Caterpillar Update

Our caterpillars have been in school for two weeks now and look how they have grown! They are spending more time up by the lid which means they are getting ready to become chrysalides. We are really excited about this amazing transformation! Watch this space for further news!

Our Class Assembly – The Ugly Bug Ball

We performed our first ever class assembly ‘The Ugly Bug Ball’ and we did a fantastic job. The story gave everyone an important message: It doesn’t matter what you look like – it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Our singing, dancing and acting was top quality and we enjoyed putting on a show for our parents and the rest of the school.

Caterpillars

We have an exciting new addition to our class – today we got some caterpillars! We are going to look after them and watch them change over the next few weeks. In class, we are taking photos and drawing pictures to show what they are doing. We are really excited to see what happens next!

Chinese New Year

We had a fantastic day celebrating Chinese New Year. We all came to school dressed in red clothing as Chinese people believe this to be a lucky colour. We found out how school in China is different to what we have here. We tried out some morning stretches just like the children in China do every day. Next, we listened to the story of Chinese New Year – how the twelve animals got the year to be named after them. Some of us dressed up to help tell the story. Then we watched a video clip of a dragon dance. This inspired us to make our own dragon, which took us the rest of the morning. Just before lunch, we learnt some Mandarin and we learnt ‘Gung hay fat choy’ which is the Chinese New Year song. At lunch time, we ate lovely Chinese food: noodles, rice, sweet and sour chicken and prawn crackers. This was followed by a fortune cookie. We finished the day by performing a dragon dance and singing the Chinese New Year song for Year 1. What a brilliant day!

Music Lessons

We have been very fortunate to have a music teacher from Milton Keynes Music Service in over the spring term. She has been teaching us how to make loud and quiet sounds with our voices and with the instruments. We have also been learning a song for Chinese New Year.

Milton Keynes Theatre & Art Gallery

We had our first school trip this term and we had a brilliant time! We took part in three different sessions. One session was a workshop with drama and dancing where we all got to use our big voices! We had an amazing backstage tour and saw all of the costumes and props from the Jersey Boys. We even got to stand on the stage and pretend we were performing! The session in the art gallery was great fun too. We got to explore a variety of art work and play with torches and make shapes in front of projector lights. What a fantastic trip – we can’t wait to have another day out!

Sock Puppets

Our current topic is Toys and after reading Kipper’s Toybox we all made our own sock puppets. They were based on ‘Sock Thing’ who features in the story. Some of us even gave our sock puppet a name!

Drawing

This week, we have been focusing on drawing accurately. Mrs Atherton has asked us to draw a picture of a friend in the class, making sure we look at them carefully so that their hair is the right colour and that the picture looks like them. Here is Emily’s drawing of Vivienne. She has paid good attention and has drawn a fantastic picture.

Celebrations & Festivals

During our topic of celebrations and festivals, we had a visitor who told us all about Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. She told us the story of Rama and Sita and she brought us sweets to celebrate this special festival. In class, we made Diva lamps out of clay.

We also had a Jewish visitor who explained how she celebrates Hanukkah. She lit nine candles on the Hanukkiah and said a special prayer in Hebrew. She told us about a game which Jewish families play called the Dreidel game. We also got to eat some tasty doughnuts!

Police Officer Visit

A police officer visited our school! He explained what his job is and he told us about the different animals that help the police. He showed us his uniform and the equipment he has to carry. We were lucky because he brought a police van into our car park so we got to see the inside, the flashing lights and we even heard the siren.

Technology

At school we are learning to use a range of technology. We enjoy using the Tuff-Cams to take pictures and make movies. We also use the class computer and interactive whiteboard every day to help us learn maths and literacy skills.