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Weekly Note – w/c 26.3.18

It’s a short week this week! Please remember that school finishes at 1pm on Wednesday 28th March. Children will not need lunch on this day but may bring an extra snack to keep them going.

Spring Fayre

The Spring Fayre will be taking place on Tuesday 27th March. Year 6 will create a multitude of fun activities and stalls to raise money for their summer camp in July.

We would very much appreciate donations of used books and toys for the sale (these can be brought in and left by the swimming pool) as well as cake donations on Tuesday morning.

Infant children can be collected from classes from 2pm onwards. Juniors can be collected from 2.30pm.

We hope you have an enjoyable holiday and look forward to seeing the children back on Thursday 11th April.

Swimming

Swimming will begin again after the holidays but not until the second week. Swimming will take place on the following days, if you are able to help, please let your child’s teacher know. Thank you

Mrs Bramley’s Class – Tuesday    9 – 10.20am

Miss Horsepool’s Class  – Thursday   9 – 10.40am

Mrs Boscher’s Class – Friday   9 – 10.20am

The Year 1 Team

 

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Weekly note (w.b. 19th March)

Dear parents/carers

 

Maths

We shall be continuing to work on money. The children will be applying their understanding of money by solving problems.

 

Literacy

We shall be continuing our work on the story ‘Book of Butterflies.’ The children will be using their own ideas to innovate the story, choosing their own animal and describing words, for example they might write the story ‘The book of spiders.’

 

Reading Information Evening – Monday 19th March

We look forward to seeing lots of you for the information evening on Monday night at 7pm in the school hall. Our Literacy Intervention Teacher, Kelly Child will be leading the session and will outline useful strategies and activities you can do at home with your child.

 

Easter Service

On Wednesday the children will be watching the Year 4 Easter service in the hall.

 

Photographs

Next Tuesday 20th March we shall be having a whole school photograph. Next Thursday we shall be having class photographs taken.

 

Spring Fayre

The Spring Fayre will be taking place on Tuesday 27th March. Year 6 will create a multitude of fun activities and stalls to raise money for their summer camp in July.

We would very much appreciate donations of used books and toys for the sale (these can be brought in next week and left by the swimming pool) as well as cake donations on Tuesday morning.

Infant children can be collected from classes from 2pm onwards. Juniors can be collected from 2.30pm.

 

Best wishes

Year 1 team

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Weekly Note – w/c 12.3.18

In our literacy lessons next week we will be doing some work using a short video called ‘Book of Butterflies’ as a stimulus. Children will be thinking about how they can improve sentences by adding describing (Wow) words and will have a go at innovating the story to make it their own.

In maths we will be continuing to work on Rainbow Targets as well as continuing to do some work on money including finding change and word problems.

Rainbow Targets

We will be continuing to work on doubles and halves Rainbow Targets for a few weeks after the Easter holidays. Some children have now moved on from doubles to halves and due to this half term being very short (and now even shorter due to the snow!) we would like to give more children the opportunity to have a go a halves. We will then move onto addition and subtraction targets later on in the summer term.

Teach your Child to Read Evening

Helping your child learn to read at home is a key way to support their learning. Literacy expert and lead literacy intervention teacher Kelly Child will be leading a parent and carer information evening in our school hall on Monday 19th March 7-8pm. Kelly will outline useful strategies and activities you can do at home with your child. If you would like to come along please email our school office – office@stmartins.sch.gg .This should be a fantastic evening so please make the time to come along!

Home Sharing

We have started using a website called j2e for the children to save their work. This could be a photograph (work selfie) of a piece of work that they are proud of or a photograph or video of something that they have made in the Discovery Zone. The children will have come home today with a QR code which is their log in for their personal j2e account. They will be able use this QR code at home to log on and share their learning with you.

In the Discovery Zone, Children will be able to choose for themselves when they save something to j2e so please don’t expect to find something everyday and some children will save things more than others. We will ensure that children save something at least each half term.

As part of our e-safety lessons we have explained to children the importance of not sharing their password/QR code or letting anyone else use it, so please could you let your child log on using their QR code rather than doing it for them. Your child will then be able to find their work on their account to share with you.

We are hope that you and your child enjoy this experience of being able to share your child’s learning together.

Please access j2e using this link: https://www.j2e.com/dashboard/#manage

then click on the QR code symbol which will bring up the camera for you to scan the QR code. Please note that you will only be able to access j2e if you have a device with a camera.

Thank you

The Year 1 Team

 

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Weekly Note w/c 5.3.18

Thank you to everyone who has sent in pictures of the children in the snow. It sounds like they all had a great time during the unexpected days off!

Thank you as well to those of you who have sent in photos of the children on holiday. We have enjoyed hearing about and finding their destinations on the map.

Next week we will be continuing with our work on Goldilocks and the Three Bears in literacy and money work in maths as due to the snow we didn’t manage to cover everything this week!

Online Safety Meeting

In this rapidly developing age of technology, it is important to know what you can do to better help your child to stay safe online so please don’t forget to come along to the online safety meeting which is this Wednesday (7th March) at 7pm.

Parents Evening

Please don’t forget to sign up for a parents evening slot. You should have had an e-mail from the office with details. If you haven’t, please pop in and let us know.

Thank you

The Year 1 Team

 

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Snowm-work

Following the decision to close schools due to the snow, here are some ideas of things which you might like to do at home to keep those brain cells working (once everyone has finished building snowmen and sledging down slopes!)

 

World Book Day

Curl up on the sofa, under the duvet or on a beanbag with a good book, magazine or comic.

Remember that re-reading a book several times really builds confidence and fluency. Challenge your child to become an ‘expert’ and read their book (or part of a longer book) to as many different people or in as many different places as they can!

The World Book Day website has a unique selection of audio excerpts of books to listen to – click here http://www.worldbookday.com/world-of-stories/ 

 

Snow Pictures

Get snapping! We would love children to bring in their photographs showing us what they have been up to during the snow days.

These will be used in class for speaking and listening as well as a writing stimulus. These can be printed or emailed to your class teacher.

 

Snowball investigation

What can you do to stop a snowball from melting?

Challenge your children to make a set of snowballs and then think about what they could do differently to each one in an attempt to stop them from melting.

TIP – don’t make them too, too big! 

Some suggestions of variables to test are wrapping the snowball e.g. in foil or fabric, putting it under a plant pot, putting it in the shed, putting it in a sheltered spot of the garden etc.Try to encourage your child to explain what they think will happen to each snowball and which one will last the longest (this is what scientists call making a prediction)

Following on from our recent paper spinners activity, they will hopefully be able to talk to you about fair testing. What must be kept the same in order for it to be a fair test? (The snowballs should all be the same size and must be made at the same time)

Children could they record their results in any way they wish, but some suggestions are using annotated photos, making a video clip, drawing pictures or writing down what happened. You could help them draw a simple table with one column stating what they did to the snowball and another column either saying how long it stayed frozen or recording its size after a set period of time.

We would love to hear about what you found out!

 

Paper snowflakes

This is a great activity for practising scissor skills but is also good practise of folding paper. We shall begin working on fractions in maths soon and we will begin by using the language ‘halves’ and ‘quarters.’

You could introduce this to your child by folding paper shapes into half and then again into quarters, counting how many sections there are when you fold the paper open again.

 

Please continue the usual reading, practice of high frequency word boards and Rainbow Maths Targets (click here for target related activities). There is also the ongoing paper spinners challenge, Mathletics, Skoolbo and the new app Teach Your Monster to Read (see previous blog post from this week)

We look forward to seeing everyone back at school once the weather improves. Until then, wrap up warm and enjoy the snow!

Best wishes

Year 1 team

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Teach Your Monster to Read

If you are looking for something to keep your child busy when they aren’t playing in the snow then you might like to try an app called Teach Your Monster to Read. It is free until this Sunday (usually £5.99) and a great one to download to help support phonics and reading! It begins with single letter recognition and works right up to reading sentences.

FREE Teach Your Monster to Read app!

Hooray! Our phonics and reading app is FREE until this Sunday! Share now to spread the news. Download now: iTunes: https://tinyurl.com/iTunesTeachMonsterGoogle Play: https://tinyurl.com/GoogleTeachMonsterAmazon UK: https://tinyurl.com/AmazonUKTeachMonsterAmazon US: https://tinyurl.com/AmazonUSATeachMonster

Posted by Teach Your Monster to Read on Sunday, February 25, 2018

iTunes – https://tinyurl.com/iTunesTeachMonster

Amazon UK – https://tinyurl.com/AmazonUKTeachMonster

Google Play – https://tinyurl.com/GoogleTeachMonster

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Weekly note w/c 26.2.18

Dear Parents/Carers

 

We hope you are all looking forward to half term next week. If you have any pictures that you could bring in of somewhere that you have been in Guernsey or if you have been away to share when you get back that would be wonderful and we can put them up on our Guernsey and World maps in the classroom.

 

E-Safety

Please remember that on Wednesday 7th March at 7pm we have an e-safety information evening run by Matthew Parker. It would be great to see you there as I’m sure it will give you lots of information about how to keep your children safe online.

 

Science Home Learning Challenge

The children have loved having a go at making spinners in school and seeing what they can do to keep them in the air the longest. They also had a chance to see who had made the best spinner in assembly too which added to the excitement. The children will come home with a letter explaining how you can make spinners at home and see if they can improve on what they have already made. They will also come home with a template that you can use too. This is an optional challenge, but if you have a go we would love to see how you get on!

 

Literacy

We will be continuing with looking at Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children are reciting this story most days and have been taught signs to help with remembering the story too. We have learnt actions to go with the words ‘early one morning, so, but, after that, first, next, first, who, at that moment, suddenly & finally.’ The children are doing a fabulous job at using these so they may like to show you themselves.

 

Numeracy

This week we will be looking at making amounts of money. The children have already been trying some of this using their real money in the Discovery Zone and doing a wonderful job. We will also move onto giving change too.

 

Over the last few weeks we have been having a lot of left over fruit after each break time which has been tricky to send back home because they aren’t named. Please could we ask that fruit is named either on the skin (for things like bananas) or put into a named tub so that if it is not eaten it can be taken back home and reduce the amount being thrown out.

 

Year 1 team

 

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Weekly Note – w/c 12.2.18

Dear Parents and Carers,

The children all looked fabulous dressed up as different book characters today and we enjoyed hearing about their favourite stories.

Science

As part of the whole school science focus next week, each class will be looking at paper spinners and children will be challenged to investigate different sizes and shapes to see which one stays in the air the longest. More details will be sent home next week if your child would like to continue this investigation at home.

Literacy

In Literacy next week we will be continuing our work on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children are learning to re-tell the story using a story map and actions to help. The story map is below if your child would like to use it to re-tell you the story at home. We will also be doing some sentence work based on the story.

 

Maths

In maths next week the children will be using their addition and subtraction skills to help them solve word problems.

Spare Uniform

If your child has worn spare uniform home and you haven’t returned it yet, please could it be returned to school as soon as possible because we are very low on spare clothes and with the wet weather, we are finding that we are needing them more often than usual.

Thank you for your support.

The Year 1 Team

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Author Visit – David Lucas

Today the author David Lucas came to visit us as part of Book Week.

 

He read the story of ‘Grendel – A Cautionary Tale about Chocolate’ and then taught the children how to draw Grendel using simple shapes. The children thought about what they might wish for if they were given three wishes like Grendel in the story.

David then showed the children how they can create their own imaginative story characters using combinations of words e.g. an ice and fire dragon, a robot tiger or a class princess.

The children have brought their drawings and ideas home with them and David has challenged them to continue working on these. If they develop their characters further or use their ideas to write a story it would be great to share these in class.

Just a reminder that on Friday it is dressing up day and we will be holding our second hand book sale. Any book donations will be gratefully received tomorrow or Friday and books will be on sale for 50p each.

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Weekly Note – w.b. 5.2.18

Dear parents/carers

It was lovely to see some of you on our Discovery Zone open afternoons. We hope that you enjoyed sharing some learning with your child; they certainly liked showing you what they get up to!

 

Maths

We shall be working on addition and subtraction word problems which will allow the children to apply their adding and taking away skills and the language used e.g. ‘How many altogether?’ ‘How many left?’ ‘I got’ ‘2 more’ ‘5 flew away’

 

Literacy

We shall be beginning a new Talk for Writing unit on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children will be learning the text using a story map and actions.

 

Book Week

Just a reminder that this week we are running the Readathon sponsored read.

On Wednesday afternoon we shall be having a visit from author David Lucas.

On Friday children are invited to dress up as a character from a book. We shall then be talking and writing about their characters in our literacy lesson.

Children can also bring in any old books to donate to our book sale along with 50p to buy a book if they wish.

 

Many thanks

Year 1 team