Another week got off to a super start with lots of fun in Forest School on Monday afternoon. Despite the wild and windy weather, we still had fun outdoors. Instead of being in our "forest school" area as it was rather windy, we went on the field. There was lots of creative learning and play with sticks and ropes. Children were building houses for the toys, building zip wires, making scissors from wood, what a busy afternoon!

In Literacy this week Year 2 have been planning their own story based on "Alfie's Star" by Sue Cove. The children have also started writing their stories following their own plans. We look forward to seeing the final versions next week! The characters have been changed and we have had unicorns, field mice, dinosaurs, what imaginative children there are in Kingfishers!

In phonics Year 2 have continued to think about homophones and they have been going over alternative ways of writing a sound. For example, "ai". This can also be a-e, ey, ay, a, eigh. What a lot to learn!

Year 1 have continued with Phase 4 phonics. Keep going over the Phase 4 tricky words at home as they are going to be used more and more each week. We also started our reading comprehension. We started learning what a statement is and how we can retrieve information from a piece of text or a picture to find out more information. It took us a little while to get used to this new aspect of learning. Now we know a little bit more about it we will build on it each week. There was also an expectation on how we present our learning, numbers in the margins, new statement new line. Take a look at how well we did. 

In maths, Year 2 have been thinking about tens and ones. We have thought about what each digit in the number represents - tens or ones and then we have been using this knowledge to hep us write numbers in words up to 100.

Year 1 have been learning how to sort objects, count objects and count objects from a larger group. Similar to the reading comprehension, we were a little bit slow and rusty on our first lesson but by the end of the week we were flying along and back into the swing of learning. 

In science, both Year 1 and Year 2 have continued to think about the trees around us. We went for a walk around our school grounds to see which trees we could find. We then had a go at naming the trees by looking at the leaves. Can your child remember which leaf was from which tree? We learnt that acorns come from oak trees, not acorn trees and conkers come from horse chestnut trees, not conker trees. We also found out about deciduous and evergreen trees. Evergreen trees don't loose their leaves in autumn. They stay "forever" green. However, deciduous trees loose their leaves in the autumn. The children then had to sort the different trees into deciduous or evergreen. Can you find any of these trees when you are out and about this weekend?

In art, Year 1 and Year 2 did some more apple printing. Last week our apple prints got lighter by adding white paint. This week our apple prints got darker because we added black paint. 

Our week was speeding along and as we settled into Thursday we were delighted when it time for our class shared reading, which meant that it was time for.....

This week we went aboard Grandad's ship!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! 

Kingfishers were super at discussing why the author had chosen to write write this word in capital letters and extend some of the letters, recognising the impact this has on the reader. As we read on together we finally reached the island and were excited to be getting closer to finding out what be on the Island!

However......before we could go exploring we needed to design a shelter for Grandad and Syd! So that's exactly what we did this week but not before we had some very interested discussions around what a shelter is!

When we weren't busy exploring Grandad's island we were busy exploring the 7 continents of the world! Within both Year 1 Robins and Kingfishers remembering our catching Continents song from last week we all joined in a little sing song before delving into put those words into action!

With a map in each hand, one complete and one to fill in we were ready and raring! Mrs Brown was so impressed with how both Year 1 and Year 2 used their completed maps to help them locate the 7 different continents!

As our week continued to whizz by it was time to takes some reflection time and join together for RE, with this week's focus being one celebrations within Christianity. During our discussions we focused upon Christenings and Baptisms, discussing firstly Year 1 Robin's and Kingfishers knowledge of these...

Had they ever heard of these before?

Had they ever been to a Christening or Baptism before?

If so...What happens at a Christening or Baptism?

Why do people have them?

Where do they take place?

We found out that some of us had either been to a Christening or Baptism, been Christened or remembered Reverend Mike talking to us in assembly about them so we came with a lot of information already!

"I went to one in a Church, there were lots of people"

"I went to the one in the Church where we go. Reverend Mike was there. He put a cross on the baby's head"

"I haven't ever been Christened but I do remember Reverend Mike talking about it"

"I remember I was Christened and I remember there was a candle"

Wow what super information! After our discussed we discussed the meaning of the water and why it was important.

We discussed how it represents new life and made a collage to represent this!

We had eased our way into Friday and it was time to get moving!

The sun was shining and it was surprisingly warm! This week we took our PE lesson outside and we enjoyed some fitness games outside, starting off with a little Freeze and Go game!

Could they move in the different ways when we said go? And could they find a freeze spot in time?
We then moved onto a House team game! Which team could get the beanbags across the playground first? But the trickiest part was that we had to balance the beanbags on our heads!

What a wonderful week we've had  again in Kingfishers and in the afternoons when Year 1 Robin's have joined us! Just a reminder to Kingfishers to ensure that they are bringing their reading books and reading records everyday so that we can read them in school and so that we can also change your child's book at the end of the week.

Please also ensure you are reading regularly with your child at home, once we have seen that you have read with your child we will be able to change your child's reading book. We also love to see what other books your child has read so please do write these in your child's reading book if they prefer reading alternative books- Thank you for your support with this!

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the September sun!