English: our own Goldilocks story.
This week we have been learning and then changing the Goldilocks and the 3 bears story, inspired by Michael Rosen’s Goldilocks and the three crocodiles. We decided as a class we wanted to change the bears to penguins but this meant we had to change lots of other things too! The cottage became an igloo, the woods became Antartica, the porridge was fish, the chairs were ice cubes and the beds became water beds!
Once we had finished altering our story map, we took advantage of the glorious weather to practice retelling our story outside.
Our next job is to come up with our own animals and draw our own story map.
Help at home by practising their story at home.
Design and Technology
This week we have started our new topic all about Design and Technology. We have been learning about the design process. It involves three stages (plan, make, evaluate) and is always repeating.
Today, we evaluated some products to see if they had been badly or well designed. We pointed out problems and thought about solutions. Can you spot the problems with these products.
Our project this half term is to build a new chair for baby bear and we can’t wait to get going.
Help at home by looking at the vocabulary in this week’s talk time.
Brilliant reports!
Last week and this week we have been writing reports about Nelson Mandela. We have used all the knowledge we have gained through our History topic and everyone has written a fantastic report. We have talked about titles, sub-headings and proper nouns as well as all the amazing facts and information we remember about Nelson Mandela. I am very proud of all the children! I think the reports speak for themselves.
Living and learning: Physical Activity
Our latest Living and Learning sessions have been all about the importance of exercise and how we need to keep active to keep our bodies and our minds healthy.
We thought about all the things we had done since waking up. Then, we checked which ones were active.
Trampolining in the garden
Wake up Shake up
Scooting to school
Playing with friends at playtime
Star jumps brain break
Monkey bars
The NHS guidance states that children and young people should ‘aim for an average of at least 60 minutes (30 minutes in school and 30 minutes out of school) of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity a day across the week’. We know that the exercise we need to do to achieve this, should increase our heart rate.
We thought about how we manage to achieve our 30 minutes during the school day.
- Daily WUSU
- 2 weekly PE sessions
- Playtimes
- Lunchtime play
- Go Noodle, Supermovers and active counting in class
- Jogging around the playground for brain breaks
- After school clubs
Help at home – try a new physical activity out of school – maybe a local Junior park run, local cricket lessons or tennis lessons.
Basketball
City of Leeds Basketball, who provide our after-school basketball clubs, have a range of sessions for children of all ages.
Visit their website to book.
History – Heroes!
We are really enjoying our History topic this half term all about real life heroes! We have been studying Nelson Mandela and Leonora Cohen and how they changed the world by fighting for what they believed in.
We have learnt lots of facts about both people. Try asking your child about Nelson Mandela or Leonora Cohen so they can show off what they know! I have been very impressed at how well the children have understood the ideas we have been talking about.
In this week’s lesson, we learnt about how Leonora Cohen protested for women to have the right to vote. We learnt she went to the Tower of London and threw an iron bar at a glass cabinet containing the Crown Jewels. We discussed whether this was the right thing to do or not. After we had discussed this, we got into small groups and acted out the incident, thinking carefully about how Leonora would have been feeling before, during and after the event.
Help at home by talking to your children about what they have learnt, including the vocabulary which has been sent home on today’s homework sheet.
Living and learning: healthy eating
Over the last two weeks we have been learning about healthy eating in living and learning lessons. We have looked at the eat well plate which is a brilliant way of representing how much of eat food type we need for a healthy balanced diet. There is a picture of the eat well plate below with some added hints to keep a healthy lifestyle.
We also talked about how we could swap certain foods to make our breakfasts healthier.
Here are some of our ideas.
Swap the cereal for porridge or a cereal without chocolate.
Use butter or jam instead of chocolate spread.
You could drink milk or juice instead.
Maybe you could add in some fruit, like a banana.
Help at home by looking at the Eatwell guide together and thinking about any improvements that could be made. This may be having an extra vegetable a day, trying a new fruit or vegetable, switching to brown bread or pasta or having a healthier snack after school.
King’s Coronation!
Today we celebrated the upcoming coronation of the King! We came dressed in the colours of the Union Jack: red, white and blue. At lunchtime we came to the hall with Reception and Year 2 to have an (indoor) picnic! It was delicious!
After lunch, we did some brilliant crafting, including making our very own crowns!
Help at home by talking to your child about the coronation and how it is an important in event in our recent British history.
Science – plants
This half term in science we are studying plants. First of all we talked about what we already knew about plants. We knew so much and we named about 10-15 different types of flowers!
In our first lesson last week, we looked at some onion bulbs and talked about how bulbs are different to seeds. Can your child name any other plants that grow from bulbs?
We planted some onion bulbs in some soil and gave them a good water.
We also set up an experiment where we took away something from the bulb. One bulb had water and soil but no light. Another had water and light but no soil and the final bulb had light and soil but no water. Which one do you think will grow the best?
Today, we checked on our bulbs after they have been growing for one week. We were very impressed by the results!
Help at home by talking to your child about plants you can see in the park or the garden. What are they called? How do they grow? Can you name the parts of the plant?
Living and Learning: health and prevention
Over the last fortnight Year 1 have been learning all about what keeps us healthy. We started off by discussing all the things we knew about staying healthy. We knew lots and lots, I was very impressed.
In the first week, we learnt about the sun. The sun can provide us with lots of things we need, like vitamin D for strong bones, but we need to be really careful in the sun too. As a class we discussed the dangers of the sun: heat stroke, eye damage and sunburn.
We knew all the things we needed to keep safe too:
- sun cream
- hats
- water
- wearing long sleeves
You have to put sun cream on so your skin doesn’t get damaged.
Drink lots of water when you are in the sun.
In the second week, we learnt about the importance of good sleep.
We talked about what makes a good sleep routine and why it is so important to get a good sleep to keep us healthy. We had lots of good ideas of what makes a good bedtime routine.
Help at home by talking to your children about how to keep healthy and helping them make healthy choices.
