KS1 – Newsletter – 7.2.25

We have had another great week in Key Stage One. This is Children’s mental health week and we have given over specific ‘Time to talk’ time for the children to express how they are feeling and why. In school we are using the zones of regulation to help the children to understand the emotions they are feeling and what they can do to get themselves into the green zone where they may feel happy, calm, focused or excited.

There was space during the Art sessions for some mindfulness and headspace for the children. They were drawing around hands and using warm colours to fill in the hexagons on the hands and cold colours to fill the hexagons outside of the hand.

We have been learning all about conjunctions in English and how they can be used to join two simple sentences and add further information. The children have been practising writing sentences using different conjunctions. They then spent time reading facts from the Great Fire of London and putting them into Chronological order. They used this knowledge to make a plan for their historical narrative.Year One’s phonic sound has been /oa/ and /ow/ as in slow. Year Two’s phonic sound has been /al/ saying /or/ as in chalk.

In Maths, Year One have been building on their understanding of addition by completing lots of doubling problems. They have learned that doubling means to add the same number. They used this knowledge to solve some ‘near doubles’ problems. Eg If they know 5 + 5 = 10, they could use this to quickly answer 6 + 5 =. In Year Two, one group have been looking at amounts of money. They were given a price tag or amount on a purse and they had to work out which coins they could use to make that value. The other group have been solving missing numbers problems. The numbers have been missing from the beginning, middle or end, with a mixture of subtractions and additions which the children had spot how to solve using the inverse.

We continued to think about how London has changed since The Great Fire of London in our history lessons. We identified pictures that show buildings from the past (1666 when the fire happened) and buildings now. We looked at features such as the shape of the Shard and the fact it is made of lots of glass.

We have continued to learn about the Seasons in Science. This week we used the ‘Now Press Play’ story system to explore the seasons. The story took them through a range of seasons with things to notice to help them realise what season it is, eg acorns growing or blossom, they even met Jack Frost who didn’t want Spring to come because he might melt as it gets warmer.

Everyone has been learning a fire of London song. Year One have been looking at fast and slow and playing singing games. Year Two have been looking at music getting louder and the general dynamics and created their own composition making the music crescendo.

The children have been making Fire Engines in Design technology. The have been using boxes and connecting axles and attaching wheels. In food technology, the children were making a raita dip. They practised using the claw and bridge grips to cut up vegetables and used pitta to taste the dip.

In RE, Year One have continued to learn stories that appear in both the Christian and Muslim faith. They began to hear the story of Moses this week. They heard how as a baby he was hidden in bull rushes and how he helped to take the Israelite slaves out of Egypt through the parted Red Sea. Year Two continued to hear about how Christians believe that Jesus performed miracles. This week they heard about how he healed people who were unwell or couldn’t walk.

We have ended the week with our fabulous alternative PE. A new group of children had their first opportunity to experience fencing. One group were doing Go Noodle, another group were doing Noodle drumming and the final group were playing outdoor games.

Diary Dates:

4^th April : 2.30 – 3.00 – The Great Fire of London celebration event