Welcome to Squirrel Class

2021 - 2022

Class Teacher: Mr. A Waddington

Teaching Assistant & PPA Cover Teacher: Mr. J Heath

Welcome to Squirrel Class!  We have a very exciting year ahead of us; It is also going to be a very important year with regards to closing any remaining gaps in the children's learning, that were caused by the periods of lockdown.  

Please continue to access the home learning, which is attached below.  The home learning helps to reinforce the learning that we do at school.  Even if it is just 10 minutes a day, it helps your children to feel more confident with their learning at school.  We would ask that, when completing Home Learning, the children focus on practicing the reading and spelling lists as a priority.  

Please continue reading with your children at home every day, it really is important that they have as many opportunities as possible to read. 

Copies of our Long Term Plan, Maths Medium Term Plan and Topic Web can be found on the curriculum class page.

Our outdoor P.E. day is on a Tuesday so P.E. kits to be worn to school on a Tuesday please.  Our indoor P.E. day is on a Wednesday but children are to come to school in school uniform please.

Emergency School Closure or Self-Isolation Home Learning

These grids are to be used to access learning activities when self-isolating or absent from school, whilst well enough and able to undertake learning.

There are five days of learning activities on each grid.  Each grid should provide a full weeks worth of learning, if required.  There is no obligation to complete all of the learning.  Please access and use this resource as required.

Kwik Cricket Part II

This week we continued with our Cricket training and I am pleased to report that our hit rate has significantly improved.  I am also pleased to report that there has been a significant reduction in cricket related injuries.  (Which is surprising considering that most of the children have a tendency to wield their cricket bats like they are trying to score a home-run in a baseball game!)

We now need to work harder on our fielding skills because the balls are being hit further and it takes rather a long time to retrieve them. 

Kwik Cricket

Summer must be here, as the cricket season has started at St Nicholas School.  Squirrel Class have got off to an excellent start, but I don't think the English Cricket Team have anything to worry about just yet!  I did see a couple of the squirrels actually hit the ball, which was impressive.  I also witnessed a few direct hits on the wickets, both with the ball and also the bat.

Kandinski Trees (Art) 28/04/2022

This week we created some Kandinski style trees using crayons/pastels and we also painted our own class Kandinski abstract picture.

Happy Easter Everyone

Easter Painting

Mr. Waddington took his 'bravery pills' and let the children loose with paint.  The children painted beautiful Easter Eggs.  It went really well, with limited spillages and mess! 

The Bridge Project - Sounds of Easter

This week we were visited by the Bridge Project.  The bridge ran a special Easter workshop called 'The Sounds of Easter'.  We learnt about the main events in the Easter Story and created sound effects to accompany the narrative.  We waved palm leaves, broke crackers, dropped pieces of wood, knocked coconut shell halves together and marched in a bowl of gravel, all to create sound effects from the Easter story.

Farm Trip

We've had a wonderful day at the farm and the weather couldn't have been better.  The children thoroughly enjoyed the day and made us all proud!

Earth Art

Nature Mandalas (With Hedgehog Class).  Making art out of nature and natural materials.

Poland

This week we added an extra Geography lesson to our topic learning.  We learnt lots of facts about Poland and we learnt about the Wieliczka Salt Mine.  You can find lots of information about the Wieliczka Salt Mine at the official website, https://www.wieliczka-saltmine.com/. I will be adding it to my bucket list!

We also made some Polish flags, and learned some Polish phrases.

Do widzenia!

Maths - Money

This week we have been learning about money and the value of coins.  Children have been learning to recognise and know the value of different denominations of coins. Children have been using their knowledge of place value to match coins with equivalent values. For example, ten 1 pence coins is equivalent to one 10 pence coin.

Key questions that the children should be able to answer when working with coins:-

How can you organise a set of coins?

How can you sort a set of coins?

What is the value of each coin? How do you know?

How many 1 pence coins will you need to make 2 p? 5 p? 10 p? 20 p? 50 p? 1 pound?

How many 1 pound coins will you need to make 2 pounds?

Safer Internet Day 2022 (08/02/2022)

Today was Safer Internet Day 2022.  We read a story about Digiduck and what happened when he played an online game on a tablet, and accidentally ran up a long list of in-game purchases.  The story also covers the importance of keeping passwords private and choosing passwords that cannot be easily guessed.

The link for the page and the story is below.

https://www.childnet.com/resources/digiduck-stories/digiduck-and-the-magic-castle/

We talked about who you should talk to if you are not sure about something that pops up in a game and more importantly, who you should talk to if something pops up on the internet and it upsets you.  The children drew pictures of the people they would talk to or go to for help if something worried them or upset them online.

Please find the link to the 'Internet Safety' page of our school website below.  There you will find lots of useful information and links.   

https://www.stnicholas.wilts.sch.uk/internet-safety/

Awe and Wonder - Paper Aeroplanes

This week in 'Topic' we explored the development of flight.  We looked at:-

* the first hot air balloon

* the first successful flight by the Wright brothers

* the first helicopter

* the first passenger plane

* the development of the space shuttle

We placed these significant events in chronological order on a timeline.

We then carried on with the theme of flight in our Science learning, and spent the afternoon making and testing Paper Aeroplanes.

The Bridge Project

The bridge project came in this week to talk to us about how Christians get ready for Christmas, and why advent is important to Christians.  Squirrel class showed off their fantastic knowledge of advent and the nativity story, providing some incredibly insightful and knowledgeable answers.

The workshop centered around the Christian advent wreath and the significance of the 5 candles.

Art and Design

This week we had lots of fun making potato prints. 

Mr. Waddington cut some potatoes into Christmas themed shapes and the children used them to print their own patterns and designs. 

The idea is that our printed designs could be used as wrapping paper for presents at Christmas.

This might be a nice craft idea to do with the children at home, to make some presents that little bit more personal.

Children in Need 2021

Squirrel Class raised £24.70 towards Children in Need.  We learnt a little bit about what Children in Need is and we took part in some Children in Need themed activities in the afternoon.

Lino Printing

This week for our Art learning, we learnt how to do Lino Printing.  We drew a design into the surface of a polystyrene tile and used a special printing ink and a roller to print our design onto paper.  The results were very effective.

The Three Little Pigs

This week we started our 'Talk 4 Writing' story making, which is based on the 'Three Little Pigs'.

On Monday we discovered that some building had been taking place in the KS1 garden.  There was a barrow full of straw, a barrow full of sticks and a brick house.

This led us into learning our story making version of 'The Three Little Pigs'.

Art and Design

This term we are learning about different printing techniques.

This week we have made pictures and patterns by printing with our fingers, using primary colours.

We have also made some beautiful fireworks pictures by printing using straws and pipe cleaners.

Aspirational Day

We had a fantastic Aspirational Day on Wednesday (03/11/21).

We took swabs of surfaces and objects around the classroom and spread them onto agar jelly in petri dishes to see if we could grow some bacteria.  (As of Friday we had some very promising bacteria colonies growing).  Yuck!  

We  had a very interesting talk from Mrs. Williamson and Mrs. Holtby about working within the fields of Science.

We experimented with making paper bridges in a STEM activity session.  We explored the strength of cylinders, triangles and corrugation.

To end the day we had a fantastic science show, where we learn lots of fun science facts!

Resourceful Day

On Monday we had our first Resourceful curriculum day.  In Year 1 we have been focusing on being resourceful by showing perseverance, kindness and independence.

Our first activity was making Gingerbread People out salt dough.  This took perseverance to get it to look how you want it, despite the sticky dough getting on your hands.  It also required kindness because we had to share some of the tools and equipment.  We also had to be independent and make them all on our own. 

(See the photos of the finished gingerbread people in the photo reel)

 Our second activity was to make up and play games using marbles.  The rules of the marble games were:-

1. Everyone starts with 10 marbles

2. You have to be fair

3. There can be more than one winner

4. You win by giving me 100 marbles

After playing games for quite some time the children realised that they were a long way off from getting 100 marbles and it was unlikely anyone would win.  It was then explained to the children that if they got together into groups of ten and gave me all of their marbles they could all have won.

For our third activity we played games with counters/tiddlywinks.  The children had to work independently to get their counters into the circle on the sheet.  They had to persevere until they managed it.  They had to show kindness and give each advice on the best techniques.

For our fourth activity we had to try and work out how you can cut a tiny loop of paper to make it big enough to wriggle through.  After some very creative suggestions and ideas the solution was finally revealed.  The loop of paper must form an infinity loop (Mobius strip) and when you cut it down the middle, all the way around, it creates a larger loop; and every child in squirrel class was able to wriggled through it. 

Our fifth and final activity was to play the fun, but sometimes frustrating, game of snakes and ladders.  Just when you think that you are ahead and going to win, you land on a snake and slide back down the board.  This was a true game of perseverance, kindness and independence.  Play to win, take it in turns, persevere and be happy for the winner.

Week 7 - PE Yoga

This week for indoor PE we continued with our Jungle themed yoga story.  We learnt two new positions this week and practiced all of the positions we have learnt so far.  Ask the children to show you some of the positions at home. 

Week 6 - Physical Education

This week we have been working on our under-arm and over-arm throwing skills.  We warmed up with a quick game of bridges and after that we played a really fun game with hula-hoops and tennis balls.

The children's accuracy when throwing a ball is improving, as you can see in the photographs.

Week 5 - Planting Daffodils

On Thursday the children planted some daffodil bulbs in the ground to the left of the main school gate.  We know that we won't see any flowers for a little while, but we cant wait to see them emerge and bloom in the spring.

Sorry about the mud! :)

Week 5 - Music Learning

This week we started our music lessons.  Our music lessons are based on a 'Hip-Hop' song called "Hey You!" by Joanna Mangona.  'Hey You!' is an Old-School Hip Hop tune written especially for children to learn about the differences between pulse, rhythm, and pitch and to learn how to rap and enjoy it in its original form.

As well as learning to sing, play, improvise and compose with this song, children will listen and appraise other Old-School Hip Hop tunes.

This week, after some fun warm-up exercises, we learnt how to find the pulse and began to learn the song.

Hey You!

Hey, you! What you gonna do?

I'm gonna clap some rhythms.

Hey, you! What you gonna do?

I'm gonna sing some songs.

Hey, you! What you gonna do?

I'm gonna play my instrument.

Hey, you! What you gonna do?

I'm gonna keep the pulse.

Week 4 - Harvest

On Friday, we harvested our crop of carrots that we planted when we were in Badgers.  Most of the carrots were quite small, but a few were really large.  We enjoyed comparing the sizes of our carrots.

Week 4 - Year 5 Afternoon Visit

On Thursday afternoon the Year 5 children joined Squirrel Class in the KS1 garden to play games and listen to readers.  It was wonderful to listen to the squirrels reading to the Year 5 children.  The Squirrels certainly seemed to enjoy having the attention of bigger children.

Week 3 - The Bridge Project

This week we had a visit from the Bridge Project (https://www.the-bridge.org.uk/), who came in to talk to us about creation. 

We discussed the Christian belief that God created the world and all living things.  The children went on to create their own unique creatures using Play-Dough and craft materials.

Week 2 - Squirrel Class Art Display

Topic - 'All About Me'

All of the children coloured in a fish, as brightly and as uniquely as possible.  We then arranged the fish in a shoal formation on the wall.  This display signifies that all of the children in squirrel class are the same, in that they are all year 1 children (the shoal) and they are all equal, but they are also individuals who are different and unique (the fishes).