Our chain of kindness in Maple Class – 17.11.21
We have been thinking about kind words and deeds as part of our Anti-Bullying Week learning. The children have had some lovely ideas and they have shown a lot of kindness this week to one another. They have been busy writing kind words and sentences to one another on brightly coloured paper and today we turned these into a very long paper chain.
Here are a few of the messages children have been writing.
We have also been discussing different acts of kindness and have decided that these take very little time or effort but make such a positive difference.
Here are a few things the children feel they are good at.
We received a recorded message from the friendly alien that crash landed on our playground at the beginning of term. He asked us to email his friends and family to let them know he is alright. We learnt how to compose and send an email. We even decided to invite his friends to come and visit us on planet Earth.
We were then so inspired to create our own aliens so we used a painting program on the iPads. Have a look at some of our creations. They are quite scary!
It has been such an exciting week this week. The children loved our Victorian school day on Monday. Their costumes were fantastic and, I am pleased to report, they were all on their very best behaviour. They used chalk and black paper for their work and completed work in the three Rs, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. We used an abacus to help us with our calculations.
We went outside for Victorian games and practised rolling a hoop, playing blind man’s buff and hopscotch, among other things. Whenever an adult entered the room, the children stood up as a sign of respect. Mrs Taylor popped her head in the classroom for a quick hygiene inspection and was generally pleased at the cleanliness of the children!
The fun continued on Tuesday with Sports Day. We were all so proud of the children’s effort. They tried their hardest and congratulated one another on their successes.
We had a great time on Tuesday in an extra PE session on orienteering. We learnt how to work together as a team to find numbered and coloured markers. We started the session with a fun warm-up. On hearing the word ‘red’, the children had to stop, freeze and pull a silly face. I’m sure you’ll agree, after looking at these pictures, that they are highly skilled at pulling silly faces! Although the bad weather cut short our time on the field, we will definitely be playing this orienteering game again once the sun comes out.
In PSHE at the moment, our topic is Rights and Responsibilities. We have been learning about taking responsibility and have been tasked with caring for some plants. We have planted some lettuces and some green bean seeds. We have been researching how to be good plant carers and realise we need to keep them watered and in a sunny spot.
We will keep you updated on their progress.
The Maple Class children had so much fun at Forest School on Wednesday. The sun was out and the sky was blue so they stayed outside for the whole morning, walking through the wooded area, collecting different materials to make hedgehog pictures, playing with bubbles and making bug hotels and daisy chains.
To finish, many of the children decided to roll down the grassy, and very muddy, bank. They had such a wonderful time.
We have had a wonderful day in Year One today. The day started with a very important invitation to a Queen’s tea party. Luckily, we were all in our smart clothes and dressed for the occasion.
We then spent the morning doing a ‘posh’ Phonics lesson, making sure we pronounced every sound correctly and clearly, following a set of instructions to make jam sandwiches and making decorations for the tea party.
Just before the tea party in the afternoon, we spent our Wellbeing Wednesday time making placemats. We then practised balancing books on our heads to ensure correct posture and learnt how to curtsy and bow. The tea party was wonderful with the children showing beautiful manners. They made sure their napkins were on their laps and remembered their pleases and thank yous. We listened to classical music and the children even had the chance to dance. We have heard that the children learning remotely from home also had the most wonderful time as well.
We had a fantastic time learning some Pilates moves today as part of a Pilates Zoom session. We were very excited about it. We had to show a huge amount of resilience to hold some of the moves, especially the plank. A couple of the children managed to stay in the plank position for a minute and a half!
We have been working so hard in Maths, using the Numicon to explore fact families. We know our number bonds to 10 confidently now and have been using these known facts to help us work out other facts.
We started by finding four facts first, two additions and two subtractions.
We then challenged ourselves to find another way of presenting the four related facts. We needed reminding that we could only use the same three numbers each time. Having the Numicon there really helped us to see what was happening to each number.
How did you get on with your learning at home?
We had so much fun in PE today. We started with a team building warm-up. The children stood in a line, one behind each other, as the child at the back had to crawl through the legs of the other children in their team. Gradually the line of children moved forward until one team reached the end of the hall first.
We then practised improving our posture and balance by pointing our toes, stretching one leg out, bending the knee and then taking a graceful step forwards. The children tried so hard, even though it proved quite a challenge.
We have loved learning about the weather and had great fun today learning about Sir Francis Beaufort. He was responsible for inventing a wind scale to help sailors. We were wind detectives and looked for clues in a series of pictures, working out whether it would be safe at sea. Have a look at a few of the pictures and see what you can spot.
We then went outside to the pirate ship and re-enacted how we might stand and move if the wind suddenly became stronger when we were at sea. The children worked hard at using facial and body expressions to show how they would feel.
We have had so much fun exploring the properties of 3D shapes. We have become much more confident in naming cubes, cuboids, pyramids, cylinders, cones and spheres and have now started to look at how many faces each shape has and what shape the faces are. We printed the faces by dipping the 3D shapes in paint. There were a few surprises, especially when some of us rolled a cylinder and discovered one of the faces was a rectangle.
We also challenged ourselves to make some 3D shapes using card. We took apart a cube and it revealed a T shape with 6 square faces. Lots of us then cut a T shape and folded it into a cube. It was a fiddly job, but we didn’t give up. We also made cylinders and cones.
As part of our learning journey, Paws, Claws and Whiskers, we have been using art pencils to draw animals. We found it quite hard to copy a picture of our favourite animal last week and all felt we needed some extra support so today we watched a Shoo Rayner (an artist who specialises in teaching children how to draw) online tutorial. We all followed Shoo’s instructions on how to draw a fierce lion. We could pause the video to give us time to draw each part.
We all found it so helpful. Look at the artwork we have produced.
We were so proud of our drawings. We are continuing to explore texture and pattern in our artwork so we can produce even more detailed animal artwork in the future.
In Maths this week, we have been working out strategies for finding the difference between two numbers. We have used a number of resources. One method is to use a 20 frame and counters. We took the first number and lined up that number of counters on the top row, then we took the second number and lined up that number of counters on the bottom row. This helped us to clearly see how many more there were and find the difference between the two numbers. Have a look at some of the children using this method.
We then looked at how we could use a number line as an alternative strategy. We circled both numbers and then drew in the jumps it takes to move from one number to the other.
The children in Maple class are getting much more confident now at choosing which resources support them best. Keep up the good work, Maple!
We have had a very creative afternoon this afternoon in Maple Class. As part of our mini topic, Are Eggs Alive, we watched footage of baby chicks hatching. The children were squealing with delight as they watched the egg slowly crack and a tiny chick finally emerge. We then looked at other animals that hatch from eggs and made our own hatching animals.
We also added more leaves to our giant tree and some of us made our own number lines which will be laminated so we can use them as a resource. We had so much fun.
We have been learning about the seasons and the changes that happen at the different times of year. We took out the class iPads and took turns taking photos of any signs of Autumn. The children were so excited to see the different coloured leaves and even watched as crispy leaves fell to the ground.
We have started re-creating Autumn scenes through our artwork. Look out for our giant tree on the board outside Maple Class. We are making leaves and adding them to it everyday.
We have been so busy over the past two days working together to build moon buggies. We worked wonderfully well in pairs, problem solving and sharing ideas. We were set the challenge of attaching wheels that can move. Some children chose to use split pins while others made their own axles to attach to each wheel. All our buggies could move!
Have a look at the children hard at work.
The children showed so many of our Learning Values: collaboration, resilience and risk taking. Well done, Maple class. We are so proud of you.
We have been keeping fit in Maple Class with some daily physical activities. Today, we practised a space dance which we all love. After that, we followed a workout where we stretched, bent, lunged and jumped. We were out of breath afterwards but loved every minute of it. Watch us in action!
We have been looking at how adjectives can improve sentences. The children came up with some wonderful ideas to make Mrs Maguire’s boring first sentence about a car more exciting. They then wrote their own sentences. All the children worked so hard. Look at what they did.
We visited the school pond yesterday for a spot of pond dipping. We found lots of tadpoles in varying stages of development. Some of us spotted that they were starting to sprout legs. Some of them were at the froglet stage – not far off transforming into frogs. We were all very excited.
We then had a quick explore on the field and found a few woodlice hiding under logs. Later on in the week, we will be seeing what mini beasts we can find lurking in the woods.
In Year 1 this week, we have taken in turns to take a trip down to our new pond. It is full of life and we Mae sure to take advantage of this and research all of the tiny creatures we could find.
We had fun identifying them and watching them all swim around in our own mini tubs.
Take a look!
To help the children to remember to stay in their own imaginary bubbles, we used hoops today in PE. We imagined the hoop was our own bubble. We played a variety of listening and moving games, making sure we stayed in our bubbles and didn’t go into anyone else’s.
We played the Traffic Light game where we moved in spaces, going forwards and backwards and changing direction. We also played the Beans Game where we practised actions to go with a type of bean. Look at all our curled up baked beans!
We had a lot of fun and have remembered the lines from Mr Quint’s song: ‘Please don’t go in my bubble and I won’t go in your’s.’
We have all been working so hard this week on our Maths. The children in school have been using their place value knowledge to challenge themselves to find as many different number sentences as they can to go with one image. Have a look at their wonderful work.
We also worked out that we could use the equals sign to show two number sentences have the same value, for example, 10 + 3 = 3 + 10. Teagan also said 10 + 5 = 9 + 6 as each one gives the same answer. Well done, Maple class.
I wonder, could we find any corresponding subtractions to go with each image?
We have had a very productive afternoon today, making our own information posters about life in Victorian schools. The children have become experts in this area and have been matching up the relevant pictures to the text. Have a look at how creative they have been. They have also been writing their own ‘Did you Know?’ boxes. We hope you’ve been enjoying learning about Victorian school at home.
The rain held off this afternoon so one of the Maple groups spent a lovely afternoon outside. We started with some PE, taking part in sprint races, timed races and keep fit activities. We then had so much fun exploring the woods on the top field. We discovered lovely flowers, rope swings and wildlife. We even heard a loud flapping of wings and spotted two pigeons arguing over a nest. We can’t wait to get out on to the field again.
The Maple children in school have been working really hard. Today, we spent time learning like Victorian school children. We did our 3 Rs, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. We practised our neatest handwriting on blackboards using chalk, we read a book together and we even practised chanting our 2 and 5 times tables. Mrs Maguire did have to become quite strict at times and was checking that the children were clean and hygienic, just like Victorian teachers would have done.
We also had fun outside working out how to do whole, half and quarter turns. We drew our own chalk circles and drew lines to quarter them. This really helped. We also discovered that if you do a whole turn, you always end up facing the same way you started. When we started off facing the wall on the lower playground and then did half a turn, we ended up facing the sea, a much nicer view. We hope you are having as much fun with your learning at home.
The children who have been in school did the Maths quartering quiz today. To help us understand quartering, we practised folding a shape in half then in half again to make a quarter. We challenged ourselves to quarter the shapes in different ways.
Did you know that when you quarter a square, each quarter can be either squares or triangles. Why don’t you practise at home.
The children in Maple Class have been showing great resourcefulness this week. Have a look at some more of their Andy Goldsworthy inspired artwork. We love the shadows in the background of Hugo and Jude’s cone structures.
Elliot used crayons and plates to great effect to work out some division problems in Maths this week. What a good idea!
We have set our children the challenge of making mini woodlands in a tray using twigs, sand, flowers and anything they find from their gardens or from woodland walks. Look at some of the wonderful pictures we have already been sent.
Noah has been doing leaf rubbings of oak leaves.
Lucas has been taking inspiration from the artist, Andy Goldsworthy, and has used pebbles and seaweed from the beach and fir cones to create his artwork.
Don’t forget to send us your photos. We love seeing what you have all been up to.
Once again, we have been so impressed by the work the Maple class children are doing from home and would like to say a massive thank you to all the grown ups for supporting them.
Jack has been learning all about trees and spent ages doing an observational drawing of a cherry tree in his garden.
Oscar has been busy outside, riding his bike without stabilisers and perfecting his scootering skills. He has also been working really hard on school work too.
Lily loved making a woodland crown and decided to draw it and write instructions on what she used and how she did it.
Connie has been busily getting on with her Phonics work. She has been doing rainbow writing of some of the Year 1 tricky words. That will help her remember how to spell them.
Keep up the good work, Maple. We are all so proud of you.
Inspired by our Learning Journey, Enchanted Woodlands, some of our children have been turning their hands to a spot of gardening.
Zach has been helping with a lot of planting at home and has even made a bug hotel to encourage mini beasts to visit.
Evan has planted some sunflower seeds and they have started to grow. He is making sure he regularly waters the plant and that it gets plenty of sunlight.
As always, here at Hazeldown we find different and unique ways to show Empathy, Collaboration and our Relationships. We show respect to others and value our community. Our values shine through in all that we do.
All of these values and beliefs can be seen throughout these difficult times and none more so from this video created by a family from Hazeldown. Thank you Annalise and Freya.
A big thank you to everyone.
Our children have been busy using their senses to explore their surroundings to help them write setting descriptions. We have been focusing on using adjectives to add interest. As always, we are so impressed with the work the children have been doing and wanted to share some. Well done Maple Class and keep up the good work!
We’ve had some great examples of home learning this week. From Big Writes to woodland crowns, working with money to baking. We’ve loved seeing them all!
As always, everyone is finding very unique ways to create, display and showcase their ideas and they just seem to be getting better and better every week. Keep them coming in and be sure to check the website to see if your work is on here!
Our children have certainly been keeping busy and showing amazing resilience. Just look at these pictures. Elliot has learnt how to ride his bike without stabilisers, Florence spent ages completing her Lego model and Isabel has been helping build a castle in the back garden. We are very impressed.
Our Learning Journey, ‘Enchanted Woodlands’, has inspired many of our children to get creative with leaves, flowers and twigs. Here is a selection of some of the crowns children have made.
Can you spot the child wearing his woodland crown in this next photo? You’ll have to look carefully, he’s very well camouflaged!
We have also loved looking at other work the children have been doing at home on the same topic. Look at this poster all about an apple tree. There is so much information on it. Well done!
Once again, you all continue to impress us so much with the level of work you are producing at home. We wanted to share some of the Big Writes our Year One children have been doing. They were re-telling the well-known traditional tale, Jack and the Beanstalk. Look out for the adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions they are using.
Down in Year 1, it has been great to see everyone’s Home Learning and all the different unique ways the children have decided to present their work. From pictures to posters, Pic collages to 3D models they’ve all been amazing.
This week we are going to take a closer look at 2 examples of how you could present your work.
Welcome to the Hazeldown News!
The weather may have changed since the lovely sunshine we had last week but we wanted to share with everyone all the wonderful, sunny photos that have been sent to us by our Year 1 children. We continue to be so proud of all your efforts in doing school work and of how you are keeping busy.
We miss you all very much.
We are all so impressed. This photo was sent to us by a child in Maple Class and all this wonderful work spread out across the table shows what he has achieved in one day. Wow! His brother has done the same too and they have let us know how much they are enjoying all their learning. This is what we love to hear.
Our Learning journey, Enchanted Woodland, has been focusing on flowers and plants. Look at these photos taken on a walk in the woods.
In Year 1 we have been focussing on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.
All of the children have been working hard on their use of adjectives and conjunctions and the results are great to see. Keep it up!
Here are some of the great examples of the work some of the children have been doing. 
We thought you would like to see some of the things our wonderful Year One children have been busy doing at home recently. We have loved looking at all their online work and are so proud of how hard the children have been working.
It has been lovely to see how so many of them have been taking up new hobbies as well. Those chocolate biscuits look delicious.
Don’t forget to keep sending us your photos. You could end up on our school blog.
We had so much fun in Literacy today. We played different games to help us learn and use a range of interesting vocabulary. We tested our memory skills to match words and pictures, we played a fun dice game and we drew our own pictures to go with different words. We acted out words, came up with words with the opposite meaning and practised putting the words into sentences.
To end the session, we played word bingo. The children were so excited, you could hear their squeals up and down the corridor!
We are getting very excited about our zoo trip and have started our new learning journey, Paws, Claws and Whiskers. We have been exploring pattern and watched a Shoo Rayner drawing tutorial on YouTube. He showed us how doodling can help with our fine motor control.
We took post it notes and have been creating our own patterns. Some of us thought our patterns looked like those found on animals. What do you think?
We have become London experts since starting our Bright Lights Big City learning journey. To showcase our knowledge of London landmarks, we designed then made a fridge magnet souvenir.
The children did a couple of drafts of their picture then decided which shape it was best suited to. They carefully coloured and made a border for their magnet. They decided it should be strengthened so we laminated the paper and then the children cut and stuck a suitable sized strip of magnetic tape to the back.
We think they’re good enough to go in any London shop!
This week in Maths, we have moved on to subtraction. We used a range of resources to work out and prove number sentences up to 20.
Working with our friends we had to discuss how we were using the number line, counters or bead strings. This allowed us to talk about which number was our ‘Whole’ and what were the ‘Parts’.
Busy getting practical!
In Year 1, we spent the afternoon making our Tudor Houses. Every child had to design their house before constructing them out of cardboard and paper. We had to use our skills to model the houses and ensure they were fully covered before attaching them together and making a roof.
Thank you to all the parents who came in to help, we couldn’t have done it without you!
We have already created fire artwork using oil pastels and today we used a different medium, paper. We put the scissors to one side and ripped red, yellow and orange paper into different sized strips before layering them to get the effect of flames. Some children used a pencil to curl the strips of paper.
We have been learning about the events of The Great Fire in 1666 and know that the diary of Samuel Pepys provided lots of information. If you follow the link below, you can learn more about the events and play a few Fire of London games along the way.
We have been using oil pastels today to create a fiery background. Some of us drew swirls, some lines, some chose triangular shapes to create flames. We then blended the colours together using our fingers. It was messy work, but a lot of fun.
We looked at a variety of pieces of art depicting flames to get ideas. We also cut out silhouettes of buildings which we will stick to our backgrounds. We worked really hard to carefully cut out the buildings.
We are looking forward to building model houses soon in preparation for our Celebration event.
In Phonics today, we were looking at different ai sounds. We focused on ai, ay and the split a-e digraph. In pairs, we acted as sound detectives and circled the ai sounds in a story. Some of us even spotted other alternatives, such as eight, great and grey.
We noticed that ai usually comes in the middle of a word and ay usually comes at the end of a word.