KS1 – Newsletter – 6.11.26

Welcome back, we hope that you all had a relaxing and fun half term break.

This will be the final newsletter for Key Stage one in this format. You will see there are different posts for the different subjects, with photos to show what the children have been doing. We will keep reminding you of significant dates and will start to post things that you can talk to your children about or things that you can practise with them that they have been learning. Watch this space!

We have had a big focus on Bonfire Night this week in school. This culminated in us having a bonfire at an extra forest schools session on Thursday. We also created lots of different firework pictures during our provision sessions.

In English, we began to read the book ‘The Gunpowder plot’. We learned about what happened as Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and friends plotted to kill King James I. We have used this for our reading comprehensions. We also introduced letters and why we might write a letter. We focused on what needs to go on a letter and where it should be eg addresses and dates at the top, who it’s to, the main body of the letter and who it is from.

In Maths Year One have been learning how to read and write numbers in words. They have played various games and completed different activities to practise this skill. In Year Two, one group have been adding to the nearest ten using their number bond facts and have been adding three one digit numbers together. The other group have been adding two digit and two digit numbers together. They have been doing this is a variety of ways using concrete objects, pictoral and abstract methods.

We began to explore our senses in science. We recognised what each of our five senses are and why we need them. We then had the opportunity to taste different foods such as plum, banana, pepper, spinach and radishes, thinking about their texture, whether they were sweet, sour, peppery etc.. and of course, whether we liked them. We had the opportunity to smell vinegar, lemon juice, cumin, body spray and incense sticks. Again, we discussed which we liked/ disliked and thought of other smells we would put into those categories. We played a guess the sound game and had a feely bag of objects to see if we could work out what they were from the touch. We used the knowledge we’d learned from our materials topic, to accurately describe them.

Forest schools took on a geography theme this week, as the children went to do some orienteering up in the forest school’s area. They had a map with marker on, which they had to locate using their locational and positional language. Once they found the correct area, they had to write down the letter they had found there.

We have been thinking about Remembrance Day during PSHE. We thought about why we mark Remembrance day and how we do this. We talked about the significance of poppies, why they are the symbol and why we wear them.

You will be pleased to know that we have now begun practising for our Christmas nativity! It’s a lot closer than you think! The children decided if they would like a speaking part or not and parts have been given out. Your child will be bringing home the words that they need to learn and we would really appreciate your support in practising their lines with them. Hopefully, they will then learn them quickly and have more confidence when saying them infront of everyone else.

Dates for your diary:

Wednesday 9^th December – Nativity play – pm Time TBC

Thursday 10^th December – Grandparent nativity event – am Time TBC

Polite notice – We do not have lots of room in the hall. Therefore, we put on our nativity for parents and do a separate event for Grandparents to ensure there is space for everyone. We appreciate you coming to one event as appropriate.