Whiteley Year one

 Friday 27th June.   Friday 28th June This week we had a super trip to Meadowside Park.  We followed our maps to get to the park.  At the park, as part of our science learning,  we explored pushes and pulls to make the equipment move. For Geography we discussed whether the park was a good place to visit in every season and how it could be made even better.  Thank you to all the adults who accompanied us. Phonics In phonics this week we have learnt to add "er" and "est" suffixes to adjectives to help us to make comparisons.  We also learnt to add the "un" prefix to words to change their meaning. Maths In Maths we have been solving problems involving multiplication facts for 2, 5 and 10.  We used pictures, arrays and repeated addition to record our calculations. We also solved problems involving division.  You may like to use this interactive 100 square at home to count in 2, 5 and 10 and see the patterns. 100 square splat You may also like to ...

  Friday 21st June This week at school we have started our new Geography learning. We used Google maps to discuss the human and physical features in our local area and beyond.  We zoomed into our school from a world satellite map and discussed the features that we could see.  We identified our local park (Meadowside) on the map and looked at the route we needed to take to get there.  We drew our own maps of the route which we will follow next week to get to the park. English This week we drew our own story plan to help us to write our own version of Jack and the Beanstalk. We did a fantastic job of orally telling the story and recording it on the i-pads using the voice memo.  We loved listening back to the story that we had told. We then wrote and illustrated our own Jack and the Beanstalk books to read to Year R. Music In Music this week we started to learn more about pitch and rhythm using the Boomwhackers. You might like to watch this video to see how Boomwha...

  Friday 13th June Walk to the park As part of our Geography learning this term we will be drawing and following maps to Meadowside park, recognising human and physical features in the local area and thinking about how we could change our local park to make it better for a particular season. If you are able to support us by coming on this trip, we would love  to have you.  The trip will last 2 hours and will leave at about 9.15am. Please let your child's class teacher know if you can help. Monday 23rd June - 1R Wednesday 25th June - 1H Thursday 26th June - 1J Thank you! This week at school we have started our Design Technology learning.  We looked at books with moving parts and learnt how to make our own moving pictures with levers and sliders. In Music we performed the story of Jack and the Beanstalk using the xylophones to change the pitch as Jack goes up and down the beanstalk.   We thought about dynamics (volume) using the drums for the giant's footstep...

 Friday 6th June This week at school we have been looking at the work of Botanical artists and discussing how they carefully look at real plants and draw what they can see.  We made our own botanical drawings of plants that grow around our school and mixed colours to paint them. In science we learnt about the parts of a plant and how they help the plant to survive.  We learnt about the roles of the leaf, flower, stem and roots. We set up an investigation to discover if bean seeds can grow upside down! We have started to look at books with moving pictures for our Design Technology project.  If your child has any books with moving pictures that they would like to share with the class please send them into school.  Thank you! We started our English unit of work about Jack and the Beanstalk sharing the version below and acting it out with our friends. Phonics The National Phonics screening check will be taking place next week in school.  This will assess your c...

  Friday 23rd May This week we continued our science longitudinal study and found out how the animals in the pond have changed now that we are nearing the end of spring.  We were surprised to find very little water in the pond! We discovered  lots  of newts and dragonfly nymphs and very few other animals. We used our science knowledge to try to explain why these animals were so prevalent.  Some children suggested it was because they are carnivores and have eaten the other animals.  Others suggested the other animals might have died as there is not much water in the pond.  It was a very good learning experience to understand how the weather can change the animals found in our local environment. Phonics The National Phonics Screening check is only 2 weeks away now! We are nearly there! Thank you for your work at home with your child in practising reading real and "alien" words.  We are really noticing an increase in the reading confidence of childre...

                                                                   Friday 16th May Phonics The National Phonics Screening check is only 3 weeks away now! We are nearly there! Thank you for your work at home with your child in practising reading real and "alien" words.  We are really noticing an increase in the confidence of children who are practising these at home.   Please can you practise reading the real and "alien" words on the orange sheet sent home with your child each week.  Encourage them to draw on the sound buttons, then to carefully say each sound and then to blend the sounds together to read each word.  We have put the sound buttons on the words on one side of the paper so that you know where they need to go!  Mrs Robinson has made the video below to sh...