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Mini Gardens

Year One spent an idyllic afternoon at the end of the Spring Term creating their own mini gardens.

The children were provided with a mixture of natural and bought resources and added to these by foraging in the School grounds.

The children chose which sort of garden to make and used a range of skills to complete the work.

DT with Mr Buck

The Year 1 children had a visit from our Head of Design Technology in the Prep Department and some of the children from years 5 and 6. In the summer term of 2009 these children had interviewed the Reception children to find out what they thought would make a good story for a five or six year old. They completed questionnaires and then took the information away and started to plan to make a pop-up book. The children who were in Reception are now in Year 1 and were very excited to listen to the completed stories created by the older children. They were impressed by the sliders and pop-up illustrations. 1P were inspired by the pop-up books and decided to make an Easter card with a chick that had a pop-up beak.

Chinese New Year 2010

In Year One this week we have been thinking about Chinese culture and the Chinese New Year celebrations. We held an activity day to allow the children to work with different groups of children from across the year group and to experience a variety of activities relating to China and its traditions. We looked at Chinese writing and tried to copy Mandarin numerals from 1 to 10. We listened to the Chinese fable about the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac and then we made our own animal mask. We discovered that this year is the Year of the Tiger. We made dragons and watched clips of the dragon dances that take place in China during the New Year celebrations. During our morning snack we had the opportunity to taste Chinese rice crackers, prawn crackers and strawberry biscuits. We looked carefully at non-fiction books to learn about China and Chinese culture. We then made our own non-fictions booklets including information about the Great Wall of China, the traditional dress and the national flag. We then used Google Earth to locate China and the UK and marked our findings on a map.

A Grand Opening

A celebrity guest came from the Prep Dept to open our new role play area. Mr Ruffell, Head of Geography, arrived to great excitement and after cutting the ribbon he surprised us with a fantastic gift for the Ticket Office...a picture of our world taken from space!

Our theme for this term is Katie Morag and we are using the Post Office and Ticket Office from her Island of Struay to inform and enhance the children’s learning. In this role play area the children are able to explore and understand the cross curricula applications of all the topics we are investigating this term which include geography, literacy, language and communication, maths and art.

We would like to say a big thank you to Mr Ruffell who gave up his morning for this event and who gave such an inspiring speech which the children are still talking about.

“This Is Rocket Science!”

A great thank you to Ethen (1S) and Corey (Nursery)’s Mum for giving up a morning and an afternoon all for the sake of Science. We were learning about 3D shape and Mrs Rushden volunteered to work with the children to make real launchable rockets. With the aid of a compressor, each and every rocket was launched much to the delight of all the children. This was a wonderful and exciting afternoon’s learning which we will never forget.

Karen Sims

Remembrance Day

Mr Kendrick came to talk to Year One about Remembrance Day.  He is the Head of History for our school.  He told us all about why we have Remembrance Day every year and why people wear poppies during this time.  Mr Kendrick showed us a helmet that a soldier would have worn to keep safe during the war. He taught us some very interesting and sad facts.

• This year is the first year there are no soldiers alive who fought in World War One.
  
• Private Ellison was the last person to be killed before the war ended.
  
• 885,138 people from Great Britain and Ireland died.
  
• During the fighting they blew whistles when they wanted the soldiers to come out of the trenches and attack.
  
• Every year Mr Kendrick takes Year 6 children to Belgium to a cemetery of 9000 war graves.  The children learn about the soldiers and try to remember their names.
  

We all made a poppy on a cross and took it outside to make a field of Remembrance in the sand pit. Then we took a minute to remember the soldiers who fought in the wars. 

Year One Games Lessons

During our Year One Games lessons we have been using the parachute. We have learnt lots of new games and have realised the importance of working together. Below are some pictures of us playing ‘Mountain’. During this game we all had to use team work to raise the parachute high above our heads; then we had to snap it down and trap the air to make a mountain. Miss Prewer then called the name of the mountaineers who had to try and climb across the mountain before it fell!

We like to start our parachute games by warming up with ‘Stuck in the Mud’. The catchers wear a red bib so that they are easy to identify. We have to try and rescue our friends when they have been ‘stuck!’

Nick and Anita Butterworth

On Thursday 8th October Nick and Anita Butterworth visited Year 1 on their way into the city to publicise Anita’s new book ‘Jake our Hero’.

We learned how Nick gained his inspiration for writing the Percy the Park Keeper series of books and how he and his friend Mick Inkpen used to play a game called Pigaroo.

Above all he inspired us. Whether it was with his action packed retelling of his trips to the park with his naughty dog Jake, or the way he brought the exclamation mark to life! We will never forget his visit.

Year One Trip To Cromer - Friday 24th April 2009

We set off for the coast with wonderful weather behind us. It was a very exciting day with lots of fun learning activities. When we arrived, we split into groups to explore Cromer.

First, we walked through the town centre to the promenade. We looked out to sea and made some super sketches of the pier. We studied the different building types and had a close look at the Grand Hotel de Paris. We visited the Henry Blogg Museum, dressed up as lifeboat men and saw Henry Blogg’s medals.

The children had a chat to a fisherman called Charlie. He had just come back with a catch and showed us a real crab and a real lobster. They had very sharp pincers!

We had a walk along the beach and collected some shells and interesting stones.

Next, we walked along the pier to the lifeboat museum. Here, the children were able to see the new lifeboat – it was very shiny.

We walked back along the promenade, past the fun fair. Here, many children tasted some sugary, sweet, pink candy floss. Just before lunch, we made a quick stop at the fish and chip shop to try a delicious, hot chip. Yummy!

In the afternoon we visited the Cromer museum. Here the children were able to explore a Victorian cottage. We also looked at some artefacts in the geology room and the Victorian wash room. The staff at the museum led an interesting workshop about Victorian life in Cromer. The children were able to handle some Victorian buckets, spades and swimming costumes.

It was a super day with lots of learning, fresh air and fun. On the way home, many children fell asleep!

Forest Schools

For our Spring forest schools session we made miniature gardens. We collected a range of natural materials from the ground remembering to show respect to growing and living things.

We worked indepedentley and as you can see from our pictures, all of our gardens were different.

Some children created Easter gardens whilst others made fantasy gardens with tunnels, bridges and even dinosaurs !

It was a beautiful spring day and we had great fun !!

“Learning neither begins at 5 years old nor at 9 o’clock in the morning”

It is a wet and windy Friday at Town Close House Pre-Prep and the Year 1 children have the playground to themselves. A huge puddle becomes a lake and the children decide to build a bridge across it. Fallen leaves are gathered and carefully piled up to form a road, soil is used to make concrete. It is noticed that the leaves are floating away under all of the heavy ‘child’ traffic, so logs are foraged from around the playground and used to make the sides of the newly formed ‘leaf’ bridge. After shoring up the sides the leaves are compacted using the playground tyres.

Year 1 - Trombone Workshop

On Thursday 26th November Year 1 were entertained by Ian and Roger, a trombone playing duo otherwise known as Just Trombones. The children learnt a lot about how sounds are made and how pitch can be altered. There was a lot of practical participation too and Daniel’s conducting was a firm favourite.

Year 1 - Musical Instruments

As part of our Design Technology topic 1K made musical instruments. We used a variety of boxes, tubes and tubs to make guitars, drums and violins. The children enjoyed the design process and evaluated their finished pieces. Examples of our work can be seen in the Pre-Prep corridor display cabinet soon !!

Year 1 - Forest Schools

The children had fun working together to make natural collage, musical instrumentds and to build shelters. We learned how to carry sticks and logs correctly. We knocked sticks into the ground using flints. We worked in friendship groups and used our imagination.

Potatoes

The Year 1 children are taking part in the British Potato Council “Grow your own Potatoes Project, 2008”. Watch the progress of their 2 varieties of potatoes below:

We will be harvesting our potatoes in late June. The children are already wondering how many new potatoes will have grown!