KS1 – Newsletter – 10.1.25

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that you all had a well-deserved rest over the holidays and lots of fun too.

Our History topic for this term is all about ‘The Great Fire of London’. We began to hear about some of the key events that happened. This is our driver for our English lessons too. We have begun to learn about Samuel Pepys and how he wrote a diary about what happened during the fire. We learned about the features of a diary and spotted the features in a diary. Year One were looking at putting things in order and focused on /ue/ as in glue in their phonics. Year Two began to focus on writing in the past tense and their phonic sound was /eer/ and /ear/.

In Maths, Year One have begun to learn about addition. They have been identifying the parts and the whole on part whole model and bar model and completing the additions. One group in Year Two have been subtracting 2 two-digit numbers using Base 10. The other group have also been doing subtraction but in missing number problems. They have been suing the inverse to identifying the missing number pictorially.  

Our new topic for Science is all about Seasonal changes. This week we began by looking at the weather and what obvious differences there can be in the weather in the different seasons. The weather outside this week has really helped us out with this one! The children enjoyed role playing being weather reporters, deciding on what the weather will be and explaining that for the viewers.

Year One are learning some stories that appear in the Muslim and Christian faith over this half term. They began by watching the story of ‘Joseph’ who was given a technicolour coat by his Dad. They thought about how the characters behaved and discussed what they thought of that. Year Two have begun a topic about Jesus and his life. First they heard about how and why Jesus was Baptised and how he chose his special friends called the Disciples.

In Art, the children made some wax resist watercolour paintings. They drew a picture with their white wax crayon on white paper so they couldn’t actually see what they’d drawn properly, until they then washed it with the watercolour paint.

In forest school, the children had a wintery walk and track what animals had been around the field in the snow. They watched a live feed from a bird box and thought about the impact of the snow on wildlife and how they get their food.

Year One have been listening to the ‘Flight of the Bumble bee’. They have been listening out for the high and low pitches. Year Two were learning how to notate and read rhythm patterns using lego blocks.

As we are starting our new topic of ‘The Great Fire of London’ in Design Technology, the children began to think about designing a fire engine. They thought about the main features of what the fire engine would need and why. They then drew their initial design. In food technology, the children had a lesson about the ‘Eat well guide’. They focused on the balance of eat food group in their diet. They also watched videos that demonstrated good grips (claw grip and bridge grip) for cutting.

As it is the beginning of term, the PSHE lessons have all been Mindmate lessons. Year One were thinking about how to be themselves and feeling ok about who they are. They were looking at things that make them unique and why that is good. Year Two were thinking about loss and how that can make them feel. They read the story of ‘Dogger’ and thought times that they had lost something, what they did and how they felt.

After having some fencing training for staff on our last training day, we are pleased to be offering the children a chance of doing fencing during our alternative PE slots over this term. The children have also been doing Noodle drumming, team games and Go Noodle.