Friday 20th September

What a great first few weeks we've had in Owl Class!

This week in Maths we have been counting forwards and backwards from a given number within 20 and have been identifying 1 more than and 1 less than numbers within 10. If you could continue practising this at home it would really help to consolidate the learning. 

In English we've been looking at the different features on Fiction and Non Fiction books and have been identifying and writing our own labels.

We loved getting outside for our Topic lesson where we used natural resources to create self portraits!

Our common exception words next week are: to, today, of

22.07.19

Today, the children have been busy exploring some fun maths games on laptops and ipads.  They have complied a list of their favourite games they enjoy playing.  In addition to the maths ideas suggested previously, these are further ideas for fun maths practise over the summer holidays! 

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/318/Tommys-Trek-Times-Tables

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/504/Super-Maths-Bowling-Multiplication

https://blog.topmarks.co.uk/2018/01/new-game-place-value-basketball

http://www.ictgames.com/sharkNumbers/mobile/index.html

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/category/585/HTML5

There is also a note in the reading records.  Please encourage your child to read regularly over the summer holidays, and record what they have read.  This will ensure that the skills they have worked hard to acquire this academic year, will remain fresh and it will set them up for a great start to year two!    

Helpful Maths Ideas

Here are a few ideas if you want to help your child at home with maths.  It's important that children have a solid understanding of number facts.  These are basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, (not times tables at this stage), and division facts that children should learn to recall instantly to support more complex calculations.  Helping your child to increase their speed of recall will be highly beneficial.  Knowing the inverse of these facts helps them to manipulate numbers quickly and confidently.  Some examples are:

• Doubles and halves of numbers
• Number bonds, eg. 4+6 = 10,  6+4 = 10,  14 + 6 = 20,  6 +14 = 20
• Inverse eg, 10 - 6 = 4, 20 - 14 = 6 etc
• Number of groups and how many in each group (multiplication)
• Sharing equally (division)
• Counting forwards and backwards accurately for any given two-digit number 
• Accurately counting in steps of twos, fives and tens
• Identifying the number of tens and ones in a two-digit number

A useful website is https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button .  The children are familiar with these challenges.

Friday 5th July 

What a busy but fantastic end to the week! We are extremely proud of our little Owls, for their participation in the country dancing event at Dropmore yesterday. They were full of enthusiasm, supported each other and behaved brilliantly.

Today we enjoyed a trip to the British seaside! We played cricket and other beach games, made sandcastles, explored the rock pool, visited the cafe and ice cream parlour, watched a Punch and Judy show, relaxed on the beach with friends, had a picnic and finished the day with ice lollies in the sun. A few of us even had a funny photo taken! A non stop day but lots of fun had by all! We're looking forward to writing poems next week based on our experiences today.

Our tricky words next week are - October, November, December

Friday 21st June

It's been a busy week in Owl Class!

We've thoroughly enjoyed reading The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch over the past few weeks. All the drama activities, re-telling the story, drawing story maps and describing the characters has led to some fantastic writing! Did you know we found Fred the seagull's diary in our outdoor area? Only problem was there were pages missing! We thought it would be a great idea to pretend we were Fred and write our own diaries based on the story! Have a look at some of our work below! 

We're loving the Lighthouse Lookout topic and have thought about what we might see at the seaside if we were stood on the gallery deck! We created lolly stick beach huts and our own lighthouse collages. You'll see these on display when you next pop in for our book look!

The children have been eager to share their experiences of the British seaside. They are welcome to bring in on Thursdays any photos or souvenirs they have from visits to the seaside! 

Our words next week are - April, May, June

Minibeasts 

As part of our learning about minibeasts we had some visitors this week.........snails!  We watched how they moved and learnt about what they need to survive.  Some of the children helped them to keep safe, and made sure they had enough food and water.  Here are some pictures of us 'snail watching'!

Friday 7th June

Owls have had a great first week back! We've loved reading The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch in English lessons. We've discussed the characters, drawn storymaps and have written some fantastic sentences using alternative words for 'said'. In Topic we shared our knowledge of lighthouses and thought of some really interesting questions to build into our 'Lighthouse Lookout' topic this half term! Owls are welcome to bring in any photos or souvenirs from the British seaside on Thursdays, to share with the class. 

Next week our tricky words are - Saturday & Sunday

Holy Trinity Church - Seer Green

Yesterday afternoon we walked to Holy Trinity church in Seer Green.  As part of our religious education topic we have been learning about the features of different places of worship.  We had a lovely walk in the sunshine and were rewarded by seeing lots of the features we had learnt about, including stained glass windows, the font, the pulpit, organ and lectern.  We sang our favourite song with Janna and Revd Cassa as well as ringing the church bell!  Here are some photos of our visit......

Friday 24th May

What a fantastic half term we've had in Owl Class! The children have absolutely loved our dinosaur topic. They have been so enthusiastic to share their knowledge and research, which has led to some amazing pieces of writing. We hope you enjoyed looking at these during the book look!

This week we decided to explore Jordans Village and create a map to see if we could find a suitable place to release our dinosaur. We had lots of different views where the best place would be and eventually decided we think it would be best to keep it for a while in school. We wrote some very persuasive letters to Mrs Swain giving reasons why it we should be allowed to keep it as a class pet rather than release it. Luckily she agreed! 

Today, our baby dinosaur finally hatched! It's a Stegosaurus and after a whole class vote we have named him Steggie!

We hope you all have a lovely half term break! If anyone is visiting the British seaside this week then please can you send Owl Class a postcard showing where you are! Or if you have any family or friends living there, maybe you could ask them to send us one. Thanks!

Friday 17th May

Another week has flown by with the children showing amazing attitudes to all areas of their learning. In Maths we've been relating repeated addition to multiplication number sentences. In English we have written postcards describing our adventures on the Island of Dinosaurs. In Topic we have learned about the life and discoveries of the famous fossil hunter Mary Anning. We made our own fossils using salt dough and created dinosaur skeletons out of art straws, making comparisons to the human skeleton. We think we may have heard some movement from the box housing the suspected dinosaur egg and are hoping it may hatch soon!

Our words next week are - Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday 

Monday 13th May

We all had an amazing time at Dinosaur Escape Adventure Golf today!!  As well as having lots of fun we learnt so much.  We had opportunities to put into practice our skills and knowledge we have learnt in phonics, maths, PE and topic.  We worked on our turn-taking skills as well as supporting and encouraging others to do their best.  The weather was very kind to us and it enhanced our surroundings........someone even said that it was like being in Florida, being in a fabulous setting with the sun shining all day!  Lots of the children said they loved it and wanted to play again, so maybe it could be your next family trip out?!  Here are a few photos of our day......

Friday 10th May

We've loved reading 'Tom and the Island of Dinosaurs' this week! We enjoyed getting into character as Tom and Katy and sharing our thoughts and feelings about the adventure. We came up with some amazing adjectives while playing with the dinosaur small world, watching a volcanic eruption and labeling dinosaur pictures. We then used these to describe what we saw and heard when we arrived on the island. Next week we will be writing postcards to tell others about our adventure! 

Our tricky words next week are - though, through

Tuesday 7th May

This afternoon we all went to Jordans Quaker Meeting House as part of our RE curriculum.  As well as learning about the history of the Meeting House, we learnt a lot about how people of the Quaker faith worship there.  We discovered that there was a fire there fifteen years ago, and part of the historic building was severely damaged.  The graveyard was interesting as William Penn, and some of his family are buried there.  We found out that the graves are arranged in a circular shape to reflect that everyone is equal, and there is no hierarchy.  Here are some photos of our visit......

Friday 3rd May

What a great week we've had! We are all loving the 'Dinosaur Discovery' topic. We decided it would be a good idea to find out a bit more about different types of dinosaurs in preparation for our egg hatching. We used non-fiction texts to find out information about Stegosaurs, Tyrannosaurs, Ceratopians and Sauropods and then created our own non-chronological reports. You'll find these displayed on the windows near to where we line up...please do have a read. We are really proud of our amazing sentences, neat handwriting and carefully drawn dinosaurs. We even managed to include some rhetorical questions!

We've also been growing our brains in Maths lessons, solving word problems involving addition and subtraction. 

Next week our tricky words are - different & who

Friday 26th April

What an exciting first few days we've had back at school!

Did you hear we found what we think is a dinosaur egg in the woods at school? After lots of discussion we decided to bring it in so predators don't get to it. We used non-fiction books to research the best way to look after it and it's now safely tucked in a box with leaves, twigs and materials to keep it warm. Some of us were a little concerned about leaving it over the weekend and decided the best thing was for Mrs Banks to take it to Mrs Taaffe's house to look after it. BUT Mrs Taaffe hasn't been in our lessons to know how to look after it, so we wrote some amazing instructions for her! Have a look at some of them below. 

Our topic this half term is 'Dinosaur Discovery' so if children do have anything dinosaur related they would like to share with the class, they are welcome to bring them in. 

Our tricky words next week are - asked, again, water

Friday 29th March

Another week has flown by! We've enjoyed reading the story of The Enormous Turnip and writing our own versions. Bet you've never heard of the The Gigantic Carrot? Ask us to tell you our new tales! 

We continued our travels around Europe and managed to visit France, Spain and Italy. We also learnt about Ancient Greece and the story of the Trojan Horse. 

Please look in book bags for a note re dressing up for an end of topic celebration next Friday 5th April!

Our tricky words next week are Mr, Mrs, Miss. 

Science Day

We've all had lots of fun learning about Science!  We have been busy making predictions, carrying out experiments, and evaluating what happened to check if our predictions were correct.  

Our first experiment of the day was.........."If you place a cotton bud with washing up liquid on it into milk that had drops of food colouring in, what will happen to the food colouring?"  The children predicted, then tested their prediction to see if they were correct.  They were amazed with the results.

The second experiment was......."What will happen if you place some drops of food colouring mixed with water into a jar of oil?"  Again, the children predicted then carried out the experiment.  The results were very exciting to watch!

We also went into the hall as Scientist Fizzy Dizzy held a workshop called 'Gross Guts'.  She explained lots about the human body, and how our poop is formed.  We all had an interesting time making some pretend poop with food products and various chemicals, similar to what our body produces.  The children were fascinated by this topic, although it was revolting at the same time!!

In the afternoon the children visited each classroom and took part in a variety of science activities, learning about our health, body, exercise, gravity and forces. 

Here are some photos of our day...........

Friday 15th March

What a great week we've had! This last two weeks we've been building up to writing our own versions of The Gingerbread Man and have done ourselves proud! Our stories were full of interesting story language and amazing adjectives. We also remembered to use capital letters, full stops and neat handwriting. Make sure you look in our book bags for a copy of our stories!

We squeezed in a quick trip to Australasia yesterday and learnt about the animals and birds that can be found in Australia and New Zealand. While we were there we used our art skills to create our own piece of Aboriginal artwork and representation of the Sydney Opera House. 

We will be heading off for a three week trip to our final continent, Europe, next week! If the children have any photos or memories from a European holiday they are welcome to bring these in on Thursdays to share with the class. 

Next week our tricky words are - out, laugh, laughed.

Friday 8th March

Another week has flown by! English lessons have been all about The Gingerbread Man this week! We've re-told the story, drawn story maps, designed our own gingerbread men and used adjectives to describe the characters and settings. Next week we will be writing our own versions of the story!

We had fun day yesterday celebrating World Book Day. Everyone looked great in their costumes and enjoyed sharing their favourite traditional tales. 

We've been growing our brains in Maths lessons too; recognising, reading and writing numbers to 40 in both numerals and words and representing numbers a tens and ones in a place value chart. 

Next we will be re-capping all tricky words learnt so far this year. Please keep practising reading and writing them at home. 

Friday 1st March

Owl class have returned from their Half Term break with so much enthusiasm to learn. We are so impressed!

They were very excited to find a postcard from Sunny the meerkat whilst reading Meerkat Mail at the beginning of the week. He was thinking of moving to Antarctica and wanted them to let him know if it was a good idea! Owls took on the challenge and found out lots of facts about The Kalahari Desert, Antarctica and Meerkats. Following a quick trip to both continents they wrote letters to let him know that it was most definitely NOT a good idea! Make sure you ask them why, they'll love to tell you!

Our tricky words next week are - what, call, called

Next week we are starting a 4 week unit of traditional Tales in English lessons. If your child has a favourite tale they would like to bring in to share with the class, they are welcome to.

Friday 8th February

What a busy few weeks we've had!

We continued our travels around South America, exploring the Amazon Rainforest and Machu Picchu. We learnt about the artist Henry Rousseau and focused on his painting 'Tiger in a Storm' in English and Art lessons. Make sure you check out our gallery by the entrance to Year 1! We also wrote our own verses for the animals in 'Rumble in the Jungle'.

We had a very quick visit to Antarctica and investigated how penguins keep dry.

We were so inspired by Sebbie R's research on Pangolins that we decided to travel to Asia on Friday! We learnt about Chinese New Year and how to write our names using the Chinese alphabet. 

Thank you to those who took the post its for cooking ingredients, it's very much appreciated! 

Our tricky words next week are - oh, their, people

Friday 25th January

This week we traveled to our second continent, South America and enjoyed exploring the Amazon Rainforest! Ask us what we saw there! Next week we will continue to explore the Amazon during our English and Topic lessons. 

Our common exception words next week are - house & our

Friday 18th January

Owl Class have loved reading The Snow Bear! Lots of role play, oral re-telling of the story and discussion about the characters last week has meant they were able to confidently write their own versions this week. Have a look below at some of their fantastic stories!

Our common exception words next week are - put, push, pull, full

Friday 11th January

Our first full week of 2019 has been a busy one! We've started as we mean to go on by doing lots of brain growing.

In Maths we have been learning about 'place value'. In English we have been reading The Snow Bear and can't wait to write our own versions next week. Yesterday we started our journey around our 'Wonderful World'. We investigated how animals living in the areas around the Arctic Circle keep warm. Please ask us to tell you what we are doing in the pictures below and what we found out! 

Our common exception words next week are - friend & school

Friday 4th January

Happy New Year! 

We've had a great first few days back! The children have returned enthusiastically and are clearly ready to take on new challenges this term!

Our common exception words next week are - one, once, ask

Friday 7th December

What a busy few weeks we've had in Owl Class! We've been following and writing instructions in English lessons, solving addition and subtraction problems in Maths, designing and making shields in Topic lessons and then yesterday we attended a Medieval banquet followed by trike jousting! We're all in need of a relaxing weekend now!

Our common exception words next week are - some, come. 

Friday 23rd November

This week, Owl class have been working hard on sequencing sentences to re-tell The Knight and the Dragon story! They are looking forward to sharing these with you at our topic finale in a few weeks!

Our common exception words next week are - by, my, love

Friday 16th November

Another week has flown by in Owl Class. We've learnt various ways to help solve subtraction problems, found out about William the Conqueror and his impact on castle building in England and discussed properties of different materials used in castles. We've enjoyed reading the book 'The Knight and the Dragon' and today we helped Mrs Banks grow her brain to draw a story map! Next week we'll be writing sentences to re-tell the story so make sure you ask us over the weekend to re-tell it to you! 

Our common exception words next week are - no, go, so.

Friday 9th November 

Another great week in Owl class! Please do make sure you look at the fantastic recounts on the windows!

Our common exception words next week - be, he, me, we, she

Wednesday 7th November 2018

We had a fantastic day trip to Windsor Castle on Monday.  All of the children learnt so much!  We found out lots about how to become a knight, we dressed up and got knighted, and even saw the Duke and Duchess of Sussex' wedding outfits!  Have a look at some photos of our fun day....

Friday 2nd November

What a great first week back following the half term break! Owls have been busy learning about the features of poetry and solving addition problems, using their number bond knowledge. 'Curious about Castles' is our topic this half term and Owls already have lots of interesting questions related to this! 

Our common exception words next week are - you, your, they.  

Wednesday 31st October 2018

This week we are learning about Poetry in English.  The children have been working extremely hard creating a word bank of words associated with castles, out topic for this half-term.  They have been investigating rhyming words too.  By the end of this week they will have created an acrostic poem about castles - how exciting!  Please share and enjoy some poetry books together at home, or from your local library.

As you know, the children are visiting Windsor Castle on Monday.  Over this week-end, please could you and your child write a question that they would like to find out the answer to, and bring this into school on Monday morning.  We will attempt to find out the answers to all questions during our time at the castle!

Thursday 18th October

Today we completed our Astronaut training and heard from The European Space Agency that we have all got what it takes to be future astronauts! 

What a fantastic first half-term we've had in Owl class! The children have all settled so well and we're looking forward to the year ahead. 

Our common exception words for the first week back will be - his, has, I.

Wednesday 17th October

This week we have been busy completing tasks as part of our training to become astronauts.  We now have four stamps in our log book.  So far we have created a planet fact book, completed a fitness test, tried to write imagining there is no gravity, tasted some space food, and walked using sponge space boots to mirror what it may be like in space!  We are having fun and here are a few photos........

Friday 12th October

We're loving the Space topic in Owl Class! This week we have enjoyed reading The Darkest Dark by astronaut Chris Hadfield, applied to be astronauts and made moon buggies! We're hoping to hear back from the European Space Agency soon to see if we have been successful with our applications! Finger crossed! 

Our common exception words next week are were, was, is. 

Friday 5th October

What another great week we've had in Owl Class! We've whizzed around Space, painted Picasso style portraits and created our own board game in English!

Next week it's Space week! The children are welcome to bring in any Space themed books or resources to share with the class.

Our common exception words next week are - says, said, are

This week we are learning about number bonds.  The children are exploring how to make a given number using two different numbers.  We are using Numicon, tens frames and our fingers to do this.  We are having lots of fun .  The children are learning a rhyme to help them remember number bonds to 10, and it has actions too! Please practise this at home.