KS1 – Newsletter – 16.10.26

We have continued to use the Little people Big dreams book about ‘Florence Nightingale’. We listened to and acted out the story of Florence going to help out in the Crimean war on ‘Now Press Play’. We then wrote lots of sentences about Florence Nightingale, focusing specifically on our handwriting.

This has also fed into our history lessons. We looked at the difference Florence Nightingale made in hospitals. Before she came, the hospitals were dirty, smelly and some soldiers slept on the floor and ate poor quality food. Florence changed things by ensuring the hospitals were cleaned well. She made nurses wash their hands, had beds for all the soldiers and gave them all warm nutritious food.

In maths, Year one have begun to recognise the difference between tens and ones columns. They have identified how many tens and ones are in a given two digit number and have made these numbers using base ten, play dough and counters. One group in Year Two continued to compare numbers using greater and less then, specifically focusing on reasoning and explaining. The other group were adding and subtracting to the nearest ten and across tens. They have used their knowledge of number bonds to help them with this. They have been using practical resources to help with the visualisation of this skill.

On topic day, the children were exploring scientifically. They did a variety of different activities, allowing them to explore. They had a floating and sinking activity, to predict and then test which objects would float and sink. Weighing scales, again to predict and then test, which objects they thought would be heavier and lighter. They used their observational skills to look at all kinds of natural materials and described what they noticed, eg the rough bark and tiny vein lines on the leaves. They were also taking a final look at the fruit and vegetables that have been left out of the fridge. Some were completely mouldy and shrivelled.

In geography we used Google Earth to have a look at our school. We then zoomed out to have a look at the town surrounding it, then further out to the city, the county, country and then the continent. The children were using Atlases to see if they could find different countries and looked at some cities that are in England.

In RE, we discussed how we thought the world was created. We heard about how scientists and lots of people believe that there was a big bang and the world and everything in it has evolved from that. We also watched videos of how Christians and Muslims believe that the world was created through God/ Allah. We thought about what was the same in the two stories and what was different. We also did some wondering and thought about what questions we would ask if there was a creator, such as ‘Why did you create animals that sting?’ and ‘Why are some animals stripy and some animals are spotty?’

We were dancing in PE. We had to think of a character and choose a move that the character might do. We put these moves into counts of eight. We kept adding different moves from different characters, to build up a full dance.

We gave the children a number of scenarios to debate, based on some of the things we have been learning about in PSHE over the last half term. For example, ‘Mrs Hunter is banning sweets from the Halloween disco (this is not really happening!) because sweets are bad for you and you should never eat them.

Dates for your diary:

Friday 23rd October – Training day for the children – PARENT’s ‘EVENING’ – Please book on line

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.