Year 1

Welcome to Lichtenstein Class

 Our class is named after the artist Roy Lichtenstein. He was a famous pop art artist. Lichtenstein used only the colours red, yellow, black and blue in his work. He made lots of comic book style pictures and was famous for using Ben day dots.

                                         Enabling Enterprise Week

This week we have been given the challenge to become entrepreneurs and set up our own café. We got into teams to compete to create and run the most successful café.

We were very lucky to be invited to The Walnuts Café in Sidcup highstreet. They kindly accommodating us all for an hour, we had smoothies, biscuits, milkshakes. We learnt lots about how they run the café and they showed us how they take the orders and get the food ready. We had lots of questions to ask them and we got lots of fantastic ideas for our own cafés. 

                                                         World Book Day!

What a wonderful world book day we have had. The children all came in this morning very excited to show their wonderful costumes. We talked about each others book characters and read some of our stories. We then read The Lorax, wrote letters, made posters and our own Lorax! We also had the chance to work with children from KS2 which was very fun. 

Thursday 2nd March 2017

As part of this term's topic, 'THE ENCHANTED WOODLAND', Years 1, 2/1 and 2, are looking forward to visiting a woodland called Groombridge Place.

At Groombridge Place we are hoping to be able to enjoy an outside walk, using our' super senses' to observe nature's beauty and magic. We will be collecting fallen treasures found on the way to use in our art work on return to school.

The children will be made aware of woodland safety rules, things that shouldn't be touched or eaten, for example.

Let's hope that the weather will be kind to us!

Mr Webb, Miss Gayson and Mrs. Michie

                                             Enchanted Woodland

Our new topic this term will be Enchanted Woodland. The children will be learning about the different habitats of different woodland creatures and identifying the different parts of plants. They will also be reading lots of stories such as: The Minpins.

                              Enabling Enterprise: CRIME INVESTIGATION

This morning we were visited by a detective inspector. He told us that someone had stolen chocolate from the school kitchen. There were four suspects for the crime: Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Hansel and Jack Beanstalk. We worked in teams to gather the evidence to find out who had stolen the chocolate. We started by looking at fingerprints, we looked at the patterns in our own and then looked at the fingerprint found at the scene. We then went to the crime scene and found a piece of red fabric, half eaten chocolate, a piece of golden hair and a big footprint. We discussed all the evidence we found as a team and then presented to the class who we thought was guilty. At the end of the day we were sent a video confession from the culprit: Little Red Riding Hood.

                                                               Happy Puzzles- 2.1.17

As part of Maths week we had a visit from the happy puzzle company. We were put in teams and had to solve the different puzzles together. The first puzzle was called Ice Penguins. We had to balance the penguins on the iceberg, it was quite tricky. For the second puzzle we had to build a big tower using the pieces. We found the best way to solve this puzzle was by using the heavy pieces first. For our final puzzle we had to place all the shapes into the tile but we were not allowed to have the same colour next to each other.  We used lots of our maths and teamwork skills to solve the puzzles!

                                         5.1.17

                              Marvellous Mixtures

This morning we got really messy. We had lots of different coloured paint which we mixed with flour and glitter to make a messy art piece. We also got our hands really dirty. We made lots of different mixtures using: shaving foam, sand, jelly cubes, jam and washing up liquid. We talked about what each mixture felt like in our hands.

A big welcome to our new Lichtenstein class. They have all settled in brilliantly and are very excited to start learning about our new topic this term: Dinosaurs!

                                                        Dinosaur Museum

​To end our dinosaur topic we decided to use all our excellent dinosaur knowledge to open up our own museum. We created dinosaur fossils and bones, we made postcards and posters for the gift shop and we wrote down lots of facts and jokes about dinosaurs.

                                                            12.9.16

To introduce our dinosaur topic we all went on a dinosaur hunt. We got into pairs and got our explorer hats and binoculars and we went hunting for dinosaurs. When we found a dinosaur we used our sounds to read their name and wrote it on our fact sheet. We found lots of dinosaurs that we hope to learn more about.

                                                                              Ducks 

For the past 2 weeks Longlands have been home to seven little ducklings. They came to use as eggs and over the first three days we saw them hatch. We then went to see them when they had just come out and we learnt all about the lifecycle of a duck. 

                                                               Learning All About Bees

We have been learning this week all about bees and were writing instructions of how to be a beekeeper. To help us out Mrs Herd our resident beekeeper came in one morning in her bee suit to tell us all the amazing facts about bees and how she does a good job to look after them. We even got to have a try of the bee suit and make a bees wax candle. 

                                                                 Teddy Bear's Picnic

We had a wonderful morning over at the field to celebrate Miss Foley's time at Longlands. We had time to play some games and then we read stories and had some lovely food with our teddies.  

                                                                              Phonics

Below are some phonics activities that could help the children become more confident with their phonics. There is also a link to some nonsense words that the children can use to practise their sounding and blending. 

                                                              Our Growing Garden

With all the lovely sunshine recently and the rain recently, our plants are beginning to sprout. Our sunflowers are getting taller by the week and the children have been making sure that they are watered every other day. Check back for more updates soon. 

                                                                                    Poetry

This week in literacy we are focusing on poetry. We started the week by performing well known poems in groups. We made sure we used a clear confident voice and some actions. We will be writing our own poetry this week and have already thought of some excellent rhyming words. 

                                                                   Our Growing Garden

We have started growing some plants outside our garden. Each of our tables are working together to grow sunflowers, we have to make sure we remember to water them so they grow nice and tall! We have also planted some peas and lettuce and flowers. We have our fingers crossed for lots of sunshine for our plants to grow. Check back to the website in a couple of weeks to see how they are growing. 

                                                                     Our Trip to Colchester Zoo

What a wonderful day we had at Colchester Zoo! We all started the day excited to see as many animals as possible and we were not disappointed. We first saw the cheeky meerkats and the giant anteater, then we were really excited to feed the giraffes and the elephants. We then  got on the Zoo train which took us passed the pink flamingos and the wolves. After we went to the big cats we saw lions, tigers and leopards.  We went through the butterfly glade and had to be really still to see if any would land on us. We stopped by the penguins and watched them swimming and then we went in  tunnel which made us feel like we were underwater and saw the sea lions swimming above. Our final stop was the gift shop where we each picked  a treat each. 

We all had a fantastic day which is thanks to the children who were absolutely brilliant animal explorers and also thanks to our wonderful parent helpers. 

                                                      Our Brazilian Homework

The Children have been showing their homework this week and we have all been so impressed by the colourful costumes and floats, the brilliant facts and delicious food. The children have been so proud to tell us all about what they have made and the hard work that they and their parents have put into the homework really shows!

                                                                  World Book Day

What a fantastic day we have had. We all came in very excited in our wonderful costumes. We each talked about the character we had come as and shared some of our stories. After we read The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Wolf by Eugene Trivizas which was a fairytale with a twist. This gave us an idea, we used Goldilocks and the three bears and wrote it with a twist. We had The Three Cheeky Bears and Goldilocks where the bears went into Goldilock's house. After we had two very special visitors Miss Owen and Mr King who each read us a story. Miss Owen read us The Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen which we loved and then Mr King read us Green eggs and Ham by Dr Suess which we found very funny!

In the afternoon some of our class went to Blake and some of Blake came to our class. We worked in pairs to create fairytale riddles, we loved trying to guess them at the end. Then the whole school came together and we shared what we had done to celebrate world book day. 

                                                                                      22.2.16

Today we were transported to the hot, colourful streets of Brazil for our very own carnival. We first needed to dress the part so we created some wonderful headdresses using bright colours, feathers and sequins. We then had to have the right moves for a carnival so we learnt some Brazilian dancing by moving like the rainforest creatures. We then had to create the music for the carnival. We had bass drums, bells, rainmakers, tamborims and small drums. We created the sounds of the rainforest using our instruments.

In the afternoon we all came together to have a fantastic carnival. We each got a chance to show our dancing. We got the chance to play in the Brazilian orchestra and we cheered and showed some brilliant carnival spirit.  

                                                                               3.2.16

                                            Jump Rope Day!

Today we had a very active day. We started with a big assembly from Miss Foley and she told us all about The British Heart Foundation and why it was important to look after our heart. We learnt all about the heart and created some posters in class to let other people know how they can look after their heart. We also learnt lots about healthy eating and created a lunch box containing a healthy food. 

Then it was our time to jump rope. All of Key Stage One went out into the playground and we started with some exercises to warm us up. Then we had a skipping relay race in our houses, which St Patrick House won. After we showed off our fantastic skipping skills!

At the end of the day our hearts were all beating really fast!

                                                            20.1.16

                                                     Building Bridges

Our challenge in our D and T lesson was to create a bridge using the equipment on our table. We had 5 different tables: construction bricks,lego, paper and sticky tape,straws and stickle bricks. In our groups we had to use our team work and problem solving skills. We had to make sure our bridges could hold the car and we tested it at the end.

                                                           3.12.15

                                                        Rocksteady

Today we all had a very exciting morning. We all became rockstars! We were all shown each instrument by Matt from Rocksteady and some of us even got the chance to play in a band. We learnt to keep the beat and the rhythm of the song by clapping to the beat of four. We then needed some of our class to play in our band whilst we kept the beat. We had Maizie on drums, Jaedan on the guitar, James and Mia on the keyboards. We then all had to become the singers to help Tom and Ezra at the front. At the end we put it all together for a fantastic performance of our song! 

                                                      Our Super Adventure

Before half term we had a super week. We became real life superheroes. We made our costumes complete with masks, super cuffs and a super belt. Once we were all ready in our superhero team we set off on our mission to catch the villainous Professor Slime. He had been putting up horrible rules around the school which we had to find and destroy before any of the other children saw them. We then used our actions and sound words to defeat and capture Professor slime: POW! KAPOW! ZAP!  

Once we caught Professor Slime we spoke to him about the horrible rules he tried to put around our school and told him the rules that he should be using. We then created a Super comic strip to remember our Super adventure. 

                                                                                      30.10.15

                                                        Zoolab

On Wednesday we were very lucky to be visited by Chloe from Zoolab who brought with her lots of different vertebrates and invertebrates for us to meet. We met Lola the spider, Gary the cockroach, Barry the millipede, Speedy the African Snail and Cleo the snake. We were able to touch and hold the insects and spiders. We learnt lots about all the insects and had lots of fun!

                                                           Superheroes 

This term we will learning all about Superheroes. We have already made some super art and created our own superhero identity. Check back on the website to see what other super work we will be doing this term.

                                                                                       Miss Gayson