Holy Spirit Day

We talked about the symbols of the Holy Spirit – wind and fire. To show how well we know these symbols we made pin wheels and decorated them with flames.  Later we learnt about the Fruits of the Holy Spirit and made some beautiful doves. We chose one of the fruits to write on our doves and discussed why we thought our chosen fruit was the most important. 

Pentecost

In our RE lessons, we have been learning about the Holy Spirit and the story of Pentecost. Today we worked in groups to retell the story of Pentecost. Before we started, we discussed as a class what we should include from the story and the different parts we would need to play. We also each made our own flame that could be used during our performance. Each group had some time to practise and then performed for the rest of the class. We did a great job of remember key details and retelling the story!

World Week

We had a very exciting World Week learning all about Italy!  At the start of the week we learnt some Italian phrases and practised saying them to one another. We then learnt about the Carnival of Venice and made our own beautifully detailed masks before parading them around the playground.

During World Week we also learned about a different religion – Hinduism. We were told the stories of Ganesh and Krishna, who are both Hindu Gods. We also had a special visitor, a professional dancer, who taught us about Kathak!

African Animals Project

For the past few weeks we have been working on a project about African animals as part of our homework! Today was very exciting as we brought our projects to school and got a chance to show everyone our hard work. We were allowed to present our research on an African animal of our choice in any way we wanted. Some of us wrote poems, made fact-files, drew or painted beautiful pictures and some of us even made the animal using different materials.

It was fun to share our research with the rest of the class and find out what everyone had been up to. We learnt lots of new and interesting information about some of our favourite animals!

African Art

We started off our new ‘Africa’ topic by creating some beautiful artwork. First we looked at paintings of different African animals. The paintings were very different because they were made up of lots of patterns and dots! Next we had a go at painting our own African animals. We used cotton buds instead of paintbrushes to help us recreate the dot style of painting we had seen in the other paintings. Our paintings turned out wonderful!

Woburn Safari Trip

We had a great time on our trip to Woburn Safari Park!  We got to see lots of exciting African animals such as: lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, zebras, wolves and monkeys. When we visited the monkeys it was very exciting as one naughty monkey climbed on to the roof of our bus and joined us on our journey!

In our classroom session we talked about different types of animals and what type of skins they have – some have fur, some have scales and some have feathers. We even got to touch a real snake!

Later we got a chance to walk around the foot safari and see some of the smaller animals. We really liked the penguins and the meerkats but found the lemurs quite scary! We finished up our day by watching a bird show and visiting the bird house.

He is Risen!

This morning during meditation we celebrated Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday.  We discussed what new life we might see during spring and came up with a list that included; flowers, chicks, lambs and insects.  To celebrate Jesus’s new life we made some flower crosses.

Stations of the Cross

During meditation we explored the Stations of the Cross. We discussed the journey that Jesus went on before he died and worked together to match the correct symbol to each station. Each group was then given a moment to reflect and explore the stations and their matching symbols before we finished off with a class prayer.

Science Week

We had a very exciting Science Week exploring nature and the great outdoors! To start off our week we went on our very own ‘Journey through Nature’ by heading outside to see what we could find. Later in the week we discussed an insect’s habitat. We worked hard to design our very own Bug Hotel before working together as a group to build it. Throughout the week we kept checking our Bug Hotels to see if any creepy crawlies had moved in! To finish off our journey through nature we went pond dipping and discussed what creatures might live in this habitat.  We had great fun using the nets to explore.

Saying Sorry

As it is Lent we spent our meditation discussing what it means to be sorry.  We then went outside and each chose a pebble and drew a cross on it with chalk. As we drew the cross we took a moment to think about something we were sorry for and remembered that Jesus died on the cross so that our sins can be forgiven. We then left our pebbles outside in the courtyard and thought about how when it rains, the cross will be washed away and our sins will be forgiven.

Traditional Tales

This half term we have been reading lots of traditional tales. For our assembly we decided to share a few of our favourites with everyone. We used our acting, speaking and singing skills to tell the tales of the Gingerbread Man, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We really enjoyed practising and performing our assembly – it was great fun!

2D Shapes

In class we have been learning all about 2D shapes and their properties. Today we went outside to see what shapes we could find in the school playground. We recorded how many we could find of each shape and were very surprised at how many we could spot – we even found some trickier shapes like a hexagon!

Building Castles

Today we used different materials to build our own castles. We had three tables – one with paper and card, one with playdough and one with building blocks. We had an opportunity to spend 10 minutes at each table to experiment with each material. Afterwards we talked about each material and shared our ideas about how useful it was for building a strong and tall castle.

Jam Sandwiches

We have been learning about the famous ice explorer Ernest Shackleton. Shackleton and his team were the first to visit Antarctica. However, once they arrived disaster struck and they became trapped in the ice for two years! Whilst they were trapped they dreamt of making it home and eating lovely sandwiches. Today, we decided to make our own sandwiches just like Ernest Shackleton dreamt of! We had to carefully follow instructions to make them and then got a chance to enjoy them at snack time.

Polar Day

On Polar Day we went on an ice journey to the Arctic! We started our day by making some jam sandwiches (just like the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton dreamt of when he was trapped in the ice!). Later we looked at some explorer equipment and got a chance to try some of it on. We weren’t sure what some of the equipment is used for so we had to work as a group to figure it out. Finally we made some penguin party hats to take home with us!

No Pens’ Day

We found it super exciting that we had a whole day at school with no pens or pencils allowed! Instead we did lots of other fun activities.  We joined together with Year 1CO for a ‘senses day’, which included smell pots, a tasting table, sight puzzles, a listening corner and a feely bag. It was great fun using our senses to experience new things!  Later we did lots of arts and crafts. As we could not use any colouring pencils we collaged some hedgehogs and finger painted some autumn trees. We also made some penguins and fluffy polar bear masks for our new Arctic topic!

European Day of Languages

To celebrate European Day of Languages we learnt some Irish. We designed our own Irish dancing costumes and learnt about the colours. We used this learning to do some beautiful rainbow colouring. Later we got to try some different foods from all around the world – everything was yummy!

Howe Park Wood

Our trip to Howe Park Woods was great fun. It rained all day but we enjoyed every minute of it! When we first arrived we headed off for a walk in the woods before finding a clearing to do some fun activities. We hunted for mini-beasts and used our hands to measure how old trees were – we were challenged to find the oldest and youngest tree in the woods!

After lunch a guide came to take us further into the woods. She taught us how to survive in the woods overnight, including how to make our own den! Each group made a den using a large tarp and four pieces of rope. Then the guide poured water over our den and if we stayed dry it meant we had done a great job!

Chicks

We have been very lucky to have some fluffy yellow visitors in our classroom to help us learn about the life-cycle of a chick. Eleven eggs arrived in an incubator and the next day every single one of them hatched!  We watched the new-born chicks as they pecked their way out of their eggs.  Over the next week we watched our chicks grow bigger and bigger. We looked after them by feeding and watering them, changing their bedding and most importantly giving them lots of cuddles!