Friday 16th December
This week in Scotland class we have really enjoyed finding out about different festivals from around the world as part of our Enrichment Week.
On Monday, we found out about the traditions that people in South Africa celebrated for Christmas. We were surprised to see that many of their traditions were the same as ours – although we definitely don’t go swimming on Christmas Day!
On Tuesday, we made some lovely diva lights and learned all about the Hindu festival of Divali, which is known as the Festival of Lights. The children took their lights home to light up their houses.
We learnt about the Christian advent tradition of Christingle. It was really nice to learn a song about Christingle and all the children in class made one to take home with them.
Another highlight of our week was the visit from Sam to work with us on the story of The Holy Family.
The children were able to listen carefully to the story of how Jesus was born and then they completed some activities that linked to the story.
It has been a lovely week which has made us all feel very festive and ready for Christmas!
Friday 9th December
This week in Scotland class, we had time to compete a review quiz about all of the things that we have learned about so far this term in History.
The children were show an image of something or someone that was significant in History. They were then asked some questions about the picture and what to meant.
It was amazing to see how much the children had remembered from topics that had been taught way back in September!
All of the children were able to talk about the images shown and what made them important for us to learn about.
They absolutely loved doing the quiz and enjoyed getting full marks!
Well done our super historians.
We had a lovely treat this week when our parents came in to work with us to create a story stick.
The focus for our sticks was on ‘Traditional Tales.’ We had to think about what the key parts of our story was and then create something that could be dangled from a stick to help us to retell the story.
We had some amazing creations. There was glitter and glue galore as the children and parents let their creative juices flow! We even had a knitted Jack and the Beanstalk.
As you can see from the accompanying pictures everyone had a great time. It was lovely to hear the children telling their stories to a friend clearly using their sticks.
Friday 25th November
In Maths lessons this week we have been learning all about ‘bar models.’
This has followed on our work with part whole models.
The children in Scotland have had to learn some very tricky terminology such as partitioning and representations.
I have been very impressed with how the children have been able to use this new terminology correctly. They have used a lot of different things to help them partition numbers. The have used cubes, counters and Rekenreks.
We have looked at whole numbers and have then learnt how to partition them in different ways. The different ways have then been represented on a bar model or a part whole model. We had to carefully look at how big the different sections of the bar model were.
All of the children in Scotland have been amazing Mathmagicians this week! Well done all of you!
Friday 18th November
We have had a really good week in Scotland. I really wanted to compliment the children on their incredible behaviour.
They are such a kind and helpful bunch with each other – it is amazing to see!
Every week the children come in and find out who is their new work partner. They sit with this partner to share ideas and talk about what they are learning.
It is fantastic to see how new friendships are formed throughout the week as the children work closely together on the various tasks set.
It is so nice to see how the work partners support each other to complete their work.
Well done Scotland children. You have made me a very proud teacher this week!
Friday 11th November
This week in Science we have been looking at the Seasons. We are focusing on how Autumn will change into Winter as our half term progresses.
We talked as a class about some of the signs of Autumn that we can see around us.
We went for a walk to the local park to see what signs of Autumn we could spot on our checklist. We were able to spot red, orange, brown and yellow leaves. We tried to identify some of the different trees that the leaves had fallen from. Lilli found an oak leaf but sadly we could not find any acorns – we thought that the squirrels must’ve got to them first!
We found some seeds on the floor that the children called ‘helicopters,’ Sycamore seeds, and had fun throwing them into the air to see why they got their name!
We also found two different types of mushrooms. They were quite camouflaged in the leaves and just popping out of a newly dug flower bed.
We had a great time making leaf kebabs to collect lots of different types of leaves.
You are all Super Scientists Scotland!
Friday 4th November
In our PSHE lesson this week we started a new topic that is focusing on looking at ‘Celebrating Difference.’
We began with a scenario where our ‘Jigsaw’ piece character, Jack, had been playing in the park and some people had been mean to him because of what he looked like. The children had to act as advisors and tell Jack what they thought he should do in that situation.
There were some very good ideas about how to help Jack.
Say: ‘I don’t like that, please stop!’
Tell your Mum and Dad.
Walk away from them.
Don’t play next to them.
Don’t go in the park.
We then went on to discuss what makes us the same as someone else and what makes us different. The children were able to spot lots of similarities and differences between themselves.
We will be looking at how to celebrate difference as the theme progresses.
Well done Scotland for a super lesson.
Friday 21st October
This week in our English lessons we have been looking at instructions. We talked about what they were and when we might hear them or we might see them.
The children were very good at using the ‘bossy’ words to give instructions to each other!
We found out that the correct name for these words is ‘imperative verbs.’
We then linked the use of instructions to recipes and our gingerbread man story. We had a lot of fun this week giving bossy instructions to bake our own gingerbread people. We were very careful to tell Paula, our school cook, to keep a close eye on them in case they ran out of the oven!
As you can see from the photos the children all really enjoyed getting involved with the cooking and were able to tell us lots of bossy baking words.
They did, of course, especially enjoy the eating!
I also want to say a massive well done to all of the children in Scotland class who have been amazing in their first half term in Year One. Enjoy a well-deserved half term!
Friday 14th October
In PE this week we have been learning all about Team Building and Athletics.
In Athletics, we have been focusing on our throwing skills. Last week we concentrated on the skill on overarm and underarm throwing – but this week we have been improving our throwing skills by thinking about the accuracy of our throwing.
We worked in our different house teams – Tyne, Baltic, Sage and Angel. We used beanbags to practice our throwing and then we moved into different throwing stations in the hall. We spent some time at each of the station to try and improve the different techniques we needed to use.
The children received lots of house points for their teams – the wining team for this week in Scotland was Team Sage. Well done to them!
Friday 30th September
This week in Scotland class we have been busy learning all about the Christian story of Creation.
Our lesson followed on from last week when we had to create something that we really liked. We could use any materials from in the classroom.
This week we looked at video presentation of how Christians believe that God created the world.
We were able to learn that Christians believe that God created the world in six days and that on the seventh day ‘he’ rested. We definitely thought ‘he’ would be tried after all of that hard work!
It was great to have lots of conversations with the children about their thoughts about how the world was created.
Good discussions ‘Super Scotland!’
Friday 7th October
This week in our English lessons we have been concentrating on Poetry as it was National Poetry Day on Thursday.
All week the children have been enthusiastically bringing in poems to share with each other. We have had some very funny poems and some scary ones too!
A lot of the children were happy to read their poems to the rest of the class. This has meant that we were able to concentrate on our ‘Oracy’ skills for the Autumn term which are to be able to speak clearly and confidently in front of our peers.
All week the class have been looking at a beautiful book called ‘The Lost Words’ by Robert Macfarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris. It is full of ‘spells’ (poems) that link with nature.
This led to lots of conversations about some of the animals and plants mentioned in the poems. Some of the animals and plants were unfamiliar to the children so it was really nice to introduce these to them.
We looked at the alliteration in our focused poem called ‘Fern.’ Linked to this we created our own ‘tongue twisters’ using alliteration and we shared these with the other children in assembly.
The children were amazing at saying their tongue twisters. They are included below…how good are you at reading them?
Fantastic Freddie frog fights fish.
Mighty Matty munches marshmallows.
Snake slithers slowly, silently.
The girl grows green grass.
Friday 23rd September
We have been learning all about the four countries of the United Kingdom this week in Geography and their capital cities.
As a part of this, we linked our Design and Technology lesson to the learning all about London.
We focused on Tower Bridge in London and looked at how it worked. The children were fascinated to see that the road part of the bridge could lift up to allow boats to pass underneath.
We used a template to create our own design of Tower Bridge and then the children very carefully used a variety of tools to design and make their bridge. They used scissors, glue, colour pencils and split pins. They used the spilt pins to make their road bridge move on a hinge to allow a boat to travel underneath.
Everyone was successful in using the tools correctly to design and make a working levered bridge. We thought that ours were very colourful indeed!
Friday 16th September
We have had another great week in Scotland class. We have been learning so many things.
In Maths, we have been on a learning journey to find out all about numbers to 20. We have been practising our counting. We have also been looking at some more tricky aspects of numbers. The children in Scotland heave learnt what the word representation means in number. They were able to represent numbers to 10 and 20 using a variety of different maths resources. They used dice, number fans, ten frames, cubes and counters.
The children had to use their ‘growth mindset’ to keep going even when they were finding it a bit tricky to represent the ‘bigger’ numbers. The children all worked really well with their work partners until they were successful.
Great work ‘Super Scotland!’