We have had a lovely last week of term with lots of nice activities to finish off a busy few weeks.

We had a bit of an impromptu first 'P4C' (Philosophy for Children) session based on some thoughts we had during English. We talked about the character 'The Cheshire Cat' from Alice in Wonderland and found out that he had stolen the Queen's jam tarts! We talked about the fact that stealing is wrong - but then Mrs Flynn suggested that maybe the Queen wouldn't miss them as she had lots of money and probably more jam tarts than she needed....
Mrs Curtis disagreed and said that stealing is always wrong, no matter who the person and we had some super discussions about whether or not it was OK that the Cheshire Cat stole from the Queen - and whether or not that was any different to stealing from our friends...

Finally we had an anonymous vote - using the question 

Do you think it was wrong for the Cheshire Cat to steal the Queens jam tarts?

6 people thought it was OK and 18 people thought it was wrong. What do you think?

On Wednesday we took a walk down to the common through our own 'Wonderland' - Wenhaston!
In pairs we had to find and collect some things that remind us of the place we live in.

We have started to create some lovely natural collages using the objects we found, which will look fantastic in our classroom.

Today we have had our film morning and the children really enjoyed watching Alice in Wonderland with their special teddies from home.

The whole of Year 2 were in the Golden Book this week for such a fantastic attitude and all their hard work during the past few weeks, completing their 'Secret Agent' tasks. I am very proud of what you have all achieved - well done.


Home Learning 
Due week commencing 5th June.

I would like everyone to spend just a little bit of time looking back at the spellings from this half term and try to read their holiday reading books please. Extra house points will be given next term for this.

There is no additional Home Learning this week - have a nice break and spend some time with your family enjoying the gorgeous weather!


See you on Monday 5th!

Monday started with a bit of scientific thinking - some animals had become trapped in giant ice-bergs and needed to be set free! 
The challenge was to try to melt the ice the quickest, without holding or hitting it to break it. After some super brain-storming about how we might go about this we decided to try 3 things - adding water, adding washing-up liquid and adding salt and got into 3 groups to try this out. 

We were surprised to find that washing up-liquid began melting the ice the fastest, but then it slowed down and the water melted the ice completely first. The salt ended up being extremely slow, which was interesting as we all predicted (guessed!) this would be the quickest!

Year 2 have been on a secret mission this week, doing lots of special challenges and activities - more details to follow next week! I am super impressed so far with how well everyone is doing, keep it up!

Year 1 have been helping Class 1 (Reception) children this week and getting to know them a little bit in preparation for next year - I was so pleased to hear you had a great time having your P4C discussion about who the real baddie was in the story 'The Gingerbread Man' - see Class 1s blog for more on this!

They also had a super 'practical maths' lesson with Mrs Curtis whilst the Year 2s were doing some tricky maths problems - making their own number lines and adding 2 and then 3 single-digit numbers by rolling dice and finding the total. They then played ‘find the number’ – Mrs Curtis gave each child a number problems like ‘Find a number that comes between 5 and 8’ ‘This is the number of toes you have’ or ‘What is double 3?’ – and they had to work out the answer and then go and find that number in the room! Great fun!

Ryan was in the Golden Book this week for super effort and concentration in Phonics lessons recently - well done!

Home Learning

Due Thursday 25th May

Year 2 have another 'secret mission' this week - see home learning books for details!

Year 1 should complete the 'phoneme spotter' - read the story and hunt down all the words that have the 'ai' sound in - don't forget, this could be spelt     

                       ai      ay     eigh    ey    or   a_e  !!

In Maths this week Year 1 have been working really hard on counting in 10s and finding 10 more and 10 less than any number up to 100! WOW! 
They have also been thinking about doubling numbers up to double 10 - and beyond! Why not practise some of these at home too?

Year 2 have been working on place value (using tens and units - and moving on to hundreds too) and how we can use this to help us to complete addition (+) and subtraction (-) calculations!

We have been reading more of Alice in Wonderland and have been thinking about the White Rabbit. We first thought he was kind , worried and anxious but then we found he turned into a grumpy, bossy character and then became quite mean and selfish!

Here are some of our 'freeze-frames' showing how we think the White Rabbit has changed....

We have also worked on some fantastic animal riddles this week, using different sentence types and describing words to give clues about an animal and we are looking forward to putting these up around the classroom for all to see.


Home Learning
Due Thursday 18th May

Year 1 this week have an 'English Workout', focusing on using capital letters in sentences. 

Year 2 have a secret mission to complete - make sure you check your home learning books for details of your challenge!

Spellings have been sent home to practice as usual.

We have managed to fit lots in this week, despite it being a short week!

We have been working really hard on our reading comprehension, especially in Year 2 and have been learning how to do this really well. Here are our top tips that we came up with....

We have been reading part of the Alice in Wonderland story and information texts about Dodos and thinking carefully and discussing what we have read. We are starting to get into the story now and have lots more exciting projects in the next few weeks!

In Year 1 in Maths this week we have been working on using number lines, beaded lines and 100-squares to help us find 1 more and 1 less than 2-digit numbers and have also practised counting in 10s - forwards and backwards to 100!
Year 2 have been doing some very tricky work on rounding up/down to the nearest 10 and have been learning about Charlie Croc - he helps us remember 'greater than' and 'less than' as he always eats the biggest number! For example - 
                                                     38    >    25      or       12    <    18       

We are all really good at our 2 times table now, thanks to 'Stick 'em up!' - we are beginning to move on to the 10 times table now too!

This week Billy was in the Golden Book for trying really hard and challenging himself throughout the week, especially with his reading and writing - well done!


Home Learning
Due Thursday 11th May

This week you have a Maths task following on from our learning in class this week.

Year 1 - I would like you to order the 'tens' numbers and add the missing numbers at the bottom.

Year 2 - Please complete the inequalities sheet using what you now know about Charlie Croc (use the symbols <  >  or  =    in each problem).  BE CAREFUL - there are a few tricky ones!


Spellings have been given as usual.