Houses and Homes - Castles

Today the FS2 started looking at castles as their weekly topic focus. They arrived at school to a castle role play! Throughout the day the children made swords and crowns to use in the castle. We had a selection of queens, princesses, kings, princes and knights (photos to follow). FS2 talked about the Queen, who she was and where she lives. They also thought about how they should behave if they went to the Queens palace or castle.

Year 1 have been looking at unusual homes and today we looked at canal barges and narrow boats. The children were fascinated at the idea of a horse pulling the barge along the tow path. They were even more impressed with how the men got the boats through a tunnel with no engine or horse!

REMINDER: Healthy Tuck Shop tomorrow at playtime. Bring your 30p.

REMINDER: Cake sale on Friday. Class 1 are to bake. Please bring in your cakes on Friday morning and leave them in the staffroom. All children will need 25p to have a cake at playtime.

Iona's window

Above are some of the children's latest creations using purple mash. All of the children have been creating houses using different tools including a brick and tile brush for decoration. Today the children created windows.

DO YOU HAVE? If you have any fossils please send them in for the children to look at.

Reminder: Mrs Southall will be in tomorrow morning. Year 1 maths and spelling homework will need to be handed in in the morning.

Noah's Ark

This week the year 1 children have been reading 'Noah's Ark' and thinking about animal homes. Yesterday they made symmetrical watercolour paintings of animals that went into the ark. The children folded a piece of paper in half. On one side they drew their chosen animal, painted it, then folded it in half to create another image. The children then added detail to their animal using oil pastels one they had dried.

FS2 have been looking at a dinosaur museum and made their own dinosaur called Rexy. They gave instructions as to how they wanted him to be drawn and then decorated him.

Monday 24th January

Amber created this lovely picture using different shapes.

A group of boys made a garage for all the emergency vehicles!

FS2 are continuing to look at dinosaurs in their literacy and maths. Today they watched a clip of a little boy who went to visit a dinosaur museum. Their challenge was to remember the name of at least one dinosaur from the clip. FS2 had a go at matching dinosaurs to their name using the initial sound. In maths FS2 were taking away dinosaurs using their fingers through reading a dinosaur poem.

Year 1 are looking at a story called 'Bold the Bad' this week. It is all about a naughty cat. Today the children worked in talk partners to read the poem, practise and then recite it to the rest of the class. Their speaking skills were fantastic.

This afternoon, Year 1 looked at the story of 'Noah' and the temporary home he made for all the animals. They then went on to make symmetrical paintings of different animals. By painting one, folding it over and opening it again they had 2 animals.

FS2 have been talking about rules in the construction corner:

• No more than one model each kept on the display.
• We don't take parts off these models to use on our own.
• All models must be labelled and named.

Making clay houses

Otto's House

Archie's House

As promised some pictures of the clay houses that year 1 made yesterday. They are now drying in the classroom and we need to decide whether or not to paint them.

FS2 had a go at writing number sentences today such as 4 +4 = 8. They enjoyed the challenge of having to work out how many legs there would be in total on 2 dinosaurs.

FS2 also played a memory game where they had to work out which of 'Harry's' dinosaurs had got lost. They were very good and even noticed if two had gone and named which dinosaur was missing.

Year 1 made their own versions of 'Handa's Suprise' but made the setting the UK. We talked about fruit that would grow in this country and the types of animals that might take the fruit.

This afternoon year 1 had ICT. They continued the topic of homes using 'Purple Mash' to create a home and some even managed to 'paint' the view from a window in their house. Have a look in their folder on the purple mash website to see their work that they should have saved!

NOTE: Mrs Southall will be teaching all day in Class 1 tomorrow.