Weekly update 12th January 2015

 

The children have settled back into the routine of school this week. They had a wonderful time at the pantomime and enjoyed the entertainment thoroughly.

 

Information

A letter will go out on Monday about the trip to the Bridgewater Hall to see a performance of the Halle Orchestra. Please could you check your child’s bag for it. Thank you.

Maths

The first ten minutes of each numeracy lesson, is dedicated to practising mental strategies, which will enable the children to rapidly recall key number facts. This week, we will be focussing on:

• recognising the value of the digits in two digit numbers - this is important, particularly as the children need to understand which number represents the 'tens' when finding ten more and ten less.
• recalling one more and one less than a two digit number - the children were fantastic at finding one more than number, but found it difficult to calculate one less.
• doubling multiples of 5 and 10 up to 50 - ask the children if they can remember to double the tens and double the units?
• be able to write the numbers to 100
• recognise the names of 2D shapes

 

During the main part of the lesson, we will be looking at ordinal numbers. Although this sounds very grand, it is being able to say which is first, second, third...and so on. Why not try having a race and awarding badges or medals to the people who came 1st, 2nd etc.

 

The children will also learn about numbers which are greater than and less than. Do they know that the crocodile really doesn't like BIG NUMBERS and so he EATS them!!

 

45 < 54

 

Imagine teeth drawn on the <>

 

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ordinal_numbers/eng/Introduct/default.htm ordinal numbers

 

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/ChineseNewYear/ZodiacStory.aspx this is the story of how the Chinese Zodiac was created It will also be a fun way for the children to learn about ordinal numbers.

 

http://www.ictgames.com/rabbit2.html why not write some of these numbers on paper and ask your child to draw the 'crocodile'.

 

http://www.mathsonline.co.uk/nonmembers/gamesroom/awards/awardc.html there are some difficult numbers on this, including decimals, but the children will be able to access the DIVING AWARDS MEDALS - which country wins the GOLD?

 

http://www.ictgames.com/dragonmap.html odd and even revision from last week

 

http://www.ictgames.com/fairy_fog_odd.html

 

http://www.mathsonline.co.uk/nonmembers/gamesroom/stick/stick.html virtual counting stick

 

http://www.ictgames.com/newduckshoot10s.html counting in tens - shoot the duck on the target number

 

http://www.ictgames.com/spitfireufo.html although this is aimed from year 2, the children in Year 1 could also access it by counting on in steps of that number.

 

http://www.mathsonline.co.uk/nonmembers/gamesroom/bugs/bugrace3.html a great game for two players. Choose 0 as the lowest number and 9 as the highest, it will create a game to practice and reinforce those number bonds.

 

English

We are starting our new topic this week ‘Carnival of Animals!’ We are linking this with traditional tales and looking at a fantastic book by Micheal Morpurgo ‘Wombat Goes Walkabout’. This story is based on animals in Australia and we will be comparing this traditional tale with English traditional tales such as Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Billy Goats Gruff etc. The children will get to re-tell the story, have conversations with each other as animals and write their own conversations, focusing on how to use speech marks. 

 

Ask your child what they know about Australia? Which animals live there?

 

Have a go at some fun online literacy games at home.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/

 

http://resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html

 

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks1literacy.html

 

Topic

This week we will start our new topic for this half-term called Carnival of the Animals.

 

It is a really interesting topic that covers a wide range of subjects including music, geography, science, history and art.  So your children will hopefully be coming home with lots of interesting facts to tell you!

 

This week we are studying a beautiful musical piece called the Carnival of the Animals by a French composer and pianist called Saint-Saen.  You can listen to this piece of music by clicking on:

https://archive.org/details/Saint-saensCarnivalOfTheAnimalsbernstein

Each of the music's 14 movements represents a different animal, including a lion, donkey, and elephant, as well as fossils, an aquarium, an aviary and a swan.

 

The children will also be discovering the animals of the African Savannah, watching fantastic video clips of them in their natural habitat as well as creating fact files on their favourite animal.

 

Interesting fact – did you know that Zebras stand up while sleeping!!

 

Come and See

We will be continuing our topic on Special People.

Some activities we will be doing in school:-

·         Bring in photographs of special people in their families and talk about the pictures.

·         Bring in stories of people who help us.

·         Invite a special school person to talk about how they help in school.

·         Paint a picture of different people who help us and include some captions about each person.

·         Role-play some special people like doctors, priests, policemen and women, friends, grandmas, teachers etc.

·         Think of all the words which express the special things people offer us: e.g. care, time, love, friendship. Make a list of special people with the reasons why they are special and how they help us.

 

We hope you have a great week!

The Key Stage 1 team.