Welcome to Chestnut Class
Miss Lloyd & Mrs Truman
Week 3 & 4
Apologies for missing last week! It's been a busy 2 weeks!
We have spent the last 2 weeks in Maths measuring. We have measured in centimeters and meters, understanding what unit of measurement would be best for measuring a variety of different things. We used meter rulers to measure things outside, including joining together as a class to measure the playground. 27 meters long! During this unit of work we have been looking at how other areas of maths can link, practicing using the 4 operations (+, -, divide, multiply) within measuring problem solving questions.
Last week in DT we tried some different UK foods and reviewed them! As we already tried Welsh crempogs it was Northern Ireland and Scotland's turn (England's turn is to come!). We tried some a familiar food and a not so familiar food! Scottish shortbread- we all loved this and Irish potato bread- this had mixed opinions but was very interesting to try!
This week we looked at what foods from each country we were going to make and planned it out by looking at what ingredients we needed.
This week in RE we were looking at the Easter Story. We had a pass the parcel with each section of the story in, retelling the story as we unwrapped a new layer. Each section of the story was in a Easter egg. We spoke about the reason for eggs at Easter was because it's a time of new life. Spring being a time of lambs and chicks being born but also a time when Jesus died on the cross and was then resurrected and given a new life. To secure this understanding we created some recycled collages in pairs to give recycled materials a new life!
Week 2
Pancake Day!!
But not just any old pancakes! We made welsh pancakes, 'Crempogs'.
They were delicious, even if they did have vinegar in them! It was interesting to see how they were different to English pancakes, the taste and the process!
World Book Day!
We had fun a fun day dressed up as our favourite book characters! We used our reading skills to guess book riddles then came up with our own. We tested our riddles with Willow class which was very fun!
Week 1 Spring 2
A great first week back! Lots of exciting learning!
To our excitement, we entered the class on Monday morning to see our creatures in our habitats! We were very excited and couldn't believe they had entered through the window, leaving muddy and glittery footprints! The entry of our creatures has started us nicely on writing our plans for our 'Finding Narratives' in English. Next week we will start writing the stories.
In Math's we have carried on with multiplying and dividing. We this week looked at halving and doubling, learning that when we double with times 2 and when we half we have to divide 2. We also looked at even and odd numbers, with the understanding that even numbers can be divided equally and odd numbers can't be. We tested this out by finding out if certain numbers were odd or even.
In Music we listened to piece of music called 'Orawa' which was the journey of a river from the mountains to the sea. As we listened we drew/wrote on post it notes what we thought the river was flowing past based on the pitch, tempo and sounds. This changed throughout! We noted down things like, jumping fish, rocks, swaying trees, people dancing etc.
In Computing we are looking at pictorial data and this week practiced tallying! We went outside to collect some data!
Our Geography topic this half term is all about the UK. This week we learnt about the 4 countries and their capitals, locating them on a map.
To link with this, we began our DT, which this half term we will be making some traditional foods from each of the 4 countries. This week was researching these foods in each country!
Week 6
A fantastic last week!
In Maths this week we have continued to look at multiplying and dividing, getting used to the variety of ways we can answer these types of questions. We were introduced to the 2 times tables. We have become more familiar this week with the grouping and sharing method for dividing, with lots of practice.
In English this week we practiced our creative and description writing in preparation for writing our finding narratives after half term on our own Bog Baby creatures! But before we write our finding narratives, we wanted to see if we could get our creatures into our classroom somehow…?
To do this, we decided to follow our Bog Baby habitat instructions that we wrote at the beginning of the term and make our own creatures a suitable habitat. We first looked at what we needed and collected all these items from outside. We know that Bog Baby creatures like dirt, gravel, pond weeds, sticks, rotten food and dirty water.
We then made the habitats by following the steps. We have left them in the classroom where hopefully over the holidays our creatures will find their way into our habitats……! Fingers crossed , watch this space!!!
In Art this week we did some ‘gestural painting’ which required us to get a little bit messy! We were using a range of techniques with a range of tools to create a piece with no vision in mind and just being creative! We were flicking, swiping, dotting, twisting and smudging. We mixed the primary colours to make secondary colours, using a range of colours.
Week 5
This week in English, we have been getting ready to write our own 'Finding Narrative' so to prepare for this we have been looking at at 'WAGOLL' (what a good one looks like) and picking it apart. We looked for all our grammar and punctuation we have been learning about, writing sentences and descriptions with them then in.
In Maths, we have continued looking at multiplying and dividing. We used lots of concrete resources to help with this, making groups for multiplying and dividing and sharing out for dividing. This helped us to see and understand the process as we are now confident at right out multiplication and dividing umber sentences.
We have looked at arrays, to help with multiplying, using counters , number lines to help with division and base 10 for dividing bigger numbers.
In Art, we used 'Still Life' as our inspiration and practiced a few ways that we can show this. We did continuous line drawings, to show the detail of the still life and collages for the shapes and colours. We had a lot of fun experimenting.
We were very lucky this week, to have some very cute but spikey visitors! We met Henry! We learnt about what they eat and their sleep routine throughout the year. We had lots of questions which Graham was able to answer for us! He told us about the male hedgehogs eventually needing to find a girlfriend, we found this very funny (see pictures for their reactions!)
Week 4
A fun and eventful week, with a new member joining our class! We were all very excited to welcome him in, he had a great first week!
In English this week we have started looking at our next writing outcome as we have finished writing our instructions. Our next outcome is a 'finding narrative' therefore we will be writing a story about finding the Bog Baby. At the beginning of the week we wrote a poem describing the Bog Baby and then the end of the week we wrote a description on a illustration from the book.
We have also started a new topic in Math's, now looking at multiplication and dividing. We began the week looking at making and adding equal groups and then on Friday we were introduced to the multiplication sign, writing out multiplication sentences.
In our PSHE this half term we are talking about 'dreams and goals'. We have set our own personal goals to work towards that have been sent home with the children to practice. We have discussed the steps needed to achieve these goals, with an important step being , practice!
As well as this, during our calm me time this week, we were imagining our very own 'dream garden'. We were thinking what this might look like, the colours, sounds, animals, features, etc. We then combined this ideas in groups, and created some 'dream birds' that would enter our garden.
In Art this week, we were inspired by Van Gogh's paintings and were specifcally looking at the colours he used and the texture of his work. We discovered that he used a 'bumpy, 3D technique' so we made some visual notes and tried out this bumpy technique. We used a paint brush and a glue spreader.
Week 3
This week in English we started writing our instructions for our Bog Baby habitats, remembering to use time connectives at the start and command words. We have been working on including adverbs, the conjunctions if, we and because , and expanded noun phrases.
In Maths we have finished off our shape topic, this week looking at sorting and comparing shapes, as well as shapes in patterns. On Friday we consolidated this learning with a variety of activities. We made 3D shapes using play dough and straws, tested the balance of some 3D shapes, and practiced making patterns on necklaces!
In Science this week we were looking at things in our local habitat!
In Art this week we moved onto looking at secondary colours! We each had 2 primary colours to mix to see what they would turn into! Next week we will experiment with different secondary colours on top of what we mixed.
Week 2
In English this week we have been delving in deep into the world of instructions! We have been looking at some example instructions, identifying the structural and language techniques and putting these into a checklist for our own that we will be writing next week. To ensure we know how to write instructional sentences, the children had to give Miss Lloyd some instructional sentences for how to make a jam sandwich, but they needed to be very specific otherwise she would've done it wrong! This was interesting when one instructions was "spread the jam on the bread".......
In Maths, we have been exploring 3D shapes this week. We began by sorting out different shapes and then looked at some of their properties. We learnt about 'faces' on a shape, and to develop our understanding on this we made our own shapes. This helped with our understanding because the shape was flattened first so we could count the faces easily. We then looked at the shapes 'edges ' and to show this we put stickers on the shapes we made edges.
In Art we looked at the primary colours and how the colours look on top of each other. We used different tools to explore making marks in the paint. These included, string, wire, stick, cardboard and a paint brush.
Week 1 Spring 1
What a first week back!! It was great to all be together again, learning lots and lots!
In English, we were introduced to our new book 'The Bog Baby' , which started off with an immersive look at some mysterious footprints!! We discovered that these belonged to the Bog Baby. For our end outcome, we will be writing instructions for making a habitat for a Bog Baby. To think about what we might put in out Bog Baby's habitat, we did some research, looking at different books with areas that may suit the Bog Baby! This has introduced to new punctuation and grammar skills, using command words and commas in lists.
In Maths we are looking at 2D and 3D shapes. This week we have focused on properties of 2D shapes (sides and vertices) as well as a vertical line of symmetry. To develop this understand of sides and vertices, we made shapes using the peg boards and elastic bands. We needed to think about what the pegs would represent (vertices) and the bands (sides).
In Science, we are learning about living things and their habitats. We were sorting out living and non living things!
A Festive Final Week!
A week of, Christmas jumpers, Nativity, Christmas lunch and lots of fun!
Apologies for the inconsistency of website uploads this half term. It has been a busy one!
Miss Lloyd's New Years Resolution: get back to her weekly Friday uploads!
For our advent calendar this year, Larry brought back lots of clothes and shoes from his trip to Edinburgh so each day we unwrapped a new piece of clothing!
On the last day of school, the children were surprised with an immersive, 4D polar express film experience!
They got their own special ticket (which they waved in the air when the children in the film waved theirs), they sat in a train formation and they got hot chocolate and snacks during the hot chocolate scene (see WhatsApp for video!) It was so much fun! :)
Christmas fun! (it's never too early!)
Last week in forest school we made our Christmas decorations for our tree! We then put together our class tree and started to decorate it!
This week we started to decorate the classroom, ready for the Christmas fayre on Friday!
St Patrick's Day!
With our topic being to do with the UK, it was only right that we learnt about/celebrated St Patrick's Day! We looked at what the day was all about and why it was celebrated. We got to see a live stream of the official parade which was very cool!
We then looked at some different traditions and quirks of the day with one being Leprechauns! We learnt about what they were and how people have tried to catch one for years! So with that, we looked into what Leprechauns liked and decided to set up our own trap! It included lots of gold and shiny coins, glitter, all things green and rainbow and a plan! However, when we came into school the next morning, unfortunately there was no Leprechaun, but instead a big mess of the classroom and took all the coins! He left us a note and a gift of some math's (!!!!), and even though the children were gutted we didn't catch him, they loved every second of it!!