Mrs Baker's Blog

Children learnt yesterday, in our whole school assembly, which country they are representing at  BOPS olympics. They spent the whole morning with a different teacher and children from years 1-6 learning about their country, making flags and being creative.

In the afternoon there was an opening ceremony on the school field. Children marched out and paraded in their countries before sitting in classes and being entertained. Y1/2 performed an ‘olympic extravaganza’ and older pupils took part in samba, morris dancing and gymnastics.

This week we will be having class competitions to gain medals and will be working with Nicky from sensible soccer, Mrs Melechi in the art room and Mrs Campbell in music. It has been a great start so far! All parents are invited to our closing ceremony on Thursday afternoon.

Most teachers were moved to tears when watching this video which encaptures the ‘olympic spirit’ beautifully. Your children may like to watch it again with you. It has a very clear message which we all try and instill in our children – If you don’t give up, you cannot fail. Have a box of tissues at the ready!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZlXWp6vFdE&feature=related

What a lot has been happening in 1B! We thoroughly enjoyed our walk around Burley a couple of weeks ago to further our knowledge about ‘The local Area’. We stopped off at the park to explore our topic of ‘Forces’ and also participated in a fun ‘Wheelie’ session when children brought in their bikes, scooters and skateboards.

Last week, Felix’s mum brought in a lamb to show us. Children fed it milk from a bottle and stroked it carefully. Very inquisitive questions were asked.

This week children have all made fabulous story settings from collage boxes and materials. Next week we will be designing ‘fantasy’ story characters and doing lots of oral storytelling before attempting to write imaginative stories. If children have fantasy stories at home with forest, underwater, space or desert settings please bring them in to share!

We have been experimenting with cress seeds too. Children predicted that cress would only grow in soil and were amazed when it grew on paper towels, cotton wool, sand, kitchen roll and just an empty carton. We investigated whether seeds would grow with/without light and with/without water.

Children had fun making and eating the healthy cress that had grown.

We have been using lots of different strategies to add and subtract numbers together. Children asked me to put this game on the blog. You have to break the numbers up into ’5 and a bit’ to reach the answer. The ogre is rather rude!         http://www.ictgames.com/5andabit.html

Please continue to send in boxes for collage – we get through loads everyday!! Many thanks.

We had a wonderful, wet day out at Harlow Carr yesterday. Children in 1B all enjoyed their day up until the last hour when we were feeling very cold and very wet and simply couldn’t get warm!!

1B started off in the learning centre, looking at unusual seeds and planting lettuces. There were lots of opportunities to handle different objects and observe carefully. Can you remember what seeds need to grow?

Children were keen to eat their packed lunches straightaway but managed to stop their tummies rumbling until 12pm when we had lunch in a teaching greenhouse!

Then it was time to explore the gardens in the rain!! We visited the treehouse, maze, birdhouse, ‘logness monster’ and park. Some children visited the wonderful gardens through time, others chose not to due to the persistent rain!

Children showed great interest and enthusiasm throughout the day. I would definitely recommend families to visit if you have never been before. Betty’s cafe is on site too!!

A great trip to start off our creative curriculum theme of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.

Many thanks to Mrs Tilford, Mrs Macro, Mrs Turner, Mrs Newton and Mrs Till for their help.

What a very eggciting week we’ve been having! Children have been captivated by our egg theme topic, enhanced greatly by our hatching visitors. This week we have learnt all about oviparous animals (egg laying creatures) and are in the process of compiling a class non fiction book with all the information we have researched and found out via books and the internet. Children celebrated the chicks hatching by making and wearing ‘chick hats’ and eating cadbury’s mini eggs – any excuse for chocolate! They also requested we listen and dance to One Direction. So we did!!

Parents are welcome to come and look at our book next week. I’m sure you will be impressed by the lovely writing.

In Literacy we have been reading lots of fairy stories and learning about characters, homes and objects. We even listened to the Gingerbread Man in Punjabi via the interactive whiteboard. Children were able to pick out certain words and phrases that kept repeating, just as they do in English.

In PE we have been exploring Jack and the Beanstalk through Dance. Later this week we will be using masks to act out different fairy stories in small groups.

We have looked at different versions of Hansel and Gretel this week. Anna’s mum very kindly made us a gingerbread house to devour. Yummy! Thank you. It was delicious!!#

Whilst investigating Materials today we have explored recycling. The children have asked me to put this game on the blog that we played in class.

http://rethink.sita.co.uk/the-fun-stuff/the-green-team