In January we came back to school after our Winter break and we were so excited to see our friends and catch up with all our news. We have now settled back into our class routine and achieved lots this month.

Within Maths we have continued to work on number. We have learned lots of new strategies to help us add within 20 such as doubles, near doubles and friendly numbers. We really enjoyed adding 3 digits together and made Mrs Simpson very proud with our hard work. We love Number Talks in class and have enjoyed learning the hand signals we use when we discuss strategies during this part of our maths lessons. We like to try to solve problems mentally and help each other lots by discussing ways that may help others. We began completing Chilli Challenges this month and we love to solve problems and share how we got our answers. We will work on Subtraction and Measure in February.

Within Literacy we have continued to work on our weekly sounds and common words. We completed an assessment and will bring home a list of sounds/words that we should spend time working on with an adult, in order to help us to become successful learners.

In Writing we began learning about writing instructions. We thought about where we have seen instructions, and why we need them. We then made jam sandwiches and created instructions on how to make a jam sandwich.

We have been working hard on our talking and listening skills this month, and trying to remember not to interrupt when others are speaking. We have been practising how to be good listeners by working in pairs and groups to complete tasks. We have also been super listeners as we explore our very first class novel ‘The Twits’. We love this exciting story, and enjoy letting our imaginations roam as we listen.

In P.E we have been learning about Gymnastics. We have discovered lots of new body shapes and ways to move our bodies. We have enjoyed working with the mats in our gym hall and have begun to link actions and skills together in a routine.

In R.E. our new topic is New Birth. We spent time thinking about the nativity story and Mary’s hard journey to Bethlehem. We then thought about new babies and how we prepare for a new baby. We had fun playing Baby Bingo where we learned about all the things we need to look after a baby.

Our new topic is Spain. We have created a fact file about things we learned about the country and will shortly be learning about the weather, Spanish landmarks and some very famous Spanish people.

Last week we celebrated Burns Day at school. We learned so much about the Scottish poet Robert Burns and we also tasted shortbread and some yummy Irn Bru. We loved learning the song ‘Three Craws’ and had a ball performing our song in front of the rest of the school at assembly. Mrs Simpson thought we were brilliant and we earned a ‘Beat the Teacher’ point which meant we got some extra time at the park.

To celebrate Chinese New Year we read a fantastic story called ‘Dragons in the City’. We learned about all the things people do during this special time. We watched a Chinese New Year dragon parade then created our own Chinese dragons.

We can’t wait for February and all the exciting learning opportunities we will have. Please keep checking Twitter for all our class photos and updates.