KS1 – Newsletter – 11.2.22

It is Children’s mental health week this week and we have been doing lots of activities to support this. We thought about what our mental health is and how we can look after our mental health. We enjoyed ‘filling our heads’ – discussing what things we enjoy doing, what makes us happy, who we enjoy spending time with etc… we also thought about what things make us feel sad or worried. We then thought about what strategies we could use if we are feeling sad, worried, angry…. To change the way we are feeling. We recognised the importance of talking to someone about how we feel. The week was finished off in style by everyone ‘Dressing to Express’ and it was lovely to see how the children wanted to express who they are and what they love.

Off the back of this, it was great for the Year One children to head off down to the Chevin on Thursday for an adventure in the fresh air. Using their forest skills learnt in school, they made dens and played games in real forest!

Year 1 have had fun in English this week, starting off by baking biscuits. They measured, weighed and mixed the ingredients. They then used this experience to write instructions to explain what they had to do – writing in the past tense. They also used their experience of going on the trip to Golden Acre, to write an account of what they did and saw there. Next week, they will be working on common exception words and using them in sentences, so please review these with your children so they feel confident with them.  Year 2 have been looking at Suffix endings. They have been finding and using words ending in -ly, -ed, -ment, -ful and thinking about how this changes the root word. They have been using the book ‘Beegu’ to describe how the character was feeling and where they were.

In Maths, Year One have continued their work on subtraction, focusing now on subtraction from 20. They are gaining confidence each week and so next week will be reviewing all the skills they’ve learnt so far in Addition and subtraction. Year Two have begun work on multiplication. They have enjoyed a variety of games and activities practising their 2’s, 5’s and 10 times tables. Any practise they get will benefit them. Please remember they have the use of Times tables Rockstars, Numbots and the new White rose maths.

We have been concentrating on map skills and using key’s this week in Geography. We have been using aerial photographs and diagrams of the local area. We positioned symbols on the map to represent different buildings and features and wrote whether they were human or physical features.

We have continued with our topic of everyday materials in Science. This week we were finding materials around the classroom and identifying properties of different objects. We were then writing sentences about given objects, stating what they are, what they are made from and explaining some of their properties eg opaque, flexible, waterproof etc..

In Music, the children were working on a variety of activities around pitch. They composed their own melodies on a two line stave and then played them on chime bars. They then listened to different music linked with our space topic including Mars from Holst’s Planet Suite, John Williams’ Star wars, David Bowie and Nat King Cole.

All the children have been given a new sketch book to use in art this week. Their first piece of work was focusing on the work of Rembrandt and looking at how he made lots of different strokes to draw an elephant. The children then used these observations to sketch their own elephant.

In RE, Year one have continued their topc on Religious leaders. They were learning about the names and roles of religious leaders in the Islamic and Christian faith. They were then making comparisons spotting similarities and differences between them. In Year 2, they were continuing their topic of Jesus. This week, they were learning about how Jesus taught people using parables. These are stories that have a meaning and they were discussing what Jesus was trying to teach people through different parables.

Key Dates:

18.2.22 – Break up

28.2.22 – TRAINING DAY

1.3.22 – Return to school (PPA day – Please wear PE kits)

3.3.22 – World Book day – More details to follow

11.3.22 – Pirate day – More details to follow

1.4.22 – Break up for Easter