Kidsgrove Primary School
Empowering Learners...Growing Minds
Week Beginning 14th June 2021
This last week the children have in maths being learning to tell the time on the hour, to half past the hour on an analogue clock and to use language of time when discussing the days of the week, months of the year and sequencing events. Again, this has been a new topic for the children to learn, but they have been relentless in working hard on this area of maths. A few children got to complete some mastery questions, while others had an opportunity to carry on consolidating their new learning. We still need to work on the spelling of the months of the year and days of the week, so use the resources below to help you.
In literacy we have been learning about the features of a non-chronological report. Picking the features out in a range of texts. We have also begun to develop questions that we want to research and find the answer to, as we gather factual information which we will later share when we create our own report. These are the examples we looked at and the features we picked out.
In phonics we continued to look at our nonsense and real words, made of our phase 5 alternative spellings for previously taught sounds.
We went on word hunts outside and enjoyed the sunshine at the same time. We all really loved this. We do need to keep working on these words, so here are some to work on. We completed something similar in one of our lessons, so we know what to do.
In the afternoons we had a focus on plants for science and art. We learnt about the type of plants that grow in our garden and in the wild. We went on a flower hunt around school and then used what we know to help us create painting of flowers using different materials and media. We have also worked on our preparations for sports day, which will be happening next Friday. Mrs Fraser has asked that for next Friday, we all wear a white t-shirt, black or blue shorts and our running shoes. We also need a sun hat and cream, just in case the weather is hot. Due to Covid 19 restricts we are not sure yet if you will be able to come and watch, but if not we will take lots of photographs for you to see. Just watch this space.
Well have a lovely week.
Year 1 children and the staff.
Week Beginning the 7th June 2021
What a busy week we had in the Grey Squirrels class. This week we had some new faces in our class to come and teach us as part of their teacher training and this helped us to adjust to what it will be like for September when we have a new teacher.
This week we worked extremely hard on an areas of maths that we all found hard. We learnt about the value of each coin and note that we have in England, and then used these to compare and add different amounts of money. As we were applying our addition skills aswell as thinking about the actual money element of the learning, we had to focus extremely well. Although we did find it tough, we demonstrated skills of resilience and determination. We didn't give up and kept going. Next week we will be moving onto time, so start thinking about why we need to know the time.
In literacy we read chapter 9 of George's Marvellous Medicine and we used it in order to create a comic strip, learning about speech and thought bubbles and how the illustrations can tell a story. We had great fun drawing out the story and events from this chapter. On Monday next week we will be putting it altogether to create a polished piece of writing. We can't wait to show them off when they are done.
In phonics we continued to work on our knowledge and skills of blending to read real and nonsense words. Mrs Fraser hopes we are working on them, at home, so we can become the best readers. We also worked hard in our spelling test, with most of us getting the higher marks. the class are learning that the more we work on them at home and at school, the better we are becoming.
Next week, we will be back to our science learning around plants. So for now, have a look at what plants you have in your garden and think about what it is that makes them grow. This will help you with your learning in class, where you will be planting and looking after your own plant.
Well over and out for now, but look out for the photographs of our learning that will appear in the next day or two.
Year 1
Welcome Back to Summer Term Two
It's going to be a busy half term, so hold onto your hats and away we go!
This half term we will be consolidating everything we have learnt across all subjects areas and will be preparing for your transition into Year 2. You will receive your class reports outlining your progress this year and it will also indicate your next steps as you go forward into Year 2. We are hoping if the weather remains good to welcome back sports day and celebration events. So keep your fingers crosses as we would like your parents to join us for such events.
This half term is your last chance to push forward with those key skills of Year 1, so please keep going and give it your all. Keep working on your reading and spelling of key words, as this will really help as you move into year 2.
I can't wait to see you back, ready to make every minute count once again.
See you soon
Mrs Fraser, Mrs Ellis and Mrs Matthews
Week beginning 17th May
In maths this week we learnt all about fractions by cutting different foods into halves and quarters. We also learnt how to split shapes, real objects and amounts in to halves and quarters using practical equipment and pictorial representations!
In English this week we created our own rhyming couplets and wrote our own George’s Marvellous Medicine Chant! We also learnt about the features of a retell and we began retelling the chapter ‘Grandma Gets The Medicine’ using role play and story mapping to sequence the main events.
In Science, we experimented with a number of objects to see which ones floated and which would sink.
In Art we learnt about primary and secondary colours and ventured outside to collect natural materials which we used to create printed artwork.
Parent Update- Year 1 Phonics Screening
Over the next few weeks the children will be building up their phonics knowledge in preparation for completing the Year 1 phonics screening test, which is set by the government to identify how children have achieved so far in their early reading skills. Although the children have made great progress in their early reading skills, some children still have a way to go. The key for children's success in this test, is through the additional opportunities they have at home to practise what they have learnt in class. It is imperative that the children work on recalling all of their phase 2-5 sounds, so that they can blend to read and build up words confidently and have the ability to hear the words the individual sounds make.
May I ask, that all parents work through the sounds charts with their children ensuring they can recognise the sounds individually and can read them within real and nonsense words. Without the added practise, some children will not be able to pass and achieve a score of 32 out of 40 in the test. This test is usually reported to the government, however due to Covid 19, this information will be kept for the school assessment and reported to the Trust. It is important we work in partnership to help your child to be the best version of themselves and to help them to become confident readers, who move into year 2 on track and not behind their national ability peers across the country.
See all the resources below to help you work with your child on these key skills.
Many thanks
Mrs Fraser
Week beginning 10th May
This week we have been sharing, rhyming, painting and experimenting!
In Maths we read "The Doorbell Rang" as we learnt about sharing, and we shared out our cookies as more and more people came to the door. We continued to practise sharing throughout the week.
In English we wrote recipes for our own marvellous medicine full of gruesome ingredients such as stringy snail slime, sour vinegar, greasy engine oil and mouldy old cheese.
We conducted our very own experiment this week in science to find out which material would be best to fix a broken umbrella. We explored materials, choosing which ones we wanted to test and made we planned our investigation, made predictions and conducted our experiment. We found the plastic bag to be the most effective material to fix the umbrella.
In art we followed a recipe to make our own paint and painted our clay pots ready to go on our George's Marvellous Medicine display.
Our star of the week is Archie for his super reading which he has been working very hard on recently. He also shone in Maths this week. Well done Archie, we are super proud of you!
Week beginning 4th May
Our class has had to fit lots of learning into four days this week!
We have been grouping in 2's 5's and 10's in Maths using our practical equipment to solve problems.
The fun continued with George’s Marvellous Medicine and we began writing instructions for our own marvellous potions, getting creative with our ingredients, and using lots of descriptive language and bossy verbs.
We continued exploring materials and their properties, learning about what different objects are made from and their properties based on how they look and feel like.
We began our Muck Mess and Mixture topic by getting messy, mixing and combining materials to create potions and seeing the reactions. We made bubbly lava lamps, slimy gloop and frothy foam.
Finally, our star of the week this week is Amelia! Amelia has been a superstar this week, working really hard and working independently- well done Amelia!
Week beginning 24th May 2021
On Monday we had an art day all around George's Marvellous Medicine. We got messy making paper mache potion bottles; we painted Kandinsky- style printed potion bubbles; we drew portraits of Grandma and learnt about the wax resist technique; made clay pinch pots and had a go at splatter painting. We can't wait to get all of our fantastic artwork up on display in our classroom!
In Maths this week we learnt about using arrays to represent multiplication, continuing our work on multiples of twos, fives and tens. We used practical equipment to make our own arrays and drew arrays to solve problems and complete sentences about multiplication groups.
In English we continued our work on George's Marvellous Medicine, focussing on poetry. We learnt about alliteration and created rhyming pairs including alliteration and descriptive language. We then wrote our own version of the poem "10 things found in George's Medicine" using rhyming and alliteration. Next week we will look at instruction writing.
Finally, we started a new topic in Science this week- materials- muck, mess and mixture. We looked at some different materials, including metal, wood, plastic, glass and water; we thought about what they look and feel like and what they could be used for. We will continue this topic next week when we will be learning about the properties of different materials and getting messy making our own potions!
Week Beginning 21st April 2021 (Week 1 of the Summer Term)
Hello everyone!! It has been a very busy week this week, as our teachers put five days into four, as they had teacher training on Monday. Mrs Fraser, Mrs Ellis and Mrs Matthews, told us they had learnt lots of new things and have some great ideas to help us with our learning.
It's been a jump straight back in approach with the highest of expectations placed upon us as always. There have been lots of dojo's awarded this week to reward us for our excellent work.
In maths this week we have started a new topic of multiplication and division, so we have been learning all about making equal groups using lots of practical equipment and then following on with written models in our books.
In Literacy we have continued to use of text of George's Marvellous Medicine and have focused our attention to Chapter 2, where he lists all the ingredients going into our potion. We have used this to make links with the list poem, Ten Things Found in a Wizards Pocket and have focused on the structure of the poem. Next week we will be looking at rhyme and alliteration as a feature of poetry. Each of us looked at developing the original poem by adding in descriptive vocabulary and phrases to describe each of the items in the wizards pocket. We had lots of fun with this.
We have also been continuing to develop our knowledge of the split digraphs a-e, i-e, e-e. and will work on u-e and o-e next week.
Each week will now have a spelling test, like Year 2 on our tricky words.
These are the ones we focused on spelling this week; some, come, like, do, there.
Here are all the sounds and tricky words we must secure this half term.
Welcome back for the Summer Term.
A massive welcome back to my lovely Squirrels. I hope you have had a lovely Easter break and are now ready for the last term of your Year One curriculum. This term is going to be a fly by the seat of your pants term, as we have so many things to do, in addition to our
We will also be working outside of the classroom this week, whilst our new doors are fitted around the area. You will hear lots of banging an drilling, but it is nothing to worry about. This lovely new doors will not only give up a sensational looking environment, but they will also be there to ensure, in the event of a fire, they keep us safe. I am sure when you see the building contractors, you will continue to show them your outstanding behaviour and will greet them as we do in class with a 'good morning and good afternoon'. You can ask them questions. I know they are strangers to you, but these when in school are the strangers that we do lots of special checks on, so that we can make sure they are safe to be around you. All of the builders and safe, so ask away. You never know, in years to come you could be in a school, doing the same job as them. However, you need your maths skills, knowledge of materials and their properties to do a cracking job of fitting the doors correctly.
This week and for the rest of the half term, we will be working on any of our areas of learning that we just don't know yet, as identified by our teachers from the assessments we did before half term. Each day there will be root recovery lessons to help us ensure that any gap in learning is closed before we leave year one. We will also be sending our homework task to also help us address key areas.
For us as a class we will be working on our spelling, our handwriting , sentence structure and our application of learning into word problems. So for all our mums and dads out there, please support us in achieving in these areas. A little practise a day a day, will kepp Mrs Fraser away.
We will also be covering new skills in maths which we haven't covered before, such as multiplication and division, time, position, fractions etc and will continue to work on our grammar skills of capital letters for names of people, places and I. In science we will be looking at materials and our topic for art will be muck, mess and mixture. That means I wont be coming home clean from school, unless I come with my spare t-shirt for these lessons.
As you will agree, we have exciting times ahead and we can't wait to get going once again. We are all safe, loving learning and loving life. We know we only get out what we put it, so it's full stream ahead from the Squirrel Class.
Here's to a lovely term.
Week Beginning 28.3.21
As we prepare to take our Easter break, we also this week have showcased our learning to our teachers. We have demonstrated everything we have learnt up to this date through a wide range of assessments this week. This is the first time we have sat a more formal style of assessment, however just as our teachers had hoped, we all coped with them extremely well. Well just to be boastful, we did incredibly well. As a class we worked extremely hard on applying our reading, writing, maths and phonics skills. As a result, from where we started in September last year, despite Covid 19 trying to stand in our way, we have still made mighty progress. Our teachers are over the mood, as are we. However, it's not over yet. We still have a new term ahead of us after the half term break, where we will focus on deepening our learning further, whilst learning new skills and we will begin to prepare for our transition into Year 2. We can't wait to see what the final term brings.
Here are some of the other things we got up to this week, whilst completing our assessments.
Week Beginning 22.3.21
Oh my goodness, the weeks are just flying by as we are busy in class. This week we have taken our learning outside as we were introduced to the maths area of capacity. We have also started the new text "George's Marvellous Medicine", to help us develop our comprehension skills and our writing of character descriptions. We have focused heavily on chapter one and after the Easter break will continue to work on the rest of the chapters.
Have a look at our maths learning this week. We had some much fun working in groups as we worked on comparing the capacity of containers and ordering containers by the amount of water they could hold.
In phonics this week, we have been learning the new alternative spellings for 'ph, ew, oe,au and ey'. Here a few pieces of our learning.
Week Beginning- 15.3.21
This week has seen our trainee teacher taking a lead in the teaching this week in class with the children. Although Miss Ani was extremely nervous, she has done a wonderful job of continuing our learning at an outstanding level.
We have continued to work on our phase 5 phonics this week and have explicitly been taught the phonic sounds 'oy, ir, ue, aw and wh'. During our learning we were able to work on hearing the sounds, recall the previous way of spelling these sounds (phase 3) and how to spell them with their new way of spelling. For some of os we worked on spelling the word, whilst others were using them in their won developed sentences. We had a big focus on reading words containing these sounds and all of the others we have been taught to date. Next week, we will be working on ph, ew, oe and au. We have also been continuing to learn the spellings of our tricky/memory words.
Here below are some videos you can use to help you to revise what we have learnt.
This week we have also been looking at and learning about the weight/ass of objects and using the language of heavier and lighter to make comparisons between objects. We used the scales in class to weigh objects, but before we did this we had to estimate which object we thought out of two would be the heaviest or the lightest. We then found out by weighing, using objects and then using non standards measures, such as cubes. Some of us also had a go at answer problem solving and reasoning questions involving mass. These are some of the slides we looked at to help us with our learning.
This week, we have also been completing our learning around the text of Jack and the Beanstalk. During this week, we have written up our favourite part of our stories and published them in our special writing books. In order to do this, we had to go back and check on our spelling and grammar to make sure that all mistakes had been edited. When that was all done, we moved on to looking at the story of Jasper and his beanstalk, which we used to produce a short piece of writing, which described the character Jasper. Our focus was to use expanded noun phrases and the conjunction 'and' within our punctuated sentences. We are all working with our own personal targets and are trying really hard to improve our writing.
Week Commencing 8th March 2021
Despite the rain and the window trying to put us off this week, our learning continues to grow. We have used the rain water this week to strengthen our roots during out covid root recovery lessons, based around our needs on handwriting, basic recall of number facts and addition and subtraction within 20. We have also worked on counting forwards and back, along the numberline.
This week we have also been working on comparing numbers, ordering numbers and counting in multiples of 2's. We found counting in 2's a bit tricky, so we had further practise on this on Friday, before we move next week onto counting in multiples of 5's. Mrs Fraser has added the slides onto the learning pages, so that we can go back and review this, which will help us work on this skill and deepen our understanding. Here are a few of the models we have used this week to help us to count in multiples of 2. As you can see their is a pictorial representation, use of the number square to identify the pattern with numbers when counting in 2's and how this is related to counting on in multiples of 2, along the numberline.
In literacy this week, we have been following modelled and guided examples of how we can play around and change parts of an original story with our own ideas. As we know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk really well, we have been able to answer questions based on the story to develop our comprehension skills and then have used this to support our writing. Can you spot the parts of the story that were changed in the WAGOLL? The features we have highlighted, are the skills we have been learning about and working hard to include in our writing.
We have looked at a WAGOLL based on an example of how to add new ideas into a story and then planned out our own changes. From the models and guided examples, we then wrote our own opening, build up and problem to the story. As a class we had lots of wonderful ideas around new characters, new settings and new items that Jack could steal. Have a look at our examples, to see what you think about our wonderful new ideas. Next week, we will be completing our stories and editing, improving and publishing the favourite part of our stories.
Week Commencing the 1st March 2021
These weeks are beginning to fly by, as we begin to enter into the Spring months. The weather is improving and this means that we are able to take our learning outside. In order this week to celebrate all that we had learnt in maths and literacy, we got the opportunity to go outside and plant our own magic beans, to see if we can grow our own beanstalks. This was part of our reward this week for the hard work we have put it.
It has been another week of practical learning in maths, using concrete objects and picture representations to help us compare numbers and we have also been working on our rapid recall of number bonds. We know these are really important as we begin to work with bigger numbers. The class then moved on to representing numbers through their own pictorial representations. However, we did find this a bit tricky, so we used smaller squared paper to help us present our work neatly and accurately. We were all much more successful in achieving the learning object with this means of presentation of our learning.
In literacy, we completed our writing of a recount for the original version of Jack and the beanstalk, along with writing a letter of apology from Jack. We are still waiting for a response from the giant, however we know he is so busy running around the fluffy, white clouds chasing other children. Maybe he knows how busy we are, so he hasn't yet made it down to see us. During the writing of our letters, we focused on the used of vocabulary to describe how Jack or the Giant was feeling, aswell as asking him a question, which we punctuated with a question mark. Something else we have been learning about the last few weeks. We all published our writing on Friday and Mrs Fraser was pleased that we are increasing our independence when writing in class. You will find them in our published writing books.
Next week, we will be beginning to play around with the original version of the story and will be substituting in our own ideas, to make the story more interesting. This will require us to bring together all that we know about characters, settings, story language, time conjunctions, expanded noun phrases and varied punctuation.
Over the next few weeks, we will also be focusing on our key areas of root recovery, that have been identified by our teachers. We will have personalised learning that means the needs of any gaps we have. We can't wait for this, as we know it will help our learning, move on so much more.
Have a look below to see what we have been up to this week.
Here's to another happy week ahead folks!!!
Grey Squirrels.
Week Commencing 22.2.21
What another busy week for squirrels! This week we have been mastering our understanding of the value that each digit has within a 2 digit number and have been learning to represent numbers in many different ways, using practical equipment. In order to take our learning deeper, some of us have also been working on solving problems and reasoning questions.
We have also continue with our learning around the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and at the end of the week, we were able to use all that we had learnt about the story, to retell the beginning and build up, in our our words using, story language, key vocabulary, time conjunctions and descriptive language. It also meant we had a wonderful opportunity to apply our previous learning of capital letters, full stops and fingers spaces, along with our phonics knowledge, as we wrote.
In the afternoon this week, we have been working on our creative side, making our own beanstalks out of craft materials, along with making our own scary giants. I do hope you find our giants on the scary side! We made them to try and avoid Jack climbing back up the beanstalk. As you can see, they have been added to our class beanstalk, which the children have been asking the questions, as to how it got to grow in our class, whilst they were off for half term.
Next week, we will continue to write our retell of the story and will also being learning about the features of letters, as we aim for the end of the week, to be writing to the giant, as if we were Jack, offering him an apology for Jack's awful behaviour.
For now though, we wish you a pleasant week ahead,
Grey Squirrel Class.
Keeping Fit Whilst Learning at Home.
Whilst our other children in school are having access to PE lessons in school, we don't want anyone to miss out. So have a look at the is website, where you will find some useful videos and ideas on how to keep not only your mind, but your body healthy.
Week 21- Assessment Week
Our learning this week in reading and writing has been based around the animation 'Way Back Home', which is about a little boy that builds a rocket and goes into space, where he makes friends with an alien and helps him to fix his broken ship. The use of animations in literacy, is one of the way that our teachers help to engage us in reading and writing opportunities, making our learning fun and purposeful. We have learnt to answer 'VIPER' questions about the text and then have helped to use our understanding of what we have learnt, in our
writing. The focus this week was on develop our use of noun phrases, as we got to describe the little boys, alien friend. As you can see, our vocabulary is developing nicely and we are also beginning to develop our sentences by joining clauses together, using 'and' to do this.
In maths, we have been working on measuring and the importance of measuring accurately with a ruler. It has been a handon week and we have worked with our partners to develop our learning, as we measured things around the classroom. We all now know how to use a
ruler to measure and that we can also use them to draw straight lines.
This week the children also have had an opportunity to showcase all that they have learnt and achieved over this last half term, alongwith what they have retained and built upon since September. The children have worked extremely hard, whether in school or at home. We have shown in the Year One class, that despite Covid 19 being around, nothing can keep us away from our learning and being able to make super progress. Our teachers are extremely proud of us and they can now use our assessment evidence, to plan the way forward for our learning in Spring Two. We have a few areas to work on, such as handwriting, securing number work to 20, adding suffixes and prefixes to root words, spelling the days and months, alongside securing all our previous phonics learning, as we also move forward with Phase 5 reading and spelling confidently.
Have a look at our writing, which is what we are most proud of this week.
As we come to the end of the week, we would like to wish everyone a happy, restful and pleasant half term. It is time to take a break, recharge and prepare for the next half term.
Our teachers want us to play games with our families, go for a walk in the park, bake some delicious cakes, paint some pictures and just have some fun with our families. They have told us, that we have earnt a break and I know they need to hang up their super hero capes and recovery from what has been a sensational half term.
So far now, it's over and out and we will see you all again real soon.
Stay safe
The Little Grey Squirrels!
Week 20 (Beginning 1st February 2021)
This week it has been another busy week in the Grey Squirrel class. We have been working incredibly hard in order to develop our learning around reading and writing instructions. This weeks end of learning task, was for us to be able to write our own instructions for making our very own hot air balloon. In order to do this, we had to learn about the features of instructions, the language that is used (bossy verbs/imperative verbs.time conjunctions,) the layout and structure of instructions and the use of drawn illustrations or photographs to show the instructions in pictorial form.We learnt that the visual images for instructions are key for those struggling readers and are useful where there are no accompanying written instructions. We linked our learning back to the 'Blue Balloon' which was our previous story writing text, but also had the support of our new text 'How to wash a woolly mammoth', in order to help us gain all we needed to know about instructions, so that we could write our own. Mrs Fraser had us follow instructions given verbally and written, so that we could make our balloon, then we went on to write a full set of instructions, with added illustrations. Have a look at our work below.
With our teacher sat with us, we were able to go back and edit our work, so that for the final write up, all errors in spelling, etc could be improved upon.
We have also had a great deal of focus on developing our maths skills of using different methods of calculation to solve addition and subtraction calculations. This has involved us using numberlines, part whole models, the bar model and fact family knowledge. We have applied our learning to fluency, reasoning and problem solving, up to 20. We are becoming master mathematicians with numbers up to 20, so that we can then build upon this knowledge and learning, when working with numbers to 50 and 100, which is the end of expectation for Year 1. We are all well on our way to achieving within this area of maths. We have also had lots of written root recovery sessions to help us catch up on areas such as; patterning with numbers, shapes and objects and recalling days of the week and how these days are spelt.
In class we also worked on lots of mindful strategies to help keep ourselves calm and to help us focus on our learning. We had circle times, mindfulness colour activities, yoga and singing with Mrs Matthews. She has a super voice! Maybe you might get to hear her, when it is safe for you to come and visit.
We have also started to learn our Phase 5 sounds, after a lot of phonics catch up work. This week we have learnt that there are lots of different ways of spelling the same sound. My goodness, English is a bit tricky. It's a good job we are persistent in our class. We don't give up easily.
Next week, we will be using an animation to help us with our literacy skills and we will be working further to develop our measure skills, which we were introduced to, a few weeks ago. It is also assessment week, so there will be lots of quizzes and activities to help us showcase all the wonderful learning, we have achieved this half term. We can't wait to wow Mrs Fraser and Mrs Matthews. I am sure that our teachers will be sharing with our parents just how well we get on, at the end of next week.
Week 19 (25.1.21)
This week the children have been learning about instructions in Literacy for both reading and writing. The children have based this learning around the text 'How to wash a wooly mammoth'. They have also been able to identify a range of features linked to instructions al texts. They used a variety of texts and worked through them to highlight their features. The class then went on to finding the key vocabulary that is needed in order to make instructions work. Mr and Mrs Bossy came to help, teaching the children the bossy/imperative verbs that command them to do something or make something. Have a look at some of the children's work from this week. At the end of the week the children followed instructions on 'How to brush their teeth' and did a great job! They all ended up with pearly white teeth.