Hello everyone!

We have had another week of great learning based around Duffy the Sea Turtle and and climate change in Class 1.

In literacy we have continued to use our senses words to write what happens at each part of the story through poetry. We shall continue with this whole class project next week.

In maths  the younger children have been working to recognise and make doubles while the older group has been continuing with their work on fractions, learning to find quarters of shapes and different amounts. Food was needed for some real-life learning again this week, so everyone cut a slice of Battenberg cake into quarters before eating it for snack!

In our science/understanding the world/ PSED learning this week we have learnt about the harmful rays of the sun and how we can keep ourselves safe when enjoying the hot weather. The children made some great sun safety posters, started to learn a rhyme and also went on a shade hunt so they know the areas which are safest for them to play in when it is very sunny. 

We are continuing to learn our 'Plastic Bag Song' and have set up a recycling station in class, where the children have been placing all of their rubbish. It is great to see that everyone is so keen to recycle in order to help protect our environment.

The turtle hospital role play area has been a great hit this week and the children have worked together beautifully to care for our Duffy the Sea Turtle as they act out the story. Well done everyone!

Please see the reminder below regarding the letter you received from our school council; their idea fits in so well with our current topic and the children are very keen to be involved in adopting an endangered animal.

Reminders for this coming week:
*Year 1 - please bring spelling books on Monday.
*Remember to 'WEAR IT WILD' on Wednesday in order to raise money for the whole school to adopt and animal - everyone is very excited at this great idea from Class 3 and  the school council to support the work of the World Wildlife Foundation.
*Please wear trainers for PE on Thursday for our Arena lesson with Tom.
*Please email SHOW & TELL pictures for Thursday - this week our theme is an item made from a recycled material. See what you can find at home which may have been made from something which has been recycled. If that proves tricky please send a picture of something which will be recycled when your family has finished with it. Thank you. 
 *Thank you for sending in sun hats each day; please ensure that children have sun cream applied each day before school too. Thank you.
 *Homework for everyone is to visit Teach Your Monster to Read - I am looking forward to handing out more certificates.

We are all looking forward to another great week of learning in Class 1, especially on Wednesday when we hope to have a class full of wild animals!

Mrs W and the team

                                                               
The children have been wonderful, enthusiastic learners again this week as we began thinking about our  new learning question, 'What is Climate Change?'
This question is based around our focus text, 'Duffy's Lucky Escape' by our local author, Ellie Jackson. We shall be reading all of her wonderful  books this half term as we work towards answering our learning question.

In literacy everyone ordered pictures of the story and then generated words based around the five senses to describe what Duffy the sea turtle may be seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling and hearing during each event and setting. It is great to see the children working so well together and we shall be using these words to re-tell the story through poetry in the coming week.

In music, we are learning 'The Plastic Bag Song' and the children enjoyed starting to learn the words and actions for this song with an important message. As a result they are all very keen to focus on our use of plastics and re-cycling, so watch out for some re-cycling challenges over the coming weeks. This week everyone is going to wash out any plastics which can be re-cycled from their lunchboxes and collect them in school, so that we can see how much plastic waste we accumulate in one week; you may notice that lunchboxes come home free of rubbish!

Our art this week involved  the use of re-cycled plastic for collage and printing - we made sea creatures for our collaborative display by printing with bubble wrap for a 'sucker effect' on starfish, we used old sponges to create the sea and sea grass texture, we made fish from card and silver foil, we created a sea turtle Duffy using bottle tops and we used paper bags and plates for jelly fish and crabs. This enabled us to begin discussing the properties of different materials - the paper/card will break down but the plastics will not if they find their way to the sea. Great discussions and curiosity was seen from everyone, well done!

In maths the younger children are focussing on subtraction at the moment and the Year 1 group have started a block of work on fractions. The highlight of the week had to be cutting jam tarts into equal halves to share at snack time!

For our role play, everyone voted to have a turtle hospital, so this week, that will be providing fun outdoor play, involving water!

Reminders for this coming week:
*Year 1 - please bring spelling books on Monday.
 *Please wear trainers for PE on Thursday we are very lucky to have Tom from Arena with us each week for this half term.
*Please email SHOW & TELL pictures for Thursday - this week our theme is summer; please send a picture of anything related to summer time.
*If you haven't already, please send in a named sunhat which can be kept in school for the rest of this term - it really is vital at this time of year. We shall be doing some work around sun safety this week.
*Please ensure that children have sun cream applied each day before school. Thank you.
*Please make sure that children bring a water bottle each day.
*Homework for everyone is to visit Teach Your Monster to Read - I am looking forward to handing out more certificates.

We are all looking forward to another great week of learning in Class 1.  

Mrs W 

We had the most wonderful wow day on Thursday, to complete our learning of The Great Fire of London.

The children certainly 'wowed' us with everything they had remembered of their learning.

Everyone dressed in costume and we began the day with a quiz, which resulted in a very close score, with only one point between each team. We had undertaken this quiz earlier in the topic, when the scores were much lower and there was a greater difference between each result - it was great to see the knowledge which has been gained.

The children then carried their 1666 house models onto the field and set up their own version of Pudding Lane; they very carefully ensured that each house was touching the next, as that is one of the reasons the fire spread so easily.
We heard some great observations and links being made to what they have learnt as our houses burned. The previous day the children had wondered if fire would spread over earth - and we discovered that it did! We were lucky enough to have King Charles with us and he instructed that we should use gunpowder (pretend!) and remove a house to create a fire break. It worked and we saved one of our houses by doing so.
Once the fire had stopped we formed a human chain to carry buckets of water from the River Thames to ensure that the fire was out safely.

I was so proud of the children as they enthusiastically embraced this learning experience and remembered all of the safety rules.

We then had a well deserved snack break before making pottage and playing outdoor games which children would have played in 1666.

Again, the children followed safety rules to use knives when cutting up vegetables for the pottage; I cooked the soup while they were doing PE with Mrs Cooke during the afternoon and then everyone tried some, with some crusty bread. I think the verdict was mostly that it was delicious!

Mrs G led the  games and everyone played Ring-a-Roses, pick-a-stick, a version of skittles from the past, hopscotch and practised their balancing skills on stilts. We saw some great perseverance, determination and team work.

It was a wonderful day - many thanks to parents for the wonderful costumes which certainly helped us to create a 1666 atmosphere; we had a class of people from all walks of life in 1666 - spinsters, rat catchers, scullery maids, the king and queen, a chimney sweep and even Samuel Pepys!

Have a wonderful half term everyone,
Mrs W

In Class 1, we have had another week of everyone working hard and developing their great attitude towards learning.
As we enter the last week of this half term, I am feeling very proud of how far everyone has come and this is due to the children's efforts both individually and as a team.

For our Royal Mail stamp competition entries, every child was reflective and thoughtful about choosing who to draw for their pandemic hero.  As you can see from the pictures, we had some super entries; there were nurses, doctors, paramedics, farmers, shopkeepers, families and friends. We had a very grown up discussion and it was most touching to hear the children reflecting on the pandemic and to observe their enthusiasm to create a stamp to represent their hero from this major event in their lives. This was a most valuable PSED lesson and we also discussed the Royal Mail and the importance of stamps, linking to our British Values. Well done everyone - you are all competition winners to me.

We have continued to work on improving our vocabulary this week and the children have come up with some super definitions of 'kind'; my favourite had to be, 'Having happiness in your heart'.

Our information books are very nearly finished now; this week we finished the writing and identified key features of a non-fiction book to recognise what we need to add next to ensure our books can be the best they can be. The children enjoyed learning about Samuel Pepys and found it particularly fascinating that he buried his cheese underground to save it from being destroyed in the fire!

Everyone has worked hard in phonics - the Year 1 group have been doing lots of word sorting to recognise different spelling patterns for the same sound, while in Reception the children have focussed their efforts on reading tricky words and sentences. Super!

In maths, the older children have learnt about arrays and doubles in their multiplication and doubling work and will move on to grouping and sharing of equal groups this coming week, while the younger children have been taking part in lots of practical activities to add more this week and they will continue to practice these skills through playing games during the coming week.

Now we are looking forward to our end of topic 'Wow' day on Thursday, when we will be holding our own Great Fire, using our Pudding Lane models. You will have had a letter asking for the children to wear costumes on that day and we shall also be making Tudor pottage - please make sure you have sent the permission slips back for this. There will be other 1666-themed activities throughout the morning before PE with Mrs Cooke as normal in the afternoon.

Here are reminders for this coming week:
*Year 1 - please bring spelling books on Monday.
*Please send in your permission slips for pottage-tasting.
*Please wear trainers for PE on Thursday and shorts or leggings underneath any long skirts which may be worn as a costume on that day.
*There will be no SHOW & TELL this week due to our Wow day. 
*If you haven't already, please send in a named sunhat which can be kept in school for the rest of this term - it really is vital at this time of year.
*Please ensure that children have sun cream applied each day before school. Thank you.
*Please make sure that children bring a water bottle each day. 
*Homework for everyone is to visit Teach Your Monster to Read - I do check to see who has been using it so that I can distribute letters and certificates from your monsters.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you on Monday,
Mrs W 

As you can see, we have had an artistic week in Class 1, when we completed our art display of the Great Fire of London. Everyone contributed to this collaborative display, using several different art mediums and  techniques. They used overlapping, collage, sponging, splattering and colour mixing, to name a few; the children are rightly proud of their completed work.

In literacy the information writing and creation of individual books is very nearly complete and we shall move onto learning more about Samuel Pepys this coming week, recognising  how his diary entries were vital to provide information for the future. The children will begin to write their own diary entry.

In maths the younger children continued with their work on 2d shapes, recognising and describing their properties in order to make shape pictures. They also made their own tangram shapes.
The Year 1 children did lots of work to sort amounts of objects into equal groups and  then moved on to add equal groups. Well done everyone.

This week for our science work we thought about what it must have been like to live in 1666 with no electricity and then looked at various objects which we use in our daily lives now. The children then sorted them according to their source of power - mains or battery. The children's faces were a picture when they realised how closely the two are linked! This week we shall be taking that learning further to learn about safety when using electricity; everyone will make a safety poster.

For  Mental Health Awareness Week, we focussed on kindness, teamwork and the benefits of nature. We all acknowledge how kindness towards ourselves and each other is crucial for our mental well-being, so we  created a kindness tree (thank you Mrs G), where we place named hearts when acts of kindness are noticed. We ensure kindness to ourselves by doing yoga each day after lunch - the children thoroughly enjoy this session andreadily acknowledge that it makes them feel calm, more relaxed and focussed on their bodies.
We saw some super teamwork to create our art display and this is something we always focus on in class. Thank you to Mr Cook, who donated some tomato plants to us; we shall be working together to care for them, alongside our potatoes, chilli and cucumber plants. We shall also be planting some bedding plants in our outdoor area now that the weather has warmed up a little - I am passionate about the benefits of nature on our general well-being and I am sure we shall all benefit from nurturing our plants as we move into summer.

Here are reminders for this coming week:
*Please wear trainers for PE on Thursday
*Thursday SHOW & TELL - please send a picture of something which uses battery or mains electricity to power it. you will need to tell your friends which it uses and how it works/what it's purpose is.
*Wear forest school clothes on Friday
*If you haven't already, please send in a named sunhat which can be kept in school for the rest of this term - it really is vital at this time of year.
*Please ensure that children have sun cream applied each day before school. Thank you.
*Please make sure that children bring a water bottle each day.
*YEAR 1 CHILDREN - PLEASE BRING SPELLING BOOKS ON MONDAYS EVERY WEEK. 
*Homework for everyone is to visit Teach Your Monster to Read - please ask if you need reminding of logins.
*Stamp competition - in school, the children will be designing stamps for the Royal Mail heroes stamp competition. If you would like us to enter your child’s design into the national competition, please return the permission slip your child brought home on Thursday by this Friday - 21st May.

Have a good week everyone,
Mrs W :)

Hello everyone

I hope you have enjoyed the long bank holiday weekend; I must admit the plants in my garden were pleased to see some rain!

We have had a great week of learning all about London in Class 1 this week; the children have really embraced our comparisons of London in the present day and over 350 years ago. 
In English everyone has started to present their newly learned facts as information text and it is super to see their curiosity about how people used to live and the significant event of the Great Fire. All the children have chosen which job people used to do to write about in their work next week; rat catchers and gong farmers (people who emptied toilets) were the most popular choices! 

As you can see from our photographs, everyone had fun in maths this week when the children in Reception were playing games using numbers to 20 to estimate, add and subtract, while the Year 1 learners were using non-standard and standard measurements in their learning.

Everyone also worked hard to complete their Tudor houses and as you can see, we have now built our own version of Pudding Lane in class. We have been learning how the houses burnt so easily being made of wood and so close together.

Here are reminders for this coming week:
*Please wear trainers for PE on Thursday   
*Thursday SHOW & TELL - please send a picture of a favourite non-fiction book which gives information. You will tell your friends why it is a favourite and what information the book provides.
*Wear forest school clothes on Friday 
*If you haven't already, please send in a named sunhat which can be kept in school for the rest of this term - it really is vital at this time of year.
*Please ensure that children have sun cream applied each day before school. Thank you.
*Please make sure that children bring a water bottle each day. 
*YEAR 1 CHILDREN - PLEASE BRING SPELLING BOOKS ON MONDAYS EVERY WEEK.
 *Homework for everyone is to visit Teach Your Monster to Read - please ask if you need reminding of logins.

Wishing you all a good week,

Mrs W

Another week has flown by and I can not believe that it is now nearly time for the Easter holidays.

The children did me proud when while I was off poorly this week; well done to them all. As you can see, much of our week was about story telling and writing. The children created a story map to plan the writing of their own version of Jack and the Beanstalk and before they started to write, they used their story maps to verbally re-tell the story to each other. Miss Edwards was impressed by their enthusiasm and knowledge of our story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

We had a 'number bonds week' in maths and everyone learnt a song, played games and undertook activities to become more familiar with the number pairs which make 10. The older children also applied their learning to recognise pairs which make 20. 

For the older children who have spelling books, please bring them in on Monday - I will do the test from last week (in the books) and I will set just three spellings to learn for a test this coming Thursday. Thank you.

This coming week, we shall be completing our learning all about Springtime and move on to learning about Easter; we shall be completing lots of art activities, writing poetry and applying what we have learnt when we undertake Easter phonics and maths activities. We will be going outside on most days, so if you would like to wear trainers each day, that will be fine.

AN IMPORTANT REQUEST: can everyone please bring in an old sock filled with dry rice for a craft activity this week...the children will bring home their finished result, so you will see why I have asked for this strange request very soon!

Thursday is the last day of term for everyone; Mrs G and I wish you all a happy and peaceful Easter and look forward to seeing you back at school on Monday 19th April for the summer term.

Mrs W :)

Reminders for this week:
By Tuesday - please bring an old sock filled with rice.
Wednesday - remember to send in your decorated eggs, if you would like to enter Miss Edwards' competition.
For Thursday - our themed show and tell session; please send a picture of 'something I am looking forward to doing over the Easter holidays'; the children will tell their friends what they are looking forward to and why. Please email to: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk
Thursday - please remember to wear trainers for our Arena PE session. 
Each day - please keep sending reading books and records in for us to change as required (we quarantine books before sending them home to another household).

As you can see from our photographs, the children  have been working in teams to build castles this week.
After reading about the giant's castle in our Jack and the Beanstalk story, they were all keen to learn more about the history of castles; I then challenged them to work in teams to use various forms of construction to build their own castles. They had to include some of the features we had learnt about including battlements, a moat and drawbridge, towers and turrets. We also had castles built which included a keep, arrow slits and even beds! 
It was great to see such teamwork and a 'can do' attitude. I think the challenge continued all week, with children exploring the different mediums we had made available to build with; junk definitely proved to be a favourite.

We have finished watching/listening to our Jack and the Beanstalk story now and this coming week will be using what we have learnt to write/re-tell our own versions of the story. Everyone created their own character to replace the golden hen in the original story so we have several different versions to look forward to. We have focussed on comprehension to help everyone to really grasp what happens during this story.

In maths, the Reception children were recognising, naming and describing 3D shapes this week - again we linked this to our learning of castles and discussed the properties of each shape to make it suitable/unsuitable for building with.
In Year 1 we undertook some maths assessments this week so that we can re-visit any concepts we are unsure of next week.

We continued our learning around the new beginnings of Spring by planting beans and potatoes this week. In science we also took our learning a bit further based on healthy eating and the children worked in groups to sort foods, based on their learning from last week. 
In art, we based a Spring tree piece of work on Kandinsky's concentric circles. The Reception children created some great trees using collage while the Year 1 children explored their use of pastel crayons for their creations.
For the census this week, we have been doing lots of counting. The children decided that they wanted to collect information about everyone's favourite colour, so we collected that data and analysed it and then Miss Edwards continued this work in forest school on Friday.
For the next few weeks, we not only have Mrs Cook providing PE lessons for the children but we also have a music lesson each week with Mrs Buckley from the Cornwall Music Service. Both teachers have commented on how well the children listen and  behave, so Mrs G and I are very proud; well done to everyone.

Stay safe everyone,
Mrs W :)

Reminders for this week:
For Thursday - our themed show and tell session; please send a picture of 'something linked to Easter'; the children will tell their friends what their object is and why it reminds them of Easter. Please email to: jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk
Thursday - please remember to wear trainers for our Arena PE session.
Friday - wear forest school clothes into school instead of uniform.
Each day - please keep sending reading books and records in for us to change as required (we quarantine books before sending them home to another household).