Welcome to Year 1 and 2

We are Ash Class and we hope you enjoy visiting our page!

 Summer Term 2021

It is so wonderful to have our class back together after such a long break! We have been very busy settling back into school life since the 8th March and are back into a familiar routine. We are now enjoying our playtimes on the field and having less independent learning as we prepare to transition at the end of the term. 

We have just started our new topic looking at 'Fire' and have begun to investigate 'The Great Fire of London' which everyone seems to be enjoying! Please take some time to look at the Curriculum Map below to see what else we will be covering this term.

I look forward to catching up with you online at our parents evening appointments, please be sure to go online and book your appointment. If you have any concerns in the meantime, or if any issues arise please do not hesitate to contact me on the teacher email - teacher@hertfordstandrew.herts.sch.uk  

The Great Fire of London

We have really enjoyed investigating The Great Fire of London. This week we travelled back to 1666 in the time machine we had maybe to find out information about how the fire started, what it was like to be in London at that time and how the fire spread so quickly! We made notes in small groups ready to create a newspaper report about the great fire! The next day we put eyewitness Samuel Pepys in the hot seat and asked him lots of questions! Take a look at the pictures below.

We have been learning a song to help us remember the key facts of The Great Fire of London, click on the link below to practise at home.

Practise and Catch Up...

This year it is especially important that the children practise their basic skills after such huge disruption to their learning during Covid-19.

The following websites are a fantastic way for children to practise whilst having lots of fun!

Anti-bullying Week

Last week was anti-bullying week and in Year 1 and 2 we focused lots on kindness. We thought about how kindness matters, how it makes us feel when people are kind compared to unkind and actions we would choose to show to our friends, family and classmates. We created a large puzzle of our ideas, take a look...

This week's English focus...

We are reading the story 'Farmer Duck' by Martin Waddell with pictures drawn by Helen Oxenbury.

You can watch the story here:

Remembrance Day

We have been talking lots about Remembrance Day and what it means. We understand that it is important to remember the sacrifice people made to fight in different wars and why their actions are important. 

We made our own poppy wreath to place at the memorial at the bottom of the school drive. We made poppies by cutting three different sized red circles, joining them with a paper fastener and then folding up the edges to look like petals. We drew around our hands on green paper and used them as leaves.

We discussed the significance of the poppy and learnt that the poppies grew on the battle fields once the war had finished. We looked at some paintings with a sunset to represent 'at the going down of the sun' in a field of poppies with the silhouette of a soldier. We each had a piece of card and had to create our own version. 

Here are our Remembrance pictures...

Bonfire Night

We learnt about the story of Guy Fawkes and how he and his friends plotted to blow up King James I and his government by putting 36 barrels of gunpowder underneath his chair! Imagine the explosion!!  The story is uploaded below so you can find out all about it and the reason for why we have Bonfire Night.

We learnt the following poem:

Remember, remember the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason, why gunpowder treason 

should ever be forgot! 

We created our own fireworks, either by making 3D rockets or by creating a fireworks picture using paint and glitter.

Portraits

A portrait is where you draw or paint a picture of someone else. We worked with our learning partners to draw a portrait of each other. We looked at how to draw faces by drawing feint lines on the page that you can then rub off, I uploaded the 'how to draw a face' steps so you can practise drawing someone in your family if you like.

Self-Portraits

A self-portrait is where you draw or paint a picture of yourself. We looked in a mirror to paint a self-portrait. We looked carefully at the features of our faces and mixed our own skin colours. Take a look at some of our brilliant paintings, there are still a few more to add so I will update the photo soon! Can you guess who is who before we add our name labels?

Pearl the Rabbit

Ash class were very excited to meet the school rabbit Pearl today. Mrs Hammond brought her into the classroom and put Pearl in the middle of our circle. She was very quick and kept trying to get out of the circle. We loved meeting her and practised touching her gently and with care. We are very excited for her to come back again! Since her visit we have made her cardboard homes and written her letters 

Here are some photos, they are a bit blurry as she moves so quickly!

Mini-Me Challenge

In class we all have a mini-me figure that we can use in our play. We have been learning about what makes us feel special and what makes us feel like we belong in our Jigsaw sessions. Mrs Terris set us a merit mark challenge during our independent learning to make something special for our mini-me characters.

See what you think...

Stanley's Stick

We have started learning about a new story in English following a boy named Stanley who has a favourite stick. This stick becomes everything and anything. Ash class went on a hunt to find a stick that they thought looked special and that they could look after.

Here are some of our sticks...

Outside Learning

We have been back at school for over a month now and lots of the children have been so creative in the outside area. It is a valuable addition to Key Stage 1 and gives children to practise their skills within so many areas throughout the day.

Here are just a few highlights of some of the creations so far...

Tens Frame Fun!

Tens frames are a brilliant way to practise recognising numbers and to see number bonds to 10. We have been exploring numbers to 10 and practising using tens frame to help us. We had to work together to make the pattern we saw on the game as quickly as possible. We became faster and faster as the game went on!

You can practise using tens frames at the following website...

Physical Development

The children have been building walkways and obstacles and having great fun navigating them! They have really enjoyed constructing them and then travelling along them in different ways. 

Autumn is here!

It's the 1st October already! We have spent the day looking at Seasonal Changes and learning to recognise signs that Autumn is here. We explored the school field and completed a checklist to see how many signs we could spot, we were very disappointed that the conker tree didn't have many conkers on this year but we did find some acorns. We each collected a leaf and looked at the features and colours on them. 

We linked Autumn to our Maths learning and looked at Ordinal Numbers. We discussed how these numbers are used to put things in order, such as people in a queue or animals in a line. Have a look at the PowerPoint below and see if you can identify the correct ordinal numbers. There are also some colouring pages if you fancy exploring with autumnal colours.

How many signs of Autumn can you spot near your home? Can you make a list?

Maths

In Maths, we have been looking at 'Positional Language and Direction'. Below are the knowledge organisers that give you all the vocabulary we have learnt. You could use this to continue your learning at home 

English

'Journey' by Aaron Becker 

Throughout September we have looked at an inspiring story called 'Journey' by Aaron Becker. The book has no words so we were able to tell the story in our own way. I have put a link to the story below, the children loved watching the story along with the music. We have created our own story maps and imagined what it would be like if we had a magical red crayon that could bring our imagination to life! During independent learning the children used their knowledge of the story to build models of hot air balloons and boats, they drew pictures of birds and used red pencils to show what they would create.