KS1 – Newsletter – 10.6.22

We hope that everyone has had a good half term break and came back to school feeling refreshed.

Our topic for this half term is Africa. We have lots of interesting artefacts in the classrooms for the children to explore, along with books and fact cards all about animals and places in Africa. Have a chat with your children and see if together, you can find out any interesting facts to share with their class.

We have been doing a variety of things in Maths this week. In Class One, the children have been looking at place value and how tens and ones can be shown using different resources. Class two have been looking at halves of shapes. They have understood the principle that if something is cut in half it must be two equal pieces. Year two have been doing a variety of measurement tasks. They have been reading scales for weight, using rulers to measure length, adding amounts of money in the shop and finding out what change they would get from a given amount and doing measuring tasks on Purple Mash.

In English, Year One have been focusing on phonics and have completed their Phonics screening. We are really proud of how they have all been identifying and reading digraphs and trigraphs within real and alien words. They have read some non-fiction books like ‘Introducing Africa’ and have used this to answer comprehension questions. They have discussed what things they already know about Africa and what they would like to know. Year two read the story of ‘The Jackal and the lion’ from our ‘Tales of Africa’ book. They did a reading comprehension around the story, focusing on their inference skills. They then planned, wrote and edited a story inspired by ‘The Jackal and the lion’.

Our history is linked with our topic on Africa and we have begun to look at the life of Nelson Mandela. We have learned some of the key facts about his life and have been putting these onto a time line in chronological order.

It has been very interesting in our computing lessons, thinking about what technology we use and what we use it for. The children were easily able to identify things like mobile phones and laptops and their uses. However, for some, they had never seen an MP3 player or a USB stick to know how they are used and what for.

In Science we have begun to look at our bodies. We have been identifying, naming and labelling parts of our bodies; both things that we can see like our elbows and things that we cannot see like our brains. We have thought about and have written about different things we can do with different parts of our bodies.

As part of our topic from last half term on animals and this half term on Africa, we are really looking forward to going to Cannon hall Farm on Monday. We will get to see Meerkats which can be found in various parts of Africa! Please ensure that the children are in school on time as we will be leaving as promptly as possible to make the most of the day. We should arrive back in school, all being well, at 3.15. The children will come into school first and you will be able to collect them as normal from the main gates. Please ensure they are dressed appropriately for the day, with sensible footwear. We are hoping to have a fantastic day!

Key Dates:

13.6.22 – Trip to Cannon Hall Farm – Any problems with payment for the trip, please contact the school office.

7.7.22 – Skipping festival

21.7.22 – Last day of school before the Summer holidays