Year 1 w/b 31.11.22
Date: 4th Nov 2022 @ 4:34pm
It has been lovely to welcome back our class to school after the half term break and we returned to find a surprise on our school field. A spaceship had crash landed near our forest school area! Its lights had broken, and it was covered with twigs and mud. But who could fly in a spaceship like this? Where had it come from? Would it still fly? We had lots of questions and some research in our book area revealed a text called ‘Beegu’ which had a spaceship in it that looked remarkably like the one on our field. We have explored our feelings about Beegu from looking at the illustration on the first page and have started to explore what Beegu wants to say to the leaves, trees and rabbits that run away from her or do not stay still to listen.
In phonics, our focus has been ar (start the car) and or (shut the door) with some children also moving onto air (it’s not fair).
Maths Mastery has focused on odd and even numbers – as in Number blocks, odd tops, and flat tops. We have practised identifying pairs of number and how for example 8 is made from 4 pairs. In Power Maths the children have been introduced to formal addition for the first time through the idea of ‘count all’ and ‘count on’ strategies. A ‘count all’ strategy is when all parts are added together to make a whole. A ‘count on’ strategy asks children to start with a number and count on. As well as introducing children to some of the key language associated with addition, children will also begin to develop an understanding of the commutativity of addition – the idea that addition calculations can be performed in any order. We have used a number line this week as a tool for counting on.
This week in Monday’s Collective Worship we focused on All Saints Eve and how Christians light candles to remember those people they have loved and lost. Light helps us see things more clearly and can guide us. Following Jesus’ example of being a light to others we explored ways we stand up for justice and challenge inequality and sadness in the world today, believing in a world where there are No Outsiders. This worship linked to our work in PSHE where we used the story of Elmer to see how special being different is and how we should celebrate our differences. We looked at what made Elmer different and discussed why he thought he had to change, and how in the end everyone loved Elmer for who he was, not how he looked. Using our own patchwork Elmer, in groups, we drew what made us different and special, including our hair colour, our favourite hobby or our family and pets. This in turn showed us that although we are all different, we are all welcome in school, in Brereton and in the world.
In RE we started our new topic on ‘Christian Community,’ and we looked at images of the all the activities that happen at St Oswald’s. We thought about how these activities were part of how Christians worship God at Church- praying, singing, ringing bells, listening to sermons, being baptised, supporting charities and Christian organisations like Operation Christmas Child. We then looked at the motivation of Mary Jones in her quest to own a Bible and acted out stories from the Bible – both Old and New Testament to further understand their teaching for Christians.
On Thursday we went on our church visit. The children were really excited to visit church, and participated with great enthusiasm in the service. In particular they enjoyed singing and Sandi was impressed by the way the children joined in with such gusto. Sandi talked to the children about trust and who are the people that we trust in. We were really proud of the children’s behaviour both in church and whilst walking to and from church, well done year 1!
Unfortunately, Tuesday afternoon was very wet! Although we were still keen to go out into forest school the rain was so heavy it prevented us from doing so. We used our forest school session to think about how to create a home for Beegu and design a safe place for her to sleep. The children came up with some very elaborate designs and also thought about which materials they would use to create them.
In Science we have begun our new topic all about living things, including humans. The children amazed us with all the super facts they already know about us and also came up with some exciting questions of what we want to find out next. We began by thinking about the different parts of our bodies and labelling them, we also discussed what some of these do.
During our Geography session we went outside to see if we could identify things that have been man made (human) and things that are natural (physical). The children were great at identify both of these and enjoyed exploring our school grounds to see what they could see.
Finally in other news we have had great joy this week as you may have read in our email earlier in the week, Mrs Lindersen had her baby boy on 1st November. The family are all together and settling well into a family of 4 and Sanna is very much enjoying having a baby brother. Mrs Lindersen is keen to visit us in the weeks before Christmas and Year One are already excited.
More sadly, Mrs Millington will be leaving us next Wednesday in order that she may have some more time at home with her young family. I am sure you will wish to join us in saying a very fond farewell. Mrs Millington is a ray of sunshine and energy, and we shall very much miss her in Year One and hope she may return to school when her children are a little bit older.
We now hope you are able to enjoy a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing everyone next week when we shall be enjoying computing lessons each afternoon as well as revealing our KS1 nativity for December 2022.
With kindest regards
Mrs Pulle and Mrs Knott
