A busy week!

A very busy week for Orange Class this week. See our video from sharing assembly to get a flavour of what we've been up to. Thank you to all who came along today to assembly, the children do love to share their work with you!

Have a wonderful weekend and I do hope everyone stays well with these horrid bugs that are about!

Mysterious object...

This week, there was a mysterious object on the field! As the children arrived, something was on fire on the field and it seemed as though it had fallen from the sky as the ground was damaged. The children decided to investigate and took their clipboards outside to see what informtion they could gather about the strange object.

As well as gathering facts about what they could see, hear, smell and feel, the children also interviewed each other and their Year Two friends and recorded lots of different opinions. Some of us thought it was an alien crash landing, some of us thought it might be rubbish from the sky. A few of us thought Mr Jones (our caretaker) had pranked us in the night. Who knows?!  One thing is for sure...the children are very excited to have been reporters and will be having a go at making their very own newspapers soon. Watch this space! 

Have a wonderful weekend.

Outdoor Classroom day (1st November 2018)

This Thursday was outdoor classroom day and all of Key Stage 1 spent the morning learning in our Forest School area.

The first part of the morning saw the children problem solving as it was raining and the children wanted to build themselves shelters. the materials were available to the children, but it was up to them to design and create their own shelters using their knowledge of shape and space.

At snack time, the children had apples picked from our own apple trees on the field! The children heard a story about nature and enjoyed listening and joining in with the actions, rather than having the story read from a book. The children were then challenged to retell the story in their own ways.

It was wonderful to see so many ideas! Some used natural items to create picture or puppets, some acted out the story in small groups, some had narrators telling the story, whilst their groups told the story altogether in a 'talk for writing' style.

Some children even had Forest School in the afternoon too and spent all day outside! What a wonderful day and the children had a fantastic attitude - even in the rain! Have a wonderful weekend!

Outdoor learning

Firstly, thank you all for your continued support at home. It was lovely to see so many of you at parents' evening and to hear all about the wonderful things you've been up to. It really does help build your child's confidence and we appreciate your time spent hearing your child read, working with numbers and sounds etc.

This week, we have started our focus on outdoor learning. The children thrive in the outdoors and the freedom to move in a natural environment really does help them with their concentration and enjoyment of our lessons. Our aim is for the children to see the outdoors as part of the classroom. This week, we have had a maths lesson outside, learning all about subtraction. They used leaves to demonstrate and explain the concepts to each other.

The children have worked especially hard in their maths lessons this week and are really getting to grips with the concept behind adding and subtracting and are beginning to record number sentences correctly with less support.

We have also worked outside in our art lessons this week. The children have continued to expand their knowledge of colour and their painting skills. We have moved on from learning about primary and secondary colours and this week the children were challenged to change the shade of their mixed colours. The children found as many different shades of green as they could in nature before using yellow, blue, black and white and their knowledge of colour mixing to try to recreate them. I think they did a pretty good job! Their work is in their topic books should you wish to come and see it.

As well as this, we have had some phonics sessons outside. Outdoor chalk is great fun, as is water on a paintbrush. Also, who knew leaves could double up as 'sound buttons?' Perhaps your child to show you with the word   w i ng

(This is helpful if you've not heard of 'sound buttons' before!)

Have a wonderful weekend!

The Broads

On Friday, Years 1 and 2 went on a school trip to the Norfolk Broads. We boarded the Belle of the Broads at Wroxham and set off! Along the way, we had checklists of things we might see which we tried to fill in - some of us saw lots of exciting things. After a while, we stopped at the Great Broad Nature Trail, where our guides took us for around an hours worth of exploring. We learned all about the different plants that live near the Broads - there were some very funny names and some of the plants smelt wonderful. We loved learning about the Marsh Nettle which doesn't sting like a Stinging Nettle. We also got to see some awesome creep crawlies and even some bones! After that, we boarded the boat and made our return journey. What a wonderful day we had! Next week, we will be writing all about our exciting trip in our literacy books, so keep an eye out! Have a fab weekend.

(More school trip photos will be going onto the school website gallery soon!)

Piet Mondrian

How lovely it was to see so many of you stay for the 'I wish' activity after assembly on Friday, it is always great to have a chance to chat to parents and carers in class. The children loved having you there and it is wonderful for them to be able to show you the things they've been up to in Orange Class.

This week, the children worked a little more on their map skills and had a go at making their own maps of the school. Lots of us remembered what a key was and we included these alongside our maps. We also started computing this week and had a go at logging on to the computers at school. It is still a little tricky, but the children are slowly getting used to using a mousepad and the buttons - very strange in a world full of touchscreens!

In maths, the children have been working very hard on their numbers to 10 and are ready to move on to some simple addition next week. We will also continue to work on forming those digits at school - 9s, 5s and 3s are particularly tricky to get the right way round...any extra practice you can manage at home would be hugely appreciated!  

In literacy, the children have been writing sentences, with adult support. Gradually, as the year goes on, the children will become more independent with their writing - for now, it is lovely to see such enthusiasm for writing in the class and such effort being put into it. All of the children have managed to have a go at writing in their new books and lots have even had a go at sounding out some words on their own - which is fantastic! We are working on putting spaces in between our words and knowing the difference between a word and a sentence.

For the photos this week I thought I would share the children's Piet Mondrian inspired art work because they look so proud of it! These are up in the classroom if you want to see the real thing!

Have a wonderful weekend.

                                           Phoebe

                                           Lily