Life Forces
We’ve now started our new big topic of ‘Life Forces‘, which will see us studying various plant and animals. Last week, we started by classifying various plants by using a Venn diagram. Later on in the topic, we’ll use other types of sorting and classification methods for animals.
During this topic, we’ll read ‘The Adventures of Akimbo’, written by Alexander McCall-Smith. This brilliant book is full of wonderful stories about Akimbo’s adventures on his reserve. In addition, it is quite thought provoking on topic such as animal poaching.
If you or your child wish to find out more, then the BBC Blue Planet website has great resources and video taken from the award-winning series. As well as this, the National Geographic Kids channel on YouTube has a great series of short videos entitled Amazing Animals which are fun and interesting to watch.
Wonderful Workshops
We were lucky enough to experience two wonderful workshops in Foundation this week.
The charity D:side visited us at the start of the week. Through a fun and interactive session, the children were taught different ways to keep happy, healthy and safe. They discussed ways to be a good friend, the foods and activities that will keep our bodies healthy and important information about medicines: who is allowed to administer it, where medicines should be stored and why we shouldn’t touch it.
Can your child tell you some facts they have learnt this week about keeping healthy and safe?
On Wednesday, the children enjoyed their first ‘Mini-Music’ workshop led by ArtForms – Wetherby Music Centre. They had a fantastic time learning percussion instrument names/ how they are played and playing along to a beat, stopping and starting on cue. They also sang songs and played along to the tunes with the instruments. We are looking forward to continuing the music sessions over the next few weeks and developing lots of new skills!
Past Tense Songs
Here are links to songs we have been singing in class to help us identify past simple, progressive and perfect tense.
St James’ is alive with the sound of music…
Music has been alive in Year 1 and 2 this week. We were lucky enough to have musicians from Wetherby Music Centre in school to run a workshop with the children. The children learned to keep a rhythm before beginning to learn the ukulele. They’ve learned the names of the strings on the ukulele and have begun to learn to strum notes.
Wetherby Music Centre will be running a workshop with Year 1 and 2, weekly, for the next six weeks.
Marvellous Mathematics!
A big thank you to all of the parents who were able to attend the Marvellous Mathematics Stay and Play this afternoon. The children are always so excited to share their learning with you and we hope you enjoyed seeing our Maths in action!
There be dragons
For the last few weeks to lead us into out ‘Life Force’ topic, we’ve been studying that most magnificent and magical of creatures – the dragon.
We started by looking at a report on various types of dragon and analysing how it used conjunctions to extend sentences and what pieces of vocabulary were used to add more impact.
We discussed how to construct a report and group pieces of information appropriately with catchy headings and sub-headings. Following this, we wrote a short report as a group on Toothless the dragon – ensuring we used suitable conjunctions.
This week, we have progressed onto writing our own report on Windshear, the razorwhip, a most dangerous and fearsome beast. We even measured out a scale model of him in the hall so we could appreciate just how large he is.
Worm Charming!
This week, we started our Life Forces topic by doing some ‘worm charming’ on the school field. We danced and tapped the ground to encourage the worms to come to the surface. It worked!
Then we used classification keys to identify the different types of worms that we found. It was a muddy experience!
d:side workshop
This week, we had d:side visit our school to talk to us about the bad effects of smoking. He explained to us about the harmful chemicals that are found in cigarettes and how they can damage our health.
“The workshop was interesting because when I am older, I know it will be bad for me and it will stop me smoking.”
Will Ted get wet?
Our class book, for the past two weeks, has been One Snowy Night. In this story, Percy the park keeper has to share his little hut with all the animals because their homes have been covered in snow.
Then, we found out poor old Ted’s home had been destroyed by the snow. We were concerned that Ted would get wet without a home so we set out on an investigation to find him a suitable material for his home.
We had a choice of paper, plastic, foil or fabric for his roof. The children made their predictions as to which would keep Ted dry and then we experimented. The children were shocked to find that the paper kept Ted dry along with the foil and the plastic. The children’s prediction of fabric not working was correct and Ted ended up floating in water.
Will it erupt?
Today, we have been testing variables to try and make the biggest eruption using cola and Mentos. One group changed the temperature of the cola, one group increased the amount of Mentos and one group changed the cola to a diet cola. Which one do you think made the biggest eruption?
Some children thought about some ‘what ifs’ after the experiment, such as: What if we heat up the coke? What if we use a different fizzy drink?
Can you think of any other ‘what ifs’ at home?
