Author: Mr McGriffiths

This term we have introduced the idea of a drop down morning. This is a whole morning dedicated to looking back at our previous topic learning in order to cement this knowledge and commit it to the children’s long term memory.

Year 1 had a great time looking back over our Geography and Art topics from this year. We first took a big piece of paper and wrote down everything we could remember about the UK. After that, we revised the countries, capital cities and surrounding seas of the UK by sorting them into groups and then labelling a big map. I was very impressed at how much the children had remembered from the Autumn term!

Next, we looked back at physical and human geography and tried to find either a human or physical feature for every letter of the alphabet. We couldn’t think of any for k or x, so if you know of any let us know!

After break time, we looked again at the artists we had learnt about, Paul Klee and Leonardo da Vinci. We talked about how they were different, including their use of colour and shape. Then, we were given two new pictures and we had to decide whether it had been painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Paul Klee and how we knew. It was a brilliant morning!

Identity forms part of our Living and Learning curriculum where children learn about similarities and differences and how we should respect ourselves and others too.

There are things that are the same or different that are immediately obvious (physical features) as well as things you cannot see such as things you like doing, your religion or your family.

There are lots of things the same about us all but everyone is different too – nobody is exactly the same, everyone is unique.

No-one is good at everything but everyone is good at something.

After we had talked about what makes us different and what makes us the same, we drew a picture of our partner and what makes them special!

First of all, thank you very much for your support and engagement with our new online reading books. I hope you have seen, as you were reading with your child this week, that they were reading more fluently and more confidently as a result of the changes we have put in place. I would just like to update you all on a couple of items regarding the new system.

Sharing books – the ‘sharing books’ are the books that your child will bring back from the library every Friday. Take time to enjoy these books and talk with your children about the story or information they contain. We have also been working hard on expression in reading so these books are a perfect chance for you to model good expression which your child can copy.

It is very important that these books come back to school every Friday so that your child can bring home two new books.

eBooks – From next week I will assign your child’s new ebook on a Thursday. This is to avoid your child having 3 new books on the same day (Friday).

I have heard that some people have had a couple of problems accessing the books on a laptop or tablet device. There is an app you can download for tablets and phones which would probably make the experience better. Search Collins ebooks to find the app. If you are still having problems, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Reading records – I would still like to see reading records once a week, on a Thursday, as it is an important line of communication about your child’s reading.

Additional books – I will release all the books from your child’s previous reading phase into their ebook library early next week. This is so your child can have additional practice reading fluently and with expression if they want to.

Thank you for all your support with this new initiative and, as always, get in touch if you need to.

Thanks,

 

Mr McGriffiths

This evening you will have received a letter in your child’s book bag explaining how to log on to Collins eBooks. Your child will has been assigned a book that they can read at home through this website (link here). These books match our phonics teaching in school and your child will have practised reading it three times this week. Therefore,  they should be able to read it with fluency. After having heard them read, focus on reading with expression (prosody) and comprehension. At the back of each book there are some tips to help with this.
Your child will also have brought home a book to share from the library. This book is intended to inspire a love of reading and is for sharing with an adult at home. You can read this with them and talk to them about the story or non-fiction book.
Further information regarding this will be sent in an email from Mr Roundtree.
If you have any problems logging in please let me know as soon as possible.

Thank you for your support with this and have a restful weekend.

Mr McGriffiths

Today we got a delivery of Rekenreks today. These are to help us with our Maths fluency skills and we were excited to try them out! The idea is that you can represent the number using one push rather than counting. This practice then cements these number bonds and relationships. You can ask your child how it works and have a practice at an online version here. 

Today in Year 1 we got more into the Christmas spirit by writing some beautiful winter poems! We thought of lots of nouns, adjectives and verbs to describe a wintry scene. Then we arranged them into a diamond to make a poem. We started with a noun and then two adjectives. The middle line was three verbs and then we finished with two more adjectives and a final noun. We did amazingly well and enjoyed reading them out to the class as well.