This half term we have focused on learning all about 'The Gingerbread Boy'. We have looked at the traditional tale and can now recite it. During our EPIC planning at the start of our 'Fairy Tales and Castles' topic we decided that we wanted to learn all about this traditional tale. We also wanted to make some - read on to see if we actually ate them!  We also wondered, pondered and investigated to see what would happen if the Gingerbread Man got wet - take a look at our findings and results. 

Language, Literacy & Communication

We really have enjoyed the traditional tale of 'The Gingerbread Boy' - we have learnt the rhyme and can recite it with gusto! We can also re-tell the story and we took time to look at story openings, characters and settings.  We then changed the story and made it our own - we even had 'The Gingerbread King', 'The Gingerbread Mermaid' and of course 'The Gingerbread Santa'. During our Gingerbread focus we made Gingerbread men and we also painted our own versions of the character. We also have taken time to perfect our handwriting with cursive handwriting and a daily dose of letterjoin or ribbon rhumba!  Our phonics sessions have seen us all made progress and we are even doing spellings too! We have become 'Grammar Detectives' and have been looking for capital letters and full stops - just ask us where we see them! 

 

Maths & Numeracy

We have been busy looking at more than and less than this half term.  We have looked at the addition and subtraction symbol and the Year 1's are becoming confident in whole part and fact families concepts.  We have also looked at reasoning questions - we are starting to think about what is in the question and what information we need.  We have looked at shapes and can now notice shapes in the environment and we can tell you properties about the shape - just ask us how many corners or sides - we are experts! Our weekly skills have seen us improve our number formation and we have used the skills we have learnt in our play when our teachers as us some challenging questions! 

 

 

Science and Technology 

We took time to ponder and predict what might happen to the Gingerbread Man if he got wet. We then made sure we had all we needed and used a 1 minute timer to see what would happen to the Gingerbread man in water. We could not believe that some of our predictions were right - “he sunk!”, “he drowned!”, “he has gone!”  We then discussed that he had dissolved and gone from being hard to soft and almost to a liquid. We thought that if we had left him longer that he would have gone from a solid to a complete liquid. We are now so kind that we want to work towards making a vessel so that he can cross the river safely - we intend to use our design and technology skills to help him - watch this space! 

Health & Well Being

We have carried on being athletic learners and with our friends in Sealions class we have LOVED our 'Gardens'.  These have helped us with our balance, running, jumping and this half term our eye and foot co-ordination.  We also spent time resting and relaxing and we understand that we have the right to play and relax.  We also had 'Keep Wales Tidy' come and join us to help make a relaxation area in our yard.  We planted wildflowers and made a 'snuggle station'. We asked for somewhere to 'chill out' so we were able to make a quiet area in our yard for us to use at playtimes.  

 

Humanities

This half term has been quite special - we took time to remember during Remembrance Day and enjoyed a very special assembly at the local Remembrance Gardens.  Some of us that are in the Choir also sang at the Remembrance service on Sunday with Mrs D and Miss G.  During this week we also recited a poem to help us embed the learning of understanding that happenings in the past changed for our future.  We also have taken time to look at the King and where he lives - we LOVE the look of Windsor Castle and some of us even went to visit it - but the King wasn't there!  We had our own banquet and we cannot wait to have an end of topic Banquet with our friends and families to finish our topic.  Finally, we spent time learning about the traditional Nativity story - we could sequence this and, of course, we were all stars in our 'Big Little Nativity'. We have also enjoyed a number of assemblies with 'Mic the Vic' and our friends from 'Tabernacle'.  We also visited Tabernacle for a Christmas Carole Service - very special times in our special community.

 

Expressive Arts

We really have blossomed and boomed during our Nativity rehearsals! We have learnt to project our voices, we have learnt a medley of songs to recite and we have become a character.  We also had a special trip to Gower College to watch 'Shrek' the musical.  We were able to sit and be the audience and we saw all the fairy tale characters that we had been learning about - it was a lovely end to our topic.  Our weekly music sessions with Miss Atwell have allowed us to listen, work on rhythm and pitch.