Wow, what a week it’s been. I think this week is up there as one of my favourite weeks of P1A. There have been so many amazing moments.
This week in literacy we introduced Drawing Club and let our imaginations run wild using the story of Jack and the Beanstalk as a stimulus. As part of this, the children learnt 8 new words with some excellent actions to accompany them. Try dropping in the words clambering, booming, descending, glittering, ginormous, shocking, slinking and chopping into conversation and see if it results in an elaborate action!
Each day of the week we took a different aspect from the story to draw. On Monday we drew a character – we each drew what the giant looked like in our imagination. On Tuesday we drew part of the setting – we each drew what the castle looks like in our imagination. On Wednesday, we went on an adventure and thought about what other treasure the giant might be hoarding in his castle. On Thursday, the giant called the police to catch Jack and we imagined what the police would need to do this. With each of our drawings we invented a writing code and a maths code. These codes are magic and make amazing things happen to our drawings. The level of detail in the children’s drawings and the creativity in their codes has been amazing. It’s been a wonderful opportunity to celebrate how far they’ve come from Term 1! The children have enjoyed sharing their drawings and codes with each other too.
In maths this week we’ve been continuing to explore our number combinations within/to 10. This week we focused on the number 9 and played games to explore the different ways we can make 9. We also compared the different strategies different people used to work out the part of 9 that was hiding.
We also had our second whole class Counting Collections lesson. Our first was last week and what a difference a week makes. As part of this we have a dual focus on social skills and maths – we are learning to make joint decisions together as we work together with a partner to choose, organise and count a collection. There have been some wonderful examples of explaining our reasons to help others understand our viewpoints, asking other people’s opinions, compromising and supporting one another when we need help. There has also been a wonderful array of mathematics visible including pattern making, spatial awareness, making comparisons and counting in different ways for example 1s, 2s, 4s or 10s.
In P.E. we’ve been continuing to work on developing a range of skills including agility, coordination and ball handling. This week we were also working in small teams to observe others play and think about strategies that could make our team work more effectively. It was lovely to hear that some children had been playing the games we’d been learning out in the playground during lunch time.
As ever, play has been an important part of our week. We didn’t manage too many photos this week but here are a few!
Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone for more fun next week.
Jack has loved retelling the story at home and even told us what descending means! Thank you for a wonderful insight into the school day 😊