Category: KS1 Language Base

LB 1 enjoy their Reward Afternoon!

Having achieved enough stars to fill the Reward Star Target Challenge, LB 1 pupils chose to cook as their reward. With a lot of laughter and enjoyment, we explored food hygeine, food preparation and a balanced diet before creating our own healthy and ‘treat’ kebabs.

For our Rainbow kebabs, we used fruit, firstly washing and preparing the fruit before stacking to produce a food product.

                                

    

                                     

      

Finally, we worked on our’treat’ kebab, using marshmallows to create our own snowmen.

        

  

       

              

I do believe that we have some future Michelin Starred chefs in the making!

Exploring ‘Look Up!’ by Nathan Bryon

For the past three weeks, we have explored the text, ‘Look Up!’ by Nathan Bryon. Lots of our activities have linked to the idea of Space and exploring including research into the first Moon landing by Neil Armstrong.

Our Reception pupils created new rocket designs for their journeys up into Space.

      

Yr. 1 pupils created aliens using clay.

   

                                

     

    

In our other learning:

Reception pupils have continued to explore the numbers 4 and 5. They have found and recorded numbers bonds in different ways and practised writing their numbers 4 and 5.

  

     

                     

   

We have also explored mass and capacity, using the vocabulary ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ and ‘more’ and ‘less’ to explain our findings.

     

     

In Science, Dr. Fishwick took us on a Scavenger Hunt looking for different materials around our school environment.

  

Before Storms Dudley and Eunice hit, we began to create our own garden area, planting flowers that the bees and butterflies will enjoy.

    

    

        

Finally, we would like to say thank you to one of our transport ladies who found a bird’s nest for us to explore.

 

Exploring ‘Errol’s Garden’ by Gillian Hibbs

Over the past few weeks, LB 1 have taken on the role of ‘Gardeners’ like Errol in the story ‘Errol’s Garden’ by Gillian Hibbs.

We became gardeners of our own gardening plot and have prepared it for ready for our own planting of bulbs.

  

   

Some of us loved finding mini beasts. Others were not so sure!

We also did a little bit of planting within the classroom – cress. We are observing it grow and making sure that we water it daily. Watch this space to see which gardener is most successful.

     

                   Day 1                                                                           Day 5

      

In addition to sowing our seeds, we have explored the types of flowers that Errol may have grown. We used our senses to feel, smell and describe the similarities and differences between the flowers. Seven days on and the classroom still smells like a florist.

    

  

As part of our IT learning, we became photographers for the day, photographing Errol’s garden landscapes.

    

Can you believe it’s 2022?

Happy New Year to everyone.

Even though this week was a short one, we have filled the days with creativity, exploration and talk.

Yr. R have refined their fine motor skills, threading, weaving and pinching with some new resources.

         

Dr. Fishwick worked with the pupils to explore and recognise materials – both man made and natural.

        

The pupils learnt a new word – Fabric.

As part of our computing curriculum, the Year 1 pupils became photographers. They had a task to photograph captivating images with the theme of ‘Blue’. We explored all areas of the school to find inspiration. Over 100 photographs  were captured within a ten minute period. Professionals in the making!

             

Finally, the professional photographers reviewed their images to delete the  ones that they were unhappy with until they found their favourite photograph.

Week ending Friday, 1st October, 2021

What another lovely week in LB 1!

We have finished our exploration of ‘Hey, Friend’ by Rebecca Cobb. The children used this to work on our word of the week – ‘share’.

In Maths, Yr. R have continued to find ways to show ‘more’ and ‘less’. We challenged each other to feed pasta onto pipe cleaners as well as drawing ‘more’ and ‘less’ shapes in flour. This led to the creation of wonderful pasta jewellery and beautiful flour based art.

               

      

    

We continued to mark make, working on our number formation.

     

We are practising our name writing too.

       

Our lesson with Dr. Fishwick was all about ‘killing germs’. They talked about their personal hygiene before using hundreds and thousands and vaseline to explore how germs stick to dirty hands.

Our favourite Brain Breaks this week have been to the songs, ‘Gummi Bear’  and the ‘Monkey Dance’, both taken from Just Dance Kids. 

Week starting 20th September, 2021

For our EYFS pupils, this week has all been about ‘Measure, Measure and more Measure!’ We have taken measurements using our hands, counted the number of cubes as a measure and challenged ourselves to make the longest worm out of play dough. 

      

  

Our word of the week was, ‘more’.

We explored when we use it before adding it to our conversations in Maths and PSHE. We concluded that it doesn’t matter if one person has more, the kindest thing to do is to share!

     

Communication with Miss Morris was all about the listening skill of ‘looking at the person who is talking’. The pupils had to find different facial expressions to retrieve the toy!

Phonics with the EYFS pupils was all centred on s a t p i n. The pupils are learning to blend two of the sounds as well as beginning to mark make to form the letters.

Finally, we have some favourite ‘Brain Break’ songs. Search for the details below and have a go at the dances. There are definitely some real movers in LB 1!

  • Koo Koo Kangaroo – Pizza Song
  • Koo Koo Kangaroo – Superhero Song
  • Waka Waka (Just Dance)
  • 5-a-day Fitness – Big Jubilee Dance

Welcome LB 1 , a New Year has begun!

Two weeks have passed and already the new cohort feel as if they have been within the Language Base forever. Friendships have formed and all the pupils have settled into their new individual routines comfortably.

We have spent the first two weeks getting to know each other and completing many team challenges and communication sessions.

We have began our curriculum for the Autumn term – Our Place in History.

The children have all been so enthusiastic about their learning both within LB 1 and their mainstream setting, I am very excited to see what the year holds for us all.

Yr. R pupils enjoy their time in Reception:

 

Communication and Listening in LB 1:

Motor Skill activities in LB 1:

       

       

       

Sequencing work learning: First, then and last.

Bee Good To The Earth

Today is Earth Day which has been celebrated every April 22nd since 1970. The aim of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the damage done to the environment.

You might like to try Google’s doodle for the day – a relaxing game where you control a bee visiting flowers and which will teach you lots of things about how important bees are: google.co.uk

Can I Identify Different Birds?

Why not find out about some of the wildlife around where you live by learning the names of the birds that you can see from your own home? There is more information on what to do in the video below or read the text at the bottom…

If the video does not play in your browser, click here.

Objective: To be able to recognise and name at least six different British birds.

Quick bird spotting guides:  Sheet 1   Sheet 2

How: Spend half an hour a day for a week quietly recording the birds you can see from a window. Putting out some food can help if you have any but avoid bread at this time of year as it is not good for chicks.

Can you find out which is the most common bird to visit your garden?

Challenge: Can you think of an investigation to carry out as you bird watch? Perhaps you think different birds will come at different times of the day – how could you find out? Or maybe you could investigate the birds’ favourite food? (Try sorting out some mixed bird seed). 

Coronavirus – A Book for Children

Axel Scheffler has illustrated a digital book for primary school age children, free for anyone to read on screen or print out, about the coronavirus and the measures taken to control it. Published by Nosy Crow, and written by staff within the company, the book has had expert input: Professor Graham Medley of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine acted as a consultant, and the company also had advice from two head teachers and a child psychologist.

The book answers key questions in simple language appropriate for 5 to 9 year olds:

• What is the coronavirus?
• How do you catch the coronavirus?
• What happens if you catch the coronavirus?
• Why are people worried about catching the coronavirus?
• Is there a cure for the coronavirus?
• Why are some places we normally go to closed?
• What can I do to help?
• What’s going to happen next?

We want to make sure that this book is accessible to every child and family and so the book is offered totally free of charge to anyone who wants to read it. However, we have suggested, at the back of the book, that families might make a donation to help our health service if they find the book useful: https://www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/.

Kate Wilson, Managing Director of Nosy Crow, said:

“We were very aware that many parents and carers are struggling to explain the current extraordinary situation to children, many of whom are frightened and confused. We thought that the best thing we could do would be to use our skills to produce a free book to explain and, where possible, reassure children. We asked Axel, whose work is so familiar and so loved, to illustrate it. He was happy to do it, and did it extraordinarily quickly. Meanwhile, having heard Professor Medley interviewed by the BBC, we looked him up and wrote to him, and despite his huge workload, he reviewed the book over a weekend, and we were able to incorporate his suggestions, together with those of two head teachers and a child psychologist, into the final version of the book. We hope it helps answer difficult questions in difficult times.”

Axel Scheffler, illustrator of The Gruffalo, said:

“I asked myself what I could do as an children’s illustrator to inform, as well as entertain, my readers here and abroad. So I was glad when my publisher, Nosy Crow, asked me to illustrate this question-and-answer book about the coronavirus. I think it is extremely important for children and families to have access to good and reliable information in this unprecedented crisis, and I hope that the popularity of the books I’ve done with Julia Donaldson will ensure that this digital book will reach many children who are now slightly older, but might still remember our picture books.”

Professor Graham Medley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“This pandemic is changing children’s lives across the globe and will have a lasting impact on us all. Helping children understand what is going on is an important step in helping them cope and making them part of the story – this is something that we are all going through, not something being done to them. This book puts children IN the picture rather just watching it happen, and in a way that makes the scary parts easier to cope with.”

You can download a copy of the book here (or, if you have trouble with that link, here) – or watch Mrs Williams read it below: