What a fantastic World Book Day we had! It was great to see so many children dressed up as their favourite characters. Thank you for the effort you put into making the day a success, it is really appreciated. They enjoyed a special assembly which made them think about their first memory of books, where they like to read and how they choose a book. In class they drew and labeled their character then designed a new book cover for an adapted version of a story they already now. We watched a live lesson from the official World Book Day website. They explored a range of genres including science fiction, fantasy and adventure stories. We finished the day off by watching Michael Rosen perform some of his poems. All the children thought that ‘Chocolate Cake’ was the best! Click the link to watch: Chocolate Cake | POEM | Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen – YouTube

This week we have started to read the book ‘The Rainbow Bear’ by Michael Morpurgo. It is a lovely story of wishes and dreams. The Snow Bear wishes to be a Rainbow Bear but not all is what it seems and he soon changes his mind. The children have used adjectives to describe the Arctic setting and written a wish of their own. We have used this story to inspire our Design and Technology this week. We made a moving picture using a ‘slider’ mechanism to show Snow Bear wandering across the wild white wilderness.

In maths we have started to measure length and height accurately, making sure we start at zero on the ruler. They have used centimetres (cm) to measure items in the classroom then went on the playground to measure out the size of some animals in metres (m). Did you know a giant squid can measure up to 18m!

Until Easter, PE will be on MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS. Please make sure your child comes to school in PE kit: white t-shirt, plain dark joggers/leggings and a plain dark hoodie or school jumper/cardigan.

Thank you for the donations of plastic bottles ready for our science this term. We are looking forward to investigating if seeds/plants grow better with a mini greenhouse or without. Next week we will be investigating if snails prefer lettuce, cabbage, spinach or dandelion.

Have a super weekend,

Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong

We’ve made it to half term which means the children are more than half way through their time in Elm Class. They’ll be in Year 3 before we know it!

They all enjoyed the disco on Wednesday afternoon, it was so good to see them dancing and having fun. We even had two winners in Elm Class: well done Bobby P and Felicity!

It was great to see so many of you at Parent’s Evenings this week, thank you for coming along. The children will be working hard on their targets in the coming weeks. Please support them with their reading and times tables practice.

Next half term is only a short one. In the first week back it is World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March. I have talked to the children about costume ideas, please do not feel the need to go out and buy a costume. There are lots of simple home made ideas on Google and Pintrest.

Have a great half term,

Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong

This week the children have completed their newspaper report about a visit to Sealife. They thought of a catchy headline, wrote paragraphs and captions. I’m really proud of the effort they are putting into their writing. They have also completed an independent writing assessment which has generated their personal target. There is still some work to do on the correct formation of lowercase letters and presentation. We are practising everyday and the children are expected to correct their mistakes.

Next week we will be focusing on reading comprehension during our English lessons. They will need to read a text and questions carefully and answer questions in full sentences. All the children need to build up their stamina for reading longer texts. Examples of Key Stage 1 SATs Reading papers 1 & 2 can be found by following this link:

Key stage 1 tests: 2022 English reading test materials – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We have completed our unit on Multiplication and Division. All the children can talk about equal groups, multiplying, sharing and grouping. They have used equipment, pictures and drawings to represent facts and to solve problems. They must improve on their instant recall of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Please help them to practise this little and often and go over the tricky ones again and again!

In science we have concluded our learning on Living Things and their Habitats by knowing how food chains provide food. All food chains begin with a plant and end with a hungry predator.

Have a great weekend, it’s so much better now that it’s not dark by 4 o’clock!

Mrs Dowell and Mrs Armstrong