Starfish Class (Reception and KS1 workroom) 

This week in Starfish we have been investigating if cress seeds need light and water to grow healthily. We discovered that seeds left in the dark turn yellow and seeds with sunlight turn green. We have also been learning about the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh and his unique style of painting, and this week we have started to try to recreate his style using a mixture of glue and powder paint. We have also talked about how the painting made us feel and what it reminded us of. Next week we have our class assembly to celebrate all our amazing work and hope that you can come to see what we have been learning about in more detail.

Star writers this week were: Tabatha for super hand writing and Abbie for poster which labelled the parts of a plant.        

This week in Starfish we have been learning about how to write instructions,  and some children in Year 1 have been editing and re-drafting these so they are clear for the reader to follow. We have also been  looking at the features of information texts in guided reading. In science we have started another fair test to see if plants grow without sunlight. We have set up two plates of cress seeds on paper towels and we have put one in the dark and one in the window to see if not having light makes any difference to their growth. After that, we predicted what we thought would happen and most children thought the seeds would still grow in the dark. In maths we have been learning to tell the time to the nearest 15 minutes, and some children have been learning time to 5 minutes intervals. We also celebrated Sports Day and it was lovely to see so many parents and grandparents there to support and enjoy the afternoon.         

This week in Starfish we have been learning the story Dear Zoo using Talk For Writing, and the children have written some amazing stories of their own elaborating the text. We have also sorted and classified animals and written our own clues to guess the species. In addition to this, we have started talking about our new theme entitled ' How does your garden grow?' The children have decided that they would like to plant their own seeds and watch them grow, which we will be starting next week. In maths, we have been learning about the seasons  and time, as well as spotting patterns in numbers.  We also had a very exciting visit from the local ambulance service, and the children got to wear and apply bandages as well sit in the ambulance and hear the siren.

Writers cuffs were awarded to: Jacob, Erin, Oscar and Libby for amazing writing done at home and at school.