Friday 17th October

This week, the children have been very busy writing their innovated versions of The Little Red Hen; we cannot wait to create a brand-new display to showcase their marvellous work! In Art, we have started to learn about the artist Yayoi Kusama and the children enjoyed going outside to explore the patterns that we can find around us. We have installed our new sensory circuit between the two Year 1 classrooms, complete with a range of alerting, organising and calming activities, and have already enjoyed putting this to great use! We also wanted to share some of the amazing photos that the children have posted into Bradley Bear's (our class bear) book following his visit to their homes at the weekend.

 

Friday 10th October

This week we have been working on 'greater than' and 'less than' in Maths and the children have enjoyed using practical apparatus to consolidate their learning. We have started to learn the story of The Little Red Hen in English and have created story maps and actions to help us to remember the plot - this has been great fun! Over the next week, we will be writing the story in our own words and then innovating the plot by changing the character! In RE, we looked at a Puja tray to help us learn about Hindu worship.

Friday 3rd October 

Last week, as part of our Design and Technology unit, the children designed and made junk models. There were some incredibly inventive models and the children were thoroughly engaged in making them! This week, we will be evaluating our designs and thinking about what went well, and what could make our models even better. In History, the children learnt about Victorian toys and thought about the similarities and differences when compared to the toys that they play with today. They then had a go at making their own peg dolls using wooden clothes pegs and scraps of material. 

Friday 26th September

This week, the children took part in a teddy bears' picnic. We brought in our favourite bears from home and each child had the opportunity to stand up and talk about their bear, including their name, when they got the bear and why it is their favourite. We then listened to a story – 'It's a bear!' by Jez Alborough, and then we had a drink and a biscuit. Great fun was had by all! The children will be writing short recounts about the experience.

Friday 19th September

This week we have been talking about teddies!  We have spent time looking at teddies and other toys of different ages in History, deciding which were the oldest and newest and which toys we thought could have belonged to our parents and grandparents.  In our English lessons we have been writing all things teddy - and we have extended our learning with how to add adjectives to our sentences, making them more descriptive.  

In Maths, we have been sorting objects.  We have looked at the different ways in which we can sort groups of objects, such as colour, shape and size.  We practically sorted different resources, which was lots of fun as we realised that some objects can be sorted in different ways, which led us to have different groups.

Our Science lesson saw us completing some taste testing as we continue with our topic of Sensitive Bodies.  We all shared the experience of tasting foods that were sweet, salty, sour and bitter.  Some of us were surprised at which foods were bitter!

 

Friday 12th September

The children in 1 Donaldson have made a wonderful start to the year and have already been very busy! In English, we have focused on All About Me and the children have written some lovely sentences about their likes, dislikes and what they would like to do when they get older. In Maths, we have been learning the days of the week and months of the year, and singing our hearts out to help us remember the order! Our topic for Science this half-term is Sensitive bodies; in our first lesson, we thought about the names of our body parts and the children drew around each other and wrote labels for their head, arms, legs, feet and hands. 

Here are some pictures of just a handful of our amazing Year 1 starters!

Friday 18th July

As Mathematicians, we have been exploring capacity and volume. We used water to showcase our knowledge of the different volumes of containers using the vocabulary full, empty, nearly full/empty and half-full. We also learnt we could measure using cubes as a non-standard measurement. We used these to compare different capacities, such as a yogurt pot, paint pot and a tin. We filled it to the top with cubes and then compared it with the different objects using the mathematical symbols less than, greater than and equal to. Have a look at our exciting learning.

"It was fun because we scooped the water to fill the cups".      "I now know that when it is filled half way this is half full."

Friday 11th July

Donaldson class have had some little crawly visitors recently. We have been looking after 5 caterpillars, who have transformed into 5 colourful butterflies known as 'Painted Lady' butterflies. Due to the hot weather, this happened a lot quicker than usual! It was exciting to watch them munch lots of food, getting bigger and bigger before they spun and wriggled into their small brown chrysalises. We waited patiently and, before we knew it, the butterflies had emerged and were flying around the butterfly net.  After a few days, we let the butterflies go so they could go and find a nice big leaf to lay eggs and start the process again! We enjoyed watching them, and it was great to see the process first-hand. We are now going to use this experience to support us in writing our own butterfly life cycle explanation texts for our final piece of writing for Year 1!

" I liked watching the caterpillars grow because they got bigger and bigger"     " It was great when they flew over our heads!"

Friday 4th July

This week we went to Frinton beach for our annual school trip. Woah, it was hot! The children enjoyed building sandcastles, digging giant holes to sit in, playing bat and ball with each other and skipping along the beach. We also had a little paddle in the sea, jumping over the little waves and splashing. The children also explored what they could find on the beach, with a beach scavenger hunt, as well as using a shell identification sheet to see what type of shells they had found. When we came back to school, we enjoyed some ice lollies to cool down. What a fantastic day! 

" I enjoyed going in the sea because I got to jump over the waves!"              "I liked digging to build sandcastles!"

Friday 27th June

As Mathematicians, we have been learning about measuring time. We learnt this is measured in seconds, minutes and hours. To explore this, we carried out a range of tasks, both inside and outside the classroom, measuring how many could be completed in 10 seconds and how many could be completed in 1 minute using a stopwatch. From this we identified that minutes were a longer measurement of time than seconds. We explored how many times we could write our name, jump on the spot, throw a bean bag, build a tower of cubes, squats etc. We also discussed the types of activities that we would measure in hours, such as being in school and sleeping. The children thoroughly enjoyed it! Have a look at our pictures...

Friday 20th June

It's Sports week at Stanway Primary and 1 Donaldson have enjoyed a variety of activities out in the sunshine. On Wednesday, it was our Sports day in which the children took part in many exciting races, such as hurdles, dress-up and the good old egg and spoon race! It was great to see the children cheering each other on and showing their support. We also enjoyed sessions in which we practised our skipping with skipping ropes, relaxed with some Cosmic Yoga and a quick HIT session too. The children have also been lucky enough to have learnt about a different person linked to sport each day, such as Sir Chris Hoy, Mo Farah, Serena Williams, plus many more! It has been a fantastic week to promote sport and discuss why it is important for our health and wellbeing, as well as inspiring the children of 1 Donaldson to take part in different sports too. 

"I loved the running races because I won!"         " I enjoyed the dress-up race because it was fun!"

Friday 13th June

This term our Science learning focusses on scientific enquiry and encourages children to make connections through stories. This week's story was the wonderful picture book, 'The Oak Tree' by our class author, Julia Donaldson, alongside the scientific enquiry strand: spotting patterns. To investigate this we were given the question, 'Do tall trees have wider trunks?' The children made predictions, and then we went outside to investigate this further. We chose 3 trees: a tall tree, a short tree and one in the middle. To measure these, the children used wool to place around the tree trunk. Once we had collected all three measurements, we measured the string to identify the width of the tree and began to spot a pattern. Donaldson class noticed that the longest string, and therefore the widest trunk, did belong to the tallest tree. They also spotted the shortest tree had the smallest trunk. The children loved exploring the question together and identifying if their predictions were correct!

Friday 6th June

This week in 1 Donaldson we have looked at understanding our emotions. As a class, we discussed the different emotions we can feel and how these can change over the day. It was noted that we can often tell emotions in others by looking at their face, so we practised using our facial expressions to relay different emotions with our learning partners. We then looked at 4 emotions: happy, excited, sad and worried, and discussed what actions or scenarios happen for us to feel like that. The children then recorded this on a poster to share with a friend. Can you guess our emotions from our facial expressions?

"I feel happy when I get cuddles"                     "I am excited when I go swimming"                       "I am sad when I lose my teddy"

Friday 23rd May

This term our topic was ‘Nature Detectives’ in which we have learnt all about different plants and trees. During this period we learnt the names of common wild and garden plants, as well as a range of evergreen and deciduous trees. For our Fabulous Finish to our term, Year 1 went on a walk to Gryme’s Dyke to explore nature in the local area. We put our new-found knowledge to the test and challenged ourselves to name as many of the plants and trees as we could. The children were fascinated by just how many of them there were right on their doorstep!

"I saw some daisies and dandelions in the grass".                              "We saw a humongous oak tree. It is a deciduous tree."

 

 

Friday 16th May

This week 1 Donaldson have been exploring the important artistic skill of observational drawing. We discussed how it is important to look carefully at what we are drawing, before we draw a bit and then look again. We began our exploration by looking closely at a variety of leaves to identify the lines and patterns we could see and drew them in our sketchbooks. After that, we were challenged to use our new observational drawing skills to draw an indoor plant, again by closely looking at it. We all did an amazing job. Soon we are going to be creating our own artwork based on the artist Georgia O' Keeffe.

Take a look at some for yourself! 

"We had to look carefully at the plant and keep looking."          " I carefully used my pencil to draw the lines of the plant".

Friday 9th May

We have been very lucky to have Essex Wildlife Trust deliver some Forest Fun sessions with our class. We have had so much fun exploring the wildlife area, letting our imaginations run free, as well as completing a range of activities provided for us using different tools. During these sessions we enjoyed swinging in the hammock, climbing the trees, whittling sticks, building dens with ropes and pegs, bug hunting, balancing rope walks and much more! This week we were given Forest Fun names linked with things in nature too. Have a look at the pictures to see the fun we have been having! 

" I like digging to build a bridge"          "I like making a swing, so we can swing on it!"          "We get to build dens and go inside."

 

Friday 2nd May

This week in 1 Donaldson we have been learning about instructions and how they contain imperative verbs. We gave our teacher some instructions for planting a seed, which went a bit wrong-whoops! So, we tried again together and made sure they were in order and had extra detail too. We then followed some instructions to plant our very own sunflower seeds. We are now going to give them water and wait and watch them throughout the rest of the term.