The End of Half Term: Week Ending 28th May

And there goes the first half of the summer term!

The past six weeks have gone by very quickly and Hedgehog Class has been very happy. I always enjoy the smiley greetings the children give me each morning, and adults around the school keep commenting on what a happy smiley bunch they are at the moment. It's lovely.

This week, several things happened in our story. 

The villagers/travellers were travelling down a woodland path...

The children spent a very productive and creative 45 minutes working on this path. They used a range of resources and methods, working well in small groups and pairs. 

Next, they travelled down the path talking about what they were doing - some where sneaking, others were strolling and others were skipping!

Unfortunately, they met a large, grumpy troll on the way. They had to decide how to get past it. After some discussions, most children chose to duck, sneak and hide in the bushes. A few children decided to talk to the troll. This was tense, but they managed to get past by feeding the troll food from their bags. 

The next day Queen Matilda needed their help to find out what lay beyond the woodland path. The children travelled north, south, east and west to explore the geographical features. The Queen explained that, to build a castle, she needed a location with a hill, fresh water, pastures and a woodland. The children created maps showing what they had found:

They presented their findings to the Queen, who said she would consider where the best location for a castle might be. 

I hope you all have a very good half term. I am not setting any homework because the children, and you, deserve a break from it! However, please do keep reading to and with your child. They should have come home with several books in their bags, and I have also put more books on each child's Rising Stars account. 

See you after half term!

From Miss Nash

Week ending 21st May: a wild, wet and windy week.

 Despite the weather, we made it to the end of the week with every child still on the ground. At one point we thought about getting the parachute out during Forest School, but we decided that could end with Hedgehog Class flying away across Milton Keynes. So we didn't.

Our mantle story.

In our story, the villagers finally set out with Queen Matilda on their quest to help her to establish a new kingdom. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that a stranger was in our midst. The queen was concerned that she could not recognise who was one of her new knights, and who was not. She told the villagers about knights' coats of arms, which meant that the children's main project this week has been creating their own shields with our own coats of arms on them, complete with an animal to represent them. 

Maths:

Reception children finished work on one more and one less. They also recapped number bonds to 6. 

To practice number bonds to 6, you can play this game (you may have seen it before). 

Year 1 children continued work on fractions. They are learning that to make half they need two equal groups and to find quarters they need four equal groups.

To practice this, complete this sheet. Your child will need objects to do this - first count out the correct number of objects, then share into halves or quarters, then complete the sheet. A good tip is to find a piece of paper, fold it into halves or quarters, then share out the objects between them. For an extra challenge, they could write a matching sentence using the 1/2 or 1/4 symbols, such as  1/2 of 8 is 4. 

Phonics and Spellings:

Reception children continue to recap phase three digraphs. You can practice them using flashcards here. 

They have also been looking at cvcc words - words with a consonant blend at the end such as bump, help best, vest. You can practice these by playing this game. 

Year 1 children have moved onto spelling lists with i_e and o_e in. Please practice these for the spelling challenge next week. Here they are!

Week ending Friday 14th May

 

We have had another very good week in Hedgehog Class. Our mantle story is moving on and the children are very interested in what might happen next.

They were in their village, being rat catchers, spinsters, millers and so on, when they noticed a stranger on the village green. She was tired and her clothes were scruffy, but she had a battered crown on her head!

She explained that she was a Queen, but that she had lost her kingdom. The children were keen to help her - they brought her food and water, cut her hair (thank goodness we had some barbers in our village) and took care of her. Then she invited them to become her new order of knights! She wanted them to go with her on a quest to establish a new kingdom. 

The children discussed this - some were keen to leave, others weren't sure they wanted to leave their beautiful village of Wheat Hill. Eventually they held a vote. It was decided they would all go with the Queen.

We spent a session making 'medieval' bags from paper, string, tape and glue. The children added items they might need for the journey (looking at images to compare now and then). At dawn the next day, they rose from their beds and went to meet the Queen. 

However... she wasn't there! It seems she panicked - she left a letter saying she was worried that the villagers might betray her, like her other knights did. She asked them to promise to look after her. The villagers were disappointed that she wasn't there, but were keen to write some promises so that the Queen would know she could trust them. The Year 1 children did their writing on Thursday, and the Reception children did theirs on Friday - they attached their promises to the village sign for the Queen to find. 

On Monday, we will find out what happens next in our story.

Phonics this week:

Reception children recapped 'or' and looked at 'ur' and 'ir'.  

You could practise this by completing the or word maze, and if you get on well with that, move on to the ur and ir word maze. 

Year 1 children looked at a_e and e_e. They will have a spelling challenge next Friday. They have asked to have their own spelling challenge books, so the spelling challenges will begin to be individual rather than team-based from this point on. 

The words for next week's challenge are here. Please encourage your child to learn the ones higher up on the list. If they are very confident spellers, learn the others too!

Maths this week:

Reception have continued to work on 'one more' and 'one less' up to twenty. We played a game which you could play at home. The instructions are here. 

Year 1 have begun some work on fractions. We focussed on half of an object, picture or amount. This is a great one to practice around the house, halving food, paper shapes, playdough objects and so on. The children have learnt that a half is one of two equal groups. The key word is 'equal'. 

Have a good weekend and I will see you on Monday!

Miss Nash

Hedgehog Awareness Week: Week Ending 7th May

 

We spent our short week at school learning about Hedgehog Awareness Week. 

The children learnt that hedgehog numbers are falling and they've been working to remedy that by raising awareness of hedgehogs. 

They created a hedgehog mascot so that, whenever people saw her, they'd think of the hedgehogs (see image - they were very excited to see her on the wall). To create her they used a printing technique, etching spike patterns into some polystyrene and printing using brown paint.

The children also looked at features of hedgehogs in order to create 'Hedgehog Spotting Guides.' This was followed by designing some hedgehog-friendly gardens and some hedgehog road signs. 

Finally on Friday the children wrote to the company that provides our fruit, asking if it could come in paper bags instead of single-use plastic bags, as single-use plastic can harm hedgehogs and other animals. 

The children were very passionate about the hedgehogs. While they were sad to learn they are in decline, they were keen to do what they could to help.

The only homework this week: Ask your child about Hedgehog Awareness Week and, if possible and if you have a garden, consider how you could make your garden more hedgehog friendly. For ideas, watch this video. 

Have a good weekend!

Miss Nash