Term 5
Our topic for Term 5 was 'Carnival Time'. We learned about the Rio carnival in Brazil and the Spalding Flower Parade, a local celebration.
In Art, we made carnival capes. The children created a design and then we dyed fabric before using the fabric pens and paints to either draw, paint or print onto our capes. We then learned how to thread a needle and then decorated our capes further by sewing on beads, buttons and feathers. By the end of the term, everyone could thread a large eye needle and lots of the children could sew on their embellishments with just a little help.
In Geography, we learned more about the country of Brazil and what it is like to live there. We learned about the Amazon Rainforest as well as the city of Rio de Janeiro. We watched videos and read books to help us to learn about life in Brazil. We also found out about the Rio Carnival. We also had our own mini rainforest role-play area which was full of some of the different animals you would find in the rainforest.
In Science, we learned more about the rainforest animals and thought about why they decided to live in the rainforest and not somewhere else. We sorted animals into different groups and thought about similarities and differences between different animals. We also designed our own animals to live in the rainforest and thought about what those animals would need to live there.
In History, we learned about some local history, the Spalding Flower Parade. We learned about why the parade started and how long it had been running for. We looked at photographs from past parades and tried to decide which ones showed older parades. We also found out that the parade was starting again in 2023, after 10 years of not happening. Some of us took part in the parade alongside older children from the school. We also joined with Oak class to interview Miss Rawlings who was a flower princess in the parade when she was younger.
In Computing, we have been working on our skills on the laptops. The year 1's have been typing, changing fonts and sizes, and adding pictures into a word document. The Reception children have been practising their skills using the touchpads, on websites such as Pirate Bunnies (which also helps us to learn about different countries and continents).
In RE, our theme for this term and next, is creation and the natural world. We have learned about the Christian creation story and made story spinners to help us to retell the story.
In English, we started the term by learning about invitations. We looked at a wide range of invitations and picked out the features. We then learned about how to successfully write each part, such as using capital letters for days of the week, before then creating our own invitations. We decided on which information was needed, thought about layout and how to make our invitations eye-catching.
For our second English unit of the term, we learned more about the poet Jane Newberry and explored her anthology 'Big Green Crocodile'. The Year 1's learned the poem 'Spots and Stripes' and performed it together.
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For our final English unit, we learned about Non-Chronological Reports. We again, investigated some examples and picked out the key features before learning about those key features in turn. We then created our own reports about the Spalding Flower Parade, using the knowledge we had learned in our topic lessons.
In Maths, the Reception children have been working on doubling, halving & sharing, odds & evens, and numbers beyond 10. We have been exploring the numbers 11 to 20 and beginning to understand them as '10 and a bit'. Eddie went to see Mrs Upsall in Year 3/4 to show her his amazing doubles work and came back with a GOLD card, which means she was very impressed too.
In Maths, the Year 1's have been working on developing their understanding of numbers to 100. They have practised counting forwards and backwards, sequenced numbers, learned about more and less and explored different ways to represent the numbers using manipulatives but also pictorial representations such as bar models.
The Year 1's also spent some more time learning about fractions. They started with a quick recap on halves before moving on to quarters. They looked at quartering shapes, objects and quantities and also the concept that ¼ is ½ and ½ again.
Also new for this term was our Parents in Class reading sessions. Every class has them, and ours are on a Monday afternoon. Parents are invited in for the last 20 minutes of the day to share a book with their child. So far, we have had a week on fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Our sessions will continue after half term.
