Blackacre Class 2022/2023

Year 1

Miss Shine

Mental Health and Wellbeing Week

We 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. Blackacre 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

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.

Science

We learnt about Thomas Edison and how electrical circuits need power from a battery to work. In pairs we connected our own wires, batteries and bulbs to make the lightbulb light up 💡👏. We then drew our electrical circuit using the correct symbols.

Sports Day

Well done to everyone in Blackacre for an amazing Athletics Championships Sports Day! You all tried your best and we even had some new school records! 👏

Tour de Theydon

So much fun cycling and scooting for our Tour de Theydon event! 🚲 🛴 

English

Acting out our Traction Man puppet shows! Well done Blackacre for your fantastic acting skills and for getting into character. 🌟 

DT

Absolutely LOVE our finger puppets that we made in DT today! They’re all so unique and everyone worked so sensibly. Well done 🤩👏🏼

Science

This afternoon we learnt about Alexander Bell and his invention of the telephone. We then conducted our own investigation to see if sound can pass through materials by making our own telephones, and discovered that it can. 📞 ☎️ 

History

We were very lucky to have Catherine from Epping Forest District Museum this afternoon who ran a workshop all about toys in our History lesson. We learnt about a girl called Ellen Buxton who grew up in the 1860s and drew pictures of her toys. We had a chance to look at an old rocking horse, stilts, and many other toys (cup and ball, Jacob’s ladder, whip and top, jigsaws, dolls and puppets.) The children learnt that the main difference between old and new toys is that they used to mainly be made out of wood, not plastic. 🧸 

Science

In science we were fascinated to learn about gravity and the effect it has on objects around us. In groups we did an experiment to see how quickly spinners fell to the ground, depending on how many paper clips they had attached to the bottom. We concluded that the heavier an object, the quicker it falls to the ground (gravity has a bigger force on heavier objects). Super science everyone!

P.E.

Today we practised our throwing skills and used the correct technique to throw different objects at distance. We had 5 different stations (sponge balls, bean bags, tennis balls, foam balls and javelins). We learnt to all throw at the same time and only collected our object when told it was safe to do so. We learnt to stand facing sideways and point our other arm towards the direction we wanted to throw to. Great throwing everyone!

P.E.

Today we were practising our jumping skills. For our starter, the children worked in groups to create their own jumping sequence for the class to watch (big jump, small jump, hop, step, leap etc). We then had different challenges to try and get across the river in different ways, e.g. fewest number of jumps, with a run up, 2 feet to 2 feet, 1 foot to 2 feet, 2 feet to 1 foot. We used our arms to help us jump as far as possible.

In Computing, we have been linking music to art and we created music by drawing on the screen.

Computing

We have been learning to experiment with sound using a computer. We drew our thought as we listened to Neptune by Gustav Holst

The end was angry - Rhys

Space ship going to Neptune - Jude

Happy at first then scared Barney

Climbing a mountain and lightning hit the mountain and it tipped over - Luke

Blue sunset - Margot

Rocket going to Neptune - Callum

The beach  I heard the sea and the waves Emelia

The sea crashing into the palm tree - Teddy

A haunted house and a rocket going off to Neptune - Louis

The sea and a plam tree - Filip

Coronation Tea Party

Fun at Forest School

Blackacre had so much fun at Forest School today. We made crowns out of natural resources and a clay tile. 🌳

Maths

Today we were finding a quarter of a shape or object. We practised shading one quarter of different shapes. We then had fun cutting a slice of bread into quarters. 🍞 

Planting Seeds in Science

This half term we are learning about ‘Growing Plants’. We all planted our sunflower seeds and can’t wait to see them grow! 🌻 ☀️ 

Fun on the Library Bus! 📚 🚌 

In Computing we have been making music and learning how it makes us feel. We could describe how the music by Gustav Hoist, made us feel using lots of adjectives, like scared, dark, deep, strong and relaxed.

Geography - Weather

Our new topic this half term is learning all about the weather. We had a fun mini lesson introduction this morning, using a wind vane to observe which direction the wind was blowing in. 🧭💨

Happy Easter!

We had lots of fun making our own little Easter bunnies. 🐰🐣

DT - Fun in the outdoor kitchen!
 

Today in DT we continued our topic on fruit and vegetables. We had so much fun going over to our outdoor kitchen to make our fruit salads. The children all remember the safety and hygiene rules when preparing food and carefully cut them. They really enjoyed eating their fruit salad too! Well done everyone! 🍎🍌🍇🍍🥝🍓🍊

Geography Fieldwork Week

This week is Geography Fieldwork Week. Year 1 had lots of fun doing some orienteering in the playground. First they had to follow instructions given by a partner to complete an obstacle course. Then they used compasses to find North and drew it on the playground, as well as followed positional and directional instructions. 🧭👍

Author Visit - Natalie Newman

This afternoon we were very lucky to have Natalie Newman, author of Lark the Shark, visit us! The children really enjoyed listening to the story and learning about why it is so important to recycle, reduce pollution in the sea and look after our environment. 🦈🌊

D & T

Today we were examining, tasting and describing a variety of fruits and vegetables. I was so proud of how many children tried new fruits and vegetables for the first time and enjoyed them! They tried pomegranate seeds, kiwi, mango, dried apricots, courgette, mushrooms, cauliflower and mange-tout. We had different adjectives laid out on the tables and used them to describe each piece of food. 🥭🍊🥒🥬

Maths

Today we were using the balancing scales to measure mass using non-standard units. Everyone chose an object and had to use either cubes, teddy bears or hundred squares to measure the mass of their object, e.g. the mass of a glue stick is 3 cubes or the glue stick weighs 3 cubes.

P.E. - Hit Catch Run

We played a whole class game with throwers and fielders. We each had 3 throws and had to get as many runs as possible before all 3 balls were brought back by the fielders. We learnt that throwing into a space makes it more difficult for the fielders to return the balls, so they had to work as a team to retrieve them quicker.

English

Blackacre have been using their brilliant imagination skills to think of what could be down the stairs in the book ‘The Dark’ by Lemony Snickett. Today we thought of powerful language that can be used to debate whether Laszlo should go downstairs and why or why not. We had lots of fun creating a conscious alley where the children suggested things that Laszlo might think are down there.

DT

Our topic over the next few weeks in DT is ‘Eat More Fruits and Vegetables’. Today we made a class pictogram to find out which fruit and vegetable were the favourites or least favourites in Blackacre. 🍏🍌🍓🍇🍍🍊🥕🥬🥦🥒🌽

Pancake Day Races

We had lots of fun racing with pancakes on the village green. Happy Pancake Day! 🥞 

Outdoor Learning

In maths we were looking at the number line to 50. We took our learning outside and made our own class number line to 50!

Multi-Sports Session

We had such a lovely afternoon at Debden Park High School this afternoon for our multi-sports session. Thank you to the Year 9 sports leaders for helping there! We practised relay races, target throwing skills, javelin, speed bounces, long jump and turn boards.

Maths

Blackacre have been learning to partition numbers. We used Base 10 to partition numbers up to 50 into tens and ones using the part-whole models. The children learnt that the number in the tens column represents a tens number, e.g. 45 is the same as 40 and 5. Super maths everyone! 🔢👏

Mental Health Awareness Day

In our PE lesson, we linked our learning to Mental Health Awareness Day. This week we spoke about ways that we can keep our minds healthy and positive and did some mindfulness colouring whilst listening to relaxing music. In PE we focussed on teamwork and had to get the hoop around our whole class without letting go of each other’s hands. We also passed the ball to each other whilst saying what we like about school and each other. 🤝👍🙌😀

P.E.

Today we used some of the skills we have practised over the last few weeks to confidently feed and hit the ball to a partner using our tennis rackets. Well done everyone 🎾 👏 

Art

Blackacre had so much fun making our ‘Under the Sea’ clay tiles this afternoon. I was so impressed with how carefully the children rolled the clay, cut it out and drew on their designs using the different tools. The children all really enjoyed this lesson and their tiles look amazing. 🤩👏

English

We worked in groups to rehearse our class sense poem that we wrote together yesterday. The children then performed this beautifully together! (See video)

Maths

Today we were doing subtraction by finding the difference between two amounts. We solved some word problems and then the children made their own using teddy bears and cubes. They put a pencil in place to help them clearly see the different between the two rows. 👏🔢

P.E.

Blackacre had lots of fun continuing with shuttle runs, speed bounces, and using the turning board to jump off of.

Maths

We listened to a range of number stories using ‘first’, ‘then’ and ‘next’ and had to add the correct amount to our tens frames and counters. This lesson was all about counting on from a given number by adding the second amount. The children learnt that it is easier to start with the bigger number when counting on to add two numbers together.

PSHE

We have continued with our topic ‘Belonging to a Community’. In this lesson we discussed how a community can help people from other groups to feel included (help them, ask them about things they like, play with them, ask where they are from etc). We listened to the story ‘The Suitcase of Belonging’ and drew our own pictures of things we like or are good at and added them to our group’s suitcase.

Science

This week we were very lucky to have a special workshop in school... the Science Dome! An external provider came in to talk to the children about life under the sea and discussed lots of facts about different sea creatures. This was a fantastic experience for everyone and the children enjoyed the sensory environment that this provided. Afterwards we wrote about our experience and the new facts we learnt.

History

We continued to learn about Mary Seacole and important things that happened throughout her life. Blackacre turned into detectives - we had to read 10 statements and decide which photo around the classroom was the best evidence to prove the statement to be true. Great work by everyone!

R.E.

This week Blackacre learnt about why Sikh people meditate. We had our very own meditation session to help us realise how it helps to concentrate and focus on something important to us.

English

Having learnt our story ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’, we innovated our own versions by changing the main character, the setting and the animals in the story. We drew our new pictures on sticky notes to add to our original story maps and used this to rewrite our own.

English

Blackacre learnt about suffixes (s, es, ing & ed). We discussed that adding ‘s’ or ‘es’ changes the word from singular to plural and that adding ‘ing’ or ‘ed’ changes a verb into the present or past tense. In groups we matched up the words and suffixes.

Maths

We have been putting numbers into order. We made our very own class number line and then found 1 more and 1 less than a given number.

Phonics

We have been practising ‘ccvcc’ words in phonics.

History

We have been learning all about Mary Seacole. In this lesson we learnt about some of the main events in her life and had to sequence them into chronological order.

P.E.

In this lesson for our unit ‘Send & Return’, we worked as a team to aim a ball at a target. The first team to knock off all of the balls behind the other team won.

Computing

In Computing this  first spring term, we are learning how to program. We have to describe a series of instructions as a sequence, explain what happens when we change the order of instructions and  use logical reasoning to predict the outcome of a program.

English

Blackacre really enjoyed acting out our new story Monkey See, Monkey Do (Talk for Writing).

P.E.

In P.E. this half term we are doing fitness in the hall. Today we had lots of fun at different stations practising vertical jumps, speed bounces, chest passes, long jumps and shuttle runs.

Music

We have been busy learning to play notes on the Glockenspiel and trying our best to keep in time with the pulse of the music.

Maths

It was lots of fun finding a partner who had the missing number bond to make 10.

Science - Animals and Their Babies

In our topic ‘Growth & Survival’, we learnt about adult animals and their babies. We learnt that some baby animals look like a smaller version of their parents, but others look completely different.

Christmas Jumper Day!

Cross Country

We had so much fun running our intra cross country! Well done to everyone who participated and put in so much effort to finish.

English

In English we’ve been learning the story ‘Mog’s Christmas’ and have been writing sentences to describe what happens.

In Computing we have been using different technology to photograph objects around school, and of our friends. We used a program called Photostory 3 to add our images to create a video called me and my friends.

DT

In DT we have been learning about moving pictures. We made our own moving animals using levers and pivots.

Maths

This week we practised addition using a number line and counting the jumps.

P.E.

We were fortunate to have a specialist PE teacher from the West Essex School Sports Partnership for our PE lesson this week. Blackacre absolutely loved learning how to walk, balance and jump elegantly like a gymnast. They learnt how to walk with pointed toes, crawl like a bear and stand up straight after jumping off of the apparatus. They had to try and hold a balance for at least 3 seconds before jumping onto the mats.

English - The Elves and the Shoemaker

Over the past couple of weeks we have learnt the story of The Elves and the Shoemaker off by heart. We drew our own story maps and also rewrote the story independently.

R.E.

We have been learning the story of the birth of Jesus. We did some role play and hot seating to act out the story.

Maths

We had lots of fun making repeating patterns with shapes. First we made patterns with 2 shapes and then the children were challenged to make a pattern of 3 or more shapes.

P.E.

This week we practised teddy bear, log and egg rolls.

D&T

We started thinking about moving pictures this week and made our own pictures with sliding mechanisms.

Maths

This week we practised subtraction using part-whole models and counters. We also practised writing subtraction number sentences.

English (onomatopoeia)

This week we learnt about words that sounds like the noise they make. The children had a go at writing their own and by the end of they week they wrote their own acrostic poems for ‘Firework’.

Music

In music, Blackacre have been learning to sing The Friendship Song.

Black History Week

To celebrate Black History Week, we learnt about a special author called Malorie Blackman and learnt that she won a fantastic award for encouraging lots of children to read and enjoy literature. We then listened to one of her books ‘We're Going to Find the Monster!’.

History - The Gunpowder Plot

We have been continuing our current topic and this week the children learnt about who Thomas Percy was and why he was involved in the plot. We designed our own ‘wanted’ posters to help King James in his search for Thomas Percy.

Science - identifying the uses of plastic and metal

We have been learning about which objects plastic and metal are used for and their properties.

Maths - parts and wholes

We have been learning about parts and wholes in Maths. We started this unit by using counters to separate the parts and putting them together to find the whole amount. We then used part-whole models to represent different amounts and add them together.

R.E. - The Hindu Festival of Diwali

Blackacre learnt all about the story of Rama and Sita. They discovered that when Rama and Sita arrived home, people lit candles in their windows to welcome them back. Our class really enjoyed making their own diva lamps to celebrate Diwali!

English - Information books & Bats

We have been so busy learning about the features we can find inside information books and exploring these. The children learnt lots of facts about bats and over the past week have made their own bat information books including lots of key features.

Maths - more than, less than, equal to

Blackacre have been comparing different amounts using the more than, less than and equal to symbols.

Art - Paul Klee

We have been learning about the artist Paul Klee and how he used tints to create paintings by adding white to different colours.

Capture the Flag!

This morning we had so much fun! The children were lucky to have an extra PE session with a sports teacher from another school. They enjoyed learning how to play ‘capture the flag’ and some mini team games linked to this. Thank you to the Year 6 sports leaders for helping too!

Maths

In Maths this week, we practised using the words ‘fewer’, ‘more’ and ‘the same’ to compare different amounts shown on dice and dominos. The children had to see if their dominos had fewer, more or the same number of spots as their dice and sort them into the correct columns.

Gunpowder Plot

Today we had a workshop about the Gunpowder Plot and learnt all about Guy Fawkes. The children thoroughly enjoyed travelling back in time and learning about why we celebrate on Bonfire Night.

Art: Mark Rothko

In Art this week, Blackacre have been busy creating their own versions of colour field paintings, just like the artist Mark Rothko.

P.E.

In P.E. this week, Blackacre worked really hard on their dance routines using actions that represent friendship. Well done!