Angelfish May Update!

Welcome back to Term 5 Angelfish!

Angelfish have thoroughly enjoyed Careers Week this week. We have had a lot of visits, including a swimming teacher, cabin crew, zookeepers, hairdressers and a construction company. It has been great to learn about so many careers and widen our aspirations. Children have been thinking lots about what they would like to do when they grow up and the skills they will need to be able to do this.

During English, we learnt about the story Zog and have taken part in lots of different activities including describing characters, writing stories, twisting stories and creating rhyming poems. Angelfish class have worked so hard to consider their handwriting, capital letters, finger spaces and full stops when writing to develop their presentation skills. They have also used interesting adjectives, verbs and connectives like ‘because’ and ‘and’ to make their writing even more exciting.

In our Maths lessons we have enjoyed learning about mass, volume and capacity. We have pretended to be scales and also used real scales to compare objects and see which objects are heavier or lighter. Angelfish loved using lots of different size and shape containers to explore capacity and volume.

We are very excited about our school trip to Leeds Castle! We have been learning lots about castles and thinking of questions we would like to find answers to whilst we are there!

Thank you for your continued support!

Miss Hassell and Mrs Cheema

Happy Easter from Angelfish!

This term has been very busy with lots of exciting events and learning! We have been reading the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats gruff’ and have enjoyed twisting the ending of the story. Children used their imagination to think of a character that could come and help the goats to cross the bridge and used fantastic writing skills to write their own stories.

During our Maths lessons we have been learning about money. We enjoyed creating our own shops to buy items, ordering and sorting the money, and we also solved money problems.

A big highlight for Angelfish class this term was creating our clay thumb pots! We researched aboriginal arts and different types of pots and designs. The children used their creativity to design their own pots and develop their ideas. They then worked carefully to mould and shape the clay into a pot, used tools to add lines and patterns and finally painted them to match their designs. Our pots look beautiful, and we are so proud of the hard work, resilience and creativity used to make them!

On Red Nose day, our whole school enjoyed taking part in lots of different activities to learn about what Red Nose day is and how this charity supports so many people. Angelfish loved designing their own Red Nose Day noses and taking part in a special sports competition in the hall!

During Science Week we had the opportunity to visit different teachers and take part in a range of Science experiments. We learnt about David Attenborough, the engineer Jyoti Sehdev and Mary Anning. We also created our own beautiful animal paintings of our favourite animals.

On Wednesday, we had an absolutely fantastic time at the Easter Eggs-travaganza! We played games, won prizes and enjoyed every activity. Angelfish also loved creating their own Easter crowns and crafts and taking part in the bunny hunt on the school field!

We have had a lovely Spring Term and would like to thank all of our families for attending parents' evening and for your continued support.

Have a lovely holiday,

Miss Hassell and Mrs Cheema 

Angelfish March Update!

Angelfish class have had an absolutely amazing start to Term 4!

A big thank you to all of our parents and family members for attending our class assembly and book sharing session over the last few weeks. The children and adults all really appreciate your support and encouragement!

Our whole school had a very fun day celebrating World Book Day and we were very excited to wear our favourite costumes to school. We read lots of interesting stories with our friends and teachers and loved having Mrs Nicholas and Miss Meredith visit our classroom to come and read a story to us. Angelfish also enjoyed our very special visit from Tola Okogwu, a published author, as part of World Book Day. We took part in an exciting workshop where Tola taught us all about using our imagination to write stories and we even had the opportunity for Tola to sign our story books.

In English this half term, we have been learning about dinosaurs. We used similes and adjectives to create our own dinosaur poems and this week we have created our own dinosaur information books with lots of facts.

During our Maths lessons, we have been learning all about place value to 50 and using tens and ones to identify and represent numbers. This week we have partitioned numbers by using numicon, cubes, tens frames and part-whole models.We have also demonstrated our understanding by writing number and word sentences.

We have loved learning about materials in Science! Angelfish have learnt about materials and why different objects are made from certain materials. We took part in a material hunt around the classroom and used post-it notes to label lots of objects and furniture. During our lessons we thought about how we could describe materials and their properties and if they were hard, soft, smooth, rough, bendy, waterproof, etc. Angelfish are super excited for Science Week next week and can't wait to take part in lots of scientific activities!

In our Geography lesson we are thinking all about our world, the seven continents, the oceans and the United Kingdom. We have explored lots of different maps and used Google maps to locate different places.
This half term we are learning about aboriginal art in our Art lessons. We have explored different paintings and pieces of art work and the techniques that were used to make them. Angelfish enjoyed drawing their designs for their own aboriginal art clay pots and are very excited to start making them over the coming weeks.

Thank you for your continued support,

Miss Hassell and Mrs Cheema 

Angelfish February Update!

What a busy, but extra fun term we have had!

In Maths we have been identifying patterns, differences and similarities in number sentences using various manipulatives. We have also learnt about doubling numbers and how this can help with addition. Recently, we have been learning about subtraction and how we can do this using number lines, ten frames and first, then, now stories.

In English, We 'jumped' into a picture and used 'Talk for Writing' strategies to produce some beautiful narratives. The children did really well letting their imagination run wild by making links to their senses, came up with some lovely adjectives and made lots of suggestions as to what could happen if they were in the picture.

In Art the 'Whatever Next!' story inspired us to create our very own space pictures. Creating these was very enjoyable!

This week has been very exciting, and we have been very lucky, as it has been Storytelling week! We spent a day in our pyjamas, read with children in Year 6, had parents come in and read to us, and we visited our local library!

Thank you for your continued help and support.

Mrs Nicholas

Angelfish January Update!

Happy New Year!

It was so lovely seeing all the children back after Christmas and hearing about what they had got up to over the holidays.

We have started the new year with our new book: Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy. The children have loved finding out what Baby Bear gets up to on his trip to the moon and sharing what they would like to take and wear to the moon.

This week we have been looking at ‘bossy verbs’. In class, we used these to give instructions to others to complete various tasks. The children worked really well together, helping each other come up with different verbs and much fun was had by all.

Currently, number lines are the main focus in Maths. The children have begun to locate numbers on them, identify missing numbers and have even attempted to create their own ones!

In Art we have been learning about primary colours and how, with blending them, we can make secondary colours. The children were very enthusiastic working with paint and were very careful applying it to their colour wheels.

From The Angelfish Team

Angelfish December Update!

Angelfish have had a great Term 2 with lots of learning and fun events!

We were all very excited to take part in a fire safety assembly with Mr Baker who told us lots about being a fireman. The children also had the opportunity to meet lots of fire officers and learn about their fire engine.

In English we have enjoyed reading our new book ‘Cops and Robbers’ and exploring writing for different purposes. We have created crime reports, questions and answers between cops and robbers and have described characters. Angelfish also loved the opportunity to take part in a police role play with Mrs Martyn.

During Maths we have been learning to recognise and compare 2D and 3D shapes. We thought about shapes properties, looked for shapes in our environment and created shape patterns.

This term we have loved designing and creating our own dinosaur sculptures! We started by learning about what sculptures are and then researched different types of dinosaur sculptures using Ipads. Angelfish then designed their own dinosaur sculptures and thought about the materials they would use. They then made their own dinosaurs sculptures which were fantastic!

We would like to say a big thank you for your continued support this term during our fundraising events, Book Sharing afternoon and Parents Evenings.

Have a fantastic winter break!

Miss Hassell, Mrs Cheema and Mrs Martyn. 

Angelfish November Update!

Angelfish have had an absolutely fantastic start to Term 2!

In English we have been reading our new story, ‘Beegu’. We thought about how the alien felt when she crashed on Earth and about questions she would ask people on our planet. We have also been practicing our story telling skills by sequencing events in the story and writing sentences about what happened to Beegu.

This term in Maths we are thinking all about addition and subtraction. Angelfish have been working very hard to record number sentences and represent number problems using drawings and pictures. They have also been using Numicon, cubes, counters and their fingers to help them add and take away different amounts and solve word problems.

During our Science lessons Angelfish have begun exploring seasonal change and how different aspects such as weather, nature and clothing change throughout the year. We all took part in a seasonal walk and were very excited to see how the leaves had changed colour.

Throughout Term 1 and 2 Year 1 have been thinking about our school and local area. We thought about our homes, school and community. We used google maps to explore our school grounds and discussed where the car park, playground and other areas were around our school.

In Art, we have started learning about sculpture. We have been thinking about how sculptures can be different materials, colours, shapes and sizes and how we can share our thoughts and opinions about sculptures with friends. Angelfish have really enjoyed using the Ipads to research different types of dinosaur sculptures and we are very excited to start designing our own dinosaur sculptures next week.

Thank you for all your continued support!

Miss Hassell 

Angelfish October Update!

What a great first term in Year 1!

Overall the last couple of weeks we have been exploring a new story book in English called ‘Michael Recycle meets Litterbug Doug’. We have had lots of fun designing our own superheroes, describing them and thinking about their skills or powers. Angelfish have also worked hard to develop our story telling skills using role play, story maps, sequencing pictures and writing sentences. They have also developed their writing skills by writing sentences to form narratives and retell stories.

During Maths we have continued to count, sequence and work with numbers to 10. We have used part-whole models to explore addition and have used numicon, cubes, drawing and number sentences to represent number problems.

Angelfish have loved exploring self-portraits and the artist Van Gogh in Art. They have demonstrated curiosity when using watercolours, paints, pencils, crayons and other medias to create beautiful self-portraits.

Our whole school had so much fun taking part in the Colour Run! Angelfish ran around the field with lots of friends and were very excited to be covered in the coloured powder paint! We also enjoyed inviting our adults into the classroom to take part in our Autumn workshop. Everyone loved making lots of lovely animal models and showing our Harvest donations.

Thank you to all of our children and families for their support this term with the Colour Run, Harvest Festival and Autumn workshop!

Thank you,

Miss Hassell

September Update!

Welcome to Year 1 Angelfish Class!

We have had an absolutely fantastic start to our year and Angelfish class have worked very hard exploring their Year 1 classroom and curriculum.

In English we have been learning about the books ‘The Invisible String’ by Patrice Karst and the stories ‘Be Who You Are’ and ‘The Family Book’ both written by Todd Parr. We have been using our phonics skills to write labels and lists and we have also combined words to make sentences. We are also developing our writing by ensuring we use capital letters at the beginning of sentences, finger spaces between words and full stops at the ends of sentences.

Angelfish have been learning about place value to 10 in Maths this term. Our class have shown amazing confidence in counting, ordering and comparing numbers. We have also used a range of equipment to support our own learning including pictures cards, number lines, 100 squares, cubes, counters and numicon!

We have had lots of fun in Science learning about our topic ‘Animals including Humans’. We have learnt about our bodies and senses. We have also taken part in exciting activities including labelling our friend’s body parts and a 5 senses experiment. During our senses experiment we were able to feel lots of objects and describe their textures and how they felt. We also listened to animal noises, looked at pictures on Ipads, smelt lots of interesting smells and tasted some lovely biscuits.

During Geography we have also been excited to explore a range of different maps that are printed, from stories and from Google maps. We have been learning to draw our own maps of our bedrooms, the school playground and our school. Year 1 have been using maps, Ipads and pictures to learn about our local area and we have also learnt about compasses and how they are used.

Angelfish have absolutely loved our first two trips to Forest school! We have shown all of our CARES values when exploring the environment, caring for nature and insects, supporting our friends in team activities and continuing to explore tasks even when they are more challenging. All of our children have also demonstrated fantastic curiosity and enjoyment in the mud kitchen, making stick wands and when building dens.

We look forward to lots more exciting learning!

Thank you for your continued support,
Miss Hassell

If you were unable to attend the 'Meet the Teacher' session, here are the slides shown for your information.