Week ending Friday 18th October 2024

Hello Chestnut families!
This week has been another busy week of learning in our class.

Phonics/Drawing Club- Our English focus this week has been on our phonic assessments, where we have been checking on the children's progress.  We did have a couple of lessons reading and learning about The Enormous Turnip for both Year1  and Reception and the children loved acting the story out, learning new words and writing about it. We were very impressed with their enthusiasm!

Maths- Reception- the children have been comparing numbers using the words greater and less than. They have been looking at 1 more and 1 less by using puppets to play games! Year 1-The children have begun to explore and understand addition in a more formal way by using the + and = symbols, using part whole models, bar models, addition stories and finally understanding fact families. This week's home learning will be based around this, as well as an activity at our TTRS Rockstars morning where you are invited to attend until 9.30am! When you come along to our open afternoon next Thursday, please take a look in books and feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Wider Curriculum
Science- In Science this week we have been investigating shadows and how they form, how and what they change position and shape. The children were introduced to opaque and transparent and what this means! They sorted things into these categories and then identified shadows. We discussed sun dials and how they work and what happens to shadows at different times of the day.
History- In history, the children learnt about Stephen Hawking, his achievements and why he is famous for his work on black holes and the big bang!  We also heard a little bit about another space scientist, Maggie Aderin-Pocock.  We were able to see the diversity of our successful scientists throughout history.
Computing - The children are getting better at using the trackpad on our Chromebooks to draw and this week also practised using the keyboard to write their names on the computer.
DT- In DT this week we finally combined all our previous lessons together by actually making our moving monsters! The children really enjoyed this activity and had a great time practising their skills to create a linkage system that made their toy move! We have some wonderful photos!
RE- This week we read a story about Allah and discussed what type of leader Muslims think he might be. The story involved kindness, thoughtfulness and respect.
PSHE- This week we discussed emotions again and how they make our bodies feel. We then picked scenarios out of a bag and discussed what we might do to help/solve the problem in the scenario. 
PE- This weeks lesson have been been focusing on core skills such as listening, using the space well and moving. The children enjoyed themselves and we had lots of smiles!

EYFS Curriculum
In the lead up to Harvest the children have had lots of activities linked to this theme. They have made mini scarecrows with split pins, created Harvest pictures using shapes, have role played with the farm and we have discussed the importance of Harvest, especially for us as a rural, farming community.  Next week we will have our annual Harvest Festival.