04/09/24

Thank you to the parents who attended the parent presentation today. For those who could not be there, please find the information Sway below: 

https://sway.cloud.microsoft/EKuB74TZuLiGcmrG?ref=Link 

09/07/24

This week we practised the bridge and claw techniques in DT and learned how to safely prepare food, ready for when we create our own fruit kebabs. We have designed our kebabs and are super excited to use these safety techniques when we make our final product!

 

24/05/24

Summer 1 was filled with lots of new learning and another exciting trip, this time to Marwell Zoo, to consolidate our Science unit on Animals, Including Humans. Take a look below at what we have been getting up to! 

Science 

In Science this half term we have been exploring all things animals! We learned that there are different groups that animals can be sorted into based on what characteristics they have: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish. We also discovered that animals (including humans!) have different diets and that there are words we can use to describe these. See if you can remember what each of the following eats: an omnivore, a carnivore, and a herbivore. To conclude our learning, we had a great day out at the zoo along with Owls and Robins class! We listened to a talk on how and why the zookeepers care for the animals and we saw what a real giraffe skull looks like! We explored the Tropical House and discussed all of the reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians that it housed, and we were lucky enough to see lots of mammals including zebras, rhinos, giraffes and meerkats! We all had a great time and it was amazing to see some of these animals that we have been learning about in real life!

Art

In Art, we have been getting crafty and exploring woven wonders, looking at techniques such as plaiting, threading, weaving, wrapping and knotting. We examined the works of artists Judith Scott and Cecilia Vicuña who used these techniques to create amazing crafted pieces, and we compiled all of these skills to create our final art piece: our very own loom box. 

Geography 

In Geography, we built on our knowledge about the United Kingdoms and the four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This half term we learnt about the continents of the world and have been singing a new song to help us learn them.  Parents, maybe set a challenge for your child and see if they can tell you what the 7 continents are! We also used some survey skills and learned how to use tally to record information. We observed how busy the road outside our school is by recording how many of each type of vehicle travelled past in a certain time frame. We used tally to record our answers and concluded that our local road is actually quite busy! 

 

16/04/2024

Find all of our RKE (Remember Know Explore) sheets on this sway link (https://sway.cloud.microsoft/M3jB0hpKohOOzUS9?ref=Link). You will also see our new extended Explore section. There is a wealth of different ideas across the curriculum to engage with at home. Please return any submissions to school by 6th May. 

 

28/03/24

Wow, how amazing is Wisley Garden! Today we had our highly anticipated trip to RHS Garden Wisley where we were able to consolidate our learning about plants. We all arrived at school well-dressed and prepared for the weather which unfortunately was rather wet, but we didn't let this dampen our spirits. When we arrived at Wisley we were greeted by a member of staff who led us to the Education Centre where we had our workshop on how plants grow. When we looked up we realised we were inside a giant greenhouse and there were so many varieties of plants around us. We used our senses of sight, touch and smell to decide which of the plants around us looked, smelled and felt the best and then we sat down for a talk on how the staff at Wisley care for such a huge garden. After some superb listening, we were able to have a go at planting our own seeds before heading outside on a guided tour of the area surrounding the Education Centre. We learned about all the different types of plants and flowers that grow and had a go at trying to spot the tallest tree in the Garden before heading back inside for lunch.

In the afternoon we trooped back outside into the rain in our waterproofs and wellies with spirits high as we understood that if it didn't rain, we wouldn't have all of these amazing plants around us! After exploring some areas of the Garden and taking in all of the sights and smells, we made our way to the Hilltop Centre which was a museum all about the seeds and plants that grow at Wisley. We were particularly entranced by an interactive display of the Earth which showed the temperature of different regions of the world, and this opened up a lot of discussion on the conditions that plants need to grow and thinking back to our own Science experiment on this in class. To finish off our trip we headed to the Wildlife Garden where we found frogspawn in the pond heralding the approach of Spring! We had such great fun and it was great to be able to use all of our learning in a real hands-on setting and learn even more about how to care for our planet and the wildlife that live on it.

 

21/03/24

Today Deer Class were visited by a Rabbi who gave us a great introduction to our next RE unit on Judaism. We were all very intrigued about what the Rabbi was telling us about his religion and Jewish practices and beliefs and lots of us were bursting with questions! After listening to some stories we imagined ourselves celebrating Shabbat, the Jewish Day of Rest by gathering around some candles and hearing a recital of a prayer in Hebrew. We were then lucky enough to be able to try some special Challah bread and grape juice!

 

22/2/24

Parents, you will have seen the fascilitated play ideas posters that have been on our playground since before Christmas.  (If not, take a look at the side of the PE shed and the fence around the top playground).   In conjunction with our Sports Leaders we have chosen a new set of games that the adults and older children will be helping the younger children to play during break and lunchtimes.   This wonderful aspect of our school is a joy to see as different age groups mix together and enjoy playing games.   Take a look at the ideas here: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/veu6fIls326JdxDg?ref=Link  Do these bring back fond memories? Maybe you could play these at home with friends and family members.   

08/02/24

This half-term we have explored lots of new areas of learning. We have loved learning about Africa and using it as a setting for our own counting story. We explored some African artefacts and then did a great job at being able to recite the story Handa's Hen by heart. We used its repeated phrases and settings as inspiration for our own repeated phrase story about a lost animal and the discoveries that Handa made along the way. 

Our colour splash Art unit has been a particular favourite this half-term! We reminded ourselves about the three primary colours, red, yellow and blue. and then we began thinking about how to mix these to make secondary colours: purple, green and orange. We have explored creating different shades and hues of secondary colours and used this to create our very own Clarice Cliff-inspired plate artwork. 

We have worked really hard this half-term in Geography, learning all about where we live on a wider scale and thinking about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have practised using maps to locate these countries and find out whereabouts we are located on the map. We have also tried really hard to remember the four capital cities and use our capital city song to help us recite them.  

05/02/24

Over the weekend, Tom created a presentation on tigers, his favourite animal, to share with the class. He read out some interesting facts about tigers, including how many are left in the wild and showed us a picture that he had drawn. We then watched a National Geographic video that he had found showing us all about tigers in the wild. What a lovely thing to do and thank you for sharing with the class Tom! 

 

08/01/24

Deer Class had a fantastic time learning about the Environment in the Explorer Dome! We learned about the rainforest and that animals that live there.

We discussed the desert and how plants and animals have adapted to survive with such little water. We also explored the North Pole and looked at clothing which can help people survive in the cold climate, as well as camouflage into the surroundings. A particular area that we enjoyed was exploring how clouds are made with dry ice and hot water!

02/01/24

Please note that Mr Eyre, our supply teacher, will be teaching Deer class all day this Thursday (04/01/24) and for the first hour of the morning this Friday (05/01/24).

Spring 1 Timetable

Reading books are changed on Fridays and our slot for library book changes is Monday mornings. Please ensure your child has their library book in their bags on Mondays so that they are able to take out a new one.   

Miss Hill will teach the class on Monday afternoons as PPA cover. 

You can find the Spring 1 RKE and Parent Letter here: 

RKE: https://sway.office.com/mlt59amKAfYD2bDm?ref=Link

Autumn Term Round-up

Well done Deer Class on completing the first term of Year 1! There have been lots of exciting things happening and in the last few weeks we have spent lots of time practising for our Nativity performance. You all did an amazing job and should be very proud of yourselves, and we were super lucky to have a such a wonderful audience of family members and friends there to support us. I expect quite a few of us will still be singing those songs over the next few days, they've definitely been stuck in my head for a while! 

You have also been putting super effort and hardwork into your learning this half-term, here is a round-up of what we have been working on:

We loved our poetry unit in our Writing lessons, where we explored the texts Oi Frog! and Oi Dog. We looked at rhymes and how they can be used in verbal or written speech to make something sound more exciting or silly. We worked towards creating our own nonsense poems, choosing our own animals and thinking about what rhyming object they might 'sit on', in the style of the texts. 

In Maths, we continued our Addition and Subtraction unit, focusing on numbers within 10 and looking at how maths problems can be represented in ways such as part whole models, word problems, and bar models. We also explored Shape more closely, looking at 3D shapes and learning their names and properties and thinking about what examples we might see in everyday life. Can you spot any 3D shapes at home or when you're out and about? 

In Science, we have been engaging our five senses in a variety of ways and exploring how all of our senses work together to help us navigate the world and our environment. We will be continuing to use our senses in our next unit which will be Everyday Materials and their properties. We will be using scientific investigation to decide which materials work best in different contexts and learning some new vocabulary to describe the different properties. 

We have loved our first DT unit of Year 1 and have been excitedly working towards creating our final products. We learned about mechanisms, specifically levers and sliders and how these can be used to make moving pictures. Our brief was to create a moving picture of a fairytale to help us retell the story to an audience, and there were lots of fabulous ideas on how we could use these mechanisms to achieve this. We thought about our favourite fairytales and practised making sliders and levers using strips of card and split pins, and then we created our design for our moving picture. Using our practise in creating these mechanisms, we were able to create some brilliant final products, and we were able to use them to retell our fairytale story to our friends, as well as add on our own creative flair!

Finally, we have been cramming our heads full of lots of new Phase 5 GPC's and thinking about the alternative spellings for familiar words. Please continue to support your child in this learning by using the phonics cards to practise with them during the holidays to help this new learning 'stick'.

Have a lovely Christmas Deer Class and I look forward to us sharing our experiences when we return in the New Year!  

Please note, our P.E days in Spring 1 will be Thursdays and Fridays. 

13/11/23

We are delighted to share with you the 2023-24 trips and enrichment programme on this Sway link (https://sway.office.com/zdCan1CGYcbMUck0?ref=Link). The school team have been busy securing the best coach prices as well as several grants to cover or reduce costs where possible. We are delighted to have such a fabulous range of visits which will explicitly compliment learning in history, geography, DT, PSHE, RE and science.

We do recognise that asking for any contribution can feel like a lot and would like to take this opportunity to advise that if you are eligible for pupil premium funding, we will be able to cover the costs of all day visits and visitors for you. If you think you might be eligible, please apply online at https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/education-children-and-families/schools-and-colleges/free-school-meals/

As always, there is the opportunity to pay for the year or to pay per visit. You will receive a reminder ahead of visits about payment options.  We are currently swapping from ScoPay to Arbor for payments, so you will not see all trips on your ScoPay account. Details of Arbor will be sent to you next half-term and everything will be available via a single app which should make life easier for you all.

 

20/10/23

Wow, what a great first half-term we have had in Deer Class! There have been lots of new experiences and routines for Deer Class to get used to and the children have done a great job at settling down to the new way of learning. That step up from Reception is an extra big leap for little legs! 

This half-term we have worked really hard at developing our writing skills, using lots of performance and oral rehearsal to immerse ourselves in different books such as Five Minutes' Peace and Knuffle Bunny to create a story about a lost toy.

We have completed our Place Value unit in Maths and have started our Addition and Subtraction unit, spending the last week looking at part-whole models and thinking about how they can help us in our exploration of numbers. 

We have loved our Music unit in which we imagined we were scuba divers swimming deep down in the ocean, and thinking about what instruments we can use to represent the animals that we might find there. In PSHE, we have spent time discussing how we can keep ourselves healthy by making sure we regularly brush our teeth, as well as what we can do to be good friends and look after each other. 

Our local area was the focus of our Geography unit, thinking about where we live and how it looks from above, using aerial views and maps to explore the different ways that we can view the world around us. We particularly enjoyed using Google Maps to help us find our house from above and show our friends the route we take from home to school each day! 

Moving into October and the wetter, darker days has really helped us in our Science unit learning about the Seasons. We have been able to use our lovely grounds to explore the changes that are happening to the trees and weather. Many of us have loved bringing Miss Ridge the Autumn leaves that we found on our journey to school in the mornings! We are looking forward to discovering even more wonders of nature in our Woodland Adventure sessions every Wednesday morning next half-term!

We have also let our artistic skills flow and have been pleased to see our self-portraits that we have been working so hard on come to life. We learned all about the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, and used her style to create our own vibrant pieces of artwork, which we are excited to be able to share with our grown-ups at the upcoming Art Gallery event in December. 

Here are some photos of the other great experiences we have had this half-term, such as a visit from Zoolab and Dog's Trust:

 

Every half term, as a parent or carer, you will receive an email with an overview poster of what we will be learning that half term. You will also receive RKE sheets (Remember, Know, Explore) for each foundation subject we will be focusing on. These RKE sheets let you know in more detail what we will be learning about and key vocabulary which will be coming across. 

Phonics is a really important part of learning to read and write and in Year 1 we spend a lot of time working on it. As a school, we use Little Wandle phonics and it is fantastic! We really like all of the lessons and the reading practice sessions. We are even given a set of cards to take home to practice with our adults. Please make sure you are helping your children become fluent readers by regularly reading with them and practising new phonics sounds. 

Fernhurst Primary has an 'open door' policy and Miss Ridge is always happy to chat, please do come and speak to her if there are any queries or concerns!