Assessment and Review

How fantastic was last week? The children worked so hard during Bookweek and produced some superb work, particularly the poetry which was produced with David Horner during his visit on Monday and Tuesday. He was VERY complimentary about the children’s behaviour and said the standard of their work was amongst the best he had seen in children of their age!

We hope to compile some of the poems over the holidays and post them on the main school website. Many thanks to all of you for helping your children to come dressed as a character from a Traditional Tale on Friday – they all looked brilliant and it even inspired them to write in role...they remembered the HOTSEATING activity from a couple of weeks ago and started to interview each other!

This week’s diary

MONDAY – please remember to hand in all homework, especially the WANTED poster competition. We have already had some lovely comments in the diaries saying how much the children have enjoyed doing it.

WEDNESDAY – The Ash Wednesday service will be held in the hall at 9am and will last about half an hour. Ashes will be distributed in the hall afterwards for adults and the children will receive them in their classrooms. You are most welcome to join us for our reflection at the start of the Lenten Season.

FRIDAY – will be a NON-UNIFORM day in order to raise funds for Marie Curie. Children are asked to bring a donation on £1 for this cause. We hope it will be well supported.

Also, on Friday, we finish for the half term holiday and we will return on Monday 18th February at 8.45am

Assessment and Review

As always, the last week before each half term, is when we assess how much the children have achieved during the term. This helps us to ensure that our planning for the next half term is at the right level for the children.

Many of you are already working through the targets given to you in the diaries for reading, writing and numeracy and this has become evident in the work which the children are producing in class, so many, many thanks.

As for the last couple of weeks, we have been gauging the level of comments in the diaries on a weekly basis. There has been a dip in some classes, so please do aim to make at least one comment each week.

Mrs Worrall’s class – 90%
Mrs Malone – 63%
Mrs Pinto-Edwards – 43%

Literacy

This week, the children will be writing their very own versions of Traditional Tales. We will be looking for evidence of all the things they have learned this half term to improve their writing.
One exercise we have been trialling across the school, is the use of a memory technique to help write the setting of story. The children SHOULD be able to talk to you about this, as they have really taken hold of the idea and ran with it.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

First, the children had to learn a rhyme, where they associated pictures/objects with the numbers 1 to 9. (in red) Ask your child if they can remember the actions to go with this.
Then we added an element of a story setting to each number (in green)

1 – SUN – a location
2 – SHOE – something close by
3 – TREE – something in the distance
4 – DOOR – a sound you can hear
5 – HIVE - something you can touch
6 – STICKS – a smell
7 – HEAVEN – something moving or moving somewhere
8 – GATE – emotions or feelings
9 – WINE – a different viewpoint

The children then take all of these elements and use them to help them remember the order of the sentences to write the opening of their story...

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a beautiful young girl named Cinderella. She lived in a small, thatched-roof cottage, with her stern, wicked and cruel stepmother and her two ugly stepsisters, who were always mean to her. Close by to the cottage, there was a stream, where silver fishes darted in the light of the moon each night. In the distance, through her small bedroom window, Cinderella was able to see the royal palace, where she had longed to visit since she was a little girl. She could hear the sound of birds singing happily in the garden and the bees humming around the silky, fragrant flowers which had just bloomed. As she wandered downstairs in her dreary clothes, sweeping brush in her delicate hands, she dreamt of going beyond the cottage gardens to the palace. Would she ever get there? The answer, she assumed, would always be NO! Until that is, a special delivery landed gently onto the doormat...this was to be the day that would change a humble servant-girl’s life forever!

Lots of these ideas, were actually from the children themselves, so they are not unattainable! I can’t wait to read them at the end of the week.

The children will also be assessed on their knowledge of the spelling patterns that we have been focussing on. They will need to be able to both read and spell words containing the patterns:

SH TH NG AI EE IGH OA OO AR OR UR OW OI EAR AIR URE ER

This week’s question: Are there any letter patterns that make the same sound?

The children will be set a series of spelling challenges, in which they will have to try and work out the spellings to a number of words. Sound simple? Well, they will have a few words which don’t fit the patterns they have been given and they will have to work out what other letters can make the same sound.

http://www.ictgames.com/cluster.html spelling game based on the initial sounds they can hear

http://www.ictgames.com/hybrid.html it took me a while to figure out how to play this game! To select a word in the wordsearch, click on the first and the last letter of the word you wish to highlight, and the cow will ‘MOO’ if you are correct! A great way to investigate spelling patterns.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/longvow/snap/snap.shtml click SNAP when the sounds match the word written on the right hand side

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/longvow/spelling/spelling.shtml drag and drop the correct spelling pattern into the gaps before the time runs out.

Numeracy

We will be assessing the children on their knowledge and understanding of the topics covered this half term.

The children have done really well, but there are a couple of areas where some extra practice would really benefit them:

ODD and EVEN numbers – can they recognise that an even number ends in 2 4 6 8 or 0? Can they recognise that an odd number ends in 1 3 5 7 or 9? Emphasise the fact that however big the number is, it is only the LAST number which tell them whether it is odd or even.

The links from the last few blogs will help to support your child’s learning this week. Also, please keep a check on the targets which have been placed in your child’s diary for numeracy.

NUMBER BONDS CHALLENGE

Well, the children are doing really well with this now, and the competition is hotting up (and that’s just between the staff!) Each Friday, the children have 5 minutes to attempt 100 questions on simple addition and subtraction sums to 10 for Year 1 and 20 for Year 2. All the totals are added together and the class with the highest overall mark, is awarded the Maths Challenge Cup in whole school assembly on Monday morning. Mrs Malone’s class won it the first week and Mrs Pinto-Edwards for the last two weeks.

To get some extra training in, a great site to practice these questions against the clock is http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/851/Hitthebuttonv7.swf
You need to click on NUMBER BONDS and then select ‘bonds within 10’ for year 1 and ‘bonds within 20’ for year 2. Let us know how many you can get in one minute!

Science

We complete our topic on Keeping Healthy this week and the children will complete a quiz in class to see how much information they have remembered.

Here I Am
This week see the start of Lent with Ash Wednesday. We will also begin our new topic of Thanksgiving.

The children will:

RECOGNISE :That the children recognise some ways of giving thanks
REFLECT: on the many ways in which thanks are given at home, in school and in the neighbourhood.
RESPECT: that there are many different ways of giving and showing thanks.

Topic

As I type this, Barnaby has just sent some more e-mails of what he is up to in New York. He has said that the people in America he has met this week are very friendly. His best part so far, is when he got to meet the Captain of the aeroplane and got to sit inside the cockpit – with his hat on! He has had a great time and cannot wait to get back to see us all and tell us about his adventures!

When Barnaby has recovered from his jetlag this week, the children will HOTSEAT him and ask him lots of questions about his journey.

Of course, we have to say a big thank you to Mr. Worrall, who has had to explain lots of Barnaby’s photos to cabin crew, hotel staff and many downtown New Yorkers! The children have loved them!

A treat!

We have been invited out to a fine dining restaurant! Yes, all of the Year 1/2 children have been invited to Casa Foundation Stage on Thursday afternoon, for their Chinese New Year celebrations! We can’t wait and say a huge thank you to Mrs Narraway and the children for inviting us.

Thank you for all your support this half term and we hope you have a happy and relaxing break. Remember to keep practicing those number bonds and we hope that it is a new class who are the champions when we come back!!

Year 1/2 team.