In my imagination...

Thank you to all parents who supported parent's evening this week. Many of you completed the questionnaires which were available and we will be collating all the responses and letting you know some of the main points which were raised. Your responses and suggestions are very useful and will help to take our school forward for the benefit of all the children. Many thanks with this. You will also have received a copy of a reading survey, in each of the classrooms. If you took it home to complete, we would be grateful if you could return it to school as soon as possible.


National Union of Teachers Strike action - 24th April


As you will have heard on the news, the National Union of Teachers has called for a national day of strike action this Thursday. The school has been working with Warrington Borough Council and local union representatives to determine how we manage the situation. A risk assessment has been completed to determine whether the school can open or whether full or partial closure is appropriate.


Due to this, the school will be partially closed on Thursday 24th April.


This means, that the children in Mrs Malone's class and Mrs Pinto-Edwards' class must NOT report to school on Thursday. Mrs Worrall's class must come to school as normal.


We apologise for the inconvienience this will cause.

Literacy

We conclude our work on Fantasy stories, by writing a story which includes the setting, characters and objects that they have been working on over the last two weeks. The children will be encouraged to use the 'memory technique' which they used when writing the Cinderella story before Christmas. If you click on the December/January links on the right hand side of this page, you will see a reminder of this.

They will also be using the story mountain framework to help them plan their story, to ensure it has a beginning, middle and a good ending. See if your child can show the actions to go with these 5 story elements:

• opening
• build up
• something happens
• events to sort it out
• ending

http://www.midlandit.co.uk/education/writingtips.htm tips for helping you to write stories

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/writing_a_story_opening click on 'open this resource' to use this link

Numeracy

This week, we move onto investigating multiplication. The children will learn the vocabulary associated with this, including lots of, sets of and the word multiple.

We begin by focussing on the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. The children will be expected to know the tables both forwards and backwards (or ascending and descending). By learning these now, it will really give the children a headstart when the go to Key Stage 2 - they will certainly be well on their way to a bronze award for multiplication!

By the end of the week, the children:

MUST: Be able to count on and back in 10’s from any given number up to 100; say the number that is 1 or 10 more or less.

SHOULD: Be able to count in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s and recognize odd and even numbers.

COULD: Be able to understand multiplication as “lots of “ and use the x sign.

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/852/multipletables.swf multiplication dartboard as a fun way to practice those tables

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/multiplication/index.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/numeracy/division/index.shtml why not give yourself a challenge and see if you can work out how this links to multiplication?

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/times_it/eng/Introduct/default.htm we will be using this site in school to support the introduction of the topic - why not have a sneak peek beforehand!

http://www.freewebtown.com/weddell/mw/tables_backwards/tables%20speed%202510.swf how fast can you work out the answers?

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/Ghostblasters1/gbcd.html this was very quick! Can you get rid of the ghosts which are a multiple of 10? Click on the arrows to the left or the right to change the multiples to 2,5 or 10.

http://www.e-gfl.org/e-gfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/teacher/other/Spark/Spark2005/catch_numbers/play.html

use the arrow keys to catch multiples of the two times tables.

Science

We continue with our work on plants this week, and the children will plan and carry out their own investigation to see who can grow the best plant. They will be able to select their own equpiment, decide on where they are going to test their idea and predict what they think will happen.

Links from last week will support our learning this week, or why not have a go at this experiment at home this week? Who can grow the best cress? Why could it go yellow? What happens if we give the seeds to much water? What if the plant gets too cold? Too hot?

Here I Am

This week we move on to our Relate section of Holidays and Holy Days. The children will
learn about Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples.

http://www.request.org.uk/main/festivals/pentecost/tellme/pentecost_01.htm information about Pentecost - roll over the speech bubbles to find the answers

http://www.refuel.org.uk/curric/festivals/pentecost/index.html although this is aimed at Key Stage 2, it is a useful resource for you to share with your child to gain a deeper understanding of what happened at Pentecost

St George's Day - Wednesday 23rd April

For lots of information about our patron saint, why not visit http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/stgeorge.html Maybe you could use the dragon as a character in your fantasy story this week!

Thank you for all the many positive comments we received last week and we look forward to your continued support and working with us in your child's learning.

Year 1/2 team.