Calming Yoga in Year One
Our amazing Year One yogis are discovering the benefits of yoga!
They’ve been practicing their balance and focus with fun and challenging poses like Dancer, Tree, Sloth, Downward Dog and Warrior. They’ve unlocked their inner warriors and are now sequencing poses into a graceful flow.
Each class begins with calming breathing exercises – Elephant Breath is a firm favourite! We finish with peaceful meditations to feel calm and strong.
Help at Home Tips:
- Practice Elephant Breath together to relax.
- Try a Tree Pose challenge – who can balance the longest?
- Create a mini yoga flow with your child’s favourite poses!
We’re back and we’ve been super busy!
The children settled in so well after their Christmas break. They’ve been brilliant at going back to their usual routines and I’ve been so impressed with their self-care skills. Lots of children can put their coats on themselves and take shoes and socks off for PE.
In PE we’ve been practising climbing, balancing and jumping as well as our coordination skills with bean bags and quoits.
For Maths we’ve been building our mastery with number 1! We can represent one using our hands, with Numicon, by making marks and collecting one object.
Have a go at home by watching Number Blocks, Number 1, then find ways to represent 1 in your house. We’d love to see any photos or videos!
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip
Next week!
Next week our book will be Dinosaur Roar!
Science – Lotherton Hall
On Tuesday, we donned our high vis jackets and biologist hats to visit Lotherton Hall’s Wildlife World. Year 2 represented St James’ brilliantly and thoroughly enjoyed their day out.
We started our day with a workshop about animals and habitats. The children were invited to work like biologists by observing some replica skulls, comparing their teeth before pondering what this might tell us about their diet – the carnivores had sharp teeth; the herbivores flat, rough teeth. We learnt about a variety of animals, including penguins, snakes and tapirs.
After the workshop, we explored the zoo. The children were fascinated by a range of animals from around the world. We were particularly enamoured by the penguins and the exploits of Arthur the tapir…
We had a fantastic day out and the children have returned to school with oodles of animal knowledge! This visit prepares us for our next science unit: Animals – Habitats
Help at home by inviting your child to recount their day at Lotherton Hall (Can they use time adverbials? e.g. First, Next, Then, After that, Finally). Can your child remember the habitats we learnt about in the workshop? Encourage your child to work like a scientist by asking questions – what would you like to find out about animals and their habitats?
Living and Learning
I know some drugs can be harmful
Our Living and Learning lesson this week, focused on media messages and influences in relation to tobacco, vaping and alcohol. We assessed the reliability of sources and learned how to access reliable and accurate advice and information about alcohol, tobacco and vaping (e-cigarettes). In pairs and as a class, we discussed what the media messages might make a young person think, feel or do (or want to do).
During our lesson, we also talked about what children can do if they feel worried. We shared this resource with them and it is displayed in our classroom:
Help at home – Ask your child where they can go should they have any worries.
Exploring Habitats at Lotherton Hall!
This week, Year One had a fantastic trip to Lotherton Hall to learn about animals and their habitats. Guided by the educational specialists, we explored different habitats and the animals that call them home.
We compared the skulls of a herbivore and a carnivore, noticing how their teeth are perfectly suited to their diets. The children were fascinated to learn that penguins have sharp tongues to help them grip slippery fish!
This was a great start to our new Science unit about animals!
Help at Home:
- Explore your garden or local park and talk about the animals and their habitats.
- Read books about animals and how they survive in the wild.
- Watch nature documentaries together
Lost and Found
Our story this week has been Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and the weather has certainly helped us learn about cold climates.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost. Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg. We used the globe to find Antarctica and enjoyed finding other interesting places.
“I have found my name Savannah!”
“When I’m big I’m going to go to Tokyo with my dad, I want to see the tall buildings!”
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Let’s Put on Our Mittens.
Let’s put on our mittens,
and button up our coats.
Wrap our scarves snuggly around our throats.
Pull on our shoes and fasten the straps.
And tie on tightly our warm woollen hats.
Open the door, and out we go.
Out, into the soft and feathery snow.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Maths – super subitising!
This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.
Notices
Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 2.20pm – 3pm
Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).
Living and Learning – I know what a drug is and that some drugs can be harmful
This week in living and learning we have been discussing how medicines and household products can help us, what the risks are of using them and how we can reduce these risks.
Year 4 were unanimous in their appreciation of medicine as something which can help you “to get better” but noted the risks:
- that if you take too much of it you may become more ill
- that you could choke on a tablet
- you might be allergic to it.
Their top tips to minimise these risks are:
- keep it in a high drawer
- if you use a syringe look at the back of the box to see how much you need
- be slow when you take it
- always do it with your grown up
- ask the doctor if you are not sure
Help at home: discuss with your child how you store and access medicine at home to keep them safe. Can you work with your child to do a ‘safety audit’ around the house to find any risks associated with medicine or household products that could be mitigated?
Maths – Multiplying 3 numbers
On Thursday and Friday, Year 4 explored how to multiply three single digit numbers efficiently. We started with a maths story …
The children used the picture to help them to visualise the maths story and then recorded their method for calculating how many counters there were altogether.
As a team, we shared our different methods and discussed which ones were the most efficient.
Our oracy target this half-term is all about using others in the group. The class worked collaboratively to ensure that they explained their method. When other learners didn’t understand, they rephrased their explanation and used clear descriptions to help their peers visualise their method. I was really proud of how the children were brave and used our Christian Value of honesty to tell their peers when they didn’t understand their method. The children showed compassion to each other by being patient and explaining in a different way to make sure that we could all move forward together.
Having discussed and picked apart the different methods, we realised that the pictures helped us to do part of the calculation in our head but if we wanted to be able to calculate with bigger numbers or evaluate maths stories without a picture, it would be useful to find a method we could apply consistently. This lead us to investigate whether it mattered what order you multiply factors if there are more than two factors.
Great teamwork Year 4! What amazing mathematicians and collaborative learners you are!
Persuasive Text: Clean Up!
This week, Year 1 enjoyed reading Clean Up! by Nathan Bryon, which starts our unit on persuasive writing. The children explored the problem of litter on the beach and how it affects animals. They discussed Rocket’s feelings and how she persuaded others to help clean up. Inspired by Rocket, we began writing about the problem and over the next couple of weeks, the children will try to convince others to help fix it with their own writing.
Help at Home: Talk with your child about keeping our environment clean. Encourage them to spot litter during walks and discuss how we can protect wildlife. Together, we can all be heroes like Rocket!
Learning About the Life Cycle of a Plant!
This week, Year 1 explored the fascinating life cycle of plants! We learned what plants need to grow: sunlight, water and healthy soil. The children planted their own spider plants for the classroom, which we’ll care for and monitor weekly. Later this term, we’ll review and discuss how the plants have changed over time. The plant we are monitoring currently stands at 10cm tall!
Help at Home: Encourage your child to observe plants at home, water them, and talk about their growth.