26th Sep '25
Another week has flown by! Year 1 and 2 have been very busy. We have been authors, mathematicians, scientists, artists, so many different things!
Year 2 have written their stories based on "Alfie's Star" by Sue Cove. We have had all different sorts of creatures finding the star from dinosaurs to unicorns to field mice. What lovely ideas the children had for their writing.
In spelling, Year 2 have been focussing on the alternative spellings for "ee" - ea, ie, e-e, ey, y. There are so many different ways. We have thought about which graphemes are more likely in the middle of a word or at the end of a word.
Year 1 have been thinking about verbs in their grammar. A verb is a doing word. We enjoyed coming up with different verbs! In phonics, they have continued to think about words that have two consonants together. They have also been focussing on vowels. This is new learning and is not yet embedded. If you wish to support this learning at home then feel free to frequently drop into conversation the question – what are the five vowel sounds?
Also, we are learning how to write the days of the week and numbers (as words) one, two, three. Next week we will reinforce four, five, and six. We will need to know these spellings for our Maths learning as we have been matching numerals and words (eight is proving to be particularly tricky).
Year 1 Library books
These need to be returned on a Monday in readiness for our library session on a Wednesday.
In maths, Year 2 have been thinking about place value and partitioning numbers. We can partition 45 into 4 tens and 5 ones. The 4 tens represents 40 and the 5 ones represent 5. This can then be written as 40 + 5 = 45 or 45 = 40 + 5. We can also partition 45 into 30 and 15 or 20 and 25.
Year 1 have been working hard with their weighing. We have been finding out about the mass of an object. How many cubes does it take to balance both sides of the scales?
In science, the children have all found out about wild plants and flowers and how these are different from flowers and plants that we plant in our gardens. We went on a walk around school to see if we could find any wild plants and any plants that have been planted. The children helped to take some photographs.
We found some flowers that had been planted.
We found lots of wild plants growing as well - ivy, blackberries, clover and nettles.
In art, Year 1 and 2 were introduced to the artist Vincent Van Gogh and his painting "Starry Night". We looked at how the artist created different shades of blue and used short brush strokes to paint the sky. The children used their colour mixing skills that they have been working on to mix different shades of blue and then make short brush strokes on paper. This is in preparation for creating their own "Starry Night" piece of art.
Forest school this week was also great fun. We started by going on a hunt for different objects - something that was spotty, something that was smooth etc. The children then loved making dens, playing with the pulley and using a hand drill to drill through their conkers to make necklaces and bracelets!
In Maths on Thursday and Friday Kingfishers have been exploring 2D and 3D shapes, we started by sorting 2D shapes and then moved onto exploring the faces of 3D shapes! Some of us found it a bit tricky to identify the different 3D shapes but once we had named them were able to relate them to everyday objects.....
"A sphere looks like a ball" "....and the world"
"A cylinder is like your water bottle Mrs Brown!"
"A cube is just like the blocks in Minecraft!"
If you can continue to point out objects that are 2D and 3D shapes at home and in the environment and get your child to name them them and discuss their properties, it would really help to develop their confidence and deepen their understanding of shapes!
Thursday morning seemed to fly by and soon it was time for the Daily Mile!
With Kingfishers and Robins back together it was time to settle in for RE and this week we asked the following question:
What questions do the stories within the Bible made us want to ask?
"How did Jesus come back to life?" "How did God create the whole world?"
"What was the first animal in the world?" "Why were Adam and Eve called Adam and Eve?"
"What does God look like?" "Why are there no new stories?"
What amazing questions both Kingfishers and Robins came up with! We then talked about what was meant by a 'Parable' and discussed how this was a story told by Jesus to his friends. They are easier to remember and teach us something.
It was time to listen to The Good Samaritan
The children were amazing at discussing the different characters within the story and the choices that each character made, particularly noticing the Christian value of Compassion that The Good Samaritan showed.
Kingfishers and Robins then came together to use what they had learn from The Good Samaritan to think about what qualities they needed to be a good friend and started creating their own friendship flower, which we will finish next week!
These are just some of the word we came up with that we felt described the qualities of a good friend....
helpful, kind, respectful, positive, caring, thoughtful, compassionate, nice, friendly, good listener......what a great start!
We finished the week with a very special house meeting event where we got to create a new mascot for our houses! With Mrs Brown an honourary Arlington for the day out new mascot was launched and this year it was a ..........
They symbolise good fortune, represent positive change and are viewed as messengers of love that deepen bonds so felt perfect for our house!
Arlington were soon each creating ladybirds and wearing their new ladybird badges, it really was a lovely way to finish our week with all children in their houses creating their new mascots!
Have a wonderful weekend making memories, we can't wait to see you all next week for some more learning adventures!