On Thursday, Mrs Whitaker and Miss Archibald braved the cold and snow to take groups of children out to the fire pit. The children enjoyed toasting marshmallows and eating biscuits around the fire and keeping their hands warm on such a chilly day. Next time it will hopefully be dry enough for us to spend longer around the fire and sing some songs.

DT Alphabet Books

This week we have finished our DT project, making our own alphabet books. Mrs Hirst was our resident expert as she makes her own books at home as a hobby. She did a great job helping the children to sew their books together and the children have spent a long time on their front covers and also writing and illustrating their books. They are very proud authors!

1BN had a great Wednesday morning this week when we took a trip to The Leeds City Museum. All the children walked from to school to the park and ride and got the number 7 bus into Leeds city centre. We walked to the museum and enjoyed looking around all the different interactive display and exhibits, there was so much to see and do which is amazing when entry to the museum is free. It was then time to get the bus back to school and, as we had missed our usual lunch time in the hall, we all enjoyed a packed lunch in the classroom which was an adventure in itself! A big thank you to all the adults who volunteered to help with our trip, without you these visits would not be possible.

In DT this half term the children in 1BN are making their own books. Thankfully we have an expert in our class as Mrs Hirst makes her own books as a hobby. As well as looking at some of the tiny books that Mrs Hirst made at home, she has helped the children to make their own book by sewing the pages and cover together using a needle and thread.

Today the children have done an amazing job on their ‘hot write’ task, doing a descriptive piece of writing about the Aliens Love Underpants picture. The children were able to show us everything they have learnt over the last two weeks about descriptive writing including the use of lots and lots of adjectives. This had to be done independently but the children are getting so good at using the classroom including our washing line and working walls to help them if they are stuck. Well done 1BN!

This week we have been retelling the story of The King’s Hats using some actions to help us remember the main parts. We have also done some descriptive writing about the hats that we designed last week, using lots of adjectives such as green, blue, soft, fluffy and beautiful. Take a look at our fantastic writing:

This week the children have come back into 1BN so easily and settled straight back into the routine of school which can be challenging after a longer holiday so well done everyone! Our new topic is Child to King and we will be learning all about King Charles III. This week we started by reading the story The Kings Hats and then we designed our own hats. Next week we will be doing some descriptive writing about the hats we designed. As part of this topic we have a new castle small world role play area and the children have loved playing in this new area with their friends, pretending to be knights, kings and queens.

In DT we are going to be making our own books so the children have looked at different ways of binding books together and talked about which they would choose for their own book and why. In Geography we have been learning the 7 continents and labelling them on a map of the world. We are very good at naming them but need a bit more practice at finding the right continent on a map. The children love singing the continents song which you can find here:

A day early with our blog post today but what an end to the term we had with our beautiful Christingle services! After all the busy weeks of practicing then performing our Christmas show, making Christmas cards, Christmas jumper day and a sickness bug thrown in to the mix, the service was the perfect way to slow down and take a moment to reflect. Mrs Barnett and I would like to wish everyone celebrating a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. We hope you have a peaceful holiday and will see you all in 2024!

1BN were very excited to welcome another Mystery Reader into our class and this time it was Luca’s Mum who treated us to not one but two of Luca’s favourite stories from home. Luca’s Mum had done a brilliant job at keeping it a secret so Luca was really surprised to open his eyes and see his Mum sat in front of him. If you would like to be a Mystery Reader in our class please let Mrs Barnett or Miss noble know and we can arrange a date and time that is convenient.

On Thursday 1BN walked down the road to visit Moor Allerton Library. Lots of the children visit this library on a regular basis which is great but it was really nice to go together as a class. We spent lots of time looking at different books and then Miss Noble read us two stories including ‘Oi Duck Billed Platypus’ which the children all found very funny. The excitement was added to by the fact that we had a sprinkling of snow the night before which made the walk even more enjoyable for everyone!

The children of course love spending time in our own amazing library at school each week as well!

The Three Little Pigs

This week the children have also been spending time retelling the story of The Three Little Pigs. They have used props, made their own puppets and created story maps to help them and know the story, setting, characters and sequence really, really well.

This week the children have enjoyed making and trying some vegetable soup. They all helped to wash, peel and chop the vegetables, adding them to the pan with some stock to cook. We did this so the children could then have a go at writing some instructions on how to make soup. They used everything they have learnt about instruction writing over the last two weeks to independently write their own including a title, time connectives such as first, next and finally and bossy verbs like peel, cut and chop.

This week has been Anti-Bullying week and we have been doing lots of activities to tie in with this. We have been writing messages to our friends to tell them everything we like about them and we made posters to encourage people to speak out against bullying. The whole class contributed to an Anti-Bullying banner which we then used during our picket on Thursday afternoon. Despite the rain the children had a great time chanting against bullying. On Friday we rounded off Anti-Bullying week with Odd Socks day as a visual way to show that we are all different and unique.

Mystery Reader

We were very excited to welcome of first mystery reader in 1BN and Daisy was so surprised to open her eyes and see her Mum sat ready to read us a story. She read Alan’s Big Scary Teeth to everyone as it is Daisy’s favourite at home. Thank you Daisy’s Mum for coming in and being a Mystery Reader. Please contact school if you would like to be a Mystery Reader too!