Our learning this week

This week we are going to be learning about...

• subtraction
• nature in our local area

We will be learning...

• different vocabulary involved in subtraction, e.g minus, subtract, take away, less than
• to say one less or ten less than a number
• to solve subtraction calculations using objects
• to solve subtraction calculations by counting back from a number in our heads
• to develop rapid recall of simple subtraction facts e.g 2 - 1 or 4 - 2
• to solve problems involving subtraction
• to subtract multiples of ten from a number
• to solve subtraction calculations using 2 digit numbers
• how to stay safe when exploring our local area
• what plants grow in our local area
• what animals might live in our local area
• how to represent our local area through photography, art, music and writing

You can help me at home by...

• exploring subtraction with me through play, for example, if you have five potatoes on your plate and you eat two, how many are left?
• playing games with me that involve counting back, or singing songs where the number decreases (10 green bottles, 5 currant buns etc)
• playing games to develop my mental maths - see http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button and http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum.html
• exploring the area close to my house and talking about what plants or animals might be nearby
• talking to me about what I saw and experienced on our bluebell walk

Reminders: Children will need adequate footwear for the bluebell walk on Wednesday (ideally wellies or trainers) as it may be muddy. A waterproof coat is also advisable.

Our learning this week

This week we are going to be learning about...

• addition
• exciting vocabulary in stories

We will be learning...

• to find the total number of objects in two groups by counting all of them
• to solve addition calculations using objects
• to solve addition calculations by counting on from a number in our heads
• to develop rapid recall of simple addition facts e.g 2 + 2 or 3 + 1
• to solve problems involving addition
• to partition 2 and 3 digit numbers
• to solve addition calculations by partitioning
• to listen and respond to a range of stories
• to predict what might happen next in a story
• how to use exciting and interesting vocabulary to make stories more exciting
• how to recognise and create similies, e.g "as hot as the sun" or "as big as an elephant."

You can help me at home by...

• exploring addition with me through play, for example, if I have two cars and you have three, how many do we have altogether?
• playing games with me that involve counting on, for example, a board game where we have to move on a given number of spaces
• playing games to develop my mental maths - see http://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button and http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum.html
• reading stories with me, asking me questions about the events, characters and setting
• asking me to make predictions about what might happen next in stories we read
• talking about descriptive words in stories and what they mean, explaining any words I don't know
• encouraging me to use new words I have learnt from books when I am talking or writing

Our fantastic trip!

Yesterday we went on a fantastic trip to Buckinghamshire Railway Centre to support our learning on transport. Our guide, Peter, was brilliant. He not only kept us safe and entertained all day, but taught us a lot about trains. Even the adults learnt lots of things they hadn't known before!


We got to see a lot of trains and learnt how steam trains run. We rode on a full sized steam train and also had an exciting ride on a miniature train. We explored artefacts from the past including an old model train set and saw a post office train and learnt how the letters used to be sorted on the train.


Not only did we have a brilliant day, but the children's behaviour was excellent. They also asked very thoughtful questions and showed excellent recall of the information they had learnt. Holly and Dexter were also awarded special train driver hats for their super questioning and answering!

World Book Day!

Today we had lots of fun dressing up for World Book Day and sharing our love of reading. In our class we had Fantastic Mr Fox, an oompah-loompah and Jack with a beanstalk to name a few!

We enjoyed buddy reading, where an older child reads and shares books with a younger child. As always, the older children did a fantastic job with the younger ones showing not only great reading skills but a lot of understanding and patience.


This year was also our first 'book swap' - children were invited to bring in a book they no longer wanted or perhaps had a duplicate of and could swap it for a book someone else had brought in. Nursery and Reception joined Year 1 and 2 and everyone got to take home a new book to read.


Tomorrow we are going to be developing our writing as we talk more about the characters we came dressed as and think of some good words to describe them!

Noah's Ark

This week we started our new topic on Transport and have been learning the Bible story of Noah's Ark.

We have heard and retold the story and explored it using small world toys. We also made some beautiful rainbow pictures using a variety of resources such as paint, chalk, pencils and felt tip pen. This included making some very big rainbow pictures on the playground using big chalk!

This afternoon we learnt a song called Please Mr Noah. In it we had to make the noises of different animals which were either high pitched (mice and monkeys) or low pitched (lions and bears). Not only did we perform the song making the sound of our animal in groups, we added movement and actions too!

Noah's Ark will help us in our maths this week as we count in 2s and in science as we explore floating and sinking and test materials to see if they are waterproof.

Ice investigations

Yesterday we were exploring the ice that we found outside. The children enjoyed breaking up the ice and mixing it in water, which led to an interesting discussion. Some of the children thought the cold water would stop the ice melting and others thought it would make the ice melt. So we decided to test it out!

This afternoon we did a science investigation to see what makes ice melt the quickest - putting it in warm water, cold water or leaving it in an empty bowl. We discussed with our talk partner which ice cube would melt the quickest and which we thought would be slowest.

Everyone thought the ice in the warm water would melt the quickest. But when it came to which was the slowest we were very divided. Half the class thought the one in cold water would melt the slowest because the water is cold and would keep the ice cold. The other half all thought the one in the empty bowl would melt the slowest.

We wrote our predictions on our investigation sheet and talked about how we could make it a fair test. We agreed that all the ice cubes should be the same size. Luke also said we should have the same amount of warm water and cold water in the bowls. We got the bowls ready, and so we didn't forget which was the warm water and which was the cold Luke and Hannah wrote some labels for us.

We used the lab timer app on the iPad to record the times. When we put an ice cube in we started the correct timer. We had to keep observing the ice cubes so we could see when they had melted!

Here are our results:

As you can see, the ice in the warm water melted the quickest, as we predicted. The ice in the cold water was the next to melt, and the ice cube in the empty bowl took much longer! We discussed where we could have put the ice in the empty bowl that would have made it melt quicker. Dexter said we could have turned the heater on in the classroom and put the ice cube near it and Luke said we could have put it outside if it was sunny so the sunshine could make it melt faster. We talked about our experiences of having ice in our drinks that melt and eating ice lollies - we agreed they melt much quicker on a hot, sunny day so you have to eat them really quickly!

Excellent investigative science Reception!

Exploring rope!

Today we had a special present from Hannah's daddy - a big, long, purple rope! We were all very excited and had lots of suggestions about how we could use it, including to climb trees and make zip wires!

Reece said "I think the rope is longer than the playground." We talked about whether we thought it was longer or shorter than the playground and how we could find out.

Outside, we unravelled the rope and stretched it out. We found we could go all the way from one end of the playground to the other, and there was almost enough rope to come all the way back again!

We spent some time playing with the rope, carefully jumping over it or pretending to be on a zip wire or in a cable car as we moved along it. Then we worked as a team to hold the rope in a big circle. It was so big Miss Ayres couldn't fit us all in the photo at the same time!

We had lots of fun exploring the rope today, and next week will find lots more things we can do with it - perhaps using it for building and den making outside? Watch this space..!