Quartering shapes in Maple Class
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
When we arrived at school this morning, we found a very official looking invitation to a Queen’s tea party. We spent the morning preparing for it. Preparations included making our own sandwiches.
We learnt some facts about Her Majesty and watched a slideshow of London. In the afternoon, we continued preparations by laying the tables with tablecloths and cutlery. We learnt from the Lord Chamberlain himself how to correctly curtsey and bow.
We then had a wonderful tea party, listening to classical music, chatting politely amongst ourselves and occasionally coming over to bow or curtsey before the Queen.
We hope you’ve had a lovely Christmas. Just a reminder that we are holding our memorable experience tomorrow, a tea party fit for the Queen, so children are invited to come in smart attire.
After performing so well in our final Christmas performance, the children in Maple Class loved being set this challenge. Using only letters that appear in the word Christmas, how many other words can you find?
They used their phonic knowledge to great effect and soon realised there were two s, meaning they could turn some words into plurals. We came together at the end to share each other’s lists of words. They had managed to find some words I hadn’t even considered.
I wonder if there are many more?
We will be holding our very own Election Day on Tuesday 17th December to vote in our next School Council. The current School Council has given out application forms to anyone interested in taking on this important role.
Those children interested must return their application forms to their class School Councillor by this Friday, 6th December. The School Council will then meet to shortlist applicants. Anyone shortlisted will then be put onto their class ballot paper on Election Day and given the opportunity to give a 2 minute talk to their class about their strengths and ideas.
Good luck to anyone applying!
We had great fun in Literacy today, exploring the sounds different instruments make. We have been looking at poetry to do with our senses and were playing instruments and then writing down words to describe each sound.
We generated our own word bank which will support us when we come to write our own senses poems.
In Maths today, we were looking at different ways to solve addition problems and methods we can use to prove we are correct. We spoke about two parts making one whole. Some of us even attempted writing a story to go with the number sentence.
Three children, who had worked incredibly hard to solve the problem, were then appointed experts for the lesson to support others in their understanding. They were so helpful. Well done!
Today the children were introduced to ten frames in Maths. We worked out that we could represent different numbers by drawing dots. We also worked out that a number can be represented in a variety of ways.
We challenged ourselves to find different ways to represent the same number. We then applied our reasoning skills to solve a problem.
Today, we looked at collecting information and presenting our findings in a table. We each drew our face then stuck it down alongside our favourite superhero. We could see which the least popular superhero was as it only had one face by it.
We will be interpreting this data tomorrow and drawing comparisons using the words more, most, fewer and fewest.
It was the start of National Anti-Bullying week today. We came together in a whole school assembly to discuss its theme, Change starts with us, and to think of easy ways we can make everyone’s school experience even better.
Throughout the week, your children will be participating in various activities to raise awareness of bullying and what forms it can take.
The school librarians have been incredibly pro-active and have set up an Anti-bullying display in the library with suggestions of topic related books children might like.
One final reminder – Don’ forget it’s Odd Socks day tomorrow.
Unbelievably, we managed to get a little bit of outdoor PE time today before the heavens opened!
Continuing with our Superhero theme, we were stringing together a series of actions. We leapt, held a superhero pose for 5 seconds, stepped forwards to punch the air then completed our sequence with a pretend throw.
The most challenging part was holding a pose as still as we could for 5 seconds. Some of us wobbled a little!
Whizz! kerpow! Zoom!
We leapt into action today dressed as superheroes. We have had a wonderful day, measuring our long leaps, practising our superhero poses, making superhero gadgets and going on a superhero hunt. We found the mighty Thor hiding between the shed and the wall, we found Ironman under the brick wall next to the bin and we found the Incredible Hulk buried beneath a pile of leaves!
Why not ask your children what their favourite superhero moment has been.
We have been learning a new skill this week, journaling. We have enjoyed cutting, sticking and embellishing the work we have done as part of our Moon Zoom learning journey.
We hope you enjoy looking at our books this week at Parents’ Evening.
Once again, a wet Monday prevented us from doing outdoor PE but, determined to get our daily dose of physical activity, we found a space in the classroom and started learning some yoga poses.
The children loved it and are keen to learn some other, more complicated, poses. We realised balance is important as well as remembering to breathe!
We discussed the benefits of yoga and focused breathing in helping us relax.
We have an alien update for you. The children in Maple and Willow class today received an email from Professor Pong from the British Space and Alien Research company. He is planning to help us locate and send home the alien that crash landed on our playground a few weeks ago.
We will be building up to write an email back to him once we have more facts. To help us with our future email writing, we became Feature Detectives today, working in groups to find full stops, capital letters, question marks and finger spaces. We worked brilliantly together, collaborating and taking turns.
Today, we were tasked with finding things that are shorter than us. We had fun going around the classroom and standing next to objects and people. We had to use the correct language to compare, ie taller than and shorter than.
Some of us were even challenged to find objects that are half our height.
Why not find objects at home to measure.
We had a lot of fun in PE today. We practised working in spaces and tried our hardest not to bump into anyone. There were a couple of little collisions to start with, but the children soon improved at avoiding each other.
We also practised changing direction when running, hopping, jumping and skipping.
Just a quick reminder that PE for Year One is every Monday and Friday so the children will need their PE kits in school everyday please, including a pair of trainers or plimsoles.
Thank you.
We had to act as detectives to solve a mystery today. We found strange equipment, a broken computer, a photo of an alien and a lot of slime strewn across the playground. After bringing the evidence back to the classrooms, we examined the exhibits and discussed at great length what may have happened.
We have a few theories, including a meteor colliding with a satellite and an alien on the loose. We are all in agreement that an alien spaceship has crash landed on our playground.
Watch this space for updates!
We had so much fun in Phonics today. We worked in pairs to read a list of words and then we found each word on a picture. We worked so well together. Some of us even added more words to the list.
We took part in the dough disco for the first time today. We rolled, squeezed, pinched, poked and patted our playdough, using the muscles in our fingers and hands. We all know that making our fingers stronger will help with our fine motor control and will help us hold pencils more comfortably.
We had so much fun.
We learnt a new sound today – ‘n’. To help us remember it, we made nests using shredded paper, pom-poms and feathers. We were challenged to use tweezers to improve our fine motor control. We had a lot of fun.
We have had so much fun today. The children have petted small animals, milked a goat, fed deer and gone on a train and tractor ride. The weather was glorious and the children were so well behaved.
We had great fun learning how to play dodgeball today. Once we’d got used to the rules, there was no stopping us. The children can’t wait for Sports Day tomorrow. See you then.
Well done everyone! ?
We had a great morning in literacy today being interviewers and characters from our stories. We asked questions about how we feel and what we want more than anything else in the world and our characters answered really well.
We had an evil king who wanted a castle to live in, a princess who was lost in the woods and a fairy who was lonely.
What other characters do you think should be in a fairytale?
Year 2 were incredibly excited for their school trip to Coombe Valley Nature Reserve to do a litter pick. They trundled down the hill with smiles on their faces not knowing how much rubbish they would find. Straight away they noticed a bin that had tipped over and emptied its contents on the road and pavement, but further on down they saw the bin men collecting it all and recycling it.
Upon arriving at the nature reserve, we were split into two teams, one was to go food hunting for squirrels and dormice whilst the others did a litter pick. Everyone had a great time.
This afternoon Year 2 have had a great time completing a range of activities linked to our topic of Trash Bash.
They were sorting different materials and explaining why things went where they did, they recycled old bottles and created shakers, made predictions for science and created some circle art. All were engaged and loved the different activities.
We are however needing some more small drinks bottles, so please bring any in for us if you have any!
This morning, ‘Mrs Jones’ a Teignmouth resident, came in to answer questions the children had about the local area and how they could help keep Teignmouth tidy. They came up with some excellent questions and learnt a lot about how the litter really can damage the environment and animals. They became really aware of the impact of litter upon so many different things and has enthused them to want to encourage people to tidy up.
This morning Key Stage One were visited by Lizzie and Chrissie from Teignbridge Recycling team. They taught us about what happens to all the rubbish in Teignbridge and how much is collected every year. We were surprised to find out that all our glass bottles were collected and taken to Yorkshire to be recycled, but more shocked to find out that all cardboard was sent to China!
They then ran workshops for each of the classes that were fun and interactive and gave each child a present also.
All showed excellent manners as always and sat and listened and learnt so much!
Wow! How lucky are we?
Today we were visited by Lizzie and Chrissie from the Teignbridge Recycling team to talk to us about what is recycled and how we can each better at it. We then got to do an activity which was to guess what objects were made of. Apple Class did brilliantly and made excellent predictions and got every one correct!
Did you know a fleece is made out of plastic bottles?
They were so kind and gave each child a colouring book and pencil because of how well behaved they were.
This morning, Apple Class became feature detectives and searched for our new topic words within our letter example. They worked incredibly hard and collaborated with one another to be successful.
It was noticed that the words that were frequently present within the letter were: “tidy” and “litter”. The children decided they would be the words they must include in their own writing.
Do you know what all our vocabulary words mean?
Can you come up with a definition for each of them?
We are really impressed by how well the children settled for their first day at school. What a wonderful start. We can’t wait to see them all tomorrow.
How lucky were we to have wind today to fly our amazing kites that we made!
We were very excited and proud that they worked! What do you think of our creations?
