KS1 – Newsletter – 9.1.26

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that you all had a fantastic break. All the staff in Key Stage One would like to say a huge thank you to you all for your generous gifts before Christmas.

It’s going to be all about Africa in Key Stage One this term as we start our new topic. The children have enjoyed exploring our new Safari themed role play areas and have been making animal pictures and painting African flags.

Our first history lesson of the year has been focusing on inspirational black people and why they are inspirational. We have looked at people such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and of course, tying in with our topic, Nelson Mandela.

We have been looking at a diary of someone who had been on a safari in English. The children were able to identify the key features of a diary, that it has a date at the top, it’s written in the past in the first person and recounts events and feelings from the day. Year One have been looking at the importance of things being put in chronological order. They listened to stories and ordered pictures of what happened. They then ordered pictures from a diary entry about a safari and wrote sentences about it. Year Two have been changing verbs into the past tense and using them in sentences correctly.

Year One have begun to learn about addition this week in maths. They have been looking at how two parts join together to make a whole. They have focused on language such as addition, plus, altogether etc.. and have used bar models, part whole models and word problems to solve simple addition questions. Year Two have been completing subtraction problems. They have used Base Ten to practically remove numbers and have been using column subtraction too.

In Science, we have been looking at the appropriateness of materials for a given job. We have been looking at their properties and why they would or would not be a good material to use.

In Music, Year One have been learning about pitch. They have listened to ‘The flight of the bumblebee’ and have made a graphic score (on a flower – moving a bee up a down) they have then moved a bee up and down the score and made their voices high and low to match. Year Two have been learning how to notate rhythms. They used lego and lolly pop sticks to learn the foundation rhythmic elements.

In Italy on Epiphany (6^th January), an old lady visits all the houses to leave sweets for all the children. In art, they listened to the story of Labathana and drew pictures to illustrate the story.

To follow with our African theme, in design technology, the children are going to be making a puppet of an African elephant. Today, they started the process by designing their puppet. They thought about what the puppet was going to look like and what kind of puppet they are going to make.

 We finished off the week with our fabulous alternative PE. This half term, the children will be participating in yoga, pilates, table tennis and axe throwing

All round, it has been a great – but cold – first week back!

Dates for your diary.

Friday 13^th January – Break up for half term