Year 1 heroes
What a busy final day of the spring term.
For our ‘Not all heroes wear capes‘ day, we welcomed lots of NHS heroes, firefighters, police men, Leonora Cohen, Greta Thunberg, an astronaut, a footballer, Indira Gandhi (the first female prime minister of India) and Dr Andrew Pollard (the scientist who invented the AstraZeneca vaccine).
The children enjoyed sharing who they had dressed as and why they were a hero. If they gave their consent, a partner also took a photo of them.
This marked the end of our Heroes history topic. The children have shown a great understanding of what makes a hero, different heroes from the past (and present) and how they’ve made a difference to life today.
All the Year 1 staff would like to wish you a happy and healthy Easter break.
Science: plants
We’ve come to the end of the first of our plants topic and all the children planted seeds from the Innocent Big Grow project to grow at home. Keep us posted on how they grow.
We’ve had some vocabulary, and their definitions, to learn for this topic so we had a matching pairs quiz to check our final understanding.
Investigative science is also part of our learning in the shared area. Here the children can observe and sort a range of seeds. How are they different? How are they the same?
Our potato plants are starting to break through the soil. We observed them carefully.
They are growing.
They are starting to sprout.
The stems are getting taller.
Some leaves are starting to grow.
They are breaking through!
Living and Learning: making a democratic decision
It was a busy last day of the spring term. As well as our heroes day, another important event happened too – the Junior Leadership Team elections. This is the new name for our school council.
A huge well done to all the nineteen candidates from Year 1 who took a safe risk and spoke confidently in front of the class to say why they would make a good junior leader. Any one of the children would have done a great job.
Once the speeches were complete, we learnt about the voting process. All the children cast their vote and posted this in our ballot box.
Our current school councillors had an important job of taking our ballot box over to Mrs Weekes for counting. They have represented the class very well over the last year.
Once the votes had been counted, we heard it was very close and it was very tense as we waited to find out.
Finally, we heard that our new JLT members were Sophie and Charlie – well done to you both. We are confident they will represent the class well.
We want all our children to use their pupil voice to make suggestions for items to be discussed at JLT meetings so they are encouraged to use our Living and Learning box to let our new junior leaders know their views and ideas!
Happy Easter!
We have reached the end of this very strange term! The class have been amazing and we’ve been really impressed with how they have all returned to school.
This week we have been learning to skip and observing our sunflowers and beans grow. The sunshine has definitely helped.
The children will be taking their sunflower home. It would be great if you could send us photos of them as they grow. Ask your child to keep measuring them.
moortowneyfs@spherefederation.org
Junior Leadership Elections
We were really impressed with all the children who prepared and presented their speech.
Well done to Aaniyah and Ralph who were elected to represent their class-I know they will do a good job.
Have a fantastic Easter break -hopefully the sun will come back!
Living and Learning: JLT!
Speeches have been delivered. Candidates have been questioned. Votes have been cast. Exit polls suggest a close race. Results will be announced after lunch!
A massive well done to everyone who took a safe risk and put themselves forward as a candidate. We really enjoyed and were really impressed by your speeches. A lot of time and thought went into them. I’m sure whoever’s elected in Year 4 will do a great job!
Heroes day tomorrow and supporting your child at home
Firstly, as part of our current History topic, ‘Heroes’, Key Stage 1 are looking forward to having our ‘Not All Heroes Wear Capes’ themed day on Thursday 1 April.
Thank you to all the parents (and children) who attended our virtual parents’ evening this week. It was great to share your child’s progress and to check they have settled back into school ok.
While there is no homework or spellings during the Easter break, here are a few things that might be useful to look at with your child.
Handwriting
Here’s a link to a video showing the cursive letter formation that we use in school and also our handwriting guide.
Lexia
Please continue to work on Lexia until your child has achieved their Level 5 certificate.
Phonics Play
For those children who have reached Level 5 in Lexia, Phonics Play is an option for practising phonics at home. The login details are username Sphere and password is Spher3.
Numbots
Numbots is a maths resource, based on building addition and subtraction skills, that can be accessed by children at home using their individual logins (please email if you need these resending). We now have a weekly leader board for Numbots so keep working hard to earn those coins!
Little and often is best for these resources as well as reading at home.
Not forgetting self care, here’s a bingo game that you might want to try.
It’s been lovely to have all the children back in school for the last few weeks and we wish you all a happy and healthy Easter break. Stay safe and well!
Maths: Numbers to 20
In maths, the children have been investigating numbers to twenty. By engaging in rich discussion, the class have been able to reason and explain the ideas presented. Over the last few weeks, the children have grasped new concepts well. Have a go at these activities at home.
Today, we played a place value game using a 100 square. The children took it in turns to hide two numbers. Then, their partner had to work out which numbers were missing by using mathematical language and by looking for patterns in the 100 square.
Living and Learning: rights and responsibilities
For our living and learning lesson, Y6 explored rights and responsibilities.
“A right is something you should have,” said Jess.
“A responsibility is something you should do morally,” said Priya.
We discussed our rights and responsibilities with respect to school, home, our communities and the world.
I particularly liked this one from Jasraj and Moh: “At home, we have the right to have fun on a console but the responsibility to manage our own screen time.”
Lots of our discussion about responsibilities involved the good choices we have the power to make: being kind, considering others and inspiring each other.
Wildflowers
This half term, we have been learning about plants. In this week’s session, the children were finding out about wildflowers and naming some common ones. The children then used and iPad to research and find more. Lots of children were able to name and identify at least eight wildflowers.
Junior Leadership Team Elections
Next week we are holding elections for the Junior Leadership Team(formerly School Council). Two representatives from each class are chosen democratically by their peers.
It’s time for children to consider if they would like to stand for election for our new Junior Leadership Team(JLT)
Elections will take place on Thursday 1 March. Candidates will have the opportunity to give their election speech to their class on Tuesday 30 March and Wednesday 31 March.
If your child would like to be a junior leader, please help them to prepare a short speech.
What makes a good junior leader has been considered by our current school council.
- ‘use all the 8 Rs for learning’
- ‘be respectful’
- ‘help others’
- ‘be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)’
- ‘tell the truth’
- ‘be confident with your ideas’
- ‘accept the views of others even if you don’t agree’
- ‘be friendly and approachable’
- ‘make good choices in class and around school’
Hints for your speech include:
- What skills and abilities would a good school councillor have?
- What are you particularly good at that would help you to be a great school councillor?
- What do you think would make the school better?
- What could you do that people would really like?
- Think of things that are realistic, maybe that you could do yourself, rather than having to ask other people to do
Good luck to all children who decide to stand in the elections.