It has been brilliant to see all of the children working so hard since we could all return to school and our classroom is most certainly a happier place when it is filled with our wonderful children. This was really clear during our Australia themed day this week. We had lots of fun bringing together the learning in our topic this term. A very big Appleton thank you goes to Rebekah who organised and resourced the activities for our day. Although it was not the same without having Rebekah on site with us, her awesome Aussie nature shone through in all that we did. It was great to see our children getting into the Aussie spirit, take a look at some of the awesome outfits:

We began our day by learning a song about Australian animals called 'Cuddly Koalas'. This was a song that Miss Leggett remembered singing from when she was a Rainbow and a Brownie! ​

We then did a collage activity where we used red, black and yellow/ gold paper to create an Aboriginal flag. We learnt that the colours represented different things: red=earth/ land, black=the people, yellow= the sun. It was great to see everyone being Steadfast Squirrels and really working hard to carefully put their flags together. We think that they look great!

We were very excited to be able to use our tapping sticks which we had decorated a couple of weeks ago. These are the links to the songs that we used so that you can have a try at home:
Tapping on my Sticks www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G6ax4AFKTY
Give me a Home Among the Gum Trees www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLWzPQmd5sc 

We had a big surprise when we listened to a story that Rebekah had written for us all about Evenlode Class Explorers Digging to Australia. We listened carefully and realised that the story included all of our names and had photos of us too. We were all super excited about this. Rebekah had very kindly printed a book for each of us to keep too, what a special memory of our bonza Australia Day!

We had another fantastic morning doing our outdoor learning at Forest School this week. Some of the highlights were measuring worms (linking nicely to our maths work in class) and discovering a tiger slug which was then named Blossom. 

In Maths this week we have been exploring measuring using standard and non-standard units including using cm. 

In RE this week, we have been continuing our work on the big question: why is Easter important to Christians? We focused on the symbols of Easter and the meaning behind them. We decorated our own egg and used a symbol of the cross to complete it. 

We have continued our focus on the story 'What We'll Build' by Oliver Jeffers by thinking about places that feel like home. We discussed the differences between a house and a home and what it meant for somewhere to feel like home. We drew pictures and wrote about the places that we had chosen and it was great to see this learning extended into our continuous provision as children built models of the places that they had chosen. 

In PE, we have continued our Boing games for Interhouse and it was great to see excellent team work this week in our Treasure Chests game. The children had remembered their previous learning about how to throw and catch effectively and it has been great to see their independence in PE really come on. Well done Year 1!

In our Australia Topic work this week, we learnt more about Aboriginal symbols and dot painting. We then used our learning to choose how we were going to decorate our tapping sticks ready for our class Australia Day in a couple of weeks time. Take a look at our eye-catching designs:

We were very excited to have our first Forest School session of Year 1 this week. Take a look at what we got up to:

It has been absolutely fantastic to have everyone back together in school again. It was great to see so many happy, excited faces and we enjoyed being back with our friends. 

Our main focus this week was the book 'What We'll Build' by Oliver Jeffers. We began by sharing our perfect classroom designs which was part of our remote learning challenge. Take a look at some of the brilliant designs:

Then we worked in small groups to design and make our own models. We could design and make anything that we wanted to by using junk modelling, Lego, Duplo and other construction resources. We spent the whole day working on this activity and it was great to see everyone working well in their teams, sharing, supporting each other and creating some fantastic models. Take a look at what we made: 

Part of the story focuses on tools and what we can build using them. We were very excited to have been able to finally finish our moving vehicles which we started before the school closure. We used a saw to cut the dowel to make the axles then added wheels. Take a look at our finished vehicles: 

We began our unit of work on Poems to Perform by listening to the Rhythm of Life by Michael Rosen.  We discussed the repeated phrases and rhythm of the poem. We then had a try at learning the poem. We created actions to accompany the words. We were really impressed with the performance after learning the poem in a short space of time. 

In Science, we completed our investigation to find the material that would be best suited to repair a hole in the bucket. We used the 'Hole in my bucket' song to think more about the problem, planned what we were going to do as a class and then worked in teams to do the investigation. After the practical testing, we wrote a letter to Henry to explain our results.

In Jigsaw sharing assembly, we showed the rest of the school our gingerbread people which we had created during the 'Celebrating Difference' unit of work. We made a part of the person each week and had a focus for the ideas for each part such as identifying similarities and differences between ourselves and others.

We thoroughly enjoyed all of the Christmas fun in Year 1 this week including Christmas jumper day and the Christmas crafts provided by the Friends of Appleton School. Thank you to everyone who helped to make these activities so special. 

We very much enjoyed taking part in some Christmas activities this week including completing our filming for the Year 1 and 2 production of A Bundle of Joy. We watched the recording in class and the link to watch this is now available via Google Classroom. We hope that you enjoy watching it too. 

On Friday afternoon, we watched the Cinderella Pantomime. We very much enjoyed joining in with the traditional shouts and boos along with eating some delicious popcorn too! Thank you to The Friends of Appleton School for organising this for us. 

In PE this week we were very excited to have a try at some Tri-Golf. The equipment had very kindly been donated to the school by Fynn's family and it was most certainly a favourite! We learnt about how to hold and use the golf clubs and played a variety of aiming games in our teams. We are looking forward to some more Tri-Golf later in the year for one of our Interhouse Competitions. 

It was a very exciting start to the week when we arrived at school on Tuesday to find that our class had been decorated for Christmas! Take a look and see if you can spot the super long paper chain which we worked as a team to make. We have also started our Active Advent calendar where we are going to do an active blast each day in the build up to Christmas.

In Phonics this week our focus sounds were ew, ire, ear, ure and ea. These lists have been added to Spelling Shed. 

Next week, we are hoping to complete the filming for our Christmas production A Bundle of Joy. 

We have continued to learn our songs for the KS1 Christmas Play. We have recorded a further three songs this week and now have three more to do next week. We are so looking forward to sharing this with you. 

In Science this week we have continued learning about materials and their properties. We focused on sorting materials according to their properties such as rough/ smooth, rigid/ flexible and hard/soft. We used objects from around the classroom which had these properties. We discussed how we would sort objects which had both of those properties. 

In Phonics, we have been the learning the ur, er, ow (brown cow), ai and oa digraphs. These lists have been added to Spelling Shed. 

There has been some excellent teamwork taking place this week and we were particularly impressed with this amazing model of the Titanic!

We have had a very exciting week in Year 1! The Christmas excitement is already upon as we have started to film our songs for the KS1 Christmas Play A Bundle of Joy. We have been working hard on learning the lyrics and creating actions for the songs. The children have been so confident with this that I have been asked to be 'the audience' multiple times! You are most certainly in for a treat when you all get the chance to be our virtual audience too! There are no photos from our rehearsals and filming...it's going to be a Christmas surprise! 

In Jigsaw PSHE this week we have focused on what bullying is and what we can do to prevent bullying. This has linked in really well with our whole school focus during anti-bullying week. It has been great to hear so many thoughtful and caring ideas from the children who have most certainly been Mindful Magpies. 

To continue the focus on the United Kingdom in Geography this week, we learnt all about Wales. A HUGE thank you to Mr Evans for teaching the class all about this country and all things Welsh. The videos were absolutely fantastic and really helped to bring the learning to life through the personal connection.  

In Maths we have continued to focus on addition and subtraction to 10. We are nearing the end of this unit of work and are moving onto 2D and 3D shapes next week.