Plant Puzzles
We had a puzzling afternoon on Friday. There was a challenge given to the Year 1 children – they were given seven pieces of a beanstalk. Their challenge was to create a beanstalk as close to a metre as possible but they were only allowed to use five pieces altogether. This was not as easy as it looked!
Where does our food come from?
Lots of our food comes from plants. We are hoping to make something to eat using home grown produce. Along with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and courgettes, we also planted some herbs and different flowers.
Class photograph
A quick reminder that the photographer will be in school on Tuesday morning to take our class photo – smiles at the ready!
What’s happening this week?
Our plant topic continues and we’re starting to see the fruits of our labour.
This week, we’ll see our plants moving outside into planters so see if you can spot them and see how they’re progressing.
Maths – As we’re watching our plants grow, we’re going to practise our ruler skills so that we can measure the height of our plants and continue doing so as they grow. Additionally, we’ll be looking at temperature. When do we measure temperature? How does temperature change throughout the year? How does temperature affect us and the world around us? We shall also look at reading scales on thermometers which will involve our being introduced to negative numbers.
English – After two weeks of writing non-fiction, our creative juices will be flowing again as we take on the character of The Hungry Caterpillar and perform, discuss and write poetry. Help at home by talking about poems you know or like and seeing how much of it you can learn and remember.
Planting and more planting
So far in our new topic, Green Fingers, Year 1 have been getting their hands dirty. We’ve been following instructions for planting cress seeds and broad bean seeds and also planting a range of vegetables, herbs and flowers. It’s been great to hear that so many of the children are growing some of their own plants at home.
What do plants need to grow? This was a question we considered this week and we set up some experiments to test this.
As we continue to work on our writing targets in English, we’ve been writing descriptions of plants. This is also helping us to remember the names for the different parts of plants.
We’ve also been reading stories about plants – Jack and the Beanstalk, Jasper’s Beanstalk and Tiny Seed. Are there any other books about plants that you can think of?
Finally, here is our best crop so far!
Getting into position
In our latest session with Dan from Leeds United we looked at where to position ourselves to receive a ‘ball’. For a change, we used balloons to test this.
‘Join our Club’ girls football
Fourteen of our Year 3 and 4 girls took part in the Wigton Moor ‘Join our Club’ festival at Immaculate Heart Primary. This followed a series of curriculum training sessions at school as part of the Join our Club initiative.
The festival involved three local schools, with over 60 girls taking part, providing the opportunity for the girls to play in friendly matches and demonstrate their skills. It was great to see so many girls getting involved, especially in the heat and after a three day residential for some! Well done to all our players.
Girls from Years 3, 4 and 5 are now invited to attend the Wigton Moor girls team trials on 28 June.
Dance at Allerton Grange
This morning we visited Allerton Grange High School and were taught a few dance routines by the students there. A special mention to Brandon, Edward and Matthew who all demonstrated some great moves.
Volcanoes
Our topic this half term is ‘Extreme Earth‘. We’re studying how the earth is made up of different layers and tectonic plates. Our focus has been volcanoes and what causes an eruption.
Work has begun on our very own volcanoes using plastic bottles and papier mache. We had lots of fun creating these and are really looking forward to our very own eruptions later in the week.
Take a look at our progress so far.
This week we begin our new SEAL theme, Changes
Following our focus on manners last week, we now begin the SEAL theme of Changes. This theme aims to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common responses to change. It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of living and learning: motivation, managing feelings and social skills.
The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:
- Change can be uncomfortable, because it can threaten our basic needs to feel safe and to belong
- Change can also be stimulating and welcome
- Both adults and children can experience a range of powerful and conflicting emotions as a result of change – for example, excitement, anxiety, uncertainty, loss, anger, resentment
- Worries about change can be made worse by uncertainty, lack of information, or misinformation and lack of support from others
- People’s responses to and ability to cope with change are very variable, and might be influenced by individual temperament, previous experience of change, and the nature of the change – chosen or imposed, expected or unexpected, within our control or out of our control
- Some children may welcome most forms of change and dislike routine and predictability. Other children may find even small changes very difficult.
Within school, children, who are coping with or have undergone significant change, are supported in a variety of ways:
- Our positive ethos within school
- Support systems, from staff and peers, for children who have undergone change or who maybe new to the school
- SEAL and circle time sessions where children feel safe to talk about their feelings
- Class SEAL boxes for children to record any concerns
- Preparing children wherever possible for planned changes for example, a change of class teacher, Key Stage or even school