Month: September 2019

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Dear Parents and Carers,

It’s been another week of exciting (although slightly wet)  learning in Phase One.

Year One have been busy making shadow puppets, Year Two have become budding reporters and Year Three have been busy making fossils.

School Council

This week we elected our School Councillors, congratulations to our newest members of the School Council team:

Year One

Year Two

Year Three

We look forward to hearing about all of their wonderful ideas throughout the year.

Attached is a copy of your class’s Curriculum Map which covers their learning for the Autumn Term.

Year One- ‘To Infinity and Beyond’ Curriculum Map Autumn final

Year Two- ‘Wish You Were Here’ Curriculum Map Autumn Year 2

Year Three- ‘Time Travellers’ Year Three Curriculum Map Autumn Term

 

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Luetchford 🙂

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Year Three might find some fossils, but it’s not set in stone…

Year Three are an impatient lot and waiting another few million years for some fossils to appear didn’t sound very appealing, so we’ve made some ourselves out of plaster of paris. Yes, I know it’s cheating, but the children had a lot of fun doing it.

Perhaps, we’ll find some real fossils elsewhere!

In spellings the children enjoyed a game of tic-tac-toe (nought and crosses) using their spelling words. I expect them to challenge you to a game at home. All the words this week end in –sure.

I am sure they have also been practising their French on you at home. We introduced our families (je te présente ma famille) with here is my brother (voici mon frère) and here is my mother (voici ma mere) etc. All good fun.

Have a great weekend.

Mr Peck​ and the Year Three Team

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Extra, Extra, Read All About It

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we have been writing newspaper reports to help the Lonely Beast find other beasts from around the world. We have learnt that there are some budding reporters in Elder Class.

In maths we have started learning about addition and subtraction. We have revised our knowledge of number facts and implemented this understanding in our calculations.

In science we have been investigating the suitability of various materials, discussing why Mr Stocking wouldn’t want a chocolate teapot for example.

In geography we have been researching facts about the Isle of Wight and the children used I-Pads for their investigative work. We were excited to learn that the Isle of Wight is one of the best places in Europe to find dinosaur fossils.

In R.E we have continued learning about Judaism and this week the children learnt about special artefacts in the Jewish faith.

Congratulations to Sean and Grace who have been elected as our School Councillors.  Well done to Toby, who has been our Star of the Week and will be taking home Freddy. Make sure you give him some bananas Toby!

For all the spelling bees out there, new spellings will ‘bee’ arriving on Monday.

Hope you have a lovely weekend,

The Year Two Team

 

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A Dark, Dark Room…

In Year One this week, we have continued to describe different settings. We read the story ‘A Dark, Dark, Tale’ and selected adjectives to describe this eerie and tatty castle.

We have learnt how to start our sentences in different ways and include interesting adjectives to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

In maths this week we have been learning how to count forwards and backwards and have started to compare amounts and numbers.

In science we have learnt about transparent and opaque materials. We then used this knowledge to create an alien shadow puppet.

This week we have been revising the following sounds:

aw (yawn, dawn)

ar (star, car)

There are words containing these sounds for the children to practise available on the Spelling Shed website: https://play.edshed.com/login

Congratulations to Lizzie and Aaron who have been appointed as our School Councillors and to Micheal who is our class Faith Champion.

Next week it is the turn of the Q Pootle table for Show and Tell (Charlie, Jamie, Oliver, Emily, James and John).

We hope you all have a relaxing weekend,

The Year One Team

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Welcome to Year Two

Year Two News:

Spelling Shed last week was a big success with lots of the children engaging with the program at home and filling out their spelling sheets. This week the children will be learning the /j/ sound, but this time spelt –ge at the end of words, i.e age. From next week we will have different spelling groups so each child is appropriately challenged. I have set the children a multiplication activity on Maths Shed to coincide with our learning on counting in 2s,  5s and 10s.

In maths this week, we have been learning how to order numbers and objects, as well as how to count in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s. Today we had a small place value assessment to end the block of learning. Next week we are starting our new block – addition and subtraction. We are starting by looking at addition and subtraction facts. In English, we wrote and published our diary entries. The children all did really well at getting into character of the Lonely Beast and we had lots of fantastic pieces of writing. Next week we are looking at writing newspaper articles.

In topic this week, we looked at the countries and flags of the U.K. The children learnt about the capital cities of each country and can now place them all on a map. In R.E. we held our own Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, with card making and food tasting. Lots of the children enjoyed the apples with honey we had. In Science, we explored the different materials around the classroom and discussed their varying properties. In Guided Reading we continued reading the Green ship and started with simple comprehension questions based on what we had read.

Looking to next week, we will be choosing our School Council representative for Year 2. We will be exploring the suitability of different materials in science, drawing Jewish artefacts in R.E. and in Topic we will be researching facts about the Isle of Wight using Ipads.

The winner of our star of the week this week is Grace, well done.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Mr. Stocking and the Year 2 team.

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Fossil Fun

In Year 3 we have been finishing our dilemma stories where a child from the Stone Age has travelled to our modern world and then back again.

In science we have learned about fossil formation (so they understand where all the staff have come from) and sorted rocks by their properties.

In maths we completed our place value work and did an end of block assessment. Your child’s score, as well as their spelling score is coming home with them tonight. Please practise on Spelling Shed and Times Table Rock Stars this week.

A curriculum map outlining our learning for the term will follow next week.

Enjoy the rugby this weekend,

Mr Peck and the Year Three Team

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A Strange and Mysterious Planet

This week we have been learning how to write a description of a setting. We looked at a strange planet called Pandora and thought of adjectives to describe what we could see. We then wrote these descriptions as sentences in our books.

In maths we have been learning how to count forwards and backwards. We have completed number sequences as numerals and pictures.

In science we have continued learning about different materials and their properties. We helped Bob who needed some new items for his rocket. We told him which material would be best for a: chair, waterbottle, bookshelf and window by describing their properties.

In phonics we have been revising the following sounds:

ai (rain, snail)

ay (may, play)

a-e (snake, shape)

igh (high, might)

i-e (kite, bride)

There are words containing these sounds for the children to practise available on the Spelling Shed website: https://play.spellingshed.com/#/login

This week the children took home their weekly reading books. The books will need to be returned on Tuesday so that the children can take home a new set on Wednesday.

To celebrate our love of reading we would like the children to bring in a photograph of them reading in an unusual place. These photographs will be used as part of our Reading Area display.

Next week it is the turn of the Dr Xargle table for Show and Tell (Nina, Daisy, Maryiam, Kieron, Sophia and Georgia).

We hope you all have a lovely weekend,

The Year One Team

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Welcome to Phase One

Welcome to our brand new Phase 1 blog!  We plan to use the blog to keep you up-to-date with all the exciting learning that takes place every week at St Matthews. The blog will also be a space for posting school reminders, as well as links to sites we may all find useful, so please do check in regularly! We sometimes will post as individual classes and other times as a phase group, we hope you will find it valuable and look forward to your encouraging comments.

Please note, I do not own any of the images included on our blog, apart from the photos of our classroom and children.

What a lovely start to the year it has been. The children have settled into the new academic year and it’s been great hearing all about their busy summers.

Assemblies have looked at ‘fresh starts’ and the children have been thinking about what they can do to be the very best version of themselves in this school year. It is sometimes difficult to start something new or face a challenge but Joshua 1:9 reminds us:

‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’

Thanks for reading and I hope you are as excited as I am for this new opportunity to bring school and home together through the Phase 1 blog!

Miss Luetchford 🙂

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Have You Seen This Sneaky Alien?

This week we have started reading our core text ‘Bob Man on the Moon’.

We learnt about Bob’s day on the moon and all of the jobs he has to complete inside his rocket. Unfortunately, Bob’s favourite sandwich was stolen by a very sneaky alien.

To help Bob, we wrote wanted posters describing the alien’s appearance and personality. Our amazing posters helped Bob capture the alien and reclaim his lunch.

In maths we have been learning how to use different resources to represent numbers. We wrote the number as a numeral, word and picture and used our Base 10 Diene sticks to represent a 2 digit number.

In phonics we have been revising the following sounds:

ow- blow, snow

oa- goat, boat, float

oi- spoil, toil, coil

oy- boy, toy

We have also been reviewing our phonics knowledge by playing the game ‘Obb and Bob’.

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/PicnicOnPluto.html

As a school we have joined ‘The Spelling Shed’ to help children practise and learn their spellings. This week the children have all been given a username and password to help them access their spellings at home (please come and speak to one of the team if you cannot find your child’s username and password). The link to the Spelling Shed is below:

https://play.spellingshed.com/#/login

The children enter their username and password to access their account.

Once signed into their account, the children can then access the various spellings that we are practising in class. The children can  work through the different levels to help them practise their spellings.

In science we have started our topic ‘Materials’. We looked at different materials and began to describe their properties. We then sorted the materials using the vocabulary we had generated.

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend our ‘Meet the Teacher’ session on Wednesday. Below is an attachment of the PowerPoint used to help explain routines in Year One.

Welcome to Year 1

Please could we use any spare yogurt pots and empty toilet rolls that you might have, for a very exciting R.E lesson next week.

Next week it is the turn of the ‘But Martin!’ table for Show and Tell (Magnus, Theo, Grover and Freya).

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

The Year 1 Team

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Welcome to Year One

What an exciting first week we’ve had in Year 1!

This week we have started our topic ‘To Infinity and Beyond’ where we will be learning about explorers focusing on Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong.

Below is a copy of Autumn curriculum map that outlines our learning for the Autumn Term:

Curriculum Map Autumn final

We read the story ‘Alien’s Love Underpants’ and thought of adjectives to describe the cheeky aliens. We then wrote these adjectives as sentences in our brand new Year 1 Topic Books.

Next week we will creating space rockets using junk modelling materials. Please can you donate and spare boxes or items that could be used for this.

In maths we have been practising writing our numbers in our new Year 1 Maths Books, remembering to write the numbers inside the squares.

In art we learnt about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and recreated his ‘concentric circles’ painting for our Year 1 Art Gallery.

Next week we will be starting Show and Tell. In Year 1 each group will be given a turn for Show and Tell. They have the whole week to bring in an item that they would like to share with the class.  Next week it will be the turn of the Roaring Rockets table: Emima, Ire, Lily, Ana, Arto and Shiven.

We look forward to seeing you next week on Wednesday 11th September for ‘Meet the Teacher’.

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

The Year 1 Team