Good choices lead to good times
This is what happens when we make good choices – we get extra playtime in the front playground.
Into the woods….
Yesterday, we went for a walk to the top of Shadwell Lane and found a little woodland area. We spent an hour looking at the different trees, finding different leaves and sketching. We’re so lucky that we can find an area like this so close to school.
Perfect planter
Having worked so hard on planting our seeds and making sure they’ve got the best environment to grow, we’ve now planted them outside in our new Y1/2 planter. Come down past the dining room to see how they’re doing. We’ve got nasturtiums, sunflowers, courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and broad beans growing. Hopefully, we’ll have another planter soon to get all of our seedlings outside.
Plants all around us
We’ve had some great homework this week, looking at plants in the local environment.
Can you remember the names of these herbs?
Free tennis lessons
Free tennis lessons (for children and adults) are available locally at David Lloyd and Roundhay Park over the next few months.
Plant Puzzles
We had a puzzling afternoon on Friday. There was a challenge given to the Year 1 children – they were given seven pieces of a beanstalk. Their challenge was to create a beanstalk as close to a metre as possible but they were only allowed to use five pieces altogether. This was not as easy as it looked!
Where does our food come from?
Lots of our food comes from plants. We are hoping to make something to eat using home grown produce. Along with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and courgettes, we also planted some herbs and different flowers.
Planting and more planting
So far in our new topic, Green Fingers, Year 1 have been getting their hands dirty. We’ve been following instructions for planting cress seeds and broad bean seeds and also planting a range of vegetables, herbs and flowers. It’s been great to hear that so many of the children are growing some of their own plants at home.
What do plants need to grow? This was a question we considered this week and we set up some experiments to test this.
As we continue to work on our writing targets in English, we’ve been writing descriptions of plants. This is also helping us to remember the names for the different parts of plants.
We’ve also been reading stories about plants – Jack and the Beanstalk, Jasper’s Beanstalk and Tiny Seed. Are there any other books about plants that you can think of?
Finally, here is our best crop so far!
Getting into position
In our latest session with Dan from Leeds United we looked at where to position ourselves to receive a ‘ball’. For a change, we used balloons to test this.
This week we begin our new SEAL theme, Changes
Following our focus on manners last week, we now begin the SEAL theme of Changes. This theme aims to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common responses to change. It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of living and learning: motivation, managing feelings and social skills.
The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:
- Change can be uncomfortable, because it can threaten our basic needs to feel safe and to belong
- Change can also be stimulating and welcome
- Both adults and children can experience a range of powerful and conflicting emotions as a result of change – for example, excitement, anxiety, uncertainty, loss, anger, resentment
- Worries about change can be made worse by uncertainty, lack of information, or misinformation and lack of support from others
- People’s responses to and ability to cope with change are very variable, and might be influenced by individual temperament, previous experience of change, and the nature of the change – chosen or imposed, expected or unexpected, within our control or out of our control
- Some children may welcome most forms of change and dislike routine and predictability. Other children may find even small changes very difficult.
Within school, children, who are coping with or have undergone significant change, are supported in a variety of ways:
- Our positive ethos within school
- Support systems, from staff and peers, for children who have undergone change or who maybe new to the school
- SEAL and circle time sessions where children feel safe to talk about their feelings
- Class SEAL boxes for children to record any concerns
- Preparing children wherever possible for planned changes for example, a change of class teacher, Key Stage or even school
