Mini Zoo
What's inside the egg?

David Attenborough needs our help to create a new episode of ‘Our Planet. He has left some eggs in the classroom. What do we think is inside them? We are going to follow the life cycle of the eggs and create a v-log to send to David Attenborough.

We are making observational drawings of the eggs and chicks each day. At the moment our little chicks need to stay warm inside the incubator. Our incubator temperature must settle at 37.7 degrees. From the first pipping to the eventual hatch the chicks can take up to 24 hours! 

We are beginning to talk about the process of the life cycle. We have been asking a variety of questions, e.g. ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘When?’, ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ for a variety of purposes and to clarify our understanding of the life cycle of the eggs.

Inspire:
We receive a video message from ‘The Greatest Showman’ P.T Barnum who is looking for the star in his show!

Can we create the next best band following the influences from bands around the world?

Explore:

Where does sound come from?

Explore instruments/songs/music from around the world.
Explore different genres e.g. pop,jazz,folk,classical,rock

Learning new musical terms e.g. pulse/beat/rhythm/structure/tempo/dynamic
Can you create a musical performance that reflects different areas of the globe e.g. African music, Spanish music etc, Brazilian samba

Exploring music from around the world! 
We are beginning to recognise differences between our own locality and localities in other parts of Wales and in different parts of the world. We used and made simple maps, to find where places are and how places relate to other places. We used books from our local library to gather information. We then used this information to create leaflets.

We are learning to work collaboratively; brainstorming ideas, dividing work evenly and sharing ideas. We were all allocated individuals roles so that everyone in our group had a purpose, for example, the ‘Big Boss’ made sure that everyone was focused and on task.

After we brainstormed our ideas and gathered information collaboratively, we made a leaflet on Wales and another country of our choice. We used our white Thinking Hat to write lots of facts.

Moon Zoom

Last Week Year 1 we had an exciting visit to Techniquest to explore more about our current topic ‘Moon Zoom’

We have been learning lots of facts about space and we were excited to share what we had already been learning about.

We started our visit by having time to explore the activities in Techniquest and find about all things science. Then it was time to blast off into space.

We boarded the spaceship carefully, we strapped ourselves in and we counted back from 10-0 in welsh and off we went.

In the spaceship we had a special friend called Delyth the space dragon who wanted to tell us more about space. We learned about different planets, the sun and what life was like as an astronaut.

On our journey we passed satellites and this helped us to find out how TVs and phones get their signal.

Then with a crash and a bump we landed on the moon.

We found out even more interesting facts about the moon, for example, on the moon there is no weather!

We also looked closely at some of the constellations we had been learning about. We were very good at sharing our knowledge and understanding about Space.

SCRUMPTIOUS

To celebrate the end of our topic 'Scrumptious' we visited the local Supermarket to buy ingredients to make smoothies. Take a look at our learning journey. 

WRITING

In our writing this week we have been using the habit of mind ‘striving for accuracy’

We have been following this success criterion

• Full stops
• Capital letters
• Writing on the line
• Finger spaces

We then used Mr. Men to self-assess if we have achieved the success criteria. We will continue to strive for accuracy to include all these skills in our writing. The children used sound knowledge to write the different foods that they like and don’t like. We are trying really hard to sound out (Fred talk) what we hear in the words we want to spell.

Next week we will be finding out about healthy and unhealthy foods as we plan for a year 1 food celebration.

WELSH:

In welsh we have been learning to talk about food that we like and dislike, we can ask for food by pretending to go to a shop or café and and we can ask our friends what they would like to eat.

We have been learning how to sort food into different groups and use real money to buy food.

We had lots of fun going to the local shop to buy ingredients to make smoothies.

We had read a shopping list to remember what ingredients we would need to make a smoothie.

We then had to buy the ingredients with the money that we receive every week from toy fund donations.

We carried all the shopping back to school and used the fruits and vegetables to make delicious smoothies.

We had to listen carefully to instructions to prepare the food and mix the ingredients to make the smoothies.

E-SAFETY
Digiduck's Famous Friend

As part of our curriculum and the development of ICT skills, we have been reading ‘Digiduck’s Famous Friend’ by Lindsay Buck. Learning about staying safe online is very important. We discovered that we can go exciting places online but need to follow certain rules to remain safe, for example, always asking our parents for permission to go online. We have been given an opportunity to understand behavioural expectations when using the internet and understand that rules are essential when interacting online. We showed Miss Bishop that we listened carefully and understood the story by asking her questions to find out more information. We were able to make links between the story and other information about our ‘Staying Safe Online’ topic.

LITERACY:

‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle
 

We selected our own materials from the outdoor environment to create a scene from the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We made our own choices when choosing natural materials and resources. We worked collaboratively and we took time to reflect on our own work. We discussed what we liked about our work (yippee yellow) and we also thought about how we could improve next time (green for growth). We independently used an IPad to photograph our own learning

DCF: How can we communicate with others using digital technology?
We have been learning about the use of digital technology and how it can be used to communicate and connect with others locally and globally, e.g. text, image, photographs, videos, newsletter, e-mail, web services.

We wrote an article for our school newsletter explaining to parents what we have been learning about in Year 1. We recognised that the information we write would reach our families at home.

We also explored another method of digital communication. We independently used the IPads to make a Puppet Pal animation to Katy from ‘I can cook’. We shared with her our learning so far.

Dreams and goals

In reception we have been preparing our pupils for the future. We have talked about the skills needed for different jobs and how we can become better prepared for them. We wrote about what we enjoy and what we are good at to help us understand where we might want to work and what we might want to be when we grow up.

We were encouraged to ask questions about a variety of different job roles in order to gain a further understanding of these careers. Questions and discussions in school and at home have encouraged us to broaden our outlooks and perspectives. We took part in a ‘hot seating’ session, where we asked and answered questions whilst adopting a role e.g. a vet, doctor, builder, teacher, scientist, and astronaut.

Hot seating a Police Officer

• How did you become a police officer?
• What made you want to become a police officer?
• Why did you want to be a police officer?
• Who helped you become a police officer?
• Where do you work?

At St Philip Evans Primary School we are encouraged to become:

• › Ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
• › Enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
• › Ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
• › Healthy, confident individuals

These attributes will help us in the future to become successful individuals.

We have been celebrating the fantastic half term homework focusing on the children’s dreams and goals for their future careers. The homework gave children opportunities to talk about their future aspiration. We really enjoyed sharing what we would like to be when we grow up. Here are some of examples from Year 1 homework.

Dannii – When I grow up I would like to be a ballerina because I like dancing

Aaron – When I grow up I would like to be a Policeman and arrest the bad guys

Carter – When I grow up I want to be like Ronaldo because he is a good footballer

Avleen – When I grow up I would like to be a singer because I enjoy singing.

Anti-Bullying Week - 11th November 2019
How does bullying hurt?
Can words cause as much pain as punching or kicking?

We looked at the analogy of the rotten apple.
 

At the start of our lesson we established that the apples looked pretty much the same on the outside. They were both red and shiny.

We began to insult one of the apples. “Well, I don’t really like this one”, “I think it’s a gross apple. It probably doesn’t taste very good.” We passed that apple around the circle. Each person continued to tell the apple what they don’t like about it. “You’re a bad apple. I should just throw you away.”
 

Then we said kind words to the other apply. “This is my favourite apple. It looks beautiful and juicy. I bet it tastes good. I can’t wait to eat it.” Again, we passed this apple around the circle until everyone had said something nice about it. “You’re a delicious apple. Your skin is so shiny.”

We looked at both apples again. Their appearance had not changed. We cut each apple in half. The apple that we spoke to with love and kindness was clean and unmarked on the inside. The apple that we were all cruel to was bruised, mushy and rotten.  

We recognised that when we say hurtful things to other people, we often can’t see the damage that we’re doing on the inside. Our friends may appear fine, but they’re really hurting. On the other hand, our kind words can be used to build someone else up, and make them feel beautiful on the inside.

Scrumptious

This week we were introduced to our new topic, ‘Scrumptious’! We started our week by participating in a ‘Topic Takeover’ lesson where we shared our ideas about what WE want to learn. We want to take part in activities that allow us to make healthy choices and help us to develop and understand our own bodies and how to keep them healthy. We want to become healthy, confident individuals.

We received a letter from CBeebies ‘I Can Cook’ presenter Katy. Katy asked us if we could help her develop a healthy breakfast menu! As we are becoming ambitious, capable learners we were very excited to complete the challenge! We began our learning journey by investigating a variety of herbs and spices using our 5 senses. We shared our likes and dislikes with our peers and independently recorded our results. We then asked our learning partner what herb/spice they liked yn cymraeg. We asked our friend e.g. ‘Wyt ti’n hoffi mint?’/’Wyt ti’n hoffi basil?’.

On Monday morning, Miss Bishop and Mrs Sherwood surprised us with an array of colourful fruit and vegetables as part of our healthy eating topic. We used the fruit to write repeated sentences e.g. As red as an apple/As yellow as a banana. We wrote simple sentences and read our work to our teacher. Both Miss Bishop and Mrs Sherwood were very impressed with our similes!

Later in the week we used the fruit and vegetable to express ourselves creatively and imaginatively. We used a wide range of resources to create a print representing a 2 repeated colour pattern. Miss Bishop then challenged us to create a 3-colour repeated pattern.

Welcome back to the children in Year 1. We have had a fantastic few days getting to know our new teachers and exploring our new classroom.
 

We have been discussing our class rules and what will make year 1 a happy classroom.

Our Golden Rules

Kind hands

Kind feet

Kind words

Kind hearts

We worked together to decide on our class charter and discussed the class rewards and consequences.

My Time

We have had lots of fun exploring in our new classroom and learning in the different learning areas during My Time activities. Take a look at us in our new classroom.