10th July – Maples: It’s a bug’s life!
Today Maples had a very exciting morning! They had a chance to visit our school pond. The pond didn’t have much water in today so we had to dig deep to see what we could find. To stop us from falling in we lay on our tummies and learnt the ‘safe stance’
We found: tadpoles, froglets, worms, water snails and newts.
When it wasn’t their turn to go pond dipping we used equipment to find mini beasts! They also identified each mini beast using a leaflet.
Some even found time to have a little skip around in the sunshine!
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.
Maples have been very in school this week.
In Literacy they have been working hard on adding conjunctions to sentences to up-level them. They have also been looking at sentences that have no spaces in them, the children have had to identify where the words start and end to make the sentence make sense – this has made them realise how important finger spaces are! We have also started looking at verbs and nouns and how to identify them in a sentence.
We have been working hard on reading this week as well, we have looked at reading comprehensions about The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, The Gingerbread Man and The Rainforest.
Every morning the children have been practising their handwriting, they have been really concentrating on their letter formation.
In maths they have been focussing on bar models and learning our number bonds to 20. They have also been identifying the variety of number sentences that go with each bar model! Some have been rather challenging! They have been using number lines and 100 squares to help them.
Then of course we also leave time for a little bit of fun! Collecting Crickets is still a favourite pass time but this week paper aeroplanes have also been a firm favourite.
Maples have been really busy in school this week working really hard and having fun.
In maths they have been learning all about place value and drawing pictorial representations of number to help them They have also been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s through songs and dances.
They have also been busy making sure that in Literacy all their sentences are punctuated correctly, finger spaces are being used and they are using their neatest handwriting. Some have even been using conjunctions to joining two clauses.
We have also made sure that we have enjoyed using the field in the sunshine. They have collected lots of crickets – some of which seemed to make it back into the classroom!!!!!
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.
Maples have been very busy in class this week.
They have been busy in SOLE leanring about the Victorians. They have been completing cutting and sticking tasks, true and false tasks as well as researching their own facts to find out the difference between schools then and now.
The children have also been working hard at learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s using songs (and silly dances) as well as focussing on partitioning numbers into tens and ones. Today they also challenged themselves to write number sentences to match.
In Literacy we have been concentrating on Victorians as well. Today the children discussed everything they’ve learnt and created ‘Did you know’ statements. They spoke about strict teachers, the cane, and the Dunces hat!
From learning about turns, directions and positional language in Mathematics to Victorian dunces hats in SOLE; our home learners are certainly keeping busy! Great to see some extra fun photos too of activities they are enjoying whilst at home. Thanks Year 1!
Maple have been working really hard this week and having lots of fun.
In phonics they have been working hard on their tricky words and various different sounds. The children really enjoyed finding words in a word search with the a_e split digraph in.
Aria up-levelled her sentence using the word before and also adding in an apostrophe for it’s without any help!
In maths we have been leanring about position and direction. Today we have been focussing on learning about our left and right, we listened to some songs and did some silly dancing.
We are missing the sunshine but are making the most of the fresh air and still making sure we are having fun!
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.
Maple class have been very busy in school this week leanring about their school day and how it differs from Victorian times.
In Literacy they wrote about their school day.
In SOLE they have been seeing what it would be like to be a child in a Victorian school. They have been practising the ‘3 R’s” – wRiting, Reading and aRithmetic. Writing on blackboards and chanting their times tables were firm favourites. Some of them even got sent to the corner when they made mistakes!
In maths they have been leanring about halves and quarters. Today we experimented out on the playground turning by a half and then by a quarter. We draw circles in chalk to help us!
We have also had fun in the classroom dancing to our favourite songs.
Over the last few weeks, children at Hazeldown have had access to resources and activities surrounding the Zones of Regulation. We understand the anxiety and worries surrounding our current strange times and also the possible returning to school. We want to help children better understand their feelings and emotions around these times.
Over the last week, we have been focusing on these ‘Zones’ within our Literacy and completing various tasks to help the children better understand these and talk about their emotions/feelings.
Some of the children at home have very kindly sent in some lovely pictures displaying the work they have been up to around this topic. Well done guys!
We have had a great first week back in school in Maple class and we are leaving today with big smiles on our faces. We are all in GREEN ZONE because it is the weekend!!
We made posters to show the different emotions of each zone, a fabulous hay den was built at break time and lunch time on the field and then we ended the day with a bit of rainbow colouring.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Our little Maples have settled back into school really well and have been working really hard as well as having fun.
They have been trying really hard with learning how to cut shapes into halves and quarters as well as how to share in quarters as well. Sometimes they have had to find the whole and other times they have to find a quarter.
They have also been leanring to use vocabulary such as less than, more than and exactly. Here is one of the questions we had a go at.
My little Maples have also been working really hard at recognising their feelings, learning about the Zones of Regulation. We have been identifying our feelings in each zone and thinking about examples of when we have been in those zones. Then we have talked about how to get ourselves back into the green zone. They have come up with some excellent examples.
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.
It’s so lovely to see some happy smiling faces enjoying their learning at home! What lovely tree boggarts River has made as part of our Enchanted Woodland learning journey. Well done to all of you that have had a go at this at home, keep up the good work in these tough times! Don’t forget to send your photos of any fab learning or any lockdown activities you are doing at home and we can add them to our blog.
What a wonderful day we’ve had at Paignton Zoo to kickstart our new learning journey ‘Paws, Claws and Whiskers’. The rain held off, the sun shone and lots of the animals were out and about too!
Here are some of our favourite pictures:
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?
Willow and Maple class are really getting into our new Literacy story – “Traction Man”. They sequenced the story using pictures and were great at explaining their choices to each other and the rest of the class. If you want to watch a reading of the book at home, please find a YouTube link below.
We enjoyed a walk around the school grounds this afternoon on an Autumn hunt. We spotted a maple tree that was showing signs of Autumn and we began to draw our observations. 
What other signs of Autumn have you spotted?
We had a very special visitor in school this week. Professor Pong visited us from the British Space and Alien Research Company to talk about the crash landing and what we all needed to do next.
We got to ask him all of our questions and found out we weren’t the only school in Devon to have an alien visit.
After his visit we discussed his original email and started trying to answer all his questions.
Thank you Professor Pong!
Monkey Puzzle Class had a great time reading to Maple Class this morning. They enjoyed sharing their favourite stories and getting into character.
Today we were weather reporters. We watched a video showing an example of a weather forecast before getting into pairs, and acting out our own forecast! The children used pictures of clouds, a sun and raindrops to pin on their map of the U.K. We had lots of discussion about the weather in Teignmouth, and predicting what the weather will be like tomorrow in Teignmouth and across the UK. What language did we use during our weather forecast?
Year 1 had a marvellous day on Dartmoor walking from Hay Tor, across the moor, to Smallacombe Rocks. The day was full of plant and animal spotting, sweating and enjoying being outdoors in the sunshine! Dartmoor smiled on us today. Thank you for all adult helpers and to the children for digging deep when they were tired and making it back to the coach in 1 piece!
Today in Maple class, the children worked really hard to compose their own sounds using body percussion and their voices. This was to mimic a whale and a jellyfish moving through the water. They also created their own graphic scores on their whiteboards to record their sounds.
World Book day is here and there is no better way to celebrate than reading your favourite books. Fir class travelled down to Maple and were able to share their fantastic fancy dress and stories that they enjoy.
Here are some pictures,
Today in Maple Class we composed our own musical rhythms using clapping, stomping and gestures, with Miss Roach. We had lots of fun performing to each other.
Year 1 had a fabulous time exploring a variety of different math activities during our maths open morning today. It was great to see so many adults getting involved too! Thank you to all visitors and we look forward to more open mornings with you!
Year One had a fantastic introduction to the school’s anti-bullying week with a workshop this afternoon.
During the workshop, they were fully engaged and involved in a story performance, which told them about what bullying is and how to recognise it.
They learnt all about how to be a good friend and what to do if they ever felt like they or a friend are being bullied.
We are all winners!
Willow and Maple Class continued to create their salt dough people, carefully crafting the dough to form themselves, their family members and their friends.
What a fantastic variety of interpretations and 3D models. We look forward to creating more mini-me models using different materials during our Me, Myself and I topic!
Mr Quint is always saying little poems about people, such as
The sun is out,
The sky is blue.
Oh look,
There’s Mrs Drew!
We thought we would have a go ourselves by sticking to the same amount of lines and rhyming on lines two and four and carefully following the layout and use of capital letters.
We were fantastic at changing the colours on line two and creating our own versions that rhymed perfectly. We performed them to the class.
Keep practising this style of poetry and experiment with colour choices or other words.
We have been on an array hunt again…
Following the the success of hunting for arrays at home, we decided to develop our understanding by searching for more at school. We looked high, low and all around…
We discovered that arrays are groups of objects that have to be arranged in neat columns and rows.
Rows go across and columns go down.
We can count the rows or columns using patterns or times tables.
Keep on spotting!?
We had lots of fun investigating repeated patterns today and discovered patterns can be about colour, shape and size. We linked numbers, actions and claps to our patterns to develop our understanding. We will link these patterns to times tables soon. Alex even worked out he could make a pattern out of his name!
