Learning is fun!

The Squirrels have settled really well into Year 1 and are becoming increasingly enthusiastic about their learning and activity time.

This week we carried on with our Science lessons and went on a material hunt around the classroom and our outside area. The children worked in pairs to investigate which material is used the most in our immediate environment. They predicted that it would be plastic and were very keen to find out if they were correct.

As it turns out, the results showed that there were equal amounts of wood and plastic.

The children really enjoy quiet reading time which happens every afternoon. If they are calm and reading quietly a quiet critter may come and sit next to them. However, if they become chatty then the quiet critters return to their box because they prefer peace and quiet.

We can’t wait for next week, when we can take a look at everyone’s baby photographs and try to play ‘Guess who?’!

Sports Week in the sun

Squirrel class have had a lot of fun this week. We have been learning to play Tchoukball, Lacrosse, Multi-sports and had a sneaky practise at some of the carousel activities for Sports Day.

Also, we have started our new topic called Rio de Vida this week. The children have listened to a traditional Brazilian myth and then they created their very own mythical creatures. They were very happy to use their imagination and created some most unusual creatures!

A creative mind is a wonderous thing!

Every Friday afternoon, after working hard all week, the children get to have some Explorer TIme. This is when they get to explore, play and follow their own interests.

Today, we had a very creative member who was inspired by bits and bobs that he found on the art table and created his very own pair of glasses! I’m mature enough to remember Elton John’s choice of eyewear in his more glamboyant times. But Miss Hall said that they reminded her of the 3D glasses that you wear at the cinema. It’s wonderful to see the children’s imaginative creations come to life.

A local field trip

Squirrel class went out on a field trip and took a walk around the village. We were looking for physical human features of our local environment as part of our Geography topic. Pairs of children had a checklist to use and I was quietly confident that we wouldn’t be able to find a library or a bridge, but the children turned out to be very creative thinkers and proved me wrong!

We enjoyed walking around the village and looking at all of the Union flag bunting hung up, ready for the coronation on Saturday.

Once back at school, the children were asked to work with their partner to create a map of our village.

Science Explorers

We have been exploring rockets and discovering what makes them move. The children were very excited to make predictions, carry out investigations and then share our findings.

We looked at and tasted three different liquids: still water, fizzy water and diet coke. We compared them and talked about what was the same and what was different? 

We went outside to watch Mr McEvansoneya add some mentoes to the three different liquids. We had to stand far back and Mr McEvansoneya wore safety goggles.

Nothing happened when the sweet was added to the still water or the fizzy water.

Please take a look at on our Google Classroom to see the video of what happened when Mr McEvansoneya added the sweet to the diet coke!

Story Writing

Squirrel Class have worked really hard on their story writing this week. We have been reading Molly McDrew’s Adventures in Space by Naomi Joslyn.

Please see some of our work below. They did it all independently, other than asking for some spellings. Well done Squirrel Class, I am very proud of the effort you put into this!

Mrs Parsons loved hearing one of the stories today when she had a special visit.

Art Week

We really enjoyed finding out about India and some of its traditions, especially the colours and patterns.

We have made a hot air balloon for Phileas Fogg to travel in, some salt dough diyas and Mehndi patterns. Also, we tried learning a Banghra dance in our PE lessons. And not forgetting the amazing Rangoli patterns on plates.

Carnival Time!

To round off our topic on Rio de Vida, the children have been busy practising different samba dances, playing musical instruments to make our own samba band, creating masks and making delicious fruit kebabs.

They have really enjoyed finding out about celebrations in different cultures and exploring what makes them feel in the party mood. There are some very impressive dance styles going on and budding musicians in the making.

We have also conducted some science investigations, exploring how seeds change when we plant them in different conditions. You may have heard all about the flower seeds and the carrot tops. Sadly our fresh peas did not grow as anticipated. On Thursday we explored how to make raisins dance and how to turn Skittles into a rainbow using warm water.

Feeling creative

The children are very enthusiastic about our new topic, Bright Lights, Big City. They have been studying some of the famous landmarks and using simple compass directions on a map to give instructions on how to get to each one.

During Busy Bee time two pupils chose to recreate some of these landmarks, using resources from around the classroom. Can you spot the Houses of Parliament. the Queen Elizabeth Tower (complete with the Big Ben bell inside), the river Thames and the London Eye?

We have been reading stories about Paddington Bear and his adventures in London. He gets to visit all sort of famous places! We made our own marmalade sandwiches and ate them, before trying to write the ‘How to…’ instructions out in our English books.
The children thoroughly enjoyed spreading the butter, adding the marmalade and most of all tasting the results. One boy has stated that he is going to ask his mum if he can make them again at home over the weekend. A big hit in the Squirrels classroom!

Magical mathematicians

This week we have been learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. The children were already confident in counting in 2s as I model this a lot and we have found that it is an efficient method to use when identifying odd and even numbers. Counting in 5s is proving to be a little trickier. On Friday, I challenged them to find different ways to represent 2-digit numbers whilst practicing their counting.

This half term we have been learning about Judaism and some of the Jewish customs and beliefs. The class have been very interested and have remembered lots of interesting words and facts. We created our own version of stained glass windows and discussed the beauty of the light shining through the colours, representing the light of God.

Becoming a designer, an engineer and a product tester!

This week we have been developing our skills in design and construction. Our mission is to create a moon buggy for Bob. Bob is the man on the moon and he has the task of cleaning the moon every day, showing visitors around and keeping an eye out for pesky aliens!

The children looked at images of real space buggies first of all, and decided what elements were important and how they could ‘magpie’ those ideas for their own design.

Next, we looked at the work of the artist Gianluca Gimini, who asked people to draw pictures of bikes from memory. He then constructed the bikes exactly the way they had been drawn. This promoted lots of discussion about the importance of considering your design and how you will build it afterwards.

Then, they drew their designs, paying attention to where Bob would keep his vaccum cleaner, his souvenir stand and (most importantly) his lunch box for when he has a picnic with his friends who work on other planets.

On Monday, the children explored ways to make axles that ensured the wheels could turn. There was lots of perseverance and adaptation taking place as they trialled how to use the resources to the best effect. Not everyone was successful at first and they appreciated the benefits of team work.

On Thursday, we got out all of our construction toys to make prototypes of their moon buggies. They may not match their designs closely but it was lots of fun and helped them to understand shape, space and measure, as well as the limitations of some toys. For example, when they wanted to create a satellite dish and attach it to the buggy.

Friday is the day that we are making our final models. We hope to show you some of the photographs on our blog next week.

P.S. We have spent some time with our reading buddies in Year 5 this week. Please take a look at their blog to see some photos of the lovely time we had reading in the sunshine!

Working hard on our writing

Squirrels class have been working hard this week to improve their handwriting, and in particular mastering the correct formation of the letter b. Several children have achieved success and are feeling very proud of themselves. The letters b and d can be easily confused with each other and the children are paying attention to how they form them, in an effort to spell words correctly. The image below is courtesy of Twinkl.

As part of our topic work, the children have been learning some facts about the planets in our solar system. It amazes me how much knowledge they bring in from home! Lots of them are very enthusiastic and when we did a quiz yesterday, they were very confident in matching the clues to the names of the planets.

We had a go at creating solar sytem mobiles and the children will be bringing these home today. It involved trying to match the colours to images of the planets, careful cutting out, threading string and trying to tie knots. Lots of skills to practice and it was great to see how they were supporting each other to measure and cut the string. They are beginning to appreciate the rewards of team work and collaboration. Well done Squirrels!

An exciting visitor

On Thursday we had a visit from Petra at Horsham museum. The children were very excited and thoroughly enjoyed all the hands on practical activities. I was also pleased to witness that they have remembered lots of knowledge from our topic work! The most exciting moment was possibly when they were given coprolite (fossilised dinosaur poo) to examine. The most eyebrow raising aspect of their investigations was when they chose to sniff the many fossils! Petra did advise them that the only thing they would smell of is the dusty shed that they are stored in, but they were persistent.

Chinese New Year celebrations

On Tuesday the class spent the majority of the day exploring the how China celebrates the Lunar year (Chinese New Year). They had lot of fun and it would be hard to choose which activity they enjoyed the most - eating chinese noodles or having a tea party and drinking green tea?

We have introduced a curiosity box in the classroom and the children were intrigued by the items displayed inside. We explored the story of the Chinese Zodiac and found out which animal we were born in the year of.

The children helped to create an instant display and investigated the theme and use of the lucky colour red in Chinese culture.

Lastly, we have a very special object in our classroom, which we are looking after very carefully and watching to spot any changes. A golden dinosaur egg is snuggled up in a nest of blankets to keep it warm, while we wait to see if it hatches into a baby dinosaur. The children check it every day and tell me that they think they can see a small crack developing!

A fun time was had by all of the children and they have been very enthusiastic about sharing their learning with everyone.

Paleontology and dinosaur teeth!

This week we have been learning about Mary Anning and her amazing discovery of the first dinosaur fossil in 1811. The children were fascintaed by her story and many of them want to become paleontologists themselves. Watch out for digging in the garden taking place!

They made fossil biscuits by making biscuit dough and imprinting a shell shape onto their biscuit, before cooking it. The general consensus was that they tasted good, if a little hard.

On Wednesday afternoon we invited the children’s families to come in and view our art from Art Week. We created an art exhibition in our outside area. The children were very proud to show off their efforts and to let their special visitors see their classroom. For many parents this was the first time that they had been able to see our learning environment,

It was a busy week and the children are doing really well in their learning, impressing me with their place value knowledge and problem solving skills, as well as becoming increasingly confident with their reading and writing. Well done Squirrels.

Art Week in Squirrels class

The children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves this week and have created some imaginative and colourful works of art. Alongside the art, we have been listening to poetry from an anthology, illustrated by our chosen artist Eric Carle

We used wax crayons and a bronze paint wash to create our golden eagles. We explored how the wax is resistant to the paint and how much water we needed to add to the paint to create the effect.

Next, we used pastels, real feathers and pipe cleaners to create our hens. In English, we have been studying the story of the Little Red Hen, which has included some drama too!

Our final art project is a collaborative peacock. The class have been fascinated by video clips of real peacocks, both coloured and white. Indeed, the images of the white peacock were so beautiful that it brought tears to one child’s eyes. We haven’t quite assembled the final piece yet. But it will be on display for our art exhibition on Wednesday afternoon, next week.

What a busy week!

This week we have been extremely busy with our COP26 day where we learned just how important it is to look after our planet and pledged promises to make a change. We created a class promise and wrote it on a placard which will go on display out at the front of the school in the next week or so.

Also, we spent most of Thursday learning about Remembrance Day and why it is important to remember those who died defending our country or were hurt in the wars. The children used different art techniques to create representations of poppies.

Owl Babies

The children have been listening to and learning the story of Owl Babies by Martin Waddell this week. It is part of our new topic called ‘Enchanted Woods’. We are learning to empathise with the characters, to identify their emotions and use that language to explore the story further. After that we will be using the story as a model for writing our own version. The childen are really enjoying joining in with telling the story, using their story maps to help them.

We have also been discussing the four seasons and finding out whether they are Autumn, Winter, Spring or Summer babies!

Autumn time!

I brought in some pumpkins, leaves and seeds for the children to investigate this week as part of our study on Autumn. They had a lot of fun examining the inside of the pumpkin and exploring the different textures and sensations, as well as finding out if pumpkin seeds float and asking why? Plus they tasted some edible pumpkin seeds, which seemed to be a hit with most of the class.

We listened to the story of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper and the children were given some props to retell the story in our increasingly popular theatre. They were very industrious in putting out the seating and several children chose to be security guards, making sure that everyone behaved well in the audience.