MP1 2015

Maths

Those of us in Year 1 have been very resilient when practising the skill of addition! We have been using our fingers and a number line to help us practise this skill!

In Year 2 we have been practising our subtracting skills! We have been learning about the different methods of subtractions and then we chose a method which best supported our thinking skills to help us solve tricky subtraction sums!

Literacy

In Year 1 we have been learning all about rhyming words! We have been playing lots of rhyming games and have been making up our own little rhymes! This skill will help us when we come to write our own poems in the new year!

In Year 2 we have been very busy creating our own characters for our Dragon Machine Story. Instead of dragons we had to use our thinking skills and decide on a different creature for our story! We described our characters using fantastic adjectives and also came up with scenarios that described the cheeky things these characters and creatures were doing! To finish, we thought about where we would take our creatures so they wouldn’t be seen by humans and wouldn’t cause any more mischief! Ask us about the silly things our creatures and characters got up to and where we were going to take them!

I have been really respectful to all my friends and adults this week!

I was a really resilient learner when creating my push/pull toy in technology!

I have had a growth mindset in maths this week! I found it tricky to begin with but I didn’t give up!

I wrote a fantastic set of instructions for ‘Gorge’s Marvelous Medicine!’

Maths

In Maths Year 1 have been collecting data and presenting it in a variety of ways; tally charts, bar charts and pictograms. As a challenge we even counted in intervals of 2. We showed this on our pictograms by using a key representing each picture as 2 children.

In Year 2 we have been very resilient during our maths learning. We have been using our knowledge of partitioning to help us with the skill of addition. There were lots of processes involved and we were great thinkers when solving these tricky sums! This skill will help us solve larger sums!

Literacy

In Year 1 we have been learning to put words in alphabetical order. We had a look at how words are ordered alphabetically in a dictionary to help us make our own class dictionary. We wrote definitions of our favourite toys and put them together to make our class toy dictionary.

In Year 2 we have been reading a story called The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward. We stared the week learning to retell the story. This skill will help us when we come to write our own story based on The Dragon Machine. We continued our learning with a debate, “If dragons were real, should they live among us or should we lock them away?” We watched some convincing news reports about dragons arriving in a town in America. We then took on the role of different people from the town, communicated with our team and put forward a convincing argument as to whether the dragons should stay or go. Some of us were police officers of the town and nursery teachers – we argued that the dragons should go! The rest of us took on the roles of zoologists, children and the dragons themselves – we wanted the dragons to stay and put a very strong argument forward! We backed up all our arguments with really great reasons! The verdict…..the dragons are here to stay! We linked our debate back to the story The Dragon Machine, we thought about why the dragons in this story might be hiding from humans, we thought that they must be scared and worried what the humans would do if they saw them! We ended the week thinking about the protagonist in the story, a young boy called George; we agreed that we all liked George. Finally we invented our own likable story character and used our knowledge of adjectives to describe their personality. These characters will feature in our own story.

I have been really resilient during my maths learning this week!

I have been a great communicator when sharing my opinions in literacy!

I have been a great communicator when sharing ideas in class.

I was a really great thinker when making a bar chart in maths!

Maths

Those of us in Year 1 have been busy collecting data for our Exit Point! We decided to find out Year 1’s favourite stories from the unit. We then practised the skill of presenting this data in a tally chart! This helped us to analyse the data, finding the most/least popular stories.

In Year 2 we have been consolidating our place value learning. We have been ordering number from largest to smallest and smallest to largest, continuing numbers patterns and estimating where to place numbers on an empty number line! We continued our learning by practising the tricky skill of rounding numbers to the next multiple of 10. This will help us when we revisit our subtraction learning.

Literacy

In Year 1 we learned to verbally retell stories using pictures and actions to help us. After listening to the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, we created our own story maps and used them to help us remember the story. The actions helped us to remember to use time connectives like ‘suddenly’, ‘meanwhile’ and ‘next’. We really enjoyed this interactive way of practising our retelling skills.

Those of us in Year 2 have continued learning about instructional writing. We used all we learned last week to help us write our own instructions. There was so much to remember! An appropriate title, ingredients list, numbered steps which had to be in order and include an imperative verb! It was tricky but we were resilient and we all wrote a super set of instructions! We then looked at our instructions with a critical eye. They needed editing! Our learning facilitators introduced us to adverbs! This was a new word, we didn’t know what it meant. In order to know and understand what an adverb is and how we use it in our writing, we played lots of funny games! This really helped our understanding. We then edited our original work and included lots of adverbs to complement our imperative verbs! We finished our learning by swapping instructions with our partner and followed their instructions on how to make a sandwich! It was easy to follow because they were written so well!

I wrote fantastic instructions this week! I remembered to include all of the key features!

I wrote a really great set of instructions this week!

I have an enthusiastic attitude towards learning and always come to school with a smile on my face.

I have had a positive attitude towards all of my learning.

Maths

In Year 1 we started our week by sorting objects into groups based on what shape they were. Then we looked at the properties of 2D shapes and began sorting the shapes into groups following a specific criteria e.g. straight sides/curved sides. We discovered that some shapes matched both criteria whereas others only fitted into one group.

In Year 2 we have been learning about 3D shapes. We started the week by consolidated our knowledge of 3D shape names. We then went on a shape hunt around the school. We did this to make sure we could recognise 3D shapes outside of a classroom context. There were a couple of misconceptions, some of us thought that very flat objects were actually 2D shapes but then remembered that we can not pick 2D shapes up, they only have 2 dimensions! It was good we made this mistake because we learned that it doesn’t matter how thin an object is, if we can pick it up, it has 3 dimensions and is therefore a 3D shape! We continued the week learning new knowledge abut the properties of 3D shapes. Do you know how many faces, edges and vertices a cone has?

Literacy

Those of us in Year 1 read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and created our own settings to change what Jack sees at the top of the beanstalk. We climbed our own ‘beanstalk’ in the playground and called down to rest of the class about what we could see! After collaring and describing different story settings with our families on Monday, we had lots of ideas for adjectives to describe our own settings. At the end of the week, we drew our settings and wrote a descriptive paragraph about them.

In Year 2 we have started a new unit about instructional writing. We practised the skill of following instructions. we made a Baba Yaga puppet by carefully following a set of instructions. Our learning facilitators did not follow the instructions and they made a huge mess! We practised this skill to prepare us for when we write our own set of instructions. It helped us to see what features are included in instructional writing and how instructions are laid out.We finished the week learning about imperitive verbs. These are bosy very which tell us to do something in a set of instruction. For example – “Cut the paper!”

I have had a resilient attitude towards all of my learning this week!

I have been a great listener during circle time this week!

I have been really respectful, always helping with jobs in the classroom.

I drew a fantastic story setting and thought of great adjectives to describe it.

Maths

n Year 1 we have been telling the time to the hour and half hour and sequenced our daily events/routines. We looked at am and pm to recognise the different times of day. We also thought about how long a minute actually is and we had lots of fun finding out how many star jumps we could do in one minute!

In Year 2 we have been consolidating our number bonds to 10 and 20. Now we are more concrete with our number bonds we are able to solve tricky sums mentally. If we know 2 and 8 makes 10 (2 + 8 = 10). Then we also know that 22 and 8 makes 30 22 + 8 = 30). Which means 62 and 8 makes 70 (62 + 8 = 70). ​Our learning facilitators were very impressed with our quick thinking skills and our ability to solve these sums mentally in our head!

Literacy

In Year 1 we have been learning about the features of traditional tales. We learned how they all have characters, settings, problems and solutions. We focused on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We looked at different story settings and thought of different adjectives to describe them. Next week we are going to create our own settings and change what Jack sees at the top of the beanstalk.

In Year 2 we have been authors this week! We used our planning from last week to write our own version of Baba Yaga and The Black Geese. ​We changed the protagonist and the black geese, thought of different animals which the main character helps and had a different solution in our story. New versions of this story include, Baba Yaga and the Giant Spider, Baba Yaga and the T-Rex and many many more! We remembered to use descriptive language when setting the scene and when describing our new characters.

I have been using quick thinking skills when solving problems in maths!

I wrote a fantastic opening for my story about Baba Yaga!

I have been very resilient in maths when learning to tell the time to the hour and half hour!

I have been really resilient when writing my set of instructions!

Maths

In Year 1 we have been busy finding fractions of shapes. First we folded shapes into halves and quarters. Then we shaded shapes to show one half or 1 quarter. Some of us even found 2 or 3 quarters!

In Year 2 we have been busy learning about doubles of numbers and halves of numbers! We halved numbers up to 20 though sharing and we doubled numbers to 20 in our mentally and through partitioning. Here are the steps… Double 14
Partition 14 into 10 and 4
Double 10 is 20
Double 4 is 8
20 add 8 is 28
So double 14 is 28
We finished our week by learning to mentally add two digits numbers together. We used our knowledge of adding 10 to a two digit number to help us perform this tricky skill!

Literacy

Those of us in Year 1 have been learning how to write instructions. We read different sets of instructions and looked at how they use ‘bossy verbs’ to tell the reader what to do. After making chocolate chip cookies as a whole class, we wrote a recipe by writing a list of ingredients and writing each step using an imperative verb.

In Year 2 we have continued learning about traditional stories from other cultures. This week we learned about the story Baba Yaga and the Black Geese. We compared this story to Hansel and Gretel, discussed the similarities and differences and which story we preferred and why. We continued our learning by retelling the story using our voices and actions. This helped us later in the week when we practiced the skill of planning! Next week we are going to write our own version of Baba Yaga so we were very busy towards the end of the week planning our writing using a story map!

I have been using fantastic cooperation skills in all of my learning this week!

I have been working really hard to write instructions!

I have been really cooperative and respectful in the playground and classroom!

Maths

In Year 1 we have been busy doubling numbers to ten and finding one more/one less or ten more/ten less than a given number. It was tricky but we were all very resilient!

Those of us in Year 2 have been learning about fractions! We have been finding fractions of shapes! We We halved lots of shapes, split shapes into quarters and shaded different factions of shapes too! This is all in preparation to help us learn about fractions of numbers!

Literacy

Those of us in Year 1 have been writing recounts about what we did in the holidays. We talked to each other about our holiday and then we used sequencing words and past tense verbs to write about it. We worked together to think of as many verbs as we could and we played lots of games to practice using them in the past tense.

In Year 2 we have started a new unit, Traditional Stories. From Other Cultures. This unit is going to support our learning in our new learning journey unit. We began this unit by thinking about what a traditional story is. We thought of all the traditional stories which we already know. There are loads! Our learning facilitators then introduced us to the story of Hansel and Gretel, a traditional tale from Germany. This week we have practiced our sequencing skills, created a story map and explored the tale of Hansel and Gretel through role play which really helped us with our speaking and listening skills!

I showed amazing communication and acting skills when retelling the story of Hensel and Gretel!

I have been very resilient when practicing for our class assembly!

I have shown a positive attitude towards all of my learning!

I have been very resilient and working hard to count up in tens.

Maths

In Year 1 we have learned to recall all the number bonds to 10. We shared 10 objects into two pots to find out all the different ways of making 10. We then played different games to practise recalling the number bonds quickly in our heads. Some of us went on to working out number bonds to 20 and beyond. At the end of the week we went on a math trail where we worked in groups on exciting challenges all around the school. We measured different objects using blocks and centimeter rulers and we made and found lots of different 2-d and 3-d shapes. It was lots of fun!

In Year 2 we have been resilient practicing our 2 and 10 times tables we listened to lots of times tables songs and played lots of times tables games to help us remember them. Why don’t you see how many of them we can remember?

MATHS DAY
This Friday was MATHS DAY! We spent the day using and applying our maths skills in a real life context.
Our learning facilitators thought we were amazing thinkers and cooperating tremendously well when solving maths problems on our maths trail. The maths trail led us around the school, measuring, counting, identifying and problem solving.
We had so much fun whilst learning in a very hands on way!

Literacy

This week in Year 1 we have been looking closely at different features of patterned poetry eg. Alliteration, repeated language, similes and rhyme and used these to create our own shape poems. Our poems were based on different insects and they are really great! We remembered to use so many of the patterned features we had learned about!

This week in Year 1 we have been looking closely at different features of patterned poetry eg. Alliteration, repeated language, similes and rhyme and used these to create our own shape poems. Our poems were based on different insects and they are really great! We remembered to use so many of the patterned features we had learned about!

This week in Year 2 we have been writing fantastic insect poems! We began our week learning about onomatopoeia. We were really great thinkers and after listening to ‘Mr Brown Can Moo, Can you?’ we came up with lots of onomatopoeia words to describe various insects! We then consolidated our understanding of similes. We learned about similes in Year 1 but needed time to remember and understand how and why poets use similes. We made up silly similes about our friends and then created our own amazing similes to describe different insects. Finally we put all of our new knowledge and skills together and wrote our own insects poems using similes and onomatopoeia! We are really proud of our learning this week!

I have been showing other children and adults so much respect! I have been very kind and thoughtful when thinking about their needs!

I have been a great thinker when using similes to write my insect poem

I have been so resilient in maths when recalling my number bonds to 10!

I have settled in really well to my new class routines!

Maths

In Year 1 this week we have been learning to double numbers to 10 and above. We played lots of games to practise this skill and finished by making our own doubling games for our friends to match numbers to their doubles. We learned to tell the difference between odd and even numbers and used this to help us to count in twos.

In Year 2 we have been using our understanding of number bonds to help us solve tricky addition sums! We have been very resilient and have been using our prior knowledge to help us complete our maths learning!

Literacy

In literacy this week Year 1 and Year 2 have been learning about poetry! In Year 1 we have been busy learning new Knowledge! We have been learning about the different styles of poems and working really hard to identify whether a poem is an acrostic poem, a

In Year 2 we have been learning about rhyme! We read lots of poems with rhyming words and identified the words which rhyme. We also played lots of rhyming games to help us understand what a rhyming word is. This was sometimes really tricky but we were very resilient learners! We finished our week learning about beat and rhythm. We used our knowledge of poems to help us understand why poems often have a rhythm. We used musical instruments to help us establish the beat of some of our favourite poems and nursery rhymes!

I have been a really resilient learner when researching the monarch butterfly!

I have been very resilient when practicing my cursive handwriting!

I have had a positive attitude towards all of my learning!

I have been a great thinker in maths when doubling and halving!

Maths

In Year 1 we have been very busy in maths this week! We have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes! We played lots of shape games to learn the names of shapes and we learned to describe their properties by counting and recording how many corners, edges and faces each shape has. We had so much fun making shapes with our bodies!

In Year 2 we have been focusing on our measuring skills this week. We practiced measuring bugs to the nearest cm and put them in order from the smallest measurement to the largest. We also learned about making estimations based on prior knowledge. By the end of the week our estimating skills were really great!
We were set a challenge to make worms to a certain length. We showed great cooperation skills during this activity. Once we made and measured our worm our shoulder partner checked to see if we had measured in cm accurately.
Check out this game for some more measuring practice!

Literacy

In Year 1 and Year 2 we have all been learning how to make a glossary for all the technical words we used when writing our fact sheets and information books. In order to make a glossary we firstly learned about alphabetical order. We knew that glossaries are in alphabetical order so we practiced the skill of ordering topic words alphabetically. Sometimes this was really tricky, especially when you had lots of words beginning with the same letter!
We then learned about definitions. We played lots of games whereby we had to give objects a factual definition.
Finally we chose a list of technical vocabulary which we had been using and referring to in our learning journey and made our own glossary with these tricky words. We have been practicing lots of new skills in literacy this week!

“By cooperating we were able to practice our maths skills!”

“We really enjoyed practicing out measuring skills! Making worms was really fun!”

I have shown so much resilience towards all of my learning!

I have been showing lots of resilience in my ICT lessons!

I have been a great enquirer when researching facts about bees!

I have been really focused during learning time and have been very enthusiastic towards my learning

Maths

In Year 1 we have been learning to subtract numbers by counting back on a number line. We then learned to subtract the same numbers in our heads by counting back on our fingers. On Friday the ‘Number Taker’ had been in school taking numbers everywhere! We worked together in groups, using the subtraction skills we learned throughout the week, to solve the problems and find out what the Number Taker had taken!

In Year 2 this week we have been using our skills to tell the time! We are becoming time experts! We began the week learning new vocabulary; clockwise, anti-clockwise, o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. Once we had mastered all the new vocabulary we continued our time unit by learning to tell the time to the hour and half past the hour. These learning sessions were very interactive and included lots of structures and games whereby we had to beat our score! We also learned how to read and write digital time! We loved playing this game

http://resources.oswego.org/games/StopTheClock/sthec2.htm

Why don’t you play it at home and try and beat your time? We finished our week learning to tell the time to quarter past and quarter to the hour. This is learning we are going to consolidate further because it was really tricky!

Literacy

This week we have been very busy bees in Year 1! We began our week by putting our enquiry skills to good use; researching facts all about bees. They are really amazing insects and they help us out a lot! We found out so much new knowledge and spent the rest of the week consolidating our new knowledge and new learning about bees! This is going to really help us in our next learning task…writing an information book all about bees!

In Year 2 we have continued our non-fiction unit. We read information books about insects, located the key features of these texts and learned lots of new knowledge. We consolidated our knowledge about insects by making our own set of ‘Quiz, Quiz, Trade’ cards. It was amazing how much information we remembered! We then used our new knowledge of insects to create our own fact page for an information book. We made sure we included a title, a labelled picture with a caption and of course lots of insect facts! Our teachers were really impressed with all the knowledge we learned and how well we practiced our skills of writing non-fiction texts!

I have been a really resilient learner in maths! I didn’t give up!

I have been really cooperative and a great friend to the children in my class!

I have been an amazing enquirer when researching fascinating facts about bees!

I have been a really resilient learner in phonics this week!

Learning in Maths

In Year 1 this week we have been learning to add one and two-digit numbers together using a number line. We also learned to do this in our heads! We learned the strategy of putting the bigger number in our head and using our fingers to count on and find the answer. We then worked as a whole year group to split into teams and solve word problems all over the school. We added books in the library, glasses of water, and even the shoes from outside our classrooms!

We have been using lots of maths skills in Year 2! Our learning facilitators have set up a beautiful flower shop for us. We have been practising buying two items from our shop, adding the price of the two items together and then giving the shop keeper the correct amount of money! We were very impressed with all the different skills we used to perform this tricky task!

Literacy learning

This week in Year 1 we have been learning all about the key features of non-fiction texts. We have even been learning some fascinating facts about ants.

In Year 2 we have started a new unit. We are also learning all about non-fiction texts. We began the week by describing the difference between fiction and non-fiction books. We then learned lots of new knowledge about non-fiction books and tried to identify the features of non-fiction texts. This is all in preparation to help us understand how to write our own non-fiction fact page about insects!

Shop Time!

Giving change!

I have been very respectful to all of my friends!

I have been a great enquirer when asking questions about insects!

I have been joining in with group activities and being a cooperative learner.

I have been really resilient when using sounds to write about my butterfly in literacy.

Maths

In Year 1 we have been busy measuring a range of objects in the classroom using non-standard units e.g. cubes. We have also been learning about symmetry and even made our own symmetrical butterflies. What a fantastic week!

This week those of us in Year 2 have been working hard on our number bonds to 10 and number bonds to 20. We now understand that once we remember our number bonds, it will help us to solve lots of addition sums later on in the learning block! We practiced our number bonds through songs, mental calculations and on the iPADS!

Literacy

This week in Year 1, we have continued looking at The Very Hungry Caterpillar and used amazing adjectives to write our own versions of the story. We looked at the butterfly at the end of the story and created our own butterflies using oil pastels and collage materials. We then thought of as many adjectives as possible to describe our butterflies and used them to write some fantastic descriptive sentences!

Those of us in Year 2 have been busy planning and performing our own story based on ‘A Lion in the Meadow.’ We used a story map to plan our story and then had heaps of fun acting out our sentences with a memorial action. This really helped us all to remember the story we had planned. After lots of practice we felt ready to write our fabulous stories! Our teachers were so impressed with how much we had remembered! Our writing was full of lots of extended noun phases, something we had learned about last week!

I have been so resilient during my maths learning!

I have shown lots of resilience when writing my story in literacy

I have been so caring and helpful towards my friends!

I have been really keen to share my ideas about plants and insects.

Learning in Maths

In Year 1 we have been learning all about place value. We have been practicing putting numbers in the correct place on a number line. This is a skill we will continue to practice to help us better understand place value.
In year 2 we have been practicing the skill of ordering numbers. This has really helped us to understand place value! We have also been learning maths vocabulary, we now understand ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.

Learning in Literacy

We have had lots of fun reading ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’. After reading the story we thought about how we could use adjectives to describe the delicious fruit the hungry caterpillar eats! To help us with this learning task we got to eat lots of tasty fruit and then used our scenes to describe the sensations we were tasting and smelling! This activity really helped us to understand that an adjective is a describing word.
In Year 2 we have been reading ‘A Lion in the Meadow’. This story is about a boy who has a lion living in a cupboard under his stairs. We thought long and hard about an animal we would choose to live in our cupboard under our stairs! Once our choices had been made we then used lots of amazing adjectives to describe our animal! To understand how adjectives work in sentences we all had a go at writing extended noun phases! Our teachers were so proud of the sentences we wrote! They said we used fabulous adjectives to describe our animals!

I have been showing lots of enthusiasm towards all of my learning!

I have been showing lots of enthusiasm towards our new unit of work ‘Flowers and Insects’

I am always challenging myself and trying my very best!

I have been making great choices during learning time!