This week we have been learning about time.

In Numeracy we have been finding out about the different times of the day and talking about how time is measured – in years, seasons, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds. We have worked out how many different things we can do in a minute, eg. How many times can you write your name?, build a tower of cubes?, do a star jump? We have also found out how many days are in our birth month and started to learn the rhyme ‘ Thirty days has September …’

In literacy we have been working on a class innovation of  the story ‘How tortoise got his shell’. We have decided upon ‘How the Dalmatian got his spots’

In art we have been experimenting with different joining techniques – slotting, sticking, paper clipping, split pinning. This is in readiness for assembling our 3d sculptures which will be made out of cardboard.

This week we have had Sports Day. We took part in lots of different races. There was the sprint, the egg and spoon, the balance a beanbag on your head and the obstacle race. We had lots of fun and learned about good sportsmanship and supporting our team mates to do their best.

In English we have been re-telling the story ‘How tortoise got his shell’. We are finding writing for an extended period of time hard. This is something we need to practise in order to build our stamina.

In numeracy we have been learning about ordinal numbers to 20. This is the position or placement of an item – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th …. At the beginning of the week we found this confusing but our understanding has improved over the week. We need to keep practising this at every opportunity.

This week we have been finding out about money.

In English we have been practising our story ‘How tortoise got his shell’ and learning how to spell tricky words in the story.

In Numeracy we have been learning about where money comes from and the different ways of paying for things. We have talked about earning money and the different kinds of jobs people do to earn their wages. We have learned the names and values of UK coins and paper money and developed our addition and subtraction skills using money.

In topic work we have discussed how ‘it’s ok to not be ok. We have made a Peace Corner in our classroom for meditation and mediation and we are learning how to use it effectively.

This week we have been finding out about tortoises.

In English we have been reading ‘How the Tortoise got his Shell’. We have drawn a story map and started to learn the story using words and actions. We have also been revising our Jolly Phonics digraphs and tricky words.

In Numeracy we have been using 2d flat shapes to make tangrams and to tessellate the tortoise’s shell. Some shapes tessellate easily but some shapes don’t fit together very well and leave big gaps.

We were really lucky on Friday to have a surprise visitor in class, Nia Williams’ Auntie brought her pet tortoise Flash into class. We got to stroke him and feed him!! It was great!

This week we had a letter from the Gingerbread Man. He needed our help to cross the river. We had to build a boat that would float and keep him dry. We had to test lots of different materials to find out which one was the best to build a boat out of. Most of us chose foil to build our boats! We had lots of watery fun!!

In literacy we have been writing a shape poem about a sea creature. We have used lots of fantastic adjectives, similes and alliteration.

In numeracy we have been adding numbers to 20, using lots of different methods, such as number bonds to 10, using known number facts and counting on using a number line. Counting on using a number line can sometimes lead to mistakes, so using a different method can help us to check our answers.

This week we have challenged ourselves to become ‘experts’ in skip counting in 2s. So far we have 10 experts in class, we want to make it to 28 by the end of term!!!

In numeracy we have been finding out about odd and even numbers, looking closely at the last digit of a number to decide whether it is odd or even.

In literacy we have been brushing up on our similes ready to write our sea creature poems next week.

In topic work we have been testing lots of different objects in a water tray to see if they float or sink, we’ve had lots of fun investigating!

This week we have been finding out about the plants and creatures inside a rockpool. Did you know a starfish eats by pushing its stomach out over its prey and then sucks the whole lot back inside its body!!!!

In literacy we have been learning about capital letters, full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. We have been taking part in punctuation quizzes, correcting sentences and spotting punctuation in our reading books.

In numeracy we have been skip counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Skip counting in 2s has been quite a challenge. This is something we need to practise as much as possible.

We have also been thinking about fair and unfair situations amongst friends and how to respect and treat each other fairly.

This week we have been finding out about the Seaside.

In literacy we have been learning about alliteration and making up silly sentences such as, Six, silly, saucy, sonic sausages went swimming!!!!

In numeracy we have been learning about greater than and less than, using the crocodile mouth signs to help us compare the values of different numbers, eg, 16>4 and 3<17

In topic work we have been finding out about the different types of living things that live in and around a sea habitat – mammals, mini-beasts, birds and plants.

In Welsh we have been learning the vocabulary for different seaside animals and items.

This week we have been celebrating books!. We have changed our classroom door into a book cover of our favourite book. We chose ‘Hairy Maclairy from Donaldson’s Dairy’ by Lynley Dodd. We really enjoy listening to all the Hairy Maclairy stories.

In literacy we have been finding out about rhyming words and reading stories with rhyming words in them. We have also been learning a poem called ‘The Whales Tale’ which rhymes.

In numeracy we have been finding out about 3d shapes and making repeating patterns using 2d and 3d shapes. Some patterns were hard to spot and follow, Mrs Herbert tried to trick us!!

In topic work we have been finding out about different habitats that animals live in and sorting animals into their correct habitat. We found woodland and rainforest habitats and animals quite difficult.

We are looking forward to dressing up as book characters tomorrow and writing a whole school story!! We are also going to take part in DEAR time- Drop Everything And Read time when the tambourine rings in class.

This week we have been shape spotting!

In numeracy we have been naming and describing 2d and 3d shapes. We have learned a 2d shape song on BBC bite size and a 3d shape song from the ‘Singing Walrus’ website.

In literacy we have been finding out about words that rhyme, this is something we need to practise, as it’s harder than it looks!!

We have also started to learn about living and non-living things as part of out new topic about ‘The Seaside’.