We started our Spring term topic with a trip to 'Swansea Community Farm'.  We were able to be fully immersed into everything animal based to help us with our 'Amazing Animal' topic.  We learnt so much and it catapulted us into learning about animal food groups, wanting to find out more about specific animals we saw and we also hope to develop our own herb garden after learning about the different scents and qualities of the herbs .

Science and Technology 

After our visit to Swansea Community Farm we returned and we swiftly carried out some 'key word' searches on our favourite animals.  We found out some 'fun facts' and learnt that black pigs like to play football and Mummy pigs sing to their baby pigs!  We also learnt about different animal food groups and can now confidently tell you about a herbivore, carnivore and omnivore - just ask us what they mean! During this half term we also spent time talking about keeping safe on the internet and 'Safer Internet Day' highlighted this for us too.  

 

 

 

Humanities

We wanted to learn more about the Marsh Ponies that we see when we come to school. We have spotted them in our villages and wanted to find out more.  We used a 'key word' search to find out more and we could not believe that Marsh Ponies are really good swimmers - although we were not surprised as we have seen them in the tide.  We also found out that if we did not have Marsh Ponies then the marsh grasses would grow "all the way to space!" So, we learnt that the ponies are vital for the sustainability of our marsh.  We also went for a walk to see if we could spot them! 

 

Health and Well-Being

This half term in our PE session we have been focusing on the skill of balancing using our gymnastic equipment - we have really persevered to hold a balance for a long time - with both Mrs Davies and Mrs Rees challenging us to then hold a shape! We have been inspired by our older learners and followed what they have done to help us learn.  We had 'Mental Health Awareness Week' and we tried a new skill - some of us mastered sewing and we all learnt how to paint a sunset - take a look at our Expressive Arts section to see what we have come up with.  We also understand how important it is to chat - we had hot porridge that 'The other Mrs Davies' made and warm milk to sit and chat.  We do understand that there is always someone there to talk to - all the grown ups love us! As always our door is always open as fresh air is something we have learnt to love - we are so lucky with our outdoors and spending time with our friends.

Expressive Arts

This half-term we have used Expressive Arts to develop our story telling and understanding of our literature 'A New House for Mouse'.  We have used collage to build props and boxes to build our puppet set.  In addition to this, we have used our stage to re-tell the story.  During learn a new skill week we learnt how to make a sunset picture using long strokes and tones to make our paint lighter and darker.  With guidance, we then made our silhouette paintings which we will be selling to raise money for our outdoors.  We have also used role play and drama to develop our vocabulary - we have learnt so many new words, and we are using them in our play and chatter! We LOVE Wednesdays as Miss Atwell comes and develops our listening and percussion skills - we have made the animal sounds that we heard in the community farm and we have used our bodies to make percussion too! 

 

Language and Literacy

We have loved our literature focus of 'A New House for Mouse'. Throughout the story we have been able to broaden our vocabulary and look at adjectives.  We learnt that the author did not add many adjectives, so we made the story even better by adding in some describing words.  We have made our own story maps of the story, and we can re-tell the story using the maps to help us.  The Year 1's have innovated the story and by using key word searches they have either changed the key character or some of the other characters that are in the story.  Drama has played a big part in our literacy, and we have acted out the story in our own set which we made - we can now retell the story with a lot of gusto!  We have our daily phonic sessions and have loved to learn through active play - we catch the balloon sounds, blend the words and splat the sounds.  Our writing is becoming 'posh' with our daily handwriting focus - we do ribbon dance, disco dough and the poshest letter formation that you have ever seen! This half-term we have developed our capital letter understanding, and we have become 'Capital Letter Detectives'. We can spot a capital letter at the start of a sentence, in a name and in the day of the week.  

Maths and Numeracy

This half-term we have done a lot of exploring and become curious learners.  We have explored numicon and even did a ten-time table relay in PE and watched some of our older friends count in 10's - which we then tried!  We continue to work on our number formation and this is a skill that is ongoing.  We were able to represent numbers and used our spin and show game to help us prove it too!  We looked at weight and explored the heaviest and lightest objects - can you see that it was a lot of fun too!  We looked at arrays and multiplication and continue to develop this understanding.