Living and Learning: democracy
This week we are looking at democracy and making democratic decisions. We discussed the importance of democratic decisions and everybody having a say. We understood that some people might be disappointed in the result of the vote but it is the fairest way to decide. We talked about how important a secret ballot is so that everyone has the freedom to decide themselves.
We learnt a little about how adults use their vote to decide who runs the country. Our JLT in school is also decided by a vote and we discussed why this was fair system for everyone.
Finally, we held our own secret vote to decide which book we should read at home time. The three choices are below and the result was:
Specs for Rex – 6 votes
Are you the Pirate Captain? – 13 votes
Rosie is my best friend – 9 votes
A clear winner! We all enjoyed the story no matter how we voted!
KS1 SATs information session
Ratio Experts
Y6 have absolutely nailed their learning about ratio this week! Take a look at these amazing examples.
Using a table organises the information that you know from reading the question and helps you understand which parts you need to work out for the answer.
“Miss Wilson said ratio was hard but we smashed it!” grinned Sam.
“You can have loads of different ratios like 1:3 or 2:5 but read the question carefully,” said Harman.
“Tables are your BEST FRIEND!” exclaimed Sasha.
Living and Learning: First Aid
Last half-term, we learnt all about how the emergency services can help in certain situations.
We also learnt some basic first aid:
What to do if someone has an asthma attack
After our two weeks off for the Easter holidays, we asked Avneet how much she could remember. This was her response.
First, check if they have an inhaler.
If they don’t, I would check if they have one in school – maybe in the inhaler cupboard or at the office.
If not, call 999 and tell them what’s happened and where we are.
If they do have an inhaler, go and get it and give it to them and advise them to have 2 puffs every 2 minutes for up to 10 minutes.
I would also check on their breathing at the same time.
Awesome remembering, Avneet!
See if your child can remember what do if somebody has an asthma attack!
Living and learning: manners
We always encourage good manners in class and around school but manners also features as part of our Living and Learning curriculum. This week, our Living and Learning statement has been all about table manners. At lunchtime this week, we’ve been putting this into practice. It was great to hear some nominations from the kitchen staff for those children who consistently say please and thank you for their food. Well done, Year 2!
Unfortunately, the Goops aren’t quite so well mannered at mealtimes. Ask your child to read this poem to you.
Welcome back!
We hope you had a restful break. It’s been great to see the children back at school ready for the summer term of learning.
We’ve has lots of recent success with children reaching their next level in Lexia.
Well done to Matin, Nate, Aaron, Saavi, Hollie, Talha, Charlie, Aliza and Sophie.
As well as Lexia (to support reading and phonics), Numbots (to support addition and subtraction) and Times Tables Rock Stars (to support multiplication and division) are both available for the children to practise their maths knowledge at home.
Our Numbots top three this week were:
1st Daniyal
2nd Aaron
3rd Rico
Since we have started using TTRS, our top five children who have earned the most coins are:
1st Hadi
2nd Grace
3rd Aaron
4th Rory
5th Elena
Great work! Keep working hard at home.
Welcome to the summer term!
Welcome back. We hope you had a great Easter break.
This term in Reception our theme is, ‘Life on Earth’.
Our learning will include;
Mini-beasts
Children love a bug hunt! This term, we’ll be hunting for bugs and finding out all about them. As a scientist, your child will observe how various creatures develop from butterflies to frogs. Using books and ICT, they will also use their investigation skills to find out more about bugs that are all around us. Your child will also be use their imagination to create their own mini-beasts. Children will work together to design their own mini-beast hotels.
Your child will study the artist Alexander Calder and create their own representation of his butterfly work.
Amazing animals
Where does a tiger come from? In this theme, your child will find out! We’ll find out where our favourite animals originate, finding the country on the map. We’ll look at its environment and your child consider how it is different from where we live. As an artist, your child will mix colours to create an animals’ camouflage patterns. They’ll create their own landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and they’ll create their own scenarios and storylines for their play.
Me and my body
We want our school to be a happy and healthy place at all times. Keeping healthy is the key message in this theme. Your child will learn how important exercise is and how our body feels during and after we exercise. They’ll learn about eating healthily and why this is important; they’ll become aware of the importance of five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Your child will try new fruit and vegetables and prepare simple healthy foods. They’ll find out how important it is to brush their teeth and what happens if we don’t. As an artist, your child will learn to draw a face and then a figure with increasing detail.
Phonics
We will continue following Little Wandle revised Letters and Sounds. The children will be learning to read longer words, compound words and words with adjacent consonants.
PE
For the rest of the term, PE will return to Wednesday and Friday.
Big Walk and Wheel
Thank you to all the families who have supported the Big Walk and Wheel over the last two weeks.
Overall, we were placed 150th in the small school category, out of 643 schools, with a daily average of 74.29% of journeys to school being active. In Northern England, we were 18th out of 107 small schools. Well done to everyone who took an active journey to help to achieve this.
Over the two week period we actively travelled 1,358 times!
It would be great for these active journeys to continue. Travelling actively (walking, park and stride – Marks and Spencers car park, scooting or biking) is a safe and healthy start to the school day.
Computing – Beebots
During our Computing topic this half term, we have been learning all about algorithms. These are sets of instructions and we can use them to program computers. We have practised writing our own algorithms as well as debugging (fixing) them. This week, we thoroughly enjoyed putting out computing knowledge of algorithms into action with the beebots. We can now write algorithms to programme a Beebot to make a shape and to navigate it through a maze with obstacles in the way. We made sure to write down our algorithm first and then debug it if it went wrong. It was great fun!
Happy Holidays!
Everyone in Year One would like to wish all your families and children a very happy holiday! The children have worked really hard this term and have made some brilliant progress and produced some outstanding work! Well done Year 1!
In your children’s bag there is some sheets of paper to help with learning at home. There is their Numbots log in, in case you have misplaced it, so that the children practise their number facts. This really does help with their fluency in calculations.
There is also the tricky words we have been learning this term in phonics. Initially, the target is to read these fluently but if your child can do this the next target is to be able to spell them.
I have also included some of the new graphemes we have learnt this year with some example words. It is really important that children can read these automatically in order to become fluent readers. I have also encouraged the children to read their ebooks, their sharing books and any other books they can get their hands on over the holidays!
Finally, there is a table of all the number facts from 0+0 to 10+10. We learnt these in a specific order so that children build on their knowledge progressively and this order is shown at the side of the table.
Thank you for all your support and have a restful and relaxing break!
The Year 1 team.