In The News

​On Friday 6th September, Year 3 travelled back in time to Ancient Egypt! We looked at where in the world Egypt is and investigated activities linking to our new topic. We made pyramids using building blocks, wrapped our own mummies, decoded Egyptian hieroglyphs and even tried Egyptian foods!

​Wow! We have been so busy in Year 1 today. We have read a new story called ‘We’re Going on a Lion Hunt.’  The story has so many new or different words in it so we have spent time investigating what different words are and what they might mean.  The children’s ideas were fabulous.
The words we have focused on are:
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Tier 2                                                               

We used to the questions:

1. What is it?
2. Where do you find it?
3. What sort of thing is it?
4. What do we do with it?
5. How many beats in the word?      

​After exploring the different words and the children coming up with fabulous ideas we have drawn pictures and written words to show our understanding. 

​Today we had an amazing time. We travelled back in time to the year 1666 using our special tickets. We blew a time traveller bubble and floated around the school. 

When we returned to the classroom, there had been a terrible fire. We were shocked. Fortunately, we could use water from the River Thames to help put it out. We made a bakers hat because the fire started in a bakery.

​Year 1 have had great time learning the story ‘We’re going on a Lion Hunt’, which is linked to our Kenya topic. The story is very similar to ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’, with a fun repetitive pattern.
Today, the children did a fabulous job of retelling the story through movement and actions! We all had great fun!

​Year 1 have had a lovely week focusing on the author Jill Murphy. Our final story of the week was ‘Whatever Next’. The children have been using a variation of skills to design and make their very own colourful rocket.  It has been lovely to observe the children, as they support and help each other as they made their rockets.

​To launch our new topic about the Ancient Greeks we competed in our own Olympic ceremony and events. The children learnt that the first games took place in 780 BC and were designed to keep Greek men fit for the intensity of war. Only men who spoke Greek were allowed to take part in the races. We also discovered that Men ran the races without any clothes on!
We didn’t follow these rules and we all wore our PE kits and the girls competed too. We took part in a pentathlon which is a special event that consisted of five different sports activities: wrestling, running, the long jump, disc throwing, and spear throwing! We participated in 4 of the events and left the wrestling out. . .
There were no medals like the gold, silver and bronze medals we have today. There was only one winner and he was given a wreath of olive leaves as a prize. These olive leaves were plucked from a sacred tree that was located at Olympia behind the temple dedicated to Zeus. We had a great afternoon and had winners for each event. Everyone enjoying trying out the different events.

​Today we watched an episode of Charlie and Lola, where Lola finds out that some of the things she has to do at school are quite tricky. She decides she doesn’t want to go back to school anymore.
We used this story to have discussions about what it can feel like to think you can’t do something – especially when it seems like other people do know how. We talked about what it means to have a fixed mindset – to believe that we can’t do something and give up. The children discussed how this would make them feel.
In groups, we discussed what Lola’s big brother Charlie could say to Lola to help her to develop a growth mindset, which means she will keep on trying.
We talked about times when we have all had a fixed mindset and how it made us feel. We shared ideas about who helps us to develop growth mindsets and how we can encourage other people too. 
Mally-Ray: “Do you want me to help?”
Tabitha: “I will help you.”
Dylan: “You can do this!”
Ashton: “Don’t give up!”
Elsie: “It doesn’t matter, I can help you try again.”
Olivia-Rose: “I will show you how.”
Having somebody give them advice and support helped to cheer the children up and made them feel like they want to keep on trying.

​We have created a classroom display to use to remind us of what to say to ourselves and each other when we feel like giving up. 

We then took our new growth mindsets and words of encouragement out onto the yard to practise skipping, hopping and hula-hooping! The children all supported their partners by offering words of encouragement, as well as advice to those who found it tricky. 

 Today we talked about what rules are, why we have them and places that need to use rules.
Together we agreed on a list of class promises. We have chosen to make promises that will make our classroom a happy and safe place to be.
All of the children have made a handprint which we have used to make our promise flowers.