Class Blog

Week 4 - W/C 21st September 2020

 

It has been a productive week in Kingfisher Class!

 

In English, we have been learning all about adjectives. We found out that adjectives are words that describe a noun (a person, place or object). We received a letter from the giantess from Jack and the Beanstalk, who was asking us to help her find her missing husband - the giant! We came up with many adjectives to describe both the giant's appearance and personality. We used these in our published writes to produce a Missing Poster. 

 

 

In Maths, we have been finding one more and one less than a given number. We began by using practical objects to help us, before moving onto using a number line. We discussed that when finding one more, we jump forwards one on a number line, whereas when finding one less, we jump backwards one. 

 

In Science, we have been learning about our five senses. We focused on the sense of sight this week, and learned that the body part that allows us to see is our eyes. We carried out an investigation to explore our sight further - we investigated how changes in light and distance can affect our sight, whilst also examining the basic parts of an eye. We looked at our eye colours and produced a tally chart to work out what the most common eye colour is in our class. 

In Encompass, we have been learning about the human features in Hanley. We named the different human features and also discussed what their purpose is. As part of our carousel, we also learned about and created our own block graphs about human features. 

Week 3 - W/C 14th September 2020

 

We have had another busy week in Kingfisher Class! Our hard work and determination has continued this week, and we are becoming evermore settled into our Year 1 routines.

 

In English, we have been working on writing a retell of Jack and the Beanstalk. We used our knowledge of the story developed last week, alongside some picture prompts to recall the main events in the story. Our focus was on producing the 'perfect sentence'. We discussed that to produce a perfect sentence, we need to include correct punctuation. This includes a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, a full stop at the end, and finger spaces between words. We also discussed that it is important to read our sentences back to ensure they make sense. After working on these key writing skills, we produced our very first published write! The children worked very hard on these and they did superbly well! For Fix-it Friday, we focused on our personal targets to develop our writing, which included letter formation, capital letters and full stops. 

 

In Maths, we have been learning to read and write number to 20 as words. We began by reading numbers as words and matching them to the correct numeral, before writing them ourselves, playing careful attention to our spelling. We then moved onto counting forwards and backwards to 20 and beyond, and tested our skill by completing missing number tracks. On Fix-it Friday, we worked on our areas for development from the week, which included continuing to practise spelling numbers as words correctly, and building up our counting fluency further, particularly when counting backwards. 

In Encompass, we have been learning about the human features that can be found in our local area, as part of our 'Street Detectives' topic. We discussed that a human feature is a geographical characteristic that has been made by a human. We were detectives for the afternoon and identified different human features in Hanley using Google Earth, and started to explore the use of aerial maps.

 

In Science, we have been learning about the different parts of the human body. We identified, named and labelled the main body parts and started to discuss their function. 

 

 

Week 2 - W/C 7th September 2020

 

What a brilliant first week we have had in Kingfisher Class! The children have settled into their new class exceptionally well and are adapting superbly to our new routines. We are very proud of the hard work they have put into their learning this week - well done to you all!

 

In English, we are spending this half term learning about Traditional Tales. This week, we have been exploring the fairy tale 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. We have been learning about the key events that happen in the story, as well as its structure and key vocabulary. 

We began the week by making predictions about what Jack might find at the top of the beanstalk, based upon what we had read at the beginning of the story. We then read the whole story and used 'talk for writing' to retell the main events. We came up with pictures and actions to help us remember the order of events. We then used role play to act out the story and sequenced different parts of the story using pictures.

In maths, we have been learning about place value. We began by identifying and ordering numbers to 20, before moving on to representing numbers using practical objects and pictorial representations. On Fix-it Friday, we practised our number formation.

 

 

This half term, our Encompass topic is 'Street Detectives' and our Science topic is 'Animals Including Humans'. This week, we found out what we already know about these topics, and also questioned what we would like to find out.