23 Nov 2018

Year 1 Update – Week 14

Thursday 6th December – PTA DISCO
Wednesday 12th December – Christmas Concert
Friday 14th December – school finish at 12:00 for the holidays
Monday 7th January – back to school for Term 2

Camp – this week has seen some talk about the Year 4, 5 and 6 children going on camp. Our classes have seen the older children come in with larger bags and leave on buses. They all returned today with many happy but tired smiles!

It became colder… – B.H.S is in an older school building. Our classrooms are very warm even though it may be cold outside. This week we noticed some children are coming to school over dressed. Please help remind children that when they are hot they can take a layer off and then when going outside to play or if they feel cold they can put a layer on.

U.O.I rotations – here are some photos from U.O.I rotations this week. Many thanks to our parents who come to school and help every week.

How We Express Oursleves

Central Idea: Thinking helps us to imagine and create.

We will be looking at this through the concept lenses of :

Form

Function

Perspective

We will understand that thinking helps us to imagine new ideas and create.

We will understand how to make our thinking visible.

We will understand how writers and illustrators can use their imagination to create stories.

We will understand that problems can be solved in different ways using our imagination.

Next week we will focus on the difference between real and imaginary. The children will consider their own experience as well as what they have read about. Language that they will be encouraged to use will include could, might, impossible, unusual, different and normal.

A thinking routine that we will play with the children is called ‘Would you rather?’ This has the children make a choice and justify their answer. Examples include play choices, food choices or places to visit.

Lunch boxes and drink bottles Our Year one children are becoming more and more independent, they like to go and fill up their water bottles when empty and open their own lunch boxes. We are finding that some bottles and lunch boxes are closed too tight for them to open. We ask that you tighten them tight enough that they do not leak but loose enough so that your children can open them by themselves for refilling.

Toys in school

Parents, please help us support our Year 1 rule of no home toys in school. Not only can they cause distractions and arguments between students they often get lost or damaged which is greatly upsetting for the students who brought them in.

maths

Next week we will continue with our unit on addition and subtraction. We will be using number lines and number squares to support the children’s understanding. The children will also be able to use counters, cubes and other small equipment to model and solve different addition and subtraction problems.

Word problems – Often children can confidently solve addition and subtraction questions using numbers such as 3 + 3 or 5 – 3 but it becomes more challenging when these questions are asked in a sentence using words. Next week the children will be solving problems using words. Examples of these may include:

Mathletics: – All Mathletic topics are now open for this calendar year. After Christmas, there will be some more topics for the children to do at home.

Please help the children to complete the Mathletics tasks that have been assigned to your child. The children can also enjoy Maths Live and play other children live across the world.

Reading – visualising Next week we will continue to focus on the comprehension strategy of visualising. The children will be listening to stories and then describing and drawing what they visualise.

Writing – We are continuing to examine different storybooks and are going to continue working hard on creating our own pages for our own class books. We are thinking carefully about presentation and making sure our handwriting is clear and words are spelt accurately. We are encouraging the children to be more descriptive in their use of language. For example instead of I saw a cat, we are asking them to describe what the cat was like and what it’s doing, maybe even how it was doing it. Ask your child about the class book that they are making!

Unit 3 Phonics: Our third phonics unit will begin next week. Please check your child’s home school diary next week for the unit 3 bookmark.

Our phonemes for this unit are: v, w, y, j, n, k, e

Our camera words for this unit are: all, is, me, no, they, said

Please support your children in learning to read and write the camera words from unit 1 and unit 2. When you are playing the suggested phonic games please use the letter sounds rather than say the name the letters of the alphabet.

1L -Ethan Cheung

1P – Elva Tharm

1W – Davis Lai

Congratulations to all our golden book children!

We are in need of recyclable items for junk modelling play. Junk modelling is very beneficial to your child’s development in the following ways: it encourages problem-solving, exercises their creativity and improves their fine motor skills.

Examples of the sorts of items you could send in with your child:

egg cartons
plastic bottles
cardboard packaging
plastic packaging
empty kitchen roll
empty cereal boxes

Many thanks.

Here is an article taken from http://squidgydoodle.co.uk about the importance of junk modelling. This is a great site full of ideas that would give you lots of creative ideas for home.

“When you think of junk modelling you might groan and think, “Great! Now I’m going to have to show appreciation for a cereal box, with an egg carton, some wool and a few bottle tops stuck to it.” You’re probably wondering how long you’re going to have to display the ‘junk model’ before you can put it into your own recycling bin!

So, why should your kids play with rubbish?

There are loads of junk modelling benefits, so here are just a few:

Junk modelling encourages their imagination and design skills

Your child has the freedom to make whatever they choose. This requires them to visualise their end product and then transform the items from ‘junk’ to alien, robot, castle, ice-cream etc. If they want to create a completely random sculpture they can do, there is no right or wrong.

It develops problem solving skills

What? How does sticking bits of rubbish together help with problem solving? Honestly, it does. Your child selects items from the pile of ‘junk’ and comes up with a plan of how they’re going to put them together to make their creation. In doing so, they discover which things stick together and frustratingly which things don’t stick together! They often work out their own way of attaching one item to another…by using copious amounts of PVA glue, wrapping wool around the objects, or mastering the art of sellotape!

Builds self confidence

It’s a way of creating an end result that is truly original, personal and unique to them. As they’re not following strict instructions it’s less frustrating, as they’re not going to get it wrong. It can suit a range of ages, with the child determining the complexity of the creation by their ability. Allowing children to create in this way gives them a real sense of achievement and builds their self confidence.

Develops fine motor skills

Ok, so this is pretty obvious. You have to cut with scissors, do a lot of glueing, holding things together etc. It also develops the parent/carer’s fine motor skills, as they have to find the end of the sellotape! All of this is beneficial in developing the efficiency of fine motor skills to carry out tasks in everyday life. So at a very basic level, the junk modelling will help your child to get dressed more quickly in the morning!

Develops negotiation and communication skills

You may think I’m taking this a little far now, but junk modelling is very popular so your child will have to negotiate with other children to gain that neon blue fabric that they so desperately need. Hopefully they will be able to trade it for the egg carton in an amicable way!

Teaches children about recycling

Junk modelling materials can come from waste in your own house. You could use: cereal boxes, egg boxes, bottle tops, foil trays, product packaging, food nets, pipe off-cuts, fabric remnants, buttons etc. So, junk modelling teaches children that things that they would normally throw away can be turned into something else, with a little bit of imagination.

You can add in a few weird and wonderful items from a local scrapstore. Clean reusable scrap materials (which businesses find hard to recycle so would otherwise be landfilled) are made available for children to play with through a network of independent ‘scrapstores’ across the UK. You can pay a small membership fee, then be allowed to search through their treasure trove of goodies to see what you can make.

So, next time your child does some junk modelling at home, nursery, or school just remember that it’s helping your child to become a visionary, confident, problem solver and negotiator who can get dressed quickly, whilst simultaneously saving the world!

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