Living and Learning – personal hygiene
This week, our whole-school Living and Learning statement is ‘I know the importance of personal hygiene, including handwashing.’
In KS1, we have been discussing lots of different ways that we can keep ourselves clean and healthy such as regularly having a shower or bath, cleaning our teeth using toothpaste and washing our hands.
In 2C, we conducted an experiment where we filled a bowl of water and sprinkled pepper on the surface. The surface of the water represented our hands and the pepper represented germs. We dipped one finger into the bowl each and saw that the pepper attached itself to our fingers when we did not have soap on them. We then dipped one finger into soap and then into the water and saw that the pepper moved away from our skin and onto the side of the bowl. This showed us just how powerful soap is and how important it is that we wash our hands regularly.
We identified lots of areas around school that are touched regularly by lots and lots of people. We know that these areas are ‘hotspots’ for germs, and if we touch them, it’s best to wash our hands afterwards.
This includes: doors, door handles, anything in the toilets and play equipment. It is important to wash our hands with soap so that we do not spread germs to others, or pick them up. Germs can be harmful and might make us poorly. We also identified places in the home that might be hotspots for germs, within the bathroom and kitchen.
Help at home: by identifying some ‘hotspots’ for germs within your home. Discuss the importance of handwashing and encourage children to follow the handwashing guide to ensure their hands are super clean!
How to wash your hands NHS song | NHS (youtube.com)
(Please note this is a YouTube video. Make sure you watch your child when using YouTube as adverts or unwanted videos may follow. Thank you.)
Class novel – The Worst Witch
We are using The Worst Witch, by Jull Murphy, as our class novel this half term. We will link reading and writing learning with it too, as well as enjoying immersing ourselves in the story. We already love Mildred and her cat!
Help at home by talking about what has happened so far or read along with us (but no spoilers!).
PE – Hulk Smash
All Year 1 and 2 classes are learning a new games this half term to improve our agility, balance and coordination. We started the game this week – bouncing balls, moving and bouncing and adding in actions to make is more difficult. You have to really ‘smash’ bounce the ball to have enough time to do a spin before catching it, for example.
Help at home by asking your child to explain how to play the game (and maybe even play a game together).
Here are some pictures from 1,2B’s lesson.
PE – basketball
This half term, we are developing our basketball skills. Today we were learning how to pass the ball with increasing accuracy – using bounce and chest passes. The children increased the distance of their throws to add more challenge. We then used our skills within Possession Ball – a fast paced team game. There was some brilliant dribbling and passing and even better communication between the children We ended the lesson working on our personal best challenges. How fast can we dribble the ball between a set of cones? They will do this each week and hopefully break their previous records!
Happy Easter from 1A
Thankyou for allowing your child to participate in our egg rolling competition. We had lots of fun! Well done to our winners.
Our Easter disco class pics.
Have a wonderful holiday. Looking forward to all that lies ahead in the Summer term!
Living and Learning – I know how to cope with change
KS1 have been thinking about the range of emotions that we all feel. Having emotions makes us human. We have explored a range of videos and scenarios in which we try to identify what other people might be feeling. Our motto has been: ‘Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.’ How might you feel, if it happened to you? Such focused learning has helped us to identify with others. We have shared about changes in our lives that have made our emotions roller coaster. For example: moving school, becoming a big brother/sister, moving house have all been topics of change. Top tips on how to cope with change were shared:
Tell a trusted adult how you feel.
Take a deep breath and be brave.
You won’t feel sad forever.
You will make new friends.
Such super stars!
Egg rolling competition
Thank you for providing the decorated hard-boiled eggs for our egg rolling competition this week. It was very egg-citing seeing which one rolled the furthest in each class. Well done to all the winners.
Have a happy and healthy (ish – with the obligatory chocolate) Easter break and we will look forward to see you on 15th April.
Topic – computing
We have thoroughly enjoyed our computing topic this half term.
We learnt about commands, algorithms and programs. After designing and planning our games, we made big versions of them this week and played them using the BeeBots. It was great!
Help at home by playing an algorithm game – giving precise instructions to do something (with a blindfold if you’re brave…).
Science – plants
KS1 have been learning about plants and growing in science this half term.
We have observed closely as peas and beans germinated in front of our eyes. We’ve planted some herbs and watched a cutting from a willow tree sprout roots (which we have now planted).
We predicted what the seedlings will look like after the holidays – watch this space!
Help at home by planting something, nurturing it and watching it grow.
Easter
Although it was a shorter week than usual, it’s been a very busy one!
We enjoyed learning about Easter celebrations and taking part in some traditional Easter activities. Children made their own Easter cards and practised drawing patterns to decorate an egg outline.
We loved making Easter nests and tasting Hot Cross Buns.
Outside, children enjoyed playing egg hunt games with their friends, taking turns to hide and then find the eggs. We practised our counting skills at the same time and compared how many eggs we’d found with the eggs in our friend’s baskets.
How many blue eggs did you find? Who has the most/fewest?
We hope that you have a lovely holiday and we’ll look forward to hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery on Monday 15 April.