Autumn

The Life Centre

What a fantastic time we all had at The Life Centre this week! We learned all about our wonderful planet Earth with its seven continents and its five oceans.  We took a virtual tour around our world, learning which different animals live in each continent and the different types of climates across the oceans. We located the UK on a large map of the world and we marked our journey across the different continents with help from the adults.  We visited the planetarium to learn all about the night skies and the constellations, it was very dark in there but it was super exciting! We watched a science show where the clever scientist carried out lots of experiments on a stage in front of us. We had the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the show, including Mr Vyle, who was very excited by all the experiments.  We visited Space Zone in the exhibition area where we learned about what it is like for astronauts in space.  We looked at Earth from space and talked about what we could see. We managed to hold our own weather forecasts, too, and see ourselves on the television screen which was amazing! We also had fun in the Play Zone where we climbed the tree house, played on the light tables, built dens and pretended we were on Master Chef in the kitchen.  What a fun-packed day everyone had...we would love to visit again!

 It’s party time!

Year 1 and Reception danced, danced, danced, enjoyed lots of games and had fun filling their tummies with party food this week. School even had a visit from Santa who left presents for us when we were boogying in the hall. What a fantastic start to the final week of term!

Communication now and in the past

Over the last few weeks, we have been studying the different ways in which we communicate with others every day.  We know that people can communicate through speech, sign language, braille, body language, drawings, writing, computers, telephones and mobile phones, to mention a few.  We then looked at how people communicated a very, very long time ago. We studied cave paintings and examined pictures of Ancient Egyptians, looking for clues as to how they might have communicated with each other. We noticed that instead of letters they used symbols which are known as hieroglyphs. Then we had a go at writing our names using these symbols. Some were very tricky to draw but we had lots of fun trying!  After studying one of the earliest writing systems, we then learned about William Caxton who brought the printing press to England in the 15th century. We know that the printing press was such a wonderful invention as it allowed books to be accessible for many in society. This week we enjoyed printing with numbers, letters and shapes using paint and we loved arranging letters back to front as they would have been on the printing press machine.

Children in Need

Today was Children in Need and Year 1 were certainly ready to help out by spending the day in their pyjamas! We had a conversation about why there is a special day each year to raise money for children in the UK and beyond - lots of thoughtful ideas were shared and discussed. Throughout the day, we also made time for Pudsey-related activities. Have a look at what we got up to below:

Anti-Bullying Week

This week we have talked about bullying and the negative impact it has on children and young people.  We discussed ways in which we can change the lives of others through simple acts of kindness like asking others to play with us if they are alone on the playground or by supporting friends who may be a little upset or hurt by finding an adult who can help.  We know that you do not need to wear a super hero costume to be a super hero but we decided to make these wonderful masks to show that this week Year 1 have become

'Kindness Super Heroes'. 

'Lest We Forget'

We learned that the red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance the world over. People in many countries wear the poppy to remember those who died in war or those who are still serving in the armed forces. We made poppies this week and displayed them in our classroom to show our support for the Armed Forces community.

Keep Moving!

This week we had a great PE lesson with Caroline who helped us to explore different ways of moving across the hall. We practised skipping, hopping, jumping, jogging, running, walking and side-stepping with other children in our team. It was so much fun pretending to cross the river on the stepping stones while practising a variety of movements. We know how important exercise is to stay healthy and we can't wait to get our bodies moving again next week! 

Magnificent Moving Pictures

It has been DT and Art Week this week at Newburn Manor and Year 1 have been busy making moving pictures! We split up our week into four stages:  

Stage 1 - Research

We read moving picture books and gathered some ideas that we could use later. We also had a go at making sliders and levers for the first time and discussed what worked best.

Stage 2 - Design

Next we drew our idea down and thought about which part of the picture would move and how we could make that happen. We really impressed with our use of new vocabulary such as 'slider', 'lever' and 'pivot'!

Stage 3 - Make

Then, we got busy turning our ideas into real-life moving pictures! We started by mixing colours to make a beautiful sea background before collaging our chosen animals. Lots of bright colours were used to make our moving pictures exciting to look at.

Stage 4 - Evaluate

Finally, we evaluated our final products by discussing what we liked about them and how we could make them even better next time. Ideas ranged from making the cardboard strip stronger so it didn't fall over, adding a guide onto the back of the sliders so they stayed in place and even adding layers to the pictures that our animals could 'dive' behind!

Have a look at the photographs below to see some of our fantastic final products:

Check out this link to the Forest School group and all of the fun things we have been up to.

Animal Art

We've had great fun this week studying patterns in the animal world.  We talked about our favourite animals and which of the beautiful colours  and patterns we liked the most. We asked the question, 'How can we make all of the colours that we can see in our favourite animals'? To make our art look realistic, we mixed primary colours to create secondary colours, like orange. When studying different animals further, we recognised that some animals colours were pale and that some were dark. We studied dark and light versions of many different colours and we learned that we can use black and white paint to change the tone of these colours. With all of these new paints at our disposal, we created our animal patterns. Have a look at our fantastic results below!

We are unique human beings

Over the last few weeks, we have completed lots of fun activities around our family and the people who are important to us. We have been learning about ourselves as humans and we have identified similarities and differences between ourselves and other animals. We have been talking about the different groups to which we belong, what we like doing and the things which make us unique. 

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

We have enjoyed learning about our senses this week while writing in the first person as the tiger from the story of 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr.  What might the Tiger see, hear, smell, taste or feel while he was in Sophie's house? What other delicious foods could he taste if he ate with the family in the cafe that night?  We designed our own menus for The Moonlight Cafe which we really enjoyed.

What a wonderful world we live in!

We have been studying our amazing planet and learning new facts about our world. We know that most of Earth's surface is covered in water and that the oceans and the land masses can be seen from space. We also know that the world has seven continents and we have been learning to recall their names and to locate them on maps of the world. We now know that we live in the UK which is in Europe! We also know that the largest continent is Asia. We can't wait to find out more exciting facts about our wonderful world over the coming weeks.  

We love working with numbers!

We have been counting forwards and backwards within 10, counting groups of objects or pictures accurately, comparing groups of objects or pictures using mathematical language like 'more', 'less', 'smallest' and 'greatest' and finding one more and one less than a given number. We are enjoying consolidating our knowledge of numbers to 10 and showing off our mathematical skills. 

Forest School

One half of our class have been to Forest School this week with Mr Vyle. They had so much fun searching for blackberries to turn into jam. They ate the jam on hot buttered toast- yum! They also had a great time using the leftover berries to paint. Take a look at Mr Vyle's Forest School pages in Pupils/Forest School.

Welcome back!

The children have made a great start to Year 1 this week!

They are settled into their new classroom and they are adapting well to new routines. They are all enthusiastic and ready to learn and it has been wonderful to see their smiling faces each day in our classroom. This half term our topic is 'What a Wonderful World'. We will be learning all about the world we live in through our Geography unit and we will also be learning about animals and humans as part of our Science unit of work. In our English lessons, we will read a variety of non-fiction and fictions texts this half term. This week we learned all about farm animals and farms. Over the next few weeks we will be reading lots of exciting stories involving animals like 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' by Judith Kerr and 'That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown' by Cressida Cowell. In maths, we are consolidating our knowledge of numbers to 10 through counting forwards and backwards, adding and subtracting and through reading and writing numerals in figures and in words. We will also have the opportunity to attend Forest School with Mr Vyle.

We can't wait to get moving on our learning journey! Watch this space!