Our Gruffalo day!

 

Yesterday Year 1 worked with Mr Knight and Mr Cartwright. We revisited the story of 'The Gruffalo', in particular we thought about how the mouse feels in the story when he is approached by the other characters. Year 1then drew their own storyboards and wrote what happened in sequence.

 

The children worked in pairs to freeze frame parts of the story. After that they then got in to groups of three to make stick puppets of all of the characters. After lunch the children then acted out the whole story.

How to train your dragon drama day!!

Today we had fun working with the children in Year Three.

We did an activity based on the book "How to Train Your Dragon" (by Cressida Cowell) led by Mrs. Thorpe. In mixed pairs the children had to 'freeze frame' parts of the story. Then they designed their own dragons and wrote a storyboard on what you needed to do to train that dragon.

I was really impressed how well Year 1 and 3 worked together. Some of these story boards will be on the Year 1 display board in the hall way very soon!

In Year 3 the children worked on an activity based on the book "Unicorns! Unicorns!" (by Geraldine McCaughrean) led by Mr. MacBean.

Fantastic team work Year 1 and 3!

24.2.15- Dragon's teeth and a broken egg!

Yesterday Year 1 looked at a dragon's egg, dragon's teeth and scales and started to write their own poems. They used some AMAZING adjectives in their writing and some of the children even wrote similes.

In the afternoon we evaluated the hand puppets the children made and decided whether the joining technique that was chosen was the best (would they use tape to join fabric again, why not?)

A busy Drama themed week

 

 

This week is our Drama themed week. Year 1 will be starting the week looking at magical creatures. We will be using our descriptions of them to write poems.

 

On Tuesday we are having a joint day with Y3. All of the children will get the opportunity to work with some Year 3's with Mr MacBean and also with the Year 3's in Year 1. I don't want to give too much away about the day but there will be lots of drama, improvisation, imagination and fantastic writing involved. I will make sure I blog some of the work!

 

On Wednesday we will be revisiting a story the children know well, but we will be thinking about a different character in the story.

 

Thursday will be our drama day with Simon Stone where we will learn many drama techniques linked to a story.

 

We will also be evaluating our hand puppets and changing our reading books in group reading.

 

A very busy week ahead!

 

Andy Goldsworthy home learning can be handed in this week and we will be discussing this next week.

And our surprise guest was....

Today Rohana's Dad gave a talk about a different type of farming. As a class we discussed whether or not we thought fish could be farmed and what it would involve.

 

We looked at how fish are farmed in the sea in a variety of ways including these massive floating cages.

 

 

Then we looked at the development of a lobster and how it grows in stages from stage one where they are very tiny to stage 5 where they are the size of your palm. We then got to see a real lobster and talk about the features of lobsters. Did you know that lobsters have two different sized front claws called a cruncher and a crusher! I wonder if the children can tell you any more facts they learnt?

 

After all having a turn at touching the lobster Year 1 then recalled some great facts about them in our writing books and I must say some fantastic pictures!!

 

We hope that you have an enjoyable half term. All the children came out with a home learning task about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. We would like them to research; Who he is? What is his job? What does he use in his art work? Can you name one of his pieces of work? We would like this piece of work in on the Monday /Tuesday when we get back. Thank you.

 

 

Mrs Thorpe and Mrs Hall

 

 

Beef stew and natural painting

Yesterday we spent most of the day outside. All of Year 1 got to prepare, chop and cook a beef stew. This week we have had a focus on 'farm to fork', with this in mind Hazel very kindly gave us some beef from her farm and we then cooked and ate it. You can't get much closer than that!

 

 

It was really delicious and lots of the children had second helpings!

 

 

We also looked at a story called 'Cave Baby'. The children then used natural materials such as turmeric, beetroot, clay, chalk and mud to draw their own pictures of things in the story such as mammoths and saber tooth tigers. 

 

Thank you so much to all of the parent helpers. I hope you enjoyed the morning as much as we did!  

 

 

Indian Farm Animals

Today Mr Farrington showed the class some photos of Indian farm animals as part of our Farm to Fork Week. The children were very interested and did some lovely writing and drawing about what they learnt. I wonder if the children can talk to you about some of the photos here?

9.2.15- Chinese day

Chinese Day

Mrs Wright has been in Year 1 today teaching us all about Chinese language, food and culture. We started today looking at China on the map and discussing what we already know (quite a lot!)

Then we looked at Chinese writing and made a happiness sign out of red paper. We learnt how to write the words; person, moon, mountain, field, one, two and three. After that we tasted a variety of different food. I was really impressed with Year 1 as they all tried the food and many enjoyed the delicious flavours of the Chinese food.

Steamed Suimai which was made with pork and prawns

 

Chashui buns- Which tasted slightly like a dumpling and had a pork belly filling.

 

Lotus wrapped chicken- sticky rice

These were so delicious- Red bean crumble cake!

Pineapple bun

 

And finally the children made their own Chinese sweets- Tang Yuan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farm to Fork week

Farm to Fork week

 

Next week as you all know we will be having a themed week. During this week we will be doing something different everyday. Below is a brief overview of what we will be getting up to:

 

Monday- Chinese day. We will be cooking, writing, singing and playing games.

Tuesday- Maths and History (looking and comparing explorers), Forest school afternoon (last one for that group)

Wednesday- Mr Farrington will be teaching the children about Indian Farm animals and the children will be making the finishing touches to their puppets.

Thursday- We will be outside the majority of the day cooking on the fire and painting.

Friday- We will be having a visit from Rohana's Dad and a special guest!

 

As we will be outside most of Thursday I think it would be best for the children to wear their home clothes that day. They need to be warm clothes (vest, t shirts, jumpers, trousers, coats, gloves, hats) as well as waterproofs and wellies. We will be outside and so any clothes that they do wear may get dirty. Please send your child in to school in trainers or home shoes and their wellies in a plastic bag as we don't want the mud on our carpet!

 

During farm to fork week we will not be doing spellings or group reading but please do look over the spellings the children have had and keep on reading at home.

 

Parents evening slips are still up if you have not made a time with me yet.

 

**If anyone is available to help on Thursday we could really do with a few extra pairs of hands outside cooking and painting please.

 

Have a restful weekend and see you all for a busy and exciting week next week!  

 

6.2.15- Waste wizards

Wow what a fantastic end to the week! We were all really impressed with the amount of children that bought in a waste wizard. There was such a large variety of wizards that have been made out of recycled materials, well done to everyone that made one. It was really hard to choose a winner. In Year 1 Layla was crowned our winner. I particularly liked the cape and that it had a recycling sign on it.

 

Year 1 also managed to fill all the pieces of Mr Potato head and so got a treat this afternoon before lets explore.

 

2.2.15- Farm to fork week (next week) and a home learning challenge!

I have put up the parents evening list up, if you are unable to make any of the times please do come and see me.

 

 

Next week is our Farm to fork week. We will have a number of exciting things to do next week including Chinese cooking, tasting and writing. We will be making our own paint out of material materials and cooking on the open fire. We will track the source of all of our food and look at our food miles for our dishes.

 

We are also going to be researching and writing about explorers. Some home learning ideas:

What is an explorer?

Name an explorer from the past. What did they do?

Name an explorer who is living now. What do they do?

The children could present their research in any way- a piece of writing, a model or information from the internet. It is entirely up to you!

 

 

We look forward to seeing some of the children's research.

 

Year 1 team 

 

1.2.15- This week in Year 1...

This week we will be learning what an 'Algorithm' is and we will be making some of our own. If you are unsure of what an algorithm is then check back on the blog later in the week as I will be sharing some that the children have made.

 

In Music we will be carrying on our work on pitch and be playing a number of tunes on the xylophones.

 

In Literacy this week we are looking at the story of 'The Elves and the Shoemaker'. We started this story last week by making a story map and retelling it together. This week we will be using our imagination to think about where we would go if we had some magic shoes and we will write letters to the elves to ask them some questions.

 

In Maths we are going to be looking at multiplication. We will ordering groups of objects and then adding them together. We will also be focussing on counting on in 2's, 5's and 10's and counting in arrays.

 

In DT Year 1 will be making the finishing touches to their hand puppets. Thank you to all the parents that helped with the sewing. All of the puppets look fantastic.