Fantastic spellings this week! 29.1.16

It was fantastic to see so many children getting their spellings correct this week! We can really see which children are practising their spellings more than once.

 

It is really important that the children are practising their spellings by breaking them down in to sounds. Once they have filled in the spelling sheet that does not need to be the end of the practice. They could use the spellings to make up sentences, write them on the computer, play a word game or  just write them again on another piece of paper. For the spellings to embed and the children to understand and use them in their writing, I would ideally be hearing that they are practising every other day.

 

I am hoping that the home learning that I see next week takes this on board and the children are really taking their time to write sentences about what they want to show. Please encourage them to form cursive letters and use the phonics mats they have at home. Maybe they could write a recipe for something that they have had for dinner? They could write the instructions for a model they have made?

 

Finally just a reminder that the children need to write at home to be able to show something.

 

Thank you for your continuous support

 

Mrs Thorpe

Praise assembly- 29.1.16

This week in our assembly praise went to;
LilyRose and Eva for their conscientious attitude to their maths work.
Jasmine for trying extremely hard with the split a_e phoneme
Harry DB and Bradley for their fantastic handwriting (what an improvement!)
James for his conscientious attitude to learning in PE and literacy
Finally Jamie was praised for blending sounds so well in group reading.

Year 1 are trying really hard to use their phonics mats when writing and thinking about how to form their letters correctly.

Old Wellington Boots?

We have another plan afoot!  Have you got any old, outgrown or holey wellies at home?  If so we would like to use them for a project in Eco Week.  Please bring in your old wellies to year 2 to be up-cycled!

Used CDS

I am after used CDs which we can paint and stick onto for an Eco school activity. If you have any old CDs you are willing to hand over, please bring them to the school office or find me in Year 2 classroom.

Many thanks!         Mrs Mewett

Reading at home

This week in group reading I will be sticking in a reading target in the children's diaries. These are taken from the Year 1 curriculum. For example- I can read new words by blending sounds together. So when your child is reading with you at home please encourage them to break down the words and blend the sounds together. If you have any concerns on your child's reading at home or would like to discuss these targets please feel free to catch me in the morning or after school.

Quite a lot of children are coming to school without their group reading bags or without their books. It is fantastic that they are reading at home but please can we have them in school everyday so that we can read them and change them.

Just a reminder that the parents evening sheets are on the whiteboard in the classroom. If you can't make any of the times please do come and see me and we can arrange a suitable time.

Run run as fast as you can you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man

Today we read the traditional tale the Gingerbread man. After discussing the characters and the repetition of the book we worked in our morning groups to make our own gingerbread men.

 

The children had to read the recipes, take turns, measure the ingredients and follow the instructions.

 

They are looking forward to decorating them tomorrow!

Praise assembly- 22.1.16

In our assembly this week praise certificates went to:

Jack and Thomas for their hard work partitioning two digit numbers in maths
Sunny, Ziva, LilyRose, Isabelle and Rubi for getting to the top of the rope in PE.
Flynn, Evie and Matilda- for their determination in PE, they tried extremely hard to get to the top of the rope!
Harry- for his recognition of sounds and his writing of them.

Mr Wolf's pancakes 24.1.16

We have had a very busy week in year 1 making pancakes! We have read the story of 'Mr Wolf's pancakes'.

The children have written descriptions and comparisons between the wolves in traditional tales. Every group them made delicious pancakes with Mrs Hall and have written the recipes for the pancakes (you will get a copy of them soon).

In maths this week we have carried on looking at partitioning numbers so that we know how many tens and ones there are in a number. Please do encourage your child to log on to Mathletics and complete the online challenges as they will gain points towards different medals. All the log in details are on the cards that were given out.

Finally, thank you to all of the Mums that came in to help with the hand puppets last week. All of them are now 'joined' and the children now have the task of decorating them to make their characters.

Plastic Bottle Lids

We have a plan for our Eco Week after the half term holidays!  We need your help in collecting as many clean, colourful plastic lids as you can - any type of bottle.  Please bring them along to the year 2 classroom where we will look after them and turn them into something wonderful!!  Many thanks!

Praise assembly

Praise certificates this week went to Will and James for trying so hard in their phonics and formation of letters. Josie, Jack and Alfie got certificates for being conscientious learners and Isabelle and Sunny for their beautifully presented handwriting. Well done everyone!

It was great to see so many children practising their spellings this week and bringing them in to collect a whoot!

Did you see the space walk?

We were all eager to watch Tim Peake doing his space walk today. At the end of the day we all watched Tim in space. The children were asking lots of interesting questions. Maybe over the weekend if you get to watch some more of the coverage and your child has any questions about it then they could draw a picture and write the questions. I could then send them to Tim Peake!

Can anybody help with a bit of sewing please?

As part of our DT this term the children are designing, making and evaluating their own hand puppets. If there are any parents that could help to support the children with their sewing of the puppets the help would be much appreciated. We will be doing this in our topic session which is a Tuesday and a Friday afternoon at 1.25pm and this will last for about 40 minutes. If you are able to help this coming week then please do let us know.

Many thanks

The Year 1 team

Learning this week in Year 1

Thank you to everyone that came along to the Year 1 parent information session. Everything that we discussed was in the newsletter.

Today we have been learning about how to use speech bubbles in writing. The children wrote speech bubbles for the characters in Little Red Riding Hood.

In maths we have been learning about tens (T) and ones (1's). We have been partitioning two digit numbers and talking about how many T and 1's are in them. For example 24 has 2 lots of 10 and 4 ones.

In RE this afternoon the children learnt how Christians believe that Jesus was a friend and how he showed friendship by looking at the story of Zacchaeus.

Forest school spring term session 1

Today was our first session of Forest School for the spring term. After exploring the grounds and measuring the depths of puddles I read a story to the children.

Where the wild things are is a fantastic adventure story about a character called Max. The children looked at the beginning of the story today where Max built a den. They worked in pairs to build their teddy a den. We had some amazing outcomes and the children worked so well together!

 

We will spend the next 4 weeks looking at the book and making various objects. 

Praise certificates this week go to...

Praise certificates today went to Ziva, Will, Jamie, Bradley, James, Clark and Nell for their hard work learning the ai and er sound.

Also Evie, Freddie, Euan and Leo were praised for showing qualities of our DASP caterpillars such as being conscientious learners and settling down to their learning. Well done!!

Parent information session and home learning

It is fantastic to see children bringing in objects to show and of course talking about their toys boost the children's language skills and confidence. At the moment I am allowing children to bring in their smaller less valuable toys to show as long as they have written about them (we do ask for no electronic or delicate toys). This is the perfect opportunity for the children to write with you at home. All of the children now have a phonics mat that were sent home at the beginning of the term. We would encourage you to sit with your child and get them to talk about what it is they are going to write. We would like to see writing that is more than one sentence and includes some details.
You could use the questions below to help:
-Where did they get the toy?
-What is it made out of?
-Why do they like it?
-Can they describe the toy?
-How does the toy work?
-What is the toys name?

Once they can say their sentence then they need to break down the words in to sounds to write. The Year 1 curriculum concentrates on cursive handwriting, finger spaces, capital letters and writing sentences. So with this in mind we are looking for this practice in home learning. I have spoken to the children about this today. We would love to see some more variety of home learning. Some ideas for this can be seen below

Maths- counting toys, foods, shapes around the home and the environment, adding and subtraction using money in their piggy banks or toys that they have.

Writing- recounts of special trips you have made, writing about their favourite books, instructions on how to play a game or something they have made.

Reading- at home with an adult or even to a sibling, book reviews, retelling well known stories.

And of course special drawings and objects the children have made will all be celebrated in class.

In all of the children's book bags today they have a computer card. On this they have the usernames and passwords for free educational websites that can be accessed from home. Purplemash, Reading eggs and Mathletics are excellent resources that the children all use at school. The children gain points once they have completed the activities. I will then print the certificates and praise these children in our weekly praise assemblies.

We understand that you all have busy lives and so do not expect pieces of work everyday but home learning definitely does have an impact on children's learning.

Thank you again for your continuous support and I will discuss this again in the parent information session on Tuesday morning. This will be in the Year 1 classroom once the children have changed for PE.

Mrs Thorpe

The end of a busy first week back....

As it is nearly the end of the first week back I just wanted to say how impressed I am with how the children have come back after the holidays!

In maths we have been measuring capacity. We have used water, rice, pasta and oats to fill different containers. The children have been using the language of full, half full, empty, nearly full and nearly empty. So if your at home over the weekend and you are cooking or pouring a drink maybe you could ask you child to help you fill the container? We have even been making potions. The children had to follow a witches potion and add ingredients such as slug slime, bat teeth and magical sea water to make a special potion. Some of the potions we made yesterday transformed into finger puppets today! I wonder what will happen to the potions tomorrow?!

In Literacy we have started looking at the story of Little Red Riding hood. We have been writing sentences and joining our ideas using 'and'. All of the children will have new group reading books at the end of the week. The scanner in the library is not working properly at the moment but we will find time next week to change library books once it has been fixed.

In phonics we have been covering the phase 3 sounds that are not secure and have been learning about plurals and the prefix 'un'.

Spring term begins! Lots of information about the upcoming week...

We hope that you have had an amazing Christmas holiday and ready for 2016!

 

We are starting this week with writing out the holidays and the children's favourite presents. It seems such a long time ago now so please do speak with your child about favourite toys they received so that they are able to write about them.

 

In Literacy this term we are starting to look at traditional tales, starting with Little Red Riding Hood. In DT we have a 'joining' topic this half term which involved making hand puppets. If any of you are good at sewing and are able to help in the afternoon of a Tuesday or a Friday we will be looking for some helpers in a few weeks time.

 

In Maths this week we will be measuring capacity. There will be lots of hands on measuring using water and other non standard units.

 

PE does start this week so please send the children's clean kits back in.

 

Forest Schools will start again next week (Mon 11th) and this will be for the Spring and Summer group again. Lots of warm clothing will be needed for this time of year and wellingtons and waterproofs are essential. Autumn and Winter group will be with Mrs Hall doing PE. There will be 5 sessions of Forest School this half term.

 

As we are having a rather wet winter please do make sure your child brings a warm waterproof coat in to school as we do try and get out for some fresh air even if it is a little drizzly.

 

Year 1 parent information session will be in the hall straight after drop off on Tuesday 12th.

 

We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow and hearing about your holidays

 

The Year 1 team