Blackacre Class 2023-2024

Year 1

Miss Shine

Science

In science we’ve been learning about plants. Today we identified and described some garden plants and trees. We went on a garden walk outside and found daffodils, daisies, an apple tree and a weeping willow.

Science Week

This week is Science Week and today we did a fun experiment. We created our own lava lamps! First we put some oil in a jar, then we added some water (with food colouring in) and then added a fizzy tablet. We had to predict what would happen when adding water to oil, and also what would happen when the tablet was added. We had so much fun!

Maths

Today we were measuring something we chose from the classroom using objects (non-standardised units of measure). We measured things using cubes, paperclips, Jenga pieces and base10, e.g. “my book is 10 paperclips long”. We rotated around the class so that we all had a turn at measuring using the different objects.

Mental Health Day

We learnt what this is and different ways to support our mental health, as well as understanding that it’s ok to feel all different kinds of emotions. We made ‘what makes me happy’ butterflies and drew pictures of things that make us happy if we’re sad.

English

We have been learning all about meerkats and created our own labelled diagrams.

PSHE

We discussed different ways to look after the environment and why it is important.

P.E.

Practising our tennis skills in P.E.

Science

We’ve been learning about everyday materials. We had fun learning and discussing the different properties of materials.

History

Our new topic is all about the Moon Landing. We started by learning about the development of flight dating back to the 1700s with a hot air balloon, up to the 1960s rocket. In pairs the children discussed the order in which these different forms of flight were invented. We also mentioned the Wright Brothers who invented the first manned aircraft. For the main activity, our question was ‘has man been to the moon and how can we know?’... the children became detectives and had to find evidence from numbered photographs around the classroom to prove the statements on their sheets correct.

In Computing we have been using different tools to create a picture in the style of Kandinsky.

Intra Cross Country

We had lots of fun running our school cross country!

P.E.

We have been practising different balances such as the ‘h’ and ‘y’ balance.

Computing
We have been learning to make careful choices when painting a digital picture.

DT

Today we looked at the sliding mechanism for a moving picture. We listened to the instructions carefully to cut and make our moving picture using a lever.

Our trip to The Hive

We had a fantastic day on our trip to The Hive! When we arrived we learnt about how to use a map and its key to identify things on a route. We plotted our route through the forest. We then went on our walk and found different places on the map. Our first task was to find 4 types of leaves and match them to the graph. After that we searched under logs for mini beasts and gently put them in our magnifying pots. In the afternoon we used some leaves to make a craft and then enjoyed learning about and holding some animals (salamander, millipede, giant snail, stick insects, cockroach).

Computing 

We have used Tux paint, the shape, line and fill tool to create work like the artist Mondrian.

English

We’ve been learning all about onomatopoeia and we had fun writing our own words that describe sounds. This links to a poem we read about fireworks (Crackle! Spit!).

Maths

Today we used part-whole models to follow instructions using cubes with our partner, e.g. ‘show me that the whole is 7. Show me that 4 is a part and 3 is a part.’

Art

We made Surrealist sculptures out of clay, based on our designs inspired by Joan Miro.

English

To start off our new pigeon topic in English, we visited our pigeon shed outside and thought of lots of questions for things we would like to find out about them. 🐦

Computing

We can use a mouse to create shapes and pictures on a computer

Computing

We can recognise technology in the classroom

Art

We created our own surrealist pieces of art using printing techniques in the style of Joan Miro.

English

We matched animals to the correct adjective that describes them.

History

We are learning about the Great Fire of London! This week we learnt about what happened during the event and sequenced pictures into chronological order.

English

Our current story in English is ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’. We had lots of fun thinking of different speech that the characters might be saying in each picture.

R.E. (Hinduism)

We learnt that Hindu people use all 5 senses when they worship and thought about why this is important. We looked at different objects to work out which senses we use for different things.

Mental Health Week

Blackacre learnt about having healthy minds, about different feelings and about ways we can feel better. We spoke about things we can do to help us if we feel sad. The children each drew a picture of something that makes them happy and we put it into our ‘jar of positivity’. We shared all of our happy pictures in circle time. We then went on a ‘well-being walk’ through our Forest school and listened to different sounds outside. 🍁 🐦 

Transient Art

This morning we learnt about transient art (using resources that can be moved around to make different pictures). We enjoyed going outside to find sticks, stones, leaves and flowers to make pictures of faces, houses etc.