Peter and the Wolf

The children listened to the Peter and the wolf music and discussed what kind of instruments and sounds could be heard. The children decided that the flute sounded like a bird because it sounded “tweet tweet”. We discussed how it made us feel and what kind of story we thought it might be telling. The children then sat and listened once more, drawing as they listened to the music to create the story that they thought might be happening. The children then shared their ideas with others. Once they had shared their ideas they then listened to the real story and were very surprised to find that it wasn’t the little bird that was caught by the wolf but a duck instead!

Making boats and exploring floating and sinking

For this week’s science lesson the children were tasked with making a boat that would float and hold as many wooden bricks as possible. As a class we discussed different types of materials and which ones we thought were waterproof. We discussed what floating and sinking meant and also discussed whether the weight of our boats would affect whether it floated or sunk. The children then got going and started making their boats. They tested them throughout the making process to make sure that their boat was not sinking, or if it was they understood that they needed to adapt and change it to try to ensure that it floated. The children were so focused and the whole class spent over an hour and a half designing, making , changing and testing their boats. The children were all very good at recognising a problem and knowing that they needed to change something, and were all able to ask for advice and help if they needed it. At the end of the building process each boat was tested to see how many blocks it could hold, with the winning boat holding 44 blocks!

Discussing different parts of the plant and their function

The children were set the task of planting over 90 plants in the front flowerbeds and rose to the challenge with ease! As our science topic this term is animals, plants and living things it seemed the perfect task for Chestnut Class.

Before we set off planting, we discussed the different parts of the plant and their function. The children were very surprised that the roots were not only to suck up water but to also anchor the plant to the ground. We also discussed the stem and how it keeps the plant standing up as well as allows the water to travel from the roots. The children learnt that the leaves soak in the sun and we also discussed pollen and nectar. The children confidently chose their own spot to dig and with a little help to ease the plant out of the pot they were able to plant their plant totally independently.

 

Planting and Observing seeds in different locations

In our science lessons we have been focusing on growth. The children have all enjoyed looking after their own seed and over the last couple of weeks we have discussed how to look after it successfully. The children can all confidently explain that the plants need sun and water but not too much water to survive. As a class we started an experiment where we put one seed in the sun, one in a cupboard, one in the fridge and one in a sock to see which would grow best. Each child made a prediction about which seed they thought would grow the best. When we looked at the plants together to see what had happened the class were very surprised to find that the plant in the cupboard had grown the tallest. There was lots of discussion about why this was and we discussed that it was because the plant was trying the hardest to find the light. We also discussed why the plant may not have grown in the fridge- because it was too cold. Each child then explained to me the plant that had surprised them the most, they all enjoyed observing the experiment and were confident to give an opinion.

 

Geography- exploring China

The children have enjoyed discussing the country China this week. They have looked where it is in the world, and discussed different traditions that they celebrate, such as Chinese New Year. The children enjoyed learning about the zodiac calendar, and the story behind the different animals for different years. We discussed that you are always the same animal, it doesn’t change as you get older. They then looked at the Chinese dragon dances and wanted to make their own dragons and music to create their own dragon parade. The children explored with instruments to create Chinese inspired music and then moved to the music for their parade.

A musical week

The Chestnut Children have had a very musical week. We listened to some African music and thought about the different instruments we could hear and how the music made us feel. We discussed that instruments can be played softly, loudly, fast and slow. The children then got into their own bands and made up their own music inspire by the music that they had heard. The chIldren confidently stood in front of the whole class to perform their pieces.

In PE  this week the children have started to learn their dance for the school dance festival. The children voted to dance to “I like to move it” from Madagascar. Considering we have only had one practice so far I am very impressed with how well they have remembered the moves!

Spring term

The Chestnut children have had a very busy couple of weeks back at school, the year 1 children have been focusing on alphabetical order and the “proper” name of sounds. They have created their own superhero dictionary entry to put together as a book for the class. In maths they have been focusing on subtraction and using different problem solving skills to solve different style questions.

The year R children have been continuing to develop their understanding of reading and writing, and we have started trying to use common exception words like “the” and “I” in our writing. In maths the children have been focusing on coin recognition and are doing very well at distinguishing between the different coins, although 20p and 50p are sometimes quite tricky!

Importance of the Emergency Services

This afternoon the children discussed our different emergency services and how important they are. We talked about how the different emergency services help us and why they might have to be called. Some of The children then made their own emergency services vehicles together outside. They then had a visit from the air ambulance team who talked about the importance of the air ambulance service and what happens when they are called. The children were all incredibly engaged throughout the 40 minutes assembly and it was evident that they were taking on board everything that was said. The children understood that they have to call 999 in an emergency (which bibi had to act out to the whole school!)
The children also got incredibly excited to meet ted the med! The children are very keen to help to raise as much money as they can for the air ambulance service in their ‘suit up to save up’ challenge.

Waterproof materials experiment

For this week’s science lesson the children were tasked with making a waterproof protective layer to protect a picture of supertato from getting wet.
As a class we discussed the names of different materials that we have looked at before and talked about their properties. The children all gave their opinion about whether they thought a material was waterproof or not and whether it would be suitable enough to protect supertato. The children worked with a partner or individually to design and construct their waterproof layer and were confident enough to give their opinion and describe how they had made their protection. We then took them outside where the children were very excited to see whether their picture would stay dry or not! After the experiment we looked at the different materials together and watched what happened when each material was sprayed with water. As a class the children decided that the most waterproof materials were metal and plastic and they discovered that tissues and paper were not!

Evil pea strikes again

The Chestnut class children have had a busy day trying to work out how to get their popcorn bag back from evil pea! The year 1 children created a storyboard detailing their ideas about how Evil pea got into the classroom. We then discussed as a class what evil pea looked like and behaved like and they then created wanted posters using character descriptions to see if they could find evil pea.

We also discovered a jar of grapes that were trapped and the children had to estimate how many were in there, we also explored some frozen vegetables and discussed how ice is formed and why the vegetables had changed texture after being in the ice.

This afternoon the children designed and created their own traps to see if they could catch evil pea, let’s hope their traps have worked!