Mini marathon 1A
Well done to all of 1A for taking part in the Mini London Marathon on Friday. Here are some photos of us before we began. Our faces were a little redder after we finished!
Everyone did so well, super well done! We celebrated our success with an ice lolly at the end!
Fieldwork in Science
We have been doing some observing closely and collecting data in science. We took advantage of the dry, warm weather to observe wildflowers and garden flowers in our school environment. We found a lot of daisies and dandelions, a few daffodils and some nettles too.
We talked about how we can stay safe whilst doing fieldwork too – staying together, following instructions, not touching plants we don’t know and washing our hands afterwards.
Africa, Amazing Africa
We are reading Africa, Amazing Africa Country by Country, by Atinuke and illustrated by Mouni Feddag to support our Geography topic. We’re also using it to support our reading and writing learning too.
Help at home by looking at globes, maps or Google Earth to find out about the different countries in Africa.
Topic: Biomes
This half term, we’ve launched our brand new Geography topic all about biomes, and what a fantastic start it’s been!
This week, the children have been busy exploring the characteristics of different biomes from around the world. We’ve discovered that biomes are large areas of the Earth that share similar climates, plants and animals, and the class were amazed at just how different these environments can be. From the hot, humid rainforests bursting with life to the dry, extreme deserts where only specially adapted organisms survive, there was plenty to get stuck into.
Using maps, discussion and some brilliant teamwork, the children began to identify what makes each biome unique. They explored key features such as temperature, rainfall and location, and started to understand how these factors shape the living things that can survive there. There were some fantastic observations and thoughtful ideas shared.
We’re really looking forward to diving deeper into this topic over the coming weeks, watch this space!
Help at home: ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.
What are we learning this week -Week 2
We’ll continue to enjoy the story of ” The Very Hungry Caterpillar” this week. The children will be re telling the story with their friends.
Sound of the week:
J for jellyfish
We will also be exploring rhyming words. The children will be identifying the “odd one out” by listening carefully to sets of words and spotting which ones rhyme.
You can try this at home too. Say the words aloud a few times, emphasising the rhyming sounds, and encourage your child to listen for the rhyme.
five dive fish
Nursery rhyme of the week:
12345, Once I caught a fish alive
Maths
In Maths, we will be exploring what happens when we have ‘one more’ or ‘one less’. For example:
“There are 4 caterpillars on a leaf. 1 caterpillar crawls away. How many are left? How do you know?”
Help at home
You can try this at home using everyday objects. For example, with toy cars:
“There are 3 cars on the road. 1 more drives up. How many are there now?”
Encourage your child to explain how they worked out the answer.
We will also be watching our caterpillars very closely and hunting for more ” minibeasts ” outside.
Check back later this week to find out how we got on.
Mini-marathon in KS1
The whole of KS1 ran their socks off today! The children were ready and determined to run their 10 laps of our school playgrounds. There was: running, jogging, walking, laughing, encouraging comments and a wonderful Scholes atmosphere. Not one single complaint was heard. Every child understood their mission and completed it! We are so proud of them! The ice pops were a welcome treat afterwards too.
Science-plants in 2C
As a class we really love being scientists. This week we had fun as biologists. Our mission was to ‘observe closely’ and ‘name parts of a plant’. Last term we planted some mystery bulbs that turned out to be daffodils. Keeping them in our classroom taught us that plants do need water and light to grow. We really enjoyed watching them grow and bloom. As part of our learning objective is to observe closely and name the roots of a plant, we thought it wonderful to pull up our bulbs! It was fascinating to see just how many roots one bulb had grown. There is an entire world below the soil level and we had fun getting a little messy. The children were quick to identify and label other weeds and plants we had found in our planters and garden. 1A learned a lot from this activity earlier in the week too.
With the warmer weather arriving, we have been on the school field today! The field gives us more opportunity to study the many trees we have growing there. This will form part of our learning in the coming weeks.
Help at home: Can your child identify the parts of a tree? (Trunk, branches, leaves and roots?) Are they able to name any trees? (Silver birch, pine etc.)
Just a reminder that with the wonderful season change and temperature increase your child will require a sun hat and perhaps sun lotion (if you don’t already apply it to your child before they come to school). Please name these items, they can be kept in your child’s tray or on their peg.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week, we have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We looked closely at the beautiful illustrations noticing the collage effect that Eric Carle has used to create them. We talked about some of the vocabulary in the story such as tiny, cocoon, nibble, stomach ache, pickle and salami. Together, we created a story map and have been using it to retell the story with actions. We will continue to retell the story next week and write some sentences too.
Help at home: Why don’t you practise retelling the story at home? You could create a stage from cushions and allow your child to perform it to you using the story map and the actions we have been using at school.
Real Life Caterpillars
To support our love for the story and our Understanding The World curriculum, we have welcomed some new little creatures into class this week. We will be observing how they grow and we look forward to their amazing transformation.
Maths
Throughout the year, we have been expanding our pattern knowledge. This week, we have been practising continuing a repeating pattern in a circle. It’s trickier than you think and the children have done a fabulous job at completing this challenge.
Fun in the Sun
Now that the sun has finally made an appearance, we have been enjoying our outdoor area in different ways.
Taking safe risks
Looking for minibeasts
Looking for signs of Spring
Challenging ourselves and creating new games
Help at home: As the weather improves and the Summer time begins, please note that your child can bring sun cream and sun hats with them to school. To avoid allergy risks, sun cream should be labelled with your child’s name and handed to a teacher in the morning. The sun cream will be returned home each day. Please apply sun cream in the morning before school. Your child will then top up their own sun cream themselves at lunchtime if needed.
Swimming
Our swimming lessons continued for Rainbow Class this week. Here are the swimming dates for the rest of the half term:
- Wednesday 22nd – Rainbow Class
- Wednesday 29th – Sunshine Class
- Wednesday 6th – Rainbow Class
- Wednesday 13th – Sunshine Class
- Wednesday 20th – Rainbow Class
Support from parents
To support our upcoming learning, please could we politely request some compost and annual flower plant (such as petunias, pansies, marigolds) donations so that we can plant some pots with the children and enhance our outdoor area. Thank you in advance for your support.
Art Skills – Exploring tone in observational drawing
This week, during our art skills lesson, we focused on developing our observational drawing skills with a particular emphasis on using tone to create depth and form. Taking advantage of the sunshine, we moved our lesson outdoors where the children took the opportunity to draw from real-life surroundings.
Working outside allowed the children to engage more closely with natural light, shadow and texture.
Help at Home: Encourage your child to notice light and shadows as well as different textures and patterns around them. Talking about what they can see will help build their observation skills.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week we had a special delivery in Nursery: children were so excited to find what was inside the little cardboard box that arrived by post. Inside, there were 5 teeny, tiny caterpillars! They were so hard to see that we needed to use the magnifying glasses. We’ve been checking them everyday and they are getting bigger and bigger, just like the caterpillar in this weeks story.
We read the story by Eric Carle ” The Very Hungry Caterpillar” We counted how many pieces of fruit the caterpillar ate each day. In the sensory tray we explored lots of different textures.
In maths, we looked at the number five. We know that we have 5 fingers on each hand and we clapped and jumped five times. We looked at objects that are all linked to the number five.
Help at home: Enjoy singing number songs linked to the number 5 together with your child such as 5 Little Ducks, 5 Little men in a flying saucer, 5 Currant Buns or 5 Little Monkeys .
The weather has been perfect for some gardening outside too. We got our green fingers busy and planted some carrots, peas and some of our bean plants. We talked about making sure that we watered the seeds so that they will grow.
Next week we will be welcoming some more friends to Green group. The children are looking forward to showing them around and helping them settle into Nursery.
Reminders
Please ensure that your child has a change of clothes at Nursery every day.
Green Group parents/carers, please could you return your September Nursery session request form as soon as possible.