be doing a range of activities throughout the day and I am sure the children will have lots to tell you on Tuesday night.

Just thinking ahead, please can all children make sure they have their jumpers in school next week as well as rain coats. They will be spending some time outside on Tuesday so I am going to suggest that school trousers (if you have them) would be the most appropriate wear with some wellies. Please can all children bring wellies in a plastic bag.

7.11.14- This weeks learning and spelling lists

Well, what a busy start to the new half term we have had. It was great to see and talk to so many parents this week at parents evening. If you have not managed to book an appointment or want to follow up anything from our discussions please feel free to come and talk to me next week.

This week in Literacy the children have been learning about adjectives (describing words). Year 1 finished their shape poems today where they have been describing the look, sound and shape of fireworks. This will form our new display in the hall way outside our classroom. You will also see there a selection of the fireworks pictures that the children drew using either paint, wax crayons, computer or chalk. I must say we have some artists in Year 1!

Talking of art, have you seen our Kandinsky abstract trees on display in our classroom? These were all made by the children and are fantastic!

In maths this week we have been talking about the length of objects and comparing them using the language of longer, shorter, taller, smaller. So when you are out and about this weekend maybe you could ask your child to see if they have really understood this.

All of the children have got spelling in their bags (was raining so hard at the end of school today!!!). As suggested by a number of the parents they would like to see the list on the blog so;
Hearts and Stars: he, she, went, pond, chomp, thank.
Moons: the, to, summer, boxer, letter, hammer.
Rainbows and Suns: said, like, have, seat, treat, sir, first, gold.

The Great PoW Poetry Competition

The Great PoW Poetry Competition.........

Roll up, Roll up, Roll up..................don't forget the Great PoW Poetry Competition is in town!!!!!!! A reminder that the closing date is this Friday, so you still have a week to get your creative master pieces in to your class teacher.

Check back on the last blog for details, remember the theme is Autumn/Winter, there are no limits, only to say - be as creative as I know you can be!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to read them all and choose a winner from each class!!!!

Good Luck!!!!!

Get writing if you haven't already!!!!!

A VERY excited Mrs. Johnson