Please click on the button below to see the full term topic and documents about School Days from the Victorian era to today.
Week 3 and 4
We are delighted to welcome three new students to Ferrari Class this half term. They have settled very well and have already started to make new friends. As I mentioned in the last week’s blog, the children have settled quickly and are continuing to impress us with all their wonderful learning.
Here are some of our highlights.
In English, we have been studying at a book called ‘Creature Feature – Dinosaurs’ by Natasha Durley. This is a non-fiction text about dinosaurs which is organised by dinosaur features. In the book we noticed that the titles of each section used alliteration to draw the reader in. The children enjoyed using alliteration so describe plant and animal features. We also noticed that the author used similes in her description of the dinosaurs – so we had a go at creating our own similes about carnivorous plants. As a final independent activity, the children had to think and act like ‘Scientific authors’ and write a leaflet about three carnivorous plants in the style of ‘Creature Feature – Dinosaurs’. They did an amazing job! On completion, they shared their books with a friend and enjoyed giving feedback!
In maths, the Year 1 children completed their Place Value unit showing their understanding of numbers to 20. The children have also been focusing on writing their numbers correctly and have started to write number sentences in their maths books independently. In early morning maths they have practiced adding and subtracting using a number line. The Year 2 children have successfully completed their Money unit and have now moved onto Multiplication and Division. At the start of this unit the children have been focusing on equal groups and looked at the term repeated addition. They have been introduced to the multiplication symbol and have used arrays to support their understanding on multiplication. In early morning maths, they have been practicing counting on and back in 2’s, 10’s and 5’s.
The children are starting to build up a picture of what it was like to go to school in the Victorian Era. They watched a presentation about Victorian School Days and had to sort a variety of statements according to whether they were true or false. They have also looked at first-hand accounts. They read two accounts about the same event; one from the perspective of the teacher and one from the student. In this scenario, the teacher had punished the child for writing with her left! We had an interesting debate as you can imagine! We have looked at Victorian School artefacts and made comparisons to today. Victorians used a cane for punishment ……. luckily times have changed!
In Science we have been learning about the parts of plants. The children have learnt how to draw and label diagrams as well as understanding what each part of the plant does. The children have looked at seeds and have enjoyed planting some beans!
This week is National Storytelling Week. The children have been set a reading challenge based around stories. On Thursday, Ferrari took part in a virtual storytelling event with children’s author Swapna Haddow. Swapna Haddow is the multi award-winning children’s author of the Dave Pigeon series, which has received rave reviews since first publishing in 2016. Dave Pigeon went on to win three regional awards in the UK and was shortlisted for the prestigious Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award. Swapna loves to write about boisterous animals that cause mayhem and has written the Bad Panda and Ballet Bunnies series as well as My Dad is a Grizzly Bear and Little Rabbit’s Big Surprise. At the workshop the children learnt what it’s like to be an author and to meet ‘Bad Panda’ and hear a part of the story live.
In PE we have started a new unit based on dance, called ‘The Ugly Bug Ball’. The first session was based on movements at different heights and speeds to mimic the movement of the bugs. The bugs we chose were butterflies, ladybirds, spiders, caterpillars and ……… mosquitoes (a real Lago Patria favourite!!). The children enjoyed ‘hiding’ in the corners of the hall and when the music played, moved into their space where we all moved like the bugs! This was the bugs arriving at the ball!
Well done Ferrari another great week of learning!
Week 1 and 2
It was wonderful to welcome back the children after the Christmas break and hear their news about the festive period. Santa must have heard how hard they had worked last term because the children had received so many gifts. Some children had travelled back home to be with their families or spent their time visiting wonderful places in Italy. Despite all this excitement, the children arrived back in school rested, happy and ready to learn.
Here are some of our highlights from the first two weeks back in school.
‘Dreams and Goals’ is the focus of our PSHE lessons this half of term. We discussed New Years Resolutions and what that meant. The children had time to reflect and think about what they wanted to focus on this year. They had many different ideas ranging from improving their handwriting, completing their homework at the weekend, tying their shoelaces, learning more about dinosaurs and keeping their bedroom tidy! This led onto our next lesson which focused on thing we were proud about. The children designed a treasure chest to put the things they were proud of inside. It was lovely to see that many children were proud of being a good brother or sister or being kind and friendly. We are so lucky to have such thoughtful and caring children.
In English we have started a non-fiction unit based on a book by Natasha Durley, ‘Creature Feature Dinosaurs’. To kick off this topic, we discussed what we would expect to find in a non-fiction book and what was its purpose. We then looked at the cover of the book and made a prediction about what might be in the book and how it may be organised. So, we needed to understand what a ‘feature’ was and how did this apply to dinosaurs!
We then started to research about dinosaurs which was great fun! We set up a dinosaur exploration area with books, dinosaur characters and equipment to make a dinosaur habitat! We watched a fantastic video by National Geographic all about Pterosaurs, using the information from the video, the children wrote about these ‘winged dinosaurs’ focusing on the facts but making it interesting for other children to read. We then looked at how Natasha Durley had written information about Pterosaurs and we used her style of writing to create our own ‘Creature Feature’!
In Maths, the Year 1’s have made a flying start in their Place Value topic, focusing on numbers to 20. They have used number lines, estimating skills, one more one less and learnt all about the teen numbers. The Year 2 children have been learning about Money. This is not as easy for our children because we are using GBP rather than Euros but this has not daunted our resilient mathematicians. They have done a great job at learning the value of coins, making amounts and calculating change.
Our Science Topic for this half of term is ‘Plant Parts’. In our outside space we have created a Plant/flower shop including a growing area which the children have loved exploring. We have discussed what a plant is and looked at the life cycle of an apple tree. The children have been wonderfully creative and made collages using tissue paper depicting the apple tree over the seasons. Lizzie found us a song called ‘Seasons’ which we have really loved singing – it has become a class favourite!
Finally, we introduced our new topic ‘School Days’ by watching a video about the Victorian Era! It was great! The video summarized the ‘Highlights’ of this time. We discussed, what is the same and what is different to today. This led to so many questions which we can explore in our next history lesson! It’s great being a historian!