Maths: telling the time!
This week, we’ve started to learn how to tell the time.
We know that the minute hand on a clock is the longer hand, and the hour hand is the shorter hand. This helps us to know what the time is.
We’ve learned to read the time when it is o’clock, half past the hour, quarter past and quarter to the hour. Our next challenge is telling the time to 5 minutes!
Help at home: ask your child if they can tell you the time at o’clock, half past, quarter past or quarter to the hour.
Maths: diagrams and charts!
This week in Maths, we have been thinking about tally charts and block diagrams. We have created our own by collecting data in class and adding a tally to our charts or a block to our diagrams.
Living and Learning: 60 active minutes!
Over the last two weeks in Living and Learning, we’ve been thinking about the importance of physical activity for our health and mental well-being.
We know that we need to be active for 60 minutes a day, and with our Maths learning we can make the connection that this is an hour! We’ve thought about all the different ways that we can be active each day: walk to school, PE lessons, swimming lessons, dance and gymnastics lessons, Wake Up Shake Up in school, skipping, playing with our friends at playtime and going up and down the stairs!
Help at home by making sure you are active for 60 minutes a day!
We are really enjoying our PE lessons at the moment! This helps us be active for 60 minutes each day. We’ve been playing games called ‘lions and hyenas’ and ‘bib tag’. We are making the games more challenging by thinking about the space we are playing in and the equipment we have. This will make us really good at our important skills for PE such as:
“running skills”
“dodging skills and looking skills”
“thinking skills”
Maths: measurement!
Today, in Maths, we’ve been learning how to use a ruler to measure in centimetres (cm). We know that to be accurate, we must start measuring from 0cm. We’ve measured the length of books, pencils, pens and more!
We then learned that 100 cm = 1 meter (m). We went out into the playground and discussed why a ruler wouldn’t be a good idea to measure the length. A meter stick would be much less time consuming! 
We worked in groups and concluded that the playground is around 20m long!
Help at home: do you have a ruler or a measuring tape lying around? If so, why not measure small household objects in cm?
Living and Learning: healthy eating
Over the last two weeks, we’ve been thinking about healthy eating in Living and Learning.
We know the importance of having 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day. We looked at what Miss Kay eats and decided to make some healthy changes to ensure she is having a balanced diet and 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day, as well as the other food groups we need for a balanced diet.
Help at home by making sure you are eating a healthy, balanced diet that includes your 5-a-day!
Science: plants
This term, in Science, we are thinking all about plants! So far, we’ve discussed what bulbs and seeds need for healthy growth.
“They won’t grow without soil because then they wont get the nutrients that they need.”
“They will grow best with water and soil and light.”
“They won’t grow in the dark because the light gives them a warm temperature to grow.”
We are observing over time and looking for changes in growth of our onion bulbs. Here is how they are looking two weeks after planting:
We were shocked to see that the plant growing with no soil is germinating! Ask your child what this means.
This week, we’ve planted our own radish and lettuce seeds.
Living and Learning: I know the importance of sleep
This week, in Living and Learning, we’ve been thinking about how a good night of sleep can help us to be healthy.
We know that we need to get between 9 and 12 hours of sleep each night so that our bodies feel well rested! We talked about what helps us get to sleep: listening to relaxing music, having a cuddle with a teddy or reading a bed-time story instead of watching TV.
Here is our poem of the week, Bedtime by Eleanor Farjeon.
We talked about who the author of this poem might be talking to – we think that they are talking to an adult who has told them to go to bed! We also think that the child doesn’t want to go to bed.
“If they go to bed now then they will feel well-rested.”
“They don’t want to go to bed because they are asking lots of questions.”
“If they go to sleep now then they will be healthy tomorrow and be able to do their activities again.”
Finding fractions!
This week, in Maths, we’ve been learning all about how to find fractions of amounts! We’ve been using our knowledge of division and sharing to help us.
We’ve been learning about halves (two equal parts), quarters (four equal parts) and thirds (three equal parts).
We thought about the amount being our whole. We found a fraction of our amount by sharing and dividing.
Help at home: find fractions in your food! For example, cut your pizza, toast or sandwiches into half (two equal parts) or into quarters (four equal parts)!
Topic
We have started out new history topic all about real life heroes. The first important person we’re learning about is Nelson Mandela. You can find more about him here. He believed that everyone should be treated the same. We will be learning about equality, apartheid and the suffragettes.
We are biologists!
Biologists study living things, including people, animals, and plants. This half term, Year 1 and 2 will be studying plants.
On Tuesday, we began looking at the different things plants need to grow. We have created an experiment looking at what an onion bulb needs to grow.
We planted four onion bulbs in different conditions. 
We have four environments for our bulbs to grow:
- no light, no soil, no water
- no water, no soil
- no soil
- water, light, soil
After we’d planted them, we made predictions on which bulb we thought would grow the best or wouldn’t grow. Each week, we will be observing our bulbs to see which are growing.
Help at home
Explore plants that you have in the garden or that you see on your walk to school. Observe how plants change over time and talk about what things they need to grow and survive.