O'Keeffe Year 1-2

Welcome to O’Keeffe Class!

Teacher: Miss Brook

TAs: Mrs Davies / Mr Pearce (1:1)

Here is some key information:

• Children need to bring in book bags and reading records every day.
• Reading books will be changed on a Tuesday. Children will be given a stage-appropriate book and a free choice book. The books need to be returned the following Tuesday.
• If you would like another book over the weekend, please ask the class teacher in the morning.
• Please read the book more than once, to help the children with word recognition and fluency.
• The children will be given a book appropriate for their reading level, or will choose their own book from the Accelerated Reader library. 
• Year 2 - Website for AR Quizzes: https://ukhosted57.renlearn.co.uk/6708488/default.aspx 
• The quizzes should be taken every time they finish a book.
• Children need to be reading for at least 20 minutes each day.
• PE is on a Monday. Children need to come to school dressed in PE kits.
• Homework (English, Maths, Spellings, Number bonds (Yr 1 – after October half term) / Times Tables (Yr 2)) will go out on a Wednesday and is due back on the following Monday. Homework will be uploaded onto Google Classroom and should be completed in the homework books.
• Spelling and times tables test will be on Monday.
• Spelling practise will take play on Spelling Shed - https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/
• Times tables will be set via Times Tables Rock Stars (https://play.ttrockstars.com/)
• Year 1s you can practice your number bonds using hit the button (https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING READING

- Reading books will be changed every Tuesday. They will bring home a free-choice book and a stage-appropriate book.

- The children are expected to re-read the book throughout the week to help build word recognition, fluency and comprehension.

- There may be some occasions where children are given a book they have already had, this is no problem. In fact, it helps the children to build their fluency, comprehension and word recognition to read books over and over. 

- Encourage the children to read the book more than once over the period you have the book. 

- If you have not finished the book, please let me know. It is no problem, it just helps me keep track of the books being sent home. 

- Children should be reading for 20 minutes every day. 

- Ask your child questions about the story and unfamiliar words as they are reading to ensure they understand the book. 

- We will regularly reassess the children's reading to ensure they are taking home stage-appropriate books. 

- Please listen to your child read and sign the reading record. Let me know how they have got on with the book and any words they have found difficult.

- Please read TO your child regularly in addition to listening to them read. This will enhance their language, vocabulary, imagination and enjoyment of more challenging books than they would be able to read independently.  

YEAR 2 

Children need to take a quiz on Accelerated Reader as soon as they finish the book. They can take the quizzes at home. 

https://ukhosted57.renlearn.co.uk/6708488/default.aspx 

- Children will take an AR test to assess their ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) throughout the year to ensure they are being challenged at the right level with their reading. This will be written in their reading record and they will have coloured dots stuck on the front. This is to show which coloured books they can choose from. 

14th July - Skills Builder

For our Skills Builder project, we became fashion designers. We had to pick a theme with our team, such as fireworks, nature and the beach. All of our clothes had to link to the theme but we could design it individually. We spent an afternoon embellishing our clothes with ribbon, patches and fabric to bring our designs to life. We worked together to help each other and used our creativity skills when people were unsure of what to do. We used lots of positive and encouraging language too. We worked really hard and finished the week with a fashion show. We had to walk down the catwalk and pose at the end. We hope you like our creations! 

27th April 2022

The children had a great morning on Monday, meeting athlete Ryan Scott. They had lots of fun taking part in the circuits in the morning and they worked very hard! Then they asked Ryan lots of questions in an assembly and took part in demonstrations. It was a fun and energetic morning and all the children had a good time! Please remember to complete your sponsorship, as the money will be going towards PE equipment!

World Book Day 2023
The children all looked amazing in their costumes this morning for World Book Day. We started the day off with a discussion about the characters we chose, as well as talking about our favourite books. We designed our dream library, with suggestions including reading in a tree house, an ice-cream machine or hot chocolate to read with and reading in a jungle! We then read the story 'Baddies' by Julia Donaldson. The children then had to design their own baddie, describing what they look like using adjectives and similes. We've had a fantastic World Book Day! Thank you as always for your help and support with the cakes and outfits!

Library Visit and Posters!
We had a fantastic visit to the library last week. It was exciting to see all the lovely books inside the new library and we even heard that they run a lego club on a Wednesday!
The children have worked really hard on creating a poster in English. The focus was on ways to help the world. The children had to make it a lift the flap poster, using questions and answers. 
In Science, we have been growing beans and looking at the different features of the plant. We created a model of our bean using different art equipment. We will be labelling them later in the week to link the learning to Science.

Number Day 2023
We've had a lovely day celebrating Number Day, to raise money for the NSPCC. The children all looked fantastic in their number themed outfits today. We started the day by talking about why we are doing Number Day and why it is important to raise money for the NSPCC. We then focussed on Fibonacci and his sequence of numbers. The Fibonacci sequence is a famous series of numbers with a pattern. The pattern is that every number is added to the one before it. Here are the first few parts of the sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89
As you can see, 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 1 = 3, 3 + 2 = 5 and so on. It’s a really simple progression and can go on forever. What’s impressive about this sequence is that you get a spiral if you turn those numbers into boxes. Fibonacci believed that you could see these spirals in nature. 
Using Fibonacci's sequence we created animals using the spiral to inspire us. We also completed a puzzle and investigated the pattern. Following on from this, we completed a number quiz and became investigators to solve the secret sums! We finished it off with an assembly where we shared what we had learnt today.

February 1st

We've had a lovely day today - we were able to spend time planting the potatoes that we had hidden in a cupboard, as they were sprouting, as well as bulbs and a bean each. In Science we have been looking at how plants grow and what features they have. We learnt that roots are important as they soak up the water and nutrients from the soil, as well as keeping the plant in place. The stem acts like a straw and takes the water to the leaves, which turn sunlight into food. We are going to keep a bean diary for the next four-five weeks, looking at how it changes over time.

RHS Wisley

We had a fantastic trip to RHS Wisley on the 4th January. It was a wonderful way to engage the children in our new Science topic, 'plants'. The children spent the morning learning about seed pods and the parts of a plant. They then had the opportunity to plant Calendula seeds to take home. The children walked through the woods and were challenged to find a rainbow of leaves, as well as buds and flowers that had fallen from plants or trees. After the woods, John told them all about two different pine trees. The first was the Great Pine, which is the tallest species of pine. They can live for over 2000 years and although the one at Wisley was planted 100 years ago, it was still the tallest tree there! We also learnt about the Redwood which is the widest pine - the base of the tree can span 11 metres when fully grown! Both species are huge but strangely have very small pine cones!

After lunch, the children explored the glass house which was full of colourful, exotic plants. The children loved seeing and feeling all of the different leaves. They loved the different types of cactus that were there. 

It was a fantastic day and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it!

A big thank you to all the adult helpers too! 

Christmas - RE Festival

O’Keeffe class were given the festival of Christmas. We started the day off with a visit from Reverend Adam from Christ Church. He helped us understand the Christmas story in more detail, focussing on how although Mary and Joseph were ordinary people, God chose them for the extraordinary event of the birth baby Jesus. We used this learning to complete a story map of the Christmas Story. We also created a storyboard, drawing pictures to match the different parts of the story. We sang a couple of Christmas carols, including Away in the Manger and We Three Kings.

We then learnt about a Christingle. These are used in Christian churches during Advent. Each part of the Christingle represents a something special for this time of the year. The four cocktail sticks represent the four seasons and the red ribbon represents God’s love. We completed a sheet to show what each element represented.  We finished off our morning by learning about how different countries celebrate Christmas. We learnt facts about countries such as Australia, China and Spain. The children had to draw a picture and write a fact they had learnt.

We had a wonderful time, learning all about the Christian festival of Christmas!

Christmas Celebrations

We started celebrating the Christmas period with our Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas Lunch. The children all looked wonderful in their festive gear and thoroughly enjoyed all sitting with the class. We finished our festive fun-filled day with the pantomime. The children loved watching it and were in fits of giggles over the chaos that Dip and Dab caused!

We all woke up to snow on Monday and the children enjoyed going outside in it at break and lunchtime. They threw snowballs and created snow characters and had a wonderful time!

Over the last few weeks, the children have been working really hard on their acting and singing skills, ready to perform the Nativity. As I write this, the children have just performed the Nativity to the school. They were amazing and the teachers have had lots of compliments from other children and staff, saying how much they enjoyed it. A couple of children in Year Six said it was the best nativity yet! The children are really looking forward to showing it to their adults on Wednesday and Thursday. KS1 hope you love it as much as the school did! 

Autumn Term 2 Update:

This term, the children have been very busy with their learning.

Our Power of Reading book was Rapunzel by Bethan Wollvin. Throughout the term, we have been focussing on different parts of the story and more recently, we have looked at how it is different from the traditional version of Rapunzel. The children have loved making wanted posters for a villain and creating their own version of Cinderella.

In Art, the children made castles out of junk modelling. In groups, the children had to agree on a design and the features they wanted. Then using the different resources, they had to make their castles. We spoke about joining different elements with tape and how we could make the different features. They included battlements, a drawbridge and towers. They all worked hard with their team members and made sure everyone had a role.

The children all looked fantastic for our Witches and Wizards day! The children worked hard on their hats and throughout the day, were busy making potions and labels for their potion bottles. They also worked hard to describe the ingredients they would use and what would happen if someone drank their potion.

The children have also been working extremely hard to get ready for the Nativity. They can't wait to show it to everyone!