This last week we have been practicing our Maths more and more in our ‘Math Gym’ (10 min arithmetic session every day). The children have been working on what they find challenging, going through this until it starts to click more and then move onto the next challenge. I can honestly say as their teacher that they have worked astoundingly hard on this and I am really proud of the effort that some of the children have put into this. Here you can see us working on some problems on the board ready for tests next week.

In our PSHE lesson this week, we were studying how we can work together around challenging tasks and communicate effectively in order to achieve a shared goal. As you can imagine, this can be quite a difficult task to do, especially for children between 6 and 7. The task was to create the largest tower they could with only 6 sheets of paper, a glue stick and no help from the teacher – only from their group. However, the children performed excellently. Some groups collaborated really well, some faced some challenges and this was then discussed after to show how important group communication and feeling heard is. The photos do the children all the justice they deserve, particularly one group which created the greatest tower possible. Well done!

Recently, we have been exploring our school and its grounds. Covering National Curriculum objectives and being even more ambitious to give them mapping, navigation and fieldwork experience! The children have really gotten into this including this lesson where we were outside.

On the way to the library, we really focused on our local area and mapped it out. This included human features like the Lingfield Mosque, bus stops and houses as well as physical features like trees, a field and the flower beds. It showed that the children area getting a better concept of their position and place in the world around them and its relation to them in size and distance.

This week the children sketched flowers for their art which links in to their Science topic on plants. However a simple picture of a flower wasn’t enough so we of course had to go outside to sketch them in person. The weather was wonderful and was a perfect hands on lesson for the children to get them into the spirit of things.

Take a look for yourself as we definitely have some artists on our hands!

This week, the children worked together to be able to make some 3D wave art based on their upcoming story “The Further Adventures of The Owl and The Pussycat”.

The children also this week had a go of a novel computing lesson. They were looking at the idea of robotic algorithms. The idea that robots take very specific instructions and any lack of clarity can make them do something unintentional. They then directed myself as the robot and made Mr Arnett navigate around the classroom. After that they had a go themselves and directed each other around to specific spots in the class.

This month, we looked at the lunar space dome that came into school to understand the planets and the stars, we became ACE Scientists by using pipette straws to test the absorbency of materials, we drew our wonderful Saturn V rocket launch in space, made our lunar rovers out of egg boxes and tested them. Finally, closer to this month in March we had some visitors come in to show the children some owls to help them with their cold write.

In January, we managed to do a little more ACE Geography where we looked at a class map of our classroom and navigated around our classroom using it to find some little red bears. Finally, we used a map of the school to spot some landmarks around the site and find some hidden treasure in golden capsules.

This month was our Arts Fortnight, with the theme of Animals and Habitats we went for a Tarzan style jungle flair. The pictures show the progression from making silhouettes, to making our habitat boxes, sketching and collaging our gorillas, making our plasticine animals and of course, our large Kerchak gorilla mural.

This month, we managed to accomplish an array of tasks. Among which were drawing our poppies as part of our Remembrance display in class, using maths manipulatives to understand crossing above and below tens, bringing in our odd socks for Anti-Bullying week, making bug hotels for our habitats topic and finally we used mirrors to understand and draw symmetry in our books.

Hi all, as the blog has not been updated in a while, I am going to back date the photos – so you will still get to see all of the fantastic things the kids have done and can binge it all at once!

In October was our big Geography unit on Kolkata, India. The children were ACE Geographers by finding features on a map and participating in Country of the Month. They were master manipulators in maths by using manipulatives to help their addition and place value. They were expert weavers by sketching and making their Spider Weaver art and then they ended October with a visit from a parent who taught them about Kolkata and brought in some Indian items and food for them to eat.