14th Nov '25
What a busy week we have all had despite all the rain. Monday started off with us all wearing odd socks to celebrate that everybody is different. The children enjoyed showing their different socks and we talked about how it is ok to like different things to our friends. We all look different and we all like different things. Being individual makes us who we are.
In maths Year 2 have been thinking about fact families. If we know certain facts we can work out other facts. For example If we know 3 + 7 = 10, we can use this knowledge to work out 70 + 30 = 100. The children used base 10 to support their learning, using ones first and then exchanging each one for one ten. Year 1 have been thinking about part, part whole models where the two parts make a whole. Each part is part of the whole. For example, with number 8. The parts could be 3 and 5 and the whole is 8 or the parts could be 2 and 6 but the whole is still 8.
In spelling, Year 2 have been thinking about compound words. A compound word is where two words are joined together to make a new word, for example, playground. When spelling the word playground, it is best to focus on the word "play" first and then the word "ground" rather than spelling the whole word in one go.
Year 1 Phonics Phase 5 continues to be quite a hit. We know why - we have told the children that it is quite a challenge and really that is all we need to say - they love a good challenge and are keen to rise to the occasion. They are so proud of their abilities and can't wait to put pencil to paper and have a go. This week we continued with the sounds we learnt last week.
Next week, we will be using these sounds in our writing - here is a little heads up of some of the words we might be using (for those of you at home who enjoy a little bit of pre learning).
Monday - these, theme
Tuesday - ride, five, times
Wednesday - whisper, when
Thursday - throne, robe, phone
Friday - oh, their, people, Mr.
For Michael Rosen Day Year 1 read the poem "I Am Hungry". The children really enjoyed listening to all the silly things the squirrel ate - a gingerbread man, a frying pan, the moon! They then had a go at planning their own rhyming poems of real and silly things that they would eat if they were hungry.
Michael Rosen was already a firm favourite in Kingfishers and after exploring more of his poems during National Poetry day Kingfishers were even more in awe of his work! 'I am hungry' started the day and a hunt for all the rhyming words! Some were easier than others to find....
I'll eat a cheese roll. Cornflakes in a bowl.
Others were a bit trickier and took us a bit longer to find the two words that rhymed!
A piece of cake. A headache.
Can you spot which two words rhyme?
We were now warmed up and ready for our Michael Rosen day! But what poem would we be focusing on today? Suddenly a question came on the board....
Where does broccoli come from?
"From the ground"
"It grows on trees"
"I think you plant a piece of broccoli and then more grows"
"From seeds"
These were all excellent answers but Michael Rosen had another answer for us and it wasn't quite the answer we were expecting, but it certainly provided us with a giggle or two!
After the giggles had subsided it was now our turn to delve into our imagination and create poetry magic! Kingfishers planned their poem, deciding upon their vegetable, body part, colour, a place and a verb and then used these to put them into the structure of the poem to create our own poems!
Enjoy some of our crazy food poems!
It was soon time to join in with the live poetry assembly and we were all star struck when Michael Rosen appear on the whiteboard!
Kingfishers loved listening to Michael Rosen retelling childhood stories but what we enjoyed the most was him performing his poems live for us, our favourite by far were his hot food poem and chocolate cake! Chocolate cake even had some of us in tear of laughter!
"Mrs Brown, I was crying because it was so funny!"
In computing the children learnt about keeping safe online. We talked about the things we might use devices for such as playing games and sending messages. We talked about how sometimes in games you can speak to your friends and other times you might get a message from a friend. Sometimes these messages can be nice or sometimes they can make us feel sad. We talked about positive and negative feelings. The children learnt how important it is to stop what they are doing on a device if something happens that upsets them. They then need to tell and adult and they can then close the device. The children then learnt / went over how to log on to Purple Mash and they created their own avatar. This is a cartoon picture of themselves on Purple Mash. We also talked about how important it is not to share our passwords with our friends.
In science we were thinking about properties of materials. Property is something that belongs to somebody. A property of a material is a describing word that belongs with the material. This week we thought about "rough" and "smooth". We had a look at a wand and discussed how part of it was rough as the star was glittery and that the handle was smooth. We thought about how we wouldn't want to hold something that was rough for a long time as it could feel uncomfortable.
Whilst the rain stopped for a few minutes during this lesson, we took advantage of it and went outside to feel different objects. When we got back to class we talked about the materials that the objects were made from and whether or not they felt rough or smooth. Things can be bumpy but smooth, for example a puffer coat or the gate. The actual material itself is smooth, when you put lots together, it can feel bumpy. The word "scratchy" was also suggested for rough. What a great idea!
Year 2 then went on to think about any observations that they made about the materials that were rough and the materials that were smooth. A lot of the toys were made of plastic and were smooth so that we would not hurt ourselves when playing with them. The plastic wobble boards were rough though. We decided that this was probably to help us stop slipping off when we are on them.
This term we are having design and technology lessons with a focus on making a Christmas biscuit. This week the children tasted shortbread biscuits (plain) and ginger biscuits. The children had to use an evaluation form showing whether or not they liked each of the biscuits. We then talked about which one was the preferred biscuit amongst the children in the class. Shortbread won 13 votes to 12 so it was very close!
On Thursday after we continued to explore the Nativity story, firstly discussing everything we knew about the birth of Jesus.
"Mary was there"
"There were Shepherds"
"Wise men followed a star"
"The baby was Jesus"
"Jesus was in a cot"
"There were animals"
"They went to Bethlehem"
"There was an angel"
Year 1 and 2 were then told the birth of Jesus according to Matthew, focusing on the angel appearing to Joseph and Mary and the Wise Men following the Star of Bethlehem to honor Jesus. They then drew their own pictures to represent Matthews account of the birth of Jesus.
With the sun shining it was time for us to practice our attack, shoot and defend, so when coach Tom mentioned we were playing one of our favourite games with sharks and fishes, there was a resounding 'YES!' that could be heard across the field! Once warmed up it was soon time to move onto sumo square!
With our tags in place ad 3 players, it was time to choose 2 players to be sumo's and 1 players to the referee! Once the referee had clapped we were off, trying to take the other players tag, but careful we were not allow to step outside of the square because the floor is lava!
It was soon time for all of us to have a go, just look at how much fun we had!
We can hardly believe it's already the end of another week and what a fantastic way to end the week by celebrating Pudsey Day! On Friday we filled up the whole of Pudsey with coins to help Children in Need so thank you to everyone for donating to this well deserving cause, your donations are greatly appreciated!
