Category: Year 1 Swallows

Bring yer wellies – swallows

We’ve learnt and done lots today! 

All plants are different! But they all need ENOUGH water to survive and grow;  not too much and not too little so we have to take care of how much water we give plants. When planting plants we must make sure they are comfy just like when we are tucked up in bed. Plants help clean our air to create pure oxygen so we can stay alive. So….look after the plants! 

The herbs in the herb gardens smelt incredible; there was spearmint, lemon and oregano. We even got to plant our own herbs and take them home! 

We found lots whilst pond dipping: pond skater, froglets, great water boatman to name a few. We also enjoyed some competitions in the afternoon: den building, ring the bell and boat racing. 

A super-fun day of outdoor activities with Swallows! 

Key Stage One Sports Day

The staff and children of Key Stage One hope you all enjoyed Sports Day as much as we did. We’re sure you can agree that the children should be very proud of how hard they worked in that scorching heat! The boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves – especially seeing their adults trying to hurdle.

Here are just some of the hundreds of photos we took for you to enjoy! 🙂

Russell sets up camp in Year 1 Swallows

Year 1 Swallows arrived today to a camp site set up in their classroom! After a lengthy discussion and speculation about who might have done it, it came to light it was Russell from the film Up. He is hoping to become a a Senior Wilderness Explorer but the strong Manchester winds had blown some of his pages from his notebook away. So, it was up to the children to use orienteering skills to locate the missing pages. They all gained their orienteering badge which they put on their sashes they made too.

This afternoon the children have started researching one of the names in Russell’s notebook, Sir Ernest Shackleton. They have learnt so far that he was a polar explorer, wanting to be the first to cross Antarctica from one end to the other. He travelled on a ship called Endurance that became ice packed but we don’t know yet whether he was successful…

Swallows

Swallows had some reading and phonics activities this morning. They had to visit every station for 15 minutes in their groups and complete the tasks.

There was: reading bingo; a game where they had to decide whether the word belonged on planet real or planet nonsense; phonics I spy; creating nonsense words for a friend to decode; and poems to read followed by a WIPERS discussion.

Super reading Year 1!

Swallows Art Week – Monday

Today was the first day of Arts Week…hooray!

First we talked about the words in the quote ‘Together we achieve the roots to grow and the wings to fly!’ which is our quote of the week. Then we looked at Cassie Leatham’s art work called ‘Over time we come together’, discussing the patterns and shapes we could see as well as how the art showed ‘together-ness’. We drew around our own hands to begin our own art work in he style of Cassie’s. On some we collaged different tones of paper to show that even though we are all different, we can come together as a family and work as a team.

In the afternoon we looked at aboriginal symbols as this is the art Cassie uses, and we even created our own symbols. Finally we added some symbols to our hands from the morning to create patterns.

Swallows take action!

There were ‘reports’ on Ellenbrok news that councillors have planned to send bulldozers to Ellenbrook wood! They are planning to flatten the trees, fill in the pojd and build new houses. As you can imagine Swallows were not happy; they were very concerned for the welfare of the birds and plants they know live and grow there so they took action! They started the week with live tv reports, went into write newspaper reports (very well!) and finished the week with a protest! SAVE OUR WOODS! DONT LET THE BULLDOZERS NEAR! 

Swallows go on a bird and leaf hunt

The children were given clues this week which they had to decode and translate from nonsense alien words to places around the school. They then visited these places and identified the types of trees there were – deciduous or evergreen. Back in class they had to find out the names of the trees and plants based on the leaf structure. What trees can you name when you’re out and about this bank holiday weekend?

They also had to use a map to direct themselves around the school grounds to find common U.K. birds. What birds can you name when you’re out and about this bank holiday weekend?

 

Bog baby friends born in Swallows

Chrissy has been worried that her bog baby was getting lonely in our classroom and had no bog baby friends, so the children designed and made friends for him! This week they have been writing descriptions of their bog babies so Chrissy knows what they are all like. Next, they will be coming up with ideas of what their bog baby will do in and around school, before writing diary entries: ‘A day in the life of me and my bog baby at Ellenbrook…’.

Swallows investigate their local environment

Chrissy left us a letter and a bog baby today! She told us to read her story about where the bog baby is from and what it is like where he lives. She also asked us ‘what is like where you live; what lives there?’ So off we went to have a look in the local area around school. We did see lots of trees, leaves, flowers and birds but we couldn’t name them all. Our next job is to find out the names of the trees, flowers and birds so we can report back to Chrissy and let her know!

Medieval day Year 1

The children looked splendid today enjoying our medieval topic celebration day. They have been very busy:

  • writing invitations and menus
  • painting themselves as medieval characters
  • creating banners with family crests
  • creating a medieval musical composition
  • learning a medieval dance

& they ended the day with right royal banquet with a feast fit for a King!

Photos & videos here!