This half term we have been exploring the artwork of David Hockney. We have looked at his pictures and thought about how they make us feel. Some pictures made us feel happy and excited but some pictures made us feel worried and scared. We have learnt about primary and secondary colours and made our own colour wheels using primary colours. We have used a range of different media to draw our own Hockney inspired artwork!
This half term we have learnt about what it means to belong to different groups and religions. We belong to lots of different groups including our families, swimming clubs and Beavers. We have also explored what it means to belong to the Jewish faith. We have learnt about how Jewish people celebrate Shabbat by lighting candles, drinking wine and eating sweet bread called Challah. We have also learnt that Jewish people have a Mezuzah on their doors and that these have a special prayer in them. We wrote our own prayers thinking about our families.
This half term we have continued to focus on developing our investigation skills. Naughty Nora loves to chase bubbles so we have been finding out which bubbles last the longest. We started with bubbles that Mrs Bailey bought from the shop, most of these lasted for 10 seconds. We then looked at other things that make bubbles such as hand soap, bubble bath and washing up liquid. We found that washing up liquid bubbles can last up to 20 seconds which is better than the bubbles Mrs Bailey bought.
We have also been investigating temperature and using a thermometer to track how the temperature has changed throughout the day and term. When it snowed we knew it was cold but didn't realise that it was 0°C and that as the day went on the temperature only changed a small amount. We then found out that the day after the snow the temperature went up by 4°C and that is why the snow melted.
We began this half term by focusing on non fiction writing. We have learnt about the features of instructions and enjoyed following instructions to make a pirate hat. We learnt that following instructions is easier when there are pictures to help you and also when you work with a friend so you can work out any problems together. We learnt lots of different time conjunctions and used these when we wrote our own instructions about washing your hands.
We have also been using the Paddington stories to help us with our story writing. We have really enjoyed exploring all the scrapes and adventures Paddington gets into. We have written letters as if we were Paddington and also written our own Paddington stories, imagining that he comes to visit our school and all the chaos he could cause.
This half term we have been learning about traditional stories. With Mrs Winstanley we have been looking at the story of Cinderella in preparation for our pantomime trip. We have read a range of traditional stories and have enjoyed acting them out. When we read 'The Magic Porridge Pot' we role played interviewing the villagers which we really enjoyed. We also really liked the way the story started (Once, not twice but once upon a time) and used this when we were re telling it. We have learnt that our writing needs conjunctions and adjectives and have practised doing this when we wrote our own character descriptions of the troll from 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'. To show how much we have learnt about traditional stories we then wrote our own version of 'The Ugly Duckling'. We found this really tricky but all persevered and did so well!
We have been learning about programming. We have learnt how to give BeeBot three and four step instructions to get from one place to another. We found it harder than we thought it was and had to spend time 'debugging' different parts of our instructions so that they worked. We found it particularly hard to work out which direction BeeBot would be going once he turned.
We have really been enjoying learning how to use the Learnpads. We can now switch them on independently and the program or activity we should be using. We are looking forward to using them in our learning this year.
We are enjoying maths and are getting more confident at recognising and ordering numbers all the time. We are focusing on our counting, addition and subtraction skills so that we can use different strategies such as counting on and or using a number line. We have really enjoyed exploring shape and symmetry and can now sort shapes into a Venn diagram.
We have been learning lots about number bonds and have been trying hard to remember which numbers you can add together to make a given number. We have learnt rhymes and different strategies to help us to do this such as counting on and using our fingers. We have also been learning about and becoming careful with our measuring skills and have enjoyed investigating measure in many different ways. Mrs Bailey has been helping us to remember and check that we are writing our numbers the right way round and we are getting much better at this as well.
Our first topic this year has been really fun and has given us a great opportunity to get to know each other and learn about year one. We have enjoyed exploring our senses and learning about all the different things we can taste. We have investigated different things and have found out that the oldest person in the class is not always the tallest. We have explored our local area using Google Earth and really enjoyed finding out about our school and looking at where we are in relation to other places in the U.K.
This half term our topic has been all about toys. We started the topic by thinking about our favourite toys and why we like to play with them. We then began to learn about how toys have changed over the last one hundred years as well as speaking to our parents and grandparents about their favourite toys. Lots of us brought in examples of these and we really enjoyed looking at them. We learnt lots of facts about toys in the past and found out that toys have changed a lot over the years, we have been really surprised that thirty years ago there were no computers and no one played on the Wii or had an ipad.
Year one and two visited St Mary's Church for an interactive Christmas story experience. There was a carousel of five activities that we all took part in. These included learning about how the shepherds felt when they saw an angel, meeting Mary and speaking to her about our worries and thinking about getting our hearts ready for Christmas. We also learnt about the different places in the Christmas story and put them on to a map as well as thinking about presents we would give to baby Jesus. All the children were very well behaved and enjoyed the visit, including the biscuit and juice at the end.
It was super because I liked all the stories - Freddie
I learnt lots about Jesus - Imogen
I learnt about the angels - Max
My favourite part was writing with the feather pens for a present to Jesus - Safina
I learnt that God is always with you- Henry M