Welcome

It has been a busy first term with a lot going on.  In term 1, we settled into our new classroom, and we were delighted that parents/carers came along to see it at our open morning. 

Each morning, we start the day by carrying out our ‘Emotional Check-In,’ where we place our name on the emotion we are feeling and if we wish to have a chat to our teacher.   

French 

In French we have been revising simple greetings like ‘Bonjour and Cava’ and we are now working on our numbers to 100.  

Science 

In term 1, we were learning about Biodiversity, and we were investigating the different leaf types in the school ground.  We will be finishing off this topic and moving onto to find out about electricity. 

Literacy

In term 1, we read The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo. We carried out some hot seating in the role of Bertie then we wrote a diary entry as Bertie. We found out the meaning of tricky, unfamiliar words using our metalinguistic strategies. We developed our visualisation skills by using evidence from the text to help us create a mental image of the characters.

During the month of October, we aimed to complete 10 minutes of reading for pleasure every day for Drop Everything And Read (DEAR time).

This term, we are reading The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q Rauf. We went to StarBOOKS Cafe to taste test our new book and make some predictions. We have completed a visualiser on one of the main characters in the book so far.

For writing in term 1 we created haiku and sensory poems for Autumn and Halloween. We did narrative writing where we created a story with a Halloween party that goes wrong! We have been developing our ability to use Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (VCOP) in our writing. We created diary entries and did letter writing. On Roald Dahl Day, we created a whole-class recipe using our instructional writing skills.

‘I found visualisation of Bertie fun because I got to imagine what I thought Bertie would look like’ – Lewis

‘I liked the hot seating because it was really fun and I liked the way the people replied to the questions’ – Oly

‘I like playing our roll a spelling word game in the morning because it helps me with my spelling’ – Akillez

‘I really like reading because it calms me down and puts me in a better mood. I like using the different reading strategies in class and I enjoy doing narrative writing’ Charley

‘I like narrative writing because we get to create our own stories’ Ethan

‘I like letter writing because it teaches me how to send a letter the correct way with no mistakes’ – Tyshawny

Numeracy

In term 1, we were learning about multiplication and completed times table challenge sheets. We looked at addition and subtraction and learned about different strategies that can help us. We also did division. We looked at estimation and rounding and created our own estimation washing lines. We have been rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. This term we will be rounding decimal fractions. We became teachers for the day and made our own task sheets to test a partner on their division knowledge!

Throughout September, we completed different maths challenges at home and in the classroom! We looked for different shapes around our house, we timed ourselves to see how many jumping jacks we could do in 1, 3 and 5 minutes, we had a paper chain competition in class and we looked for examples of maths in the real world through newspapers!

Mrs Marnie taught us  about fractions. We were learning to order fractions, identify different types of fractions and convert mixed number fractions to improper fractions and vice versa.  In term 2, we are looking forward to building our knowledge in 2D and 3D shapes, measurement and money.

‘I really like when we use the textbooks because it’s fun and I can sit in my maths seat’ – Harrison F

‘Maths is fun because I can practise my times tables and I can go up to the 15 times table’ – Sophie D

‘I enjoyed using the washing lines in maths because it helped my brain estimate numbers more easily’ – Iona

‘I like maths in general. What I like about maths is the number talks because I like doing mental maths’ – Elijah

Health and Wellbeing

For outdoor P.E, we did team building games during term 1 where we played reaction games and games that helped us develop our non-verbal communication skills. We are looking forward to more in term 2! In indoor PE were focused on gymnastics in term 1 and we explored working as part of a team to create a balance.  This term we are working on improving our fitness and we will be challenging ourselves with running, steps-ups and a lot more. 

We had a visit from the Dogs Trust who taught us how to act around dogs safely to keep them and us safe.

Through our classroom HWB lessons, we have created a Regulation Station. We created the station so we have somewhere to go in the class if you’re feeling sad or anxious which can help you become happy and calm again.

We learned about peer pressure in HWB too. Peer pressure is when your friend is trying to force you to do something, but you don’t want to. We learned different ways we can stand up for ourselves and our friends or family members.

We had Chef Robert from Kids Kitchen in our school teaching us how to cook safely and how to cut safely so you don’t hurt yourself or have an accident. We cut fruits and vegetables for fruit salads, soups and pasta. We also got a cookbook at the end to teach us more recipes at home, we got quizzed to see what we had learned and we got a class pencil which is really good for the environment because we can plant it in soil and it will grow!

‘I like health and wellbeing because it gives you more information about different things that affect your life. This term I would like to learn about the safety of cigarettes and drug use and the different body parts and about babies’ – Ellie-Mae

‘I liked the Dogs Trust visit because I learned about how to keep myself safe around dogs and when they come near me’ – Haylie

‘I enjoyed the lessons with Chef Robert because it helped us learn how to cut and cook and make lots of stuff. We can also help our adults if they are stuck with something because we have learned how to do it.’ – Jacob

‘I enjoy outdoor P.E because we have played different games we have never played before and it gives you fresh air which is good when we are indoors all the time.’ – Harrison H

Topic

In term 1 we started the Titanic topic. We have learned about the number of passengers on board and how many survived.  We learned about what the ship looked like inside and outside and that the richest person in the world was onboard and he sacrificed his life to save others.

Ariana – ‘The youngest passenger on board was only two months old.’

‘The captain tried to get as many ladies off the ship as possible, so that they were there for their children.’ – Haylie

Expressive Arts

This term we have been doing skills based workshops. In our art workshop, Mrs White showed us how to use dots instead of painting strokes to create artwork.  We transferred this knowledge to create Titanic pictures.  In drama, we reenacted out the Last Bear story through freeze frames.