Thank you very much for the lovely gifts that you kindly sent in for us before the Christmas break. We really appreciate them!

Mrs Conde, Mrs Thomas and Miss Bellis

Class One have settled back into class well and have worked hard together today.

Our new topic for this term is ‘Poles Apart’. We will learn about the Arctic and Antarctic regions and many features of both of these areas. I have attached our medium term planning document for you to see the types of activities the children will be doing this term.

I have also attached a topic poster to give you an overview of additional activities and learning opportunities that will take place this term.

Today the children enjoyed sharing their Christmas holiday news with each other. They produced written work, models, paintings and drawings to show and tell what they had been up to over the festive break.

Letters and Sounds was a busy session – we focused on the ‘ure’ sound found in words such as sure, pure, cure. Some children explored the split ‘o-e’ sound and how it differs to the ‘oe’ sound. For example, in words such as awoke, alone, explode.

The children spent some time this afternoon looking at informative powerpoints about the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. I have attached the files so that you can look at these with your children. They are a brief introduction to our new topic.

The children worked in pairs to decide upon four topic related things they would like to find out about over the next few weeks. Some of these include arctic animals, such as foxes and hares. They also want to find out about how people live in the polar regions and polar expeditions.

6thJan2015 Introduction to Poles Apart

topic web

topic poster

6thJan2015 Letters and Sounds

arctic powerpoint intro

Antarctica powerpoint intro

This afternoon, some children in Class One have received a line or two to learn for the Christmas Nativity play.  Please could you support your child in learning these lines at home. They will also have time to learn their line(s) in school time too.

We are hoping to send out the costume letters for all children at beginning of next week.

Please don’t hesitate to come and ask if there is anything you are unsure of.

Many Thanks

L Conde

It was lovely to see all of the children in Class One back after a nice half-term break. This week the children spent time sharing their half-term news. They enjoyed telling each other about what they had done over the holidays and quite a few children had different things to show, such as leaflets of where they had been and souvenirs from places they had visited. Lots of children enjoyed playing with friends and of course, enjoyed Halloween festivities.

Show and Tell progressed on to children writing and drawing about their activities. They were encouraged to use phonic mats and their phonic knowledge to attempt to write familiar and unfamiliar words. Some children were set the task of checking their own work and trying to correct any sounds in their writing. They were also encouraged to think carefully about punctuation and how to set out their work.

Some children enjoyed using the laptop drawing programmes to paint pictures of what they did over half term and also lots of children liked making models of things they had done.

Next week, we will be looking at Homes and Houses on Monday and Tuesday. As we will be looking at different types of houses, it would be great if children could bring in a photo of their house for us to look at together. If you would like to do this (this is optional), then please provide a photo clearly labelled with your child’s name. If you would like the photo back straight away then just make a note of this and we will make a copy and send the original back to you. We will be looking at materials used to build houses too, using the story of The Three Little Pigs as a starting point. We hope to look at houses in the village of Bicton and look at the layout of our houses and what we have have in different rooms.

Letters and Sounds is progressing well and on Tuesday we covered the letter ‘Z’. The Year 1 children were finding out about 2 syllable words.

Thank you,

Mrs L Conde.