4th October 2013

Welcome to another busy week. The children have settled back into the school routine. We have mentioned the Christmas play to the children and we had many happy faces. By the end of this week you will have received a letter about what character your child is going to be and the costume they will need. Thank you for your support.

Mrs Worrall's class

Many thanks for your support and understanding which you expressed during last week's parent meetings. We would like to welcome Miss Greenhalgh to the team from this week who will be working in Mrs Worrall's class. She has worked with the team two years ago, in fact some of the older children remembered her when she visited school last week. We are delighted to welcome her back to St. Vincent's.

English

This week in English we will continue our unit on Poetry. As this time of year has lots of interesting and exciting events what better than to write poems about them! We will continue this week by writing about Bonfire night and all the lovely fireworks we can see. We will be looking at the type of adjectives (describing words)which could be used to make our poems more interesting.

We will also be working on basic skills in reading and writing including developing comprehension skills and the correct use of capital letters and full stops.

Some websites to help:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/patch.shtml

http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/games/writingRepeater_v6_withloop.html

http://www.rhymezone.com/

http://www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/Infant_activities/rhymingwords.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/english/games/blast_the_rocket/small_no_sound/standard2.shtml

http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/media/services/thechildrensuniversityofmanchester/flash/adjective_detective_stamp.swf

http://pbskids.org/lions/games/wordplay.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/lug_game.shtml

http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/lit_sites/alpha_drag/widepage.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/hms.shtml

 

Maths

This week in Maths we will be learning about doubles and near doubles of numbers. This is a useful strategy to help us when we are adding numbers together.

The Year 1 children will recognise doubling as addition; know doubles of numbers up to 5 and add by identifying near doubles.

The Year 2 children will know doubles for numbers up to at least 15 and corresponding halves; and begin to derive doubles of multiples of 5 up to 100 and corresponding halves

Some websites to help:-

 

 

http://www.ictgames.com/bridgedoubles.html

 

http://mathszone.webspace.virginmedia.com/mw/doubling/contents.swf

 

http://www.ictgames.com/robindoubles.html

 

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/media/games/doubling/

 

http://www.ictgames.com/woodseasy.html

 

Science

This week in science  we will be continuing to think about forces. We will be helping Discovery Dog with an investigation! Naughty Nora has torn a hole in the shopping bag and the shopping has fallen out. Discovery Dog wants to know how far the different items roll. Which ones roll the furthest? We will be planning an investigation to help him work out the answer!

Can you look around at home for things that move when you apply a force? Can you decide if you need to use a push or a pull to make things move? Can you try rolling some different items of shopping? Which ones travel the furthest?

 

Topic

This week we will looking at some of Van Gogh’s pictures in chronological order and looking at how they reflect the events in his life. We will discuss his choice of subjects for his paintings & the children can select a picture and write why they think Van Gogh chose this subject.

Vincent van Gogh web links

 

http://www.vangoghgallery.com/

Great free site on van Gogh: includes everything from letters, biography, timeline of his life, pictures you can examine in detail, criticism of his work and embedded links to other artists whom he influenced and was influenced by.

 

 

http://www3.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?lang=nl

The van Gogh museum site (change the language to English).  Offers decent biography broken down into discernible periods in his life, access to decent quality images of his work, including drawings, sketches, late and early paintings, and most importantly an incredible audio-visual animated overview of his life and work.

 

 

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/

Vincent van Gogh at the WebMuseum: this incredible resource has everything you could ever want to know about Vincent van Gogh, including many decent resolution images of his work.  It also contains embedded links to just about every significant artist throughout history, artistic movements, traditions and events.  This resource is a must for all art lovers!

 

 

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/V/vangogh.html

Vincent van Gogh at the Archive: another good and comprehensive site, with lots of quality images and bibliographical extras.

 

 

http://www.vggallery.com/

The Vincent van Gogh Gallery bills itself as ‘the most comprehensive’ van Gogh resource on the internet and it is not far wrong: here you will find fully 100% of all the artist’s paintings, drawings, water colours, sketches, graphic works, letter sketches and letters. 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Wikipedia offers its usual slice of excellence with this entry on the famous Dutch artist.  Embedded links, audio-visual resources, critical works; there’s not much else you could want.

 

 

http://www.abcgallery.com/V/vangogh/vangogh.html

Another great art site in general, with excellent entry for the Dutch Master (not Dennis Bergkamp!); lots of images.

 

 

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/van_gogh_vincent.html

Vincent van Gogh at the Artcylcopedia: basically a links portal for all things van Gog

 

Bonfire night is on Tuesday night and Penketh South will be holding their own display on their field. If you are interested in attending this display you need to contact Penketh South School directly.

Thank you

Year 1/2 Team.