Thursday 22nd December
What a lovely week we have had ending this half-term and celebrating Christmas. The children have worked so hard over the term and should be so proud of all of the effort they have put into their learning. I have been wowed by their amazing attitudes to learning and eagerness to give things a go even if they might seem hard. They all have super stickability!
This week has been filled with Christmas parties, card and decoration making and even a special trip to the Pantomime at the Tyne Theatre to see Beauty and the Beast. For a lot of the boys and girls, it was their first time ever watching a pantomime and they were absolutely a credit to school whilst out. They were so excited on our bus journey to Newcastle and when we took our seats they couldn't wait for it to start. They loved singing and joining along and today they have all shared their favourite parts of the pantomime including a much loved favourite character 'Davide Granola'. They are all my stars of the week for their amazing attitude to learning this term.
I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and I look forward to sharing 2023 with you all.
Miss McArdle
Friday 16th December
It has been an amazing week in England class this week for our Enrichment Week all about festivals.
We have had such a wonderful time learning all about different festivals that take place around the world. We started the week off looking at how people in South Africa celebrate the festival of Christmas. We were shocked to find out that they sometimes have their Christmas dinner outside as it is so hot! There were a lot of traditions that were the same as our traditions in England. After that, we explored the Hindu festival of Diwali. The children were so excited to find out about a new religion and were very keen and eager to understand about the Hindu beliefs about the Gods. We found out that Diwali was the festival of light and we looked at some of the ways it was celebrated including Diva lamps and Rangoli patterns. We gave some Rangoli patterns a go ourselves. Finally we finished the week off looking at the festival of Advent and made our very own Christingles to take home. It was so lovely to see the children work so independently making their Christingles!
Miss McArdle
Friday 9th December
This week we have been working so hard in England class creating biography maps, learning about the Christian Christmas story and completing our pirate dance in PE.
In Maths we have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes this week. I have been so impressed by the children’s understanding of the shapes after we have learnt their names and properties. We played some games with our shape feely bag and tried to guess the name of the shape Miss McArdle was describing. We also had a go at matching the shape nets to the correct 3D shapes after spotting what 2D shapes we could see inside of 3D shapes. I have to say I have been blown away by the children understanding and knowledge but furthermore even more impressed by their explanations. They have tried to use the stem sentence ‘I know this because..’ when explaining their understanding.
Keep up the super work England!
Miss McArdle
Friday 2nd December
It has been such a busy week this week for all of the children in England class as we have had lots of wonderful things happen in our class
. We started the week of with a fantastic story stick session with our parents. We created story sticks for lots of traditional tales and it was so lovely to see the children then sharing their story sticks with their friends where they re-told them the story.
On Wednesday, we took part in a fantastic samba workshop ran by Brian. We found out that samba music came from Brazil and Brian explained what each of the samba instruments were called to us before he then let us have a go. We loved playing the repeating rhythm games and giving the instruments a go.
Yesterday we had a new classmate come and join our class. We got such a shock to see him sat in the Christmas tree with a letter for us all. We found out that he was called Buddy and he had been sent from Santa to check that we were all being kind friends and good in our class. We were very excited to see him join us and hopefully he doesn't get up to much mischief!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss McArdle
Friday 25th November
We have had such a wonderful week in England class where we have been learning all about bar models in Maths, the Lake District in Geography and what a biography is in English. Today we say goodbye to Miss Robinson until March when she will come back to teach in our class again. We can't wait to have her back.
This past half-term in PE, we have been learning all about dance. We firstly looked at the key elements of dance and then applied them to a dance all about the weather. For the past 2 weeks we have built upon our knowledge of dance and have created a pirate dance. The boys and girls have been amazing at using their counting skills to count in lots of 8. We then added some actions to the counting such as scrubbing the deck, looking through our telescopes and digging for treasure. We were treated to yesterday some amazing mini performances from the children in our lesson where they came to the front and performed their sequence of steps. I was so impressed by not only their creativity and teamwork but also their amazing confidence to step in front of their peers and perform. I really do feel so lucky to have such an amazing class full of superstars.
Miss McArdle
Friday 18th November
Happy Friday everyone! It has been an amazing week in England class this week topped off with an amazing day today for Children in Need. The children have been so excited to be involved in our school fundraising for the event including buying Pudsey ears and badges and baking cakes for our whole school cake sale.
This week in PSHE we have been learning all about what makes a good friend. Our topic this term has been celebrating difference and we have explored how we are similar and different to one another. I loved a quote that we shared as a class which was ‘It is okay to be different because being different makes you unique’. The children this week though about what makes someone a good friend. We shared Jigsaw Jack around our circle and shared our ideas on what make someone a good friend. We came up with the following ideas:
- A good friend is someone who is kind.
- A good friend is someone who is happy.
- A good friend is someone who is caring.
- A good friend is someone who is helpful.
- A good friend is someone who let’s you join in their games.
- A good friend is someone who helps you when you are hurt.
- A good friend is someone who gives you a hug when you are sad.
- A good friend is someone who shares.
- A good friend is someone who is thoughtful.
- A good friend is someone who is a good listener.
I completely agreed with all of the children and think they are all such wonderful friends in our class.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 11th November
We have had a super week in England class learning all about Barcelona in our Geography lessons, innovating our story Jack and the Beanstalk and finding out about the artist Joan Miro.
I wanted to share with you all the amazing work the children have completed in Science this week. On Monday, we went on an Autumn walk to spot any signs of Autumn. We have been looking at the Seasons in Science and the changes that occur. We managed to spot many signs of the Season Autumn when we were out including leaves that were falling from trees and changing colour and even some mushrooms! When we got back to class, we made some Autumn pictures using the leaves we had collected.
Keep up the super work England!
Miss McArdle
Friday 4th November
It has been a fantastic first week back in England class this week. We have had the pleasure of meeting and having Miss Robinson in our class who will be with us for the next 4 weeks and come back in March to train to be a teacher. The children were so excited about Halloween on Monday and couldn’t wait to share all about their adventures when they went trick or treating. Some sounded like they were dressed up as rather scary creatures.
This week we have been learning all about a significant figure in our History lessons called Florence Nightingale. We found out that Florence Nightingale was a nurse who helped soldiers in the Crimean war in 1853. During that time soldiers were injured in battles and unfortunately were not taken care of very well. They were often made to lie on the dirty floor where there were rats and weren’t given care and attention to help them get better. We found out that Florence Nightingale went to Crimea and helped to change the way the hospitals took care of the soldiers so that they would get better. She also trained other nurses on how to look after patients safely and correctly. When she returned back to England, she set up her own training school for nurses. She was even awarded the Royal Red Cross medal by Queen Victoria! The children were fantastic at asking questions about her life so they could understand more about her and we came up with some super sentences on why she was a significant figure in History. Here are some of their responses below:
‘She is significant because she was kind and helped all of the soldiers’ – George
‘She is significant because she helped people’ – Maria
‘She is significant because she trained other nurses’ – Everly
‘She s significant because she helped make hospitals clean’ - Demi
Friday 21st October
We have had an absolute wonderful first half term in Year 1 here in England class. I have been so proud of how the children have settled in and they have topped it off with some amazing work this week.
In English, we have been learning all about how to write instructions using imperative verbs. We decided that we were going to write some instructions on how to make a gingerbread man following our previous topic all about the story of the gingerbread man. We firsty had a go at practically following a recipe and making some gingerbread men. The children were delighted by how tasty and delicious they all were. We then began to write a set of instructions for someone else to follow so they could make their own gingerbread men using imperative verbs throughout such as add, mix and put. I was so proud of the final piece of instructions that the children made.
Have a wonderful half-term England class!
Friday 14th October
We have had an amazing week in England class. I can't believe that the children are only 6 weeks into Year 1 because their attitude, effort and work has been absolutely outstanding. It is so wonderful to them all so eager to learn and I loved hearing their ideas and thoughts of when they like learning during our PSHE lesson yesterday. We have been learning all about Nelson Mandela in our History lessons this week. exploring the technique of collage in Art and trying some different types of jumping in our PE lessons.
Today we have had an absolutely 'wow' lesson in our computing lessons where we have been carrying on with our exploring and learning of how to use the doc robots. We created some floor maps using masking tape for our doc robot to follow. After creating the maps, we set a place we wanted the doc to reach. The children then had to program the doc to move around the map and find the end point. I was absolutely wowed at the children's creativity in their maps but then also their stickability to try programming the doc robots. They were able to debug the robots when they encountered any problems and it was so wonderful to hear them working in their partners and teams together.
Keep up the absolutely amazing work England!
Miss McArdle
Friday 7th October
It has been a super week in England class where we have been learning all about Cape Town in our Goegraphy lessons, exploring the art work of Gerard Sekoto in Art and learning all about poetry in our English lessons as part of our poetry week in school.
This week I wanted to share with you the amazing experimental work the children carried out on Monday during our Science lesson. We have been focusing this term on animals including humans and have been learning all about the 5 senses that humans have. This week we focused in on the sense of smell and learnt how the nose detects and processes smells. The children were intrigued and wowed that they had special receptors in their noses that could detect the odours of different items and send signals to their brain to work out what the odour was. We decided that we wanted to test how good our sense of smell was so we carried out an experiment. We had 6 covered pots filled with various different items that gave off different odours such as chocolate, pepper and orange. We then each had a turn at smelling the pot and making an inference on what could be inside based on what it smelt like. Our noses worked super hard because we managed to guess each item that was in each pot although some of the smells were not ones that we liked!
Keep up the fantastic work England!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 30th September
What another fantastic week of learning this week in England class. I have been so proud of the children's resilience and team work throughout the week. They have been working incredibly hard within our English lessons at writing their innovated stories and we had a wonderful PE lesson yesterday where we were focused on team building. I feel very fortunate to have such wonderful class members in England class.
On Wednesday afternoon, we explored a famous artist in our Art lessons called Louise Moillon. She was an artist that was alive at the same time as the Great Fire of London which we have been studying in our History lessons. We found out that Louise Moillon was famous for her still life paintings so we decided to have an explore on what that meant. This included us giving some still life drawing a go after seeing one of her famous pieces of Art. We used the fruit bowl picture as a stimulus for our own drawings of a fruit bowl which was in the class. I was so impressed by the work that the children produced. They really thought about the technique that was needed when they were drawing and ensured that they had lines of different thickness in their work. I am sure we are going to have some amazing artists in the future from this class.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend full of fun!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 23rd September
It has been another amazing week in England class this week full of lots of learning all about London in Geography, counting in Maths and staying safe online in computing.
This week we have reached the innovation stage in our English lessons. Our current story the Gingerbread Man has been transformed by the children's wonderful creativity. We decided that we wanted to innovate some of the characters in the story and I was absolutely blown away by the creative ideas that the children came up with for new characters. We had ides such as the main character should be a biscuit boy, cake boy and even a cinnamon roll girl. We did finally decide with a vote to change the character to a 'sprinkle donut girl'. The children have been involved in re-telling the story with their new innovations and then creating their own innovated story map. It was so lovely on Wednesday to have the children in their groups stand at the front of the class and re-tell the story to their classmates which can often be a tricky thing to do. They should be really proud of themselves!
Keep up the amazing work England!
Miss McArdle.
Friday 16th September
We have had another super week in England class this week where we have been working so hard. I have been so impressed with the children's stickability and their super growth mindset to try any challenge that has been set.
This week I wanted to share the fantastic work we completed on Tuesday as part of our Geography lessons. We we have been looking this week at our local area and in particular our school. We thought about where our school was located and what it was like. We then had an explore of some maps of school where we observed the school from an aerial view. The children couldn't believe that they could see everything from above. We used these maps to then carry out some field work where we explored around the school. We used our fingers to trace along the map as we walked, pointing out key things that we could see on the map such as buildings from above and the yard area. When we go back to class, we had a go at creating our very own aerial maps with a key which looked amazing! We located our classroom, the main hall and even the wooden structures on our map using our key.
Keep up the amazing work England!
Miss McArdle
Friday 9th September
WOW! It has been such a wonderful start to the school year in England class this week. We have had so much fun in our new classroom where we have been making friendship hands, learning all about Elmer the elephant and completing some super work on numbers to 10 in Maths. We even had a think our super growth mindset when we listened to the story ‘Giraffes can’t dance’ and created our own giraffes with things that we can’t do yet. The yet is so important we learnt because we can do anything as long as we have a super growth mindset. The children have been absolute superstars at settling into their new class and new routine and you wouldn’t believe that they had only been in Year 1 for 1 whole week!
We had an amazing day on Wednesday celebrating and learning all about our class name England. We enjoyed finding out about England and the wonderful places it has in it – some of which we had visited in the Summer holidays. In the afternoon, we had a go at designing our own crowns to become Kings and Queens and even had a tea party. This involved trying and tasting some delicious foods such as pork pies, cheese and even scones with jam.
Well done to all of England for being such superstars this week. I know we are going to have an amazing year this year.
Miss McArdle