We have had quite a week this week in Chestnut Class, with Chinese New Year celebrations, extra hand washing and a visit from a small green vegetable villain!
 
At the start of the week, we celebrated Chinese New Year where the children learnt all about what preparations take place before and the celebrations in the days after the Lunar New Year. Miss Penny led a brilliant assembly telling us all about how the years came to have their animal names. This year being the Year of the Snake. We had an afternoon of making lanterns and had a go at Chinese calligraphy.
 
Year 1 worked incredibly hard at the start of the week finishing their Astro Girl booklets and we are starting our new story of Toys in Space. They also did some fantastic work in Maths across the week looking at greater than, less than and equal to. Within science this week, we have learnt all about the planets and came up with our own way to remember the order.
 
Drawing club has been all things Supertato and everyone has enjoyed creating a new villainous vegetable and ways they can help save Supertato from the Evil Pea!
 
Reception took advantage of the sunny afternoon on Thursday and went onto the playground to draw around their shadows, Miss Warwick and each other. They also all had a go at writing their names next to their shadow drawings. In Maths, reception have looked at odd and evens numbers, counting to 10 and using 3 to make 6 and 9.
 
I hope everyone has a healthy weekend, keep hand washing and enjoy the small amount of winter sunshine.
Miss Warwick and the team 

Chestnut Class have been working really hard this week.
We have been planning and beginning to write our final non fiction text booklets in literacy all about space, we have found out lots of facts about astronauts and animals that have been to space! This week, year 1 have written a plan and considered all the features they need, including writing a glossary and designing a front cover.

Reception have been doing drawing club looking at the short animation ‘coin operated’, a story about a boy who wishes he could go to the moon.

In Maths, we have come to the end of learning about place value and numbers 1-10, concluding with lots of counting to 20 this week and using a number line and singing 10 green bottles. We will be moving onto addition and subtraction, more or less for both reception and year 1 next week.

During History this week, we found out about a very important lady Bessie Coleman, who was the first African American women to fly a plane in the US in the early 1900s. The children delved into learning all about her story, ordering her life events and then retelling her story.

Miss Brooking helped the children on Thursday afternoon with their Ferris Wheel designs ready to start building next lesson. Reception have built number rockets this week with Abbie and also really enjoyed role play, taking on the role of ‘teachers’ helping and teaching their friends to count to 10. 
 
Have a lovely weekend and stay safe in the storm
Miss Warwick 

This week we have really dived deep into understanding space across lots of topics.

In literacy, we have been continuing Astro Girl and looking at the features of non-fiction texts in preparation for writing our own next week while Reception have been reading and looking at the story ‘How to catch a Star’ in drawing club.
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During science and history this week, we have been learning all about what it means to be an explorer and in particular an astronaut. The children came up with some fantastic ideas about how brave, fierce and resilient you might have to be to be an explorer.

Reception have worked hard this week in Maths, understanding numbers 6,7,8 and Year 1 have continued to build their understanding of place value 10s and 1s with numbers 11 to 19.

Reception children created some beautiful planet paintings with Abbie at the start of the week and during PSHE we began our topic of keeping safe and talked about who can help us when we are sad and anxious. We also talked about what we like to do when we are happy.
 
Have a wonderful weekend
Miss Warwick 

Chestnut Class have had a great first week back. We have been adapting to new routines and new staff. The children have worked extremely hard and coped well with the changes.

Abbie and Rachel worked incredibly hard on Monday to get everything ready for our return on Tuesday. Thank you so much!

Our topic of Space began this week during snack on Tuesday when a mysterious bag was left in Chestnut classroom, the children discovered it belonged to Astrid who would love to be an astronaut one day and had left all her star gazing things in our classroom. The story Astro Girl and its main character Astrid will be the centre of our Literacy learning over the next few weeks.
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We have also enjoyed doing Drawing Club this week, reading We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and creating our own stories.

In DT, we will be making Ferris Wheels and this week, the children conducted an experiment to predict which materials would make the Ferris wheel spin the best. We then tested and used this to begin designing what our Ferris wheels will look like.

In Maths, Reception have been working really hard on their number bonds to 5 and number formation. Abbie was extremely impressed with their number writing this week. Year 1 have been using lots of manipulatives this week to build their knowledge of 10s and 1s within 20.

Miss Brooking will be teaching in Chestnut class every Friday, we are very grateful to have her as part of our team.

I have had a lovely week, it has been so nice getting to know all the children in Chestnut class again and I am looking forward to our term ahead.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Warwick, Abbie, Lizzie and Rachel