2020/21

Term 5

Italian Ibex have thoroughly enjoyed the launch of their Towers, Tunnels and Turrets topic this term.

Writing & Reading

Our writing has been heavily inspired by our class novel, ‘The Boy Who Grew Dragons’ by Andy Shepherd. After discovering our own dragon eggs in the school grounds, we wrote newspaper reports warning people of dragons being on the loose! Our dragon-based work continued with our ‘Missing Dragon’ writing. We built a detailed description of our missing dragons by using adjectives and creating expanded noun phrases. As well as this, we worked on developing our sentence structure using joining words (conjunctions). We also created a guide explaining how to look after a dragon. In this piece, we used commands and bossy verbs (imperative verbs). Our class novel has been our focus text during guided reading and has helped us develop our comprehension skills along with Rex the Retrieval, Vocabulary Victor and Inference Iggy!

Maths

Our number work has continued and we have developed our ability to subtract a 1-digit number from a 2-digit number and to subtract a 2-digit number from a 2-digit number, including exchanging. Although we had a focus on using our place value columns to subtract and add, we also used a range of maths manipulatives to help us visualise the number sentences we were trying to solve. We used our ten frames and counters, our base ten, number lines and our 100 squares. We have been adding three numbers and have represented these using part-whole models. After learning these methods, we have been working hard to apply them to a range of word problems, which included finding the difference and totals. To challenge us further, sometimes these have been represented in different ways such as bar models.  We have continued to practise our counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s, by dancing to our Super Mover workouts and understanding how these can be used in our times tables. This has also allowed us to begin to see the inverse link to division. Our weekly arithmetic lesson has helped us to ensure our knowledge is secure and draw on our range of methods to suit each question. We have been trying hard to develop our mental maths too, so that we are less reliant on our 100 square.

Topic

We launched our ‘Towers, Tunnels and Turrets’ topic by going on a virtual tour of a range of castles. We used this to draw our own diagram of a castle to show how they were designed and wrote an explanation about each feature. This produced some super writing. We explored castles through the ages and found out that the first castles were built of wood rather than stone and bricks. This allowed us to put our construction skills to the test, by building models of Motte and Bailey Castles. In art, we learnt about Paul Klee. His painting, ‘Castle and Sun’, inspired us to create our own work in his style. We used 2D shapes as templates, to draw our own castle and used oil pastels in bright, bold colours to colour them in. We finished our work by doing a watercolour wash for the sky and background. After understanding the life and role of a knight during medieval times, and the importance of their armour and coat of arms, we designed our own coat of arms. We chose the design, colours and animal carefully as they each represented something different. Our design and technology tower challenge was great fun too. We used paper straws and pipe cleaners to construct a tower structure and had a competition to see which team could build the tallest one.

Science

Our Science focus has been ‘Animals Including Humans’. We started by looking at animal babies and being able to identify and name their young. We looked at mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and discussed whether they started life as an egg (hatchlings), spawn (tadpoles) or grew inside their pregnant mother. This led us to draw a life cycle of our chosen animal. After this, we explored how humans grow and change and created our own mini book showing the development of a baby to a toddler, then a child, a teenager, an adult and eventually an elderly adult. As well as this, we explored the basic needs of humans and animals and wrote our own fact file.

RE

Our enquiry question has been, ‘How special is the relationship Jews have with God?’ We began by exploring rules and routines in our own lives. After this, we explored the story of Abraham and then later Mosses and the Ten Commandments. We found out about the Mezuzah and the Shema, which is kept inside. This inspired us to create our own special containers to hold our own special promises.

Term 4

Writing

Italian Ibex have enjoyed continuing with their ‘Land Ahoy!’ topic this term. They have come back to school, after the lockdown, super keen and ready to learn. Well done Italian Ibex Class!

Our topic focus has moved towards looking at sea rescues. We have enjoyed learning about Grace Darling, who was a daughter of a lighthouse keeper during the Victorian era. Her quick thinking and bravery led to her saving a group of stranded passengers, whose ship had been wrecked in a violent storm. We wrote our own short story based on her heroic tale. We ensured we wrote in the past tense and used adventurous adjectives to describe the storm to set the scene. As well as this, we wrote a non-fiction explanation piece to explain what a lighthouse is and how it works.

Reading

World Book Week kicked off our reading this term which gave us the opportunity to explore ‘Flotsam’ by David Wiesner and ‘Leaf’ by Sandra Dieckmann. The books were great starting points to inspire us to become eco-warriors and link with our Science too.

We enjoyed reading about the Jolley Roger family so much in term 3, that we have continued to read about their adventures this term too. Our class chapter book, ‘The Jolley Rogers and the Pirate Piper’, has been our focus text during guided reading and has helped us develop our comprehension skills: Rex the Retrieval, Vocabulary Victor and Inference Iggy!

Maths

Our number work continued and we developed our ability to add and subtract 2-digit numbers by both 1-digit and 2-digit numbers. Some of these were tricky because we were bridging ten and needing to exchange. Using a range of maths manipulatives helped us to visualise the number sentences we were trying to solve. We used our ten frames and counters, our base ten, number lines, 100 squares and our place value columns. Once we were able to do this, it really helped us to understand how column addition and subtraction worked. We continue to practise our counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and 3s, by dancing to our Super Mover workouts and understanding how these can be used in our times tables too.

Topic

During lockdown we learnt about the RNLI and once we returned to school, we were lucky enough to have a Zoom workshop with an RNLI volunteer named Colin. He told us all about the RNLI and the amazing work they do. As well as this, he helped us understand the dangers of water and how to stay safe. In History, we learnt about Grace Darling’s heroic story and used watercolours to paint our own stormy seascape and lighthouse silhouette. Our design skills came in handy, when we were sent a special letter from a lighthouse keeper, who asked us to help him design a new lighthouse design. We used card to create our 3D lighthouse model.

Science

Animals And Their Habitats: Being inspired by our World Book Week books, we became eco-warriors and learnt about plastic pollution and global warming. We created ‘shock art’ to educate people about the damage plastic is doing to our sea creatures. As well as this, we made global warming posters to inform people about what they can do to help stop this happening. We learnt about Leaf, a poor polar bear who ended up drifting from his home in the Artic because the ice caps were melting.

Materials And Their Uses: Science Week allowed us the opportunity to continue with our Materials And Their Uses topic, in the context of boats. After looking at a variety of different boats, we discussed what they were made from and what we thought the best material would be. We asked the question, ‘How do boats float?’ and tested a range of materials to see whether they would sink or float to see if our predictions were correct. We soon realised that not only was the material an important factor, but also the shape of the item we were testing. We saw that a ball of modelling clay sunk, but were given the challenge to reshape it to see if we could make it float. We had a class competition and pushed ourselves further by seeing if our boats would hold cargo (marbles) too, before they sank!

PE

We have been developing a whole range of skills during our PE sessions with a strong focus on having fun, building our social skills and team work! We have also had some competition with our Speed Stacks session too. Robin Windsor has continued to keep us moving to the beat by teaching us the jive, the Charleston, disco, the waltz and much more.

Term 3

Topic & Writing

Italian Ibex have enjoyed getting stuck into their ‘Land Ahoy!’ topic this term and have maintained their enthusiasm and passion for learning during online learning. Well done Italian Ibex Class!

Every good pirate needs a pirate ship, so we launched our topic by learning about the parts of a ship and created our own pirate ship report along with labelled diagrams too. Later, we showed off our excellent pirate ship knowledge by creating our own guidebooks. As well as this, we learnt about famous pirates, including the infamous Captain Blackbeard. Inspired by these pesky pirates, we created our own scallywags and descripted them in the style of a pirate wanted poster. We learnt that it was not only pirates who sailed the seven seas during the golden age of piracy and found out about the famous explorer, Captain Cook. By plotting his famous first voyage, we located the five oceans and key locations along his journey. This helped us create a short biography about this brave sea explorer. Our free writing Fridays have been inspired by images linked to our topic including a desert island and the mythical sea creature, the kraken. We loved being dressed up for our Pirate Theme Day and learnt how to speak like a pirate.

Maths

We began our term, continuing with our Number work. We explored numbers to 100 and identified place value and different ways numbers can be represented. This included partitioning numbers into tens and ones. We moved on to develop our understanding of time, particularly o’clock and half past. Recently, we have enjoyed learning about position and direction. This has been a key skill to develop as it has helped us with our topic work too when create our own pirate maps and writing instructions for them using this key vocabulary.

Science

Our Science this term, has been focused on Animals And Their Habitats. We began the term exploring MRS GREN in order to establish whether something is alive, dead or has never been alive. We went on a hunt at home, to see what we could find to fit into each criteria. After this, we researched local habitats, including woodlands, ponds, coastal and urban habitats. We created drawings which included the different types of animals, insects and plants which live there. We were able to link our pirate topic to our Science work too. Every good pirate has a parrot perched on their shoulder, so we researched this animal to find out more. We created beautiful parrot fact files explaining their diet and habitat.

Art & Music

In art, we created some fantastic pirate flags using a whole range of materials and resources we had at home. We have used our imagination to design and draw our very own pirate treasure maps too. As well as this, we made some amazing pirate ships during our Pirate Theme Day accompanied with tube pirates and crew too! We had fun learning some sea shanties and performed them to the rest of the class. Some of us even used some musical instruments we had at home. Lots of our creative work has been cross curricular and has really ensured that we are balancing our subjects, so that our wellbeing is being looked after too. Being creative through drawing, making or music is something many of us thoroughly enjoy.

PE

Joe Wick has obviously assisted us during this lockdown, providing great workouts to help us build our stamina and fitness. We have created our own Joe Wicks style workouts and taught them to the rest of the class. Some of us created super creative routines, which involved an animal theme or a pirate theme. Fancy Dress Friday has provided us with the opportunity to have fun and keep fit too. BBC Super Movers has great, not only in get us up out of our chairs and on our feet moving, but also to reinforce key maths knowledge too. As well as this, we have been learning a whole range of dance routines to keep those happy hormones flowing and to make us feel good. Being as active as possible has been vital in keeping our bodies healthy and our minds happy.

Term 2

English

Italian Ibex have really enjoyed continuing with their ‘Muck, Mess and Mixture’ topic. We have let our imagination run wild with the help of Drew Daywalt’s book, ‘The Day The Crayons Quit’, which has inspired us to write our own letters in character as Duncan. We responded to the poor crayons and used emotive language to persuade them to return. In our grammar sessions, we explored apostrophes and identified how they can be used for omission and possession. We challenged ourselves to use this new piece of punctuation in our writing too. As well as this, we have thoroughly enjoyed another book which linked with our History topic, called ‘Traction Man’ by Mini Grey. We continued to work on our expanded noun phrases, commas for a list and conjunctions, to write a character description of Traction Man. This term, we also began something new in writing called ‘Free Writing Fridays’, which we are thoroughly enjoying as we can really show off our creativity and individual writing style without limitations.

Maths

During Maths this term, we have been looking at halves and quarters. Once we were able to identify halves and quarters of shapes, we challenged ourselves to find halves and quarters of amounts. This was a little tricky at first but once we understood and remembered that half means sharing into two equal groups and that quarter means sharing into four equal groups, we soon got the hang of it. Later in the term, we explored money and were able to identify coins and notes and explain their values. We really enjoyed using the plastic coins in our lessons and were able to apply our knowledge further to compare and count coins too. More recently, we have returned to number to investigate numbers up to 100. We have started to develop our partitioning skills and identify the place value of digits within a 2-digit number.

Science & Art

We have continued to get messy by constructing our own printing tools in Art using pipe cleaners and straws to create beautiful firework inspired paintings. We have linked Art and Science whilst exploring the properties of wax to create wax resistance artwork using white crayons and watercolours. This piece also helped us to develop our paint mixing skills working with Autumnal shades and tones. We have continued to develop our investigative skills to explore the questions, ‘Which ball is the bounciest?’ and recorded our results in a number of different ways. This helped us make links to materials and analyse their properties.  

History

For this term we have really developed our understanding of history in the context of toys by creating a huge class timeline of toys. We had lots of fun sharing our favourite toys discussing how they worked and what they were made of. Through interviews with our parents and grandparents, we were able to see how toys have changed over time. Our exploration of toys through the years has also been brought to life through our Guided Reading book, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, which helped us understand what toys were like in the early 20^th Century. We had great fun creating our own Victorian-style toys making peg dolls and soldiers and a thaumatrope which is an optical toy.

RE

We have been exploring the question, ‘Why did God give Jesus to the world?’ and through this unit, we have understood that Jesus was a gift from God. We looked at how the world could be ‘saved’ and realised that we can all be a type of superhero and make a difference to the world to make it a better place. We looked at this in the context of the book, ‘George Saves The World By Lunch Time’. We also explored the word ‘advent’ and we learnt about the ways some Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus and created our own advent wreaths as well as exploring the Christmas story in more detail.

Term 1

English

Italian Ibex have had a fantastic start to their ‘Muck, Mess and Mixture’ topic. We have let our imagination run wild with the help of Roald Dahl’s ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’, which has inspired us to conjure up our own unique concoctions, create a list of ingredients and write our own recipes too. Our ingredients included a whole array of ‘tasty’ items such as ‘slimy, slippery slugs’ and ‘wriggly, wet worms’. We worked on developing our noun phrases by including adjectives and using commas in a list too. In our recipes, we explored bossy verbs to start each of our instructional sentences, such as ‘Mix…’, ‘Stir…’, ‘Chop…’ and ‘Blend…’ and quantity phrases inspired by Roald Dahl like, ‘dollop’, ‘smidgen’ and ‘splodge’.

Maths

During Maths this term, we have been looking at multiplying and dividing and have developed our understanding of making equal groups. Through exploring repeat addition and doubles, we have been able to apply these concepts to more tricky word problems too. As well as groupings, we have been on the lookout for arrays in everyday life, such as Lego blocks, cakes and boxes of chocolates and doughnuts. This helped us to understand rows and columns and we used these arrays to help us multiply by counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We also did some more complex counting in 3s, 4s and 6s using the skip counting method on our number lines. This developed into sharing equal groups in order to understand division too. Using counters, has really helped and we even made some of our own salt dough doughnuts which we hope to use to create our own arrays.

Science & Topic

Our Topic work has been very much linked with our Science this term, which has enabled us to really get stuck into getting messy and mucky.

In Science, we have been experimenting and investigating a variety of messy mixtures. During our ‘Lively Liquids Week’, we investigated which soapy materials created the best bubbles and explored the question, ‘What shape is a bubble?’ by made our own bubble wands. This also resulted in us creating some beautiful and effective bubble artwork using black card and oil pastels. More marvellous mixing was needed when we made predictions and investigations to see what would happen to a range of materials when they were mixed with water, including whether or not they would dissolve. We had great fun during our ‘Kitchen Capers’ Week, combining Science and Design & Technology by working with dough and getting our hands messy exploring ways in which this material could be manipulated. We were super excited to make our own tasty ice cream, which demonstrated how materials can change from solids into liquids and vice versa.

Keeping with the food theme, we were in awe of the amazing artwork by Carl Warner, who created landscapes out of food. This led to us creating our own collaged landscapes using pictures of bread, fruits and vegetables.

During Art and Design, we have been using primary colours to create secondary colours and looking at tone and shade ranges within colours such as purple and orange. This exploration of colour has not stopped there.

Through ‘The Colour Monster’ book, by Anna llenas, we have made links between colours, feelings and emotions and used this inspiration in our most recent English lessons to create imaginative similes when describing our own Brave Colour Monster.

2019/20

Term 5 and Term 6

Spanish Bulls have thoroughly enjoyed working on their number bonds and becoming familiar with numbers to 50. They have enjoyed using the greater than, less than crocodile to compare numbers and recognise patterns in numbers. Children have also learnt to count in twos, fives and tens and identify tens and ones in numbers.

Writing

Children have enjoyed completing writing linked to topic lessons this term. They loved learning about The Great Fire of London and the events that took place. They studied Samuel Pepys and were inspired to write their own diaries as if they were at The Great Fire of London.

Spanish Bulls also enjoyed completing writing related to science and art week. They wrote about things that they could identify in the natural world.

History

Spanish Bulls thoroughly enjoyed completing silhouette paintings linked to The Great Fire of London. Children explored various textures, shapes and patterns during this activity.

Year one studied two historic figures this term, Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Children enjoyed learning about the significance of their lives and they were inspired by the nurses that they became. Children enjoyed looking at the similarities and differences between the two nurses through a Venn diagram.

Art

Spanish Bulls loved producing art work in relation to science and art week. They learnt about evergreen and deciduous trees and wrote facts about the two variations. Children created art work through painting and textures to explore their findings.

Science

Spanish Bulls have loved learning about the natural world. As well as producing fantastic writing, they also enjoyed exploring the playground and discovering many aspects of the natural world such as trees, plants, dirt, sand and bark.

Term 4

Year 1 loved learning about Palm Sunday in relation to the Easter story. Children enjoyed imagining that they were a follower of Jesus in Jerusalem, cheering for Him as He entered the city. They made their own Palm leaves using various craft materials and thought about what they would say to Jesus if he were here in Maidstone today.

Drama linked to RE/English (Spoken language)

Children enjoyed completing role play in relation to RE. They thought about famous people that they could relate to, such as the Queen and how they would formally greet her. This fun activity helped children to get into character when thinking about Jesus entering Jerusalem.

Some of the greetings were as follows:

“Your majesty, it is an honour to meet you.”

“Praise be that you have come to our town!”

Art/DT

Spanish Bulls have thoroughly enjoyed their topic of Dinosaurs over the last two terms. A highlight from the term was making dinosaur masks and exploring different materials and textures during the process. Children were able to identify various materials and decide which materials would best for their mask. They could also describe the different textures and how they felt.

Maths

Spanish Bulls enjoyed learning about shapes this term. They learnt how to identify 2D and 3D shapes and compare the similarities and differences between the two. They also looked at different patterns and identified which shapes made up each pattern. Children also enjoyed completing shape hunts around the classroom and looking at the shapes of real objects.

Computing/Science

Year 1 enjoyed researching dinosaur facts this term in order to broaden their knowledge of animal types. They thought about the type of animal dinosaurs were, whether they were herbivores, carnivores or omnivores and what type of habitat they would have lived in. Children used various forms of ICT to support and present their learning.

Term 3

RE

Year 1 have enjoyed learning about Christianity this term and how Jesus was a good friend. They learnt different bible stories and thought about how Jesus responded in various scenarios. Children developed their understanding of what being a good friend means.

Maths

Year 1 thoroughly enjoyed learning the part whole model. They learnt this method in various ways and a highlight was going outside to practice on the playground. This model supported them well with learning addition and subtraction.

Science

Spanish Bulls have enjoyed learning about animals this term. They studied the different animal groups and learnt about herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. Children created their own Venn diagrams to demonstrate their knowledge.

Topic

Spanish Bulls learnt about continents and seas this term. They located countries on a map and labelled their own maps. They also learnt a song to support their learning.

English

Spanish Bulls thoroughly enjoyed writing their own dinosaur poems based on facts they had learnt about dinosaurs. They were inspired by the book ‘Dinosaurs Love Underpants’ by Claire Freedman. They enjoyed using their imagination and thinking carefully about rhyming words.

Jubilee University

Year one enjoyed their week of Jubilee University this term. They learnt how to keep themselves safe in various ways. A highlight was learning about how the school keeps us safe and what the school has in place to protect everyone.

Term 2

Topic

Year 1 have loved their topic of ‘Splendid Skies’. They developed their knowledge of different types of technology and learnt how to use technology in purposeful ways, by creating and filming weather reports. Children worked in groups to create a weather chart and practised presenting the weather to each other and the class. They used learn pads to film each other and manipulated the content in various ways. This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Maths

Year 1 enjoyed learning about ‘greater than, less than and equal to’ in maths. At first, they found this quite a challenging topic but they loved exploring different practical ways of using numbers and greater than and less than signs. By the end of the topic, all children were able to clearly demonstrate their understanding and they felt a sense of accomplishment.

Flying kites!

Spanish Bulls had a fantastic start to the term and thoroughly enjoyed flying the kites that they made at the end of Term 1. The children predicted which kite they thought would fly the best based on the material it was made from. Children tested their results outside and concluded that the plastic kite flew more successfully than the paper kite. Children then recorded their results scientifically.

Nativity

The highlight for Year one this term has been The Nativity. The children have thoroughly enjoyed their preparation for the production. They have been working hard to learn their lines, songs and develop their acting skills. Children have loved learning about the Christmas story and have enjoyed making various Christmas crafts and props to use in their production.

Term 1

Spanish Bulls have had a fantastic start to the year! They enjoyed doing a mini beast workshop and investigating the playground to discover the mini beasts that we have living on our doorstep. They thoroughly enjoyed making mini beast fossils and using clay to mould their shape.

Music

Year 1 loved exploring instruments to make different sounds related to weather. They were each given a stimulus which they then worked in groups to compose a piece of music to perform to each other.

Art/DT

Our class also loved exploring materials to make kites this term. They followed step by step instructions to use plastic, dowells and many other resources to make a kite. The children then did an experiment outside to compare their kite against kites with other materials. This was a great experience!

Maths

Spanish Bulls have loved using numicon to explore numbers this term. They have looked at representing numbers in different ways, ordering numbers and solving one more/less number problems.