5 Little Speckled Frogs

Tomorrow we will be learning the Makaton version of this song.  

Following on from this, in our maths learning we will be practicing finding one less than a number.  We will be using objects to help us find 'one less' and then we will be writing this as a number sentence using symbols.  E.g.  5-1=4   

Have a watch at home and see if you can teach somebody in your family the actions.  Then you could try and write a number sentence for each verse.  

Friday assembly

Every Friday one child from each class goes onto the stage during whole school assembly to collect a certificate for fantastic learning.  They have to answer a question and speak in front of the whole school!  Our awesome children today were Kyla, James and Max.  Here are some photos of them on the stage and then shaking Mr Cruickshank's hand.  We were very proud!  

Max shaking Mr Cruikshank's hand.

Kyla reading her butterfly writing.

James showing the school his butterfly dance.

Spellings 27th September

Year 1 child (in an excited squeal!) "Dad we've got SPELLINGS!!"

Today we gave out the first set of Year 1 spellings.  The children feel very grown up and are super keen to start learning them.  Below is the list of all 10 spellings.  Your child may have less than 10  to begin with but do tell your class teacher if your feel they can cope with more.  

We want learning spellings to be a positive experience.   Your child will be asked to spell their words each Wednesday morning.  Please ensure your child has their spelling wallet in school each Thursday for us to put their new spelling list into.  

1. am
2. get
3. clap
4. shop
5. fish
6. shut
7. wish
8. I
9. the
10. shampoo

All of the words are decodable (can be sounded out) apart from 'I' and 'the' which are 'tricky words'.  These words have to be learnt by sight as they cannot be sounded out phonetically.  

In the wallet containing your child's spellings there is a booklet filled with creative ideas for how to learn spellings and have fun at the same time! 

Tonight Miss Jenkins is using spaghetti to help her learn her spellings.

Parent reading workshop success

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” 

- Roald Dahl

Tomas' Mum sharing a book in Norsk

Thank you to all of the parents that joined up on Wednesday evening for our reading workshop.  It was lovely to see you and be able to talk about such an important subject.

If you were unable to attend, the main messages we highlighted are below but please see your child's class teacher if you wish for more information.  

• Making reading pleasurable
• Encouraging children to read across a variety of genres 
• Reading to your child as well as getting them to read to you
• Talking about the whole text including the cover and pictures
• Putting books into a real life context for children
• Encouraging book talk
• Asking questions about the text
• Discussing punctuation and text features
• Giving children ownership (allowing them to hold the book)
• Writing a note in children's reading diaries to communicate with teachers
• Encouraging children to use a range of strategies to help when they are stuck 
• The importance of learning 'tricky words' by heart
• Using phonics to help decode words

We loved reading comments from parents after the workshop.  

What was useful...

"Finding out what other parents do at home when reading."

"The video...very useful!"

"Lovely to see how you do reading at school."

"Being reminded that any material can be used for reading...e.g. Top trump cards."

"The guide for reading will be really useful."

"Interesting examples of books."

What you would like to know more about...

"Maths next time please."

"More videos...perhaps maths."

"Ideas on how to encourage writing too."

"Improvement of writing."

We are planning to carry out a Maths Workshop early next term pending the arrival of our 'Maths Packs'.  (Very exciting!)

We are currently trying to upload the video we promised of Ms Morton reading with a Year 1 child but are experiencing some technical hitches...watch this space!  

Find the biggest number

In our maths learning this week we have been ordering numbers and finding the biggest number.  We used numicon to help us and cubes to check our answers were correct.  

Using numicon and counting the holes to help ordering

Bilal coloured in the biggest number

The year one teachers are in a number muddle.  Have a go at ordering the numbers below to help us sort them from smallest to biggest.

12                6                     7                  2                     8                     4               1                 0                                      

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

On Wednesday we used the e book below to learn all about the life cycle of a butterfly.  

http://www.iboard.co.uk/activity/Butterfly-Lifecycle-Listen-and-Read-Explanation-Book-327

Then we did some fantastic writing.  We wrote captions for each picture in the cycle.  

"A caption is information about a picture."  Ernest

Here is some of our awesome writing.

Tia 1LJ

Raniya 1LJ

Tom 1EG

Tuesday snail searching

On Tuesday we went outside in rain and searched for snails!  Soggy weather is perfect for snails it turned out  as we found loads.  When we had found them we talked about the different body parts and later labelled a snail picture in class.  

Joe "It has one foot at the bottom...we have two feet!"

Jorja "The shell is like its home."

This is Scarlet's fantastic 'rainbow snail' with labels.

Parent Reading Workshop

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” 
 - Emilie Buchwald (Children's author) 




This Wednesday 26th September we are holding our Year One reading workshop.  We welcome all parents to come, and hope to see lots of you there. The workshop will be held in Miss Morton and Mrs Plowman's classroom (the new building) and we will be putting on a creche for your Year 1 children in the playground.  

We will be talking about the importance of reading and giving lots of tips on how to support your child at home.  Also, we will be introducing Year 1 spellings and giving you ideas how to help your child with these.  

If you cannot attend, please inform your child's class teacher and we will organise another time to chat with you. 



The Oxford Owl website below has some fantastic information on helping your child read at home.  Have a watch of the videos if you would like some extra tips.  

If you click on 'Reading' and then 'Free ebooks' there are over 100 free books and linked activities that you can share with your child.  We use them in class and they are fantastic!

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Arabic

This morning Youssef's Dad came in to 1LJ.  He is from a country called Egypt where many people can read Arabic.  He read us 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' in Arabic and we loved it! Mr Cruickshank even came to listen and sat with us on the carpet.  We noticed that the words are read from right to left across the page and we learnt some new words in Arabic.  Here are some pictures of us listening to the story.  

Caterpillars and butterflies

Something very exciting happened today.  After two weeks of patient waiting and watching, our chrysalis turned into a beautiful butterfly.  We all went outside and released it back into the wild!  

This afternoon we had a special visitor.  Daphne's mum came in and read us all 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' in French!  We learnt lots of new words in French and really enjoyed hearing the book in another language!  

We welcome all parents into school to read us stories, in English or another language!  Please just ask your class teacher and come in to read us a book.  We love it!

Guinea Pig fun!

Today we had 3 very small, very furry, very cute visitors.  Pearl, Peanut and Poppy!  Isobel brought in her new baby guinea pigs to show us.  Lots of us got to hold them and have a stroke.  We were very gentle.  Here are some photos of us having cuddles.   Josh even noticed that their names are alliterative and start with the same 'p' sound.  

Symmetrical butterflies

Today we learnt about symmetry.  We learnt that it means 'exactly the same on both sides'.  We looked at where symmetry occurs in nature, especially on butterflies.  We created our own symmetrical butterflies using paint and carefully folding a piece of paper.  Here are some photos of our painting.  

Create your own symmetrical patterns by clicking on the link below.  

http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/reflection.swf

Eric Carle inspired art

Today we watched 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle.

You can watch the same video below.

This morning we did some fantastic writing.  We wrote lists of some of the foods that the greedy caterpillar ate!  We had to remember that when we write a list, the writing needs to go DOWN the page.

Daphne stuck her pictures in a list down the page and then carefully wrote each word. 

This afternoon we looked at the pictures in the book.  We found out how Eric Carle uses tissue paper to create his beautiful collages.  www.eric carle.com 

We have begun making our own Eric Carle inspired butterflies.  Here are some photos of us working as a team.  

Number fun

This week we have had lots of fun using our numbers.  We have been tying different ways of counting (including by putting things in lines to count them and crossing each object out as we counted it) and we have been practising reading and writing numbers.  We played the Bugz Numbers game which made us laugh a lot.  Here is the link to it if you would like to play at home:

Click here for the Ladybird Bugz Number Game

We will start next week by using Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar in our learning.  We are really looking forward to it!

Eid Mubarak!

Today we have been learning about Eid.  Lots of children wore special clothes. 

We have desinged henna patterns and Aizah showed us the henna on her hand.

We made Eid cards....

We made special food out of playdough...

We designed our celebration clothes.

Some children celebrated Eid at home and this is what they told us...

 "At Eid you get presents and I got toys I want"

"Lots of people came to our house and we had special food"
"We had a chocolate fountain and I dipped a strawberry in it!"
"We have special clothes for Eid"

After school we had a very special stay and play picnic.  We had lots of fun!