Suckley School
Happy, Aspirational and Ready for Life
Autumn
Marvellous Me Box!
Santa Dash!
Shape Exploration Morning!
Robins used their previous knowledge to explore 2D and 3D shapes. Children shared their understanding of shape and learned about spotting shape properties: faces, edges, vertices, sides.
They were brilliant at demonstrating their own shape knowledge!
R.C - "it's a circle because it's round."
R.G - " a triangle has 3 corners and 3 sides"
I.M - "a rectangle has 4 corners and 4 sides" we used this to explore the differences between rectangles and squares. Squares have 4 equal sides and rectangles don't!
H.R - "an oval is round like a squashed circle"
I can't wait to see how they get on with more shape work next week!
The Bed Time Story Box!
The BTSB has been a huge hit this term, the children have show such enthusiasm towards reading and sharing stories together; it has been a pleasure to be a part of the magic of story telling. Thankfully, the chosen stories for the individuals have been a huge hit and all the children have recommended to a friend to read the book they've had.
Mrs Barratt has been informed about the BTSB and will be continuing the Friday afternoon tradition, so please don't fear if your child has not had a turn.
Marvellous Me Box!
You Can't Call an Elephant in an Emergency!
Robins have been working hard retelling and reimagining the chosen text this past week. We've had class discussions including:
What is the story about?
Use what you can see to make a prediction
What could go wrong if an elephant helps out in an emergency?
The children have worked in small mixed year groups to write creative sentences with the challenge to include expanded nouns and adverbs. They have done brilliantly and the 'new' Robins version of the story is so impressive!
The children worked independently to come up with their own page in the story, they could choose their own animal and think of ludicrous ways in which they might cause problems. It's been great fun and I've really enjoyed seeing the children come into school with their own stories they've written at home.
Robins are a brilliant team, they loved working together to create their brilliant Robins story. We've laughed a lot at this story and it has really inspired children taking the initiative to write independently in their own time.
Marvellous Me Box - Robins were really entertain by Luca's detailed explanations
Continuous Provisions
Lightning attempted an escape luckily Mrs Harris was on hand to get it!
Year 1 Maths: Finding a missing part
Continuous Provisions
Severn Trent Water
Rob from Severn Trent Water came to Suckley School to tell us all about how we can stay hydrated (that means replacing fluids that have been lost through sweat, breathing or going to the toilet). We learnt about the ways we lose water from our bodies and recognising the signs that tell us we need to have a drink.
Another important message Rob shared with us, ways in which we can SAVE water, this can help save the planet and save money.
It was very interesting! Some points that have particularly stayed in the minds of the children:
- Checking the colour of you urine - the darker the colour the more you need to drink!
- Our bodies are made up of 60-70% water, that's a lot of water and a lot of refilling!
- Children need around 1.5 litres (5 cups) of water a day to stay hydrated and adults need 2 litres (8 cups).
- Out brains actually shrink when we are dehydrated! We can't possibly be doing our best work when were thirsty!
Seth (Captain Hydrate) and Eadie were fantastic volunteers during the story demonstrations.
Thank you Rob for an exciting show and tell about water!
Marvellous Me Box!
Year 2 Maths: Adding to the nearest 10
Music: Composing repeating melody sequences
Year 2 Maths: Building two-digit numbers
English: Group work - Animals are in charge of the emergency services - "What could go wrong?"
Year 2 Phonics: Search for the /j/ alternative spellings!
Children In Need!
Suckley School celebrated CIN first with a 'Walk and Talk' a fantastic Autumn adventure walk through the country lanes. Mrs Parker has never been this way before which was really exciting, I thought they were leading me to a bear cave! The walk allowed children and adults to talk with each other and continue to build on positive relationships and nurture our well being through the great outdoors.
Afterwards, a very special visitor came to our classroom... Pudsey! We felt so special that he chose to come and visit us at OUR school! He listened to our stories and we told him about the amazing fundraising we've been doing at school.
To finish off the day, Mrs Field shared amazing team building and problem solving activities with us which allowed Robins to be creative, work together and manage difficulties effectively.
What a super start to the week!
Marvellous Me Box!
Art and Design: Poppy Printing
Continuous Provision: Remembrance Day
Year 2 Maths: Year 2 are starting to use column addition, they are working really well using the equipment.
Year 1 Maths: Systematic Number Bonds
Gymnastics: Balancing on equipment
Science: Flammable Materials
The Great Fire of London: Why did it spread so quickly and how has it shaped the way we build houses in present day?
Robins investigated the materials that were used to make Tudor homes, mostly, the houses were made from wooden structures and straw roofs. This, combined with the close proximity of the houses, the weather being particularly dry for that time of the year (September) and an unusually strong wind blowing across London all contributed to the spread of the fire.
We noticed, for this reason, the materials used to build houses changed from wood to brick, but why?
Let's find out!
We wanted to test the flammability of wood and brick. We set up an experiment to burn some wood and a brick. Will they set fire?!
First children made their predictions:
"I think they will both set fire" A.S
"I predict the brick won't burn but the wood will set fire and burn" E.H
"I predict the brick won't burn at first, but then it will and the wood will set fire too." H.W
"I don't think they will burn." J.P
After the experiment we discovered the wood burned and the brick didn't. Fire Marshall Mrs Parker was at the ready to put out the fire safely.
Robins were extremely enthusiastic about today's music and computing lesson. They combined their new computing skills to quickly and efficiently log on to the laptops and on to Purple Mash. The children located the music area and selected "2beat". Children listened to different instruments and created sequences that sounded melodic and enjoyable. What makes you tap your shoe?
It was a very enjoyable session for Robins, they loved working creatively with music.
Open the Book! God said "Let there be LIGHT" and there was! The whole school enjoyed listening to the story of creation engaging with our community Church.
Amazing progression from the Year 1's with their partitioning!
Partitioning Part 2
Year 1 - Partitioning step 1
Toasting Marshmallows at Forest School
The Robins had their first fire down at Forest School, what better way to enjoy a fire than by toasting Marshmallows. It's safe to say, they reeeeeeeeally enjoyed the session today!
Marvellous Me Box!
Malvern Reading Festival
Robins enjoyed meeting real life authors and illustrators, spending time with them and engaging with their workshop. Many children brought books and got them signed by the author - HOW COOL! When asked if they would do it again, they didn't miss a beat... YES!
Year 2 Related Facts - Number bonds to 10 help us complete number bonds to 100
Year 1 Using Ordinal Numbers
Harvest Week Part 3: Parents were welcomed into our class to help us with our textile activity using a needle and thread to complete a running stitch
Harvest Week continues with The Great Suckley Bake Off: Soup Edition
Sadly, no medals for Robins soup however, we really enjoyed learning new skills: chopping, peeling, grating, slicing and dicing using different kitchen tools. We also tasted the soup with very mixed reviews, like Marmite, we either loved it or hated it. We carried out a D&T evaluation of the soup and lots of children decided they would make soup again but avoid using pumpkin.
Harvest Week
Kicking off harvest week we had a very exciting visit from our local farmer Mr Roper who showed us his Green John Deer Tractor. The children were very excited for the visit and decided to ask Mr Roper some questions so they could learn more about what goes on down at the farm. These questions included:
What attachments do you have for the tractor?
What will you use your tractor for today?
How many animals do you have?
Are you growing pumpkins?
Why do you have some many different parts for a tractor?
Do you cut you sheep's wool?
Mr Roper was very helpful and we learned a LOT. There children in our class who have a farming background were also very helpful with explaining things. When asked "What is Harvest?" Hetty gave us a brilliant answer: "We plant seeds in the ground and water it because it makes them grow and turns into food. That's when we pick it. We have tractors, robots, ploughs to pick from the ground by using a tractor and not having to use our hands like they did in the past."
We had a great start to harvest week! What will happen next?
Comparing numbers using a comparison monster!
Friday mornings in Robins are dedicated to Continuous Provisions. Continuous Provision refers to the resources provided in the classroom for children to interact with creatively. The idea of continuous provision is that it encourages children to be active learner, interacting with materials they can access day to day.
This morning, Robins engaged with activities that relate to our topic. Children remembered facts from the Great Fire event and recorded these in smoke clouds. They also had to decipher if the facts were true or false. We've been looking at our senses in English which Robins related to the time of the Great Fire, deciding what part of the body would sense different experiences i.e. smoke - smell, sight people shouting - hearing burning wood - smelling.
Robins have really enjoyed learning all about the Great Fire of London and these activities have really showed off all of the information they have learned.
Robins sequences the events of The Great Fire of London in many ways. Hetty, Logan, Seth and Luca demonstrate their chronology skills to Mrs Field.
Robins have enjoyed using specific skills that will come in handy down at forest school. We foraged for apples and had a go at peeling. If was quite difficult at first but I couldn't have said it better than Valentina "We are PERSEVERING!" A brilliant example of our school value. The skill of peeling will transfer to whittling when we start working with wood.
HAVE A LOOK at Lightning, they've grown LOTS! Is it time for a bigger tank already?
We've been doing phonics on the iPads and it's been really engaging for some Robins!
Marvellous Me Box!
The Great Fire of London is our new topic which lead us to find out all about what we already know about history. Next, children discussed chronology which means the order of events. We had a go at order these events:
Days of the week
Months of the year
Events in a day
and EVEN DATES! - This one was tricky but we know the smaller the number the further into the past. The year that we are looking at is 1666, that's 356 years ago! This is the year of the Great Fire of London.
Robins have enjoyed the increase use of ICT equipment and have been exploring the programmes available on Purple Mash. Their first task was to create their own avatar which they succeeded with flying colours - Lots of fabulous hair style choices! Robins were able to locate the programme 2Paint, create a picture and save it in a file. We've come a looooooong way from logging on and logging off!
Marvellous Me Box!
Year 2 demonstrate their super partitioning of two-digit numbers. We've been focusing on the Place Value of tens and ones.
Marvellous Me Box!
Dinosaurs were spotted roaming Forest School, little did we know the dinosaur spotted us too! It followed us back to school and came rummaging in our class leaving a trail of destruction and some curious shaped footprints! This led to Chaos level 10 in the classroom as we pondered the mystery behind the footsteps.
We concluded, a dinosaur followed us back from forest school because it followed our scent. The dinosaur was a friendly dinosaur that wanted to be friends with us and wanted to come to school. Luckily we didn't see a real dinosaur but we think that it found a dinosaur school and made some new friends there.
Unexpected Visitor
Robins noticed a helicopter flying near by, we raced to see it and we were amazed when the helicopter flew closer to give us a wave.
We have two giant African Snails living in Robins. They are herbivores which means they only eat vegetables. They are nocturnal which means they only come out at night -which means it's difficult to see them in the day, especially when they bury themselves in the soil! They are still quite small, but by November they will look like a typical garden snail and when they are 1 years-old they can grown up to 20cm long! We're gonna need a bigger tank!! What makes Lightning and Jet extra special is that they are albino meaning they have little colour pigmentation making their bodies a pale yellow/green.
Class Pets! - Lightning and Jet
First week at school and Robins have settled in really well. We have been exploring using practical resources and play based learning. Strengthening fine motor skills with handwriting activities and Lego, working with numbers: number bonds for Year 1 and Tens and Ones in Year 2. We've done phonics painting and sorting objects.
Robins have done really well coming back to school and are familiarizing themselves with the daily routines and taking on more responsibility in their new roles at Suckley School. Already we are having huge success with our writing, number work and being creative. We are very excited to get stuck into the curriculum!
Autumn Top Web
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to Robins, I am Miss Elston and I will hopefully get around to chatting to everyone throughout the weeks. I work full time in Robins with Mrs Harris on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday and Mrs Jones on Thursdays and Fridays. I am so excited to be teaching your children we will have an exciting first term together becoming fantastic historians, super scientists, being creative, magic mathematicians and literacy legends. We will be exploring the topic “The Great Fire of London” to help us make discoveries and motivate our reading and writing. Our value this term is “Kindness” one which we can all agree is a crucial part of being human and one which we see a lot in Suckley School.
Routines
A new school year brings new routines. We will be starting spellings on 19th September to give the children chance to settle into their new school routine, new spellings will be handed out on Monday and previous spellings will be checked on a Monday. Children have a spelling book which will need to be brought into school every Monday.
Thursday will be KS1 forest school session in the afternoon. Children will need to arrive in appropriate clothes: long sleeves and full-length bottoms. We have been known to get rather messy at forest school, therefore, old clothes if possible. They will always wear wellies to forest school. If you are unsure if your child’s wellies still fit, we can do a wellie check. We have plenty of pairs if necessary. Wellies tend to stay in school throughout the year.
Wednesday we will have our PE session, children will need to bring their PE kits to school so they can get changed into their kits.
On Friday, two children will be chosen to take home the “All about Marvellous Me” box and the “Bedtime Story Box”. The Marvellous Me box will be a chance for an individual to talk about things that are important to them and share this with the class. They have the opportunity to show and talk all about their chosen items in the box. It is a great way for a person to exercise speaking skills and a chance for their friends to get to know them better. The Bedtime Story Box is a treat box given to children who have shown consistent reading at home, have been spotted reading at school and/or showing perseverance with their reading. They will be given a book chosen for them to enjoy at home with hot chocolate, blanket and torch to encourage excitement about reading. This box will them be returned to school on Monday. If possible, children can take a picture of their chosen reading spot (maybe a den they have made) and write a book review. Stories can be read by the child or their adult.
Reading record books will be used by the teaching staff in Robins to give feedback about your child’s reading. Hopefully with will give you a good insight into how well they are doing and next steps for their reading journey. Therefore, it is really helpful if Reading Record books can come to school every day, of course sometimes they get forgotten but as often as you can please, that would be great. Reading daily with your child has endless benefits and is a great way for them to show you their amazing progress!
School pick up, please come as close Robins back door as possible. This is the door leading out to the decking and on to the Astro turf. I like to see each child go to their parent/carer which can be difficult if parents are far away and children race off. This is for the safety of the children and to stop me being a nervous wreck! Thank you for understanding.
Thank you so much, I look forward to meeting you all and getting to know you and your child.
From Miss Elston and The Robins Team