The Brambling can be found most commonly in the British Isles during the cold winter months, the rest of the year it explores other regions of the world - just like the explorers we will be focusing on during the Autumn term! They travel in large groups (usually in the thousands!) and we will take this characteristic of this bird and use it in our classroom to ensure that there is a sense of teamwork to encourage all children to work together and support each other on their learning journey!

WELCOME TO BRAMBLINGS

The class teacher for this year is Miss Hannah Tucker. The LSAs that work within this class are: Mrs Foulkes and Mrs Rose.

The theme for the Summer term is 'To Infinity... and Beyond - Space!'. We asked the children what their interests were and what they would like to learn about and space was a very popular suggestion! We have already 'kicked off' our theme with a Space Day full of different space related activities. We will continue to inspire the children and explore the subject of space in many different ways within school as well as having the opportunity to take part in a variety of trips! 

For more information on our curriculum please look at our Summer Term Curriculum Plan below.

The theme for the Spring term was a whole school theme called 'We Are Seven Billion Stars'. We used this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmcRa70LHe8) as our hook and initial talking point to discuss what the term community meant to the children. We had a visit from Occombe Farm which gave the children a first hand experience of how to care for chickens. We were fundraising throughout this term to enable us to purchase and raise our very own flock of chickens! 

The theme for the Autumn term was 'Explore'. Initially we looked at exploring 'under the sea' and the next area of children's interest was the Rainforests. Some of the exciting learning opportunities that have happened include; a trip to Brixham Fish Market and a tour of the Golden hind, as well as a beach trip where we will be exploring the rock pools and creating team sand art! There is a history focus during this half term beginning with Sir Francis Drake and the history of pirates. 

During the second half of the Autumn term, the children have explored the Rainforest. The children in KS1 have been to the zoo and explored Rainforest animals. They researched and focused on the different elements of the Rainforest including the layers, animals that inhabit it as well as the wide variety of plants. To enhance their learning on the Rainforest we also looked at Fairtrade and created posters to present the facts that we have learnt.

For more information on our curriculum please look at our Autumn Term Curriculum Plan below. 

P.E. days: Thursday and Friday

Home Learning: Handed out on a Friday and collected in on a Wednesday. This will give you the opportunity to explore aspects of your child's learning, if you wish.

Team Leader: Mrs Sarah Jarrett.

If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to come in and see the teacher (Miss Tucker) or contact the Team Leader.

sjarrett@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk

htucker@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk

UP COMING EVENTS...

Space Showcase - Thursday 25th June

Library Van Visit

Bramblings visited the library van this week and were able to choose some exciting new books for our school library. Pop in to our school library and have a look at what we chose... 

The quails have laid eggs!

More 'eggciting' news from the White Rock Chicken Coop. Our quails have laid their very first eggs. We all had a very close look at the egg itself as well as what it looked like inside.

Live web chat with Christopher Lintott

We were lucky enough to have a live web chat with an astrophysicist called Christopher Lintott. Christopher used to be a pupil at White Rock and he told us that when he was at our school he loved science and was always asking lots of questions about why things happened.

He talked to us about space and the planets and answered lots of our questions.

Explorer Dome

To really make our theme come alive we were able to visit the Explorer Dome. We learnt lots of new facts and saw some amazing images of stars! We are all very excited to now make up our own stories from looking at the patterns made in the night sky!

Maths

We have begun to explore the concept of measurement within our maths sessions. We have been investigating different units of measurement and finding the most interesting objects possible to measure! We had the opportunity to go into the playground to complete our learning as well as in the classroom. 
 

Chicken and Quail UPDATE!

We went to visit our chickens and quails in their new home! We cannot believe have fast they have grown! Everyone had the chance to go into the pen and investigate the new coop. We all think our chicks will be very happy there!

To Infinity... and Beyond!

We had a fantastic space day full of exciting adventures and activities. We all had an opportunity to: sketch ourselves on the moon; dance like astronauts; compose a space inspired soundscape; learn the names and order the planets and witness a rocket experiment. We even got to meet some 'real life' astronauts and a 'NASA commander'...

Year 1 Mathematics Spring Term Objectives

Compare, describe and solve practical problems for:

• Lengths and heights [for example, long/short, longer/shorter, tall/short, double/half]
• Mass/weight [for example, heavy/light, heavier than, lighter than]
• Time [for example, quicker, slower, earlier, later]

Measure and begin to record the following:

• Lengths and heights
• Mass/weight
• Time (hours, minutes, seconds)
• Recognise and use language relating to dates, including days of the week, weeks, months and years tell the time to the hour and half past the hour and draw the hands on a clock face to show these times.

• Read, write and interpret mathematical statements involving addition (+), subtraction (–) and equals (=) signs
• Represent and use number bonds and related subtraction facts within 20
• Add and subtract one-digit and two-digit numbers to 20, including zero
• Solve one-step problems that involve addition and subtraction, using concrete objects and pictorial representations, and missing number problems such as 7 = – 9.
• Solve one-step problems involving multiplication and division, by calculating the answer using concrete objects, pictorial representations and arrays with the support of the teacher.

Map Investigation

As part of our Geography focus for this half term we have been exploring the different features of a map.

WORLD BOOK DAY!

To celebrate World Book Day we all dressed up as one of our favourite characters from a Traditional Tale. Everybody looked fantastic! We really enjoyed exploring all different types of books and sharing our favourite ones with Year 4! 

KS1 cake sale!

The children in KS1 decided to do a 'chicken cake sale' to raise money for our own chicken coop. For home learning they designed and made their cakes and then sold them to the rest of the school. Thank you for all your help!

We raised an amazing £403.84

FARMER DAY

The children in Year 1 and 2 had a day of 'immersion' in our topic. They spent the day dressed up as farm characters. We had Verity's Grandma, who is a farmer, come to visit us and talk about different types of chickens and how to care for our eggs.

The activities the children experienced were collage, making chocolate crispy nests, Six Little Chicks quiz, labelling and setting up the incubator and walking around the school grounds for the best place for our chicken coop! It was a busy and fun filled day!

Non-fiction

We have been looking at non-fiction books and the features that you would find within them. To help us remember these features we have put actions to them. This was a 'Talk for Writing' focus during a recent literacy lesson.

Community

To introduce the meaning of community, which is part of our focus this term, the children in KS1 came into school wearing something that shows they belong to a community. We had a great mixture from school teams, swimming, karate to gardening! This inspired us to have some brilliant discussions about what makes a good community.

Poetry

We have recently started to look at poetry and the features of that style of writing. We worked in pairs and became poetry detectives! We have also been looking at performing poetry. The children really enjoyed watching and joining in with the author, Michael Rosen, performing We're Going on a Bear Hunt. You can see this is the pictures below!

RAINFOREST CELEBRATION

Parents and adults were invited into our classroom this half term for a celebration of our Rainforest learning. The children shared their learning with their adults, presented facts about the Rainforest, sang the song 'Down in the Jungle' and gave them their 'homemade' Fairtrade cakes! It was a fantastic afternoon recorded with photographs taken by the children!

Rainforest facts

We have been researching facts about the rainforest and recording them in different ways. The children used the iPads to record each other saying some of the facts that they have found out. To help us remember some of the information we have read we added actions to our speech. This is called 'Talk for Writing' and was a focus during our recent Literacy lessons!

Our Trip to Paignton Zoo

As you can see from our photos, we all had a wonderful day at the zoo! We learnt many exciting new facts about the rainforest including the different layers and why the rainforest is so important to us. We got to feel tiger fur, look at animal skulls and even stroked a snakes skin!

Thank you to all the children who were a credit to the school, also a huge thank you to all my helping parents! Finally, a special well done to our budding photographers: Jacob, Oliver, Tyler, Natalia and Millie!

PaddleBoat Theatre came to visit!

PaddleBoat Theatre Company came to perform 'A Little Man's Holiday' to the children. They enjoyed the experience immensely. The children were a fantastic audience showing great engagement. All the children found the performance enriching and entertaining!

We Designed and Built Boats!

What features would you find on a boat?

We looked at a variety of different boats and focused on finding the different features. We decided as a class to use the Golden Hind as inspiration for our own boat designs. We used junk modelling materials which gave everybody the chance to be as creative and inventive as they wanted to be!

A text we focused on was 'Dougal's Deep Sea Diary'. We though of questions we would want to ask Dougal. To our surprise he made a visit to our school and we had the chance to hot-seated him! He parked his submarine in Paignton's Harbour whilst he was in our school. This week we are also learning to descirbe a setting in the book 'Atlantis' which is a city under the sea.

Some of the questions we asked him were:

"How long can you stay under the water for?"

"Did you see any sharks?"

"Who was the ghost pirate?"

"Why did you choose the old, rickety boat to dive from?"

KS1 children went on a trip to Brixham in the second week of term. We had a fantastic time and learnt lots! We went to Brixham Fish Market and had a tour from the Harbour Master. He showed us variety of fish the fishermen would find in Brixham, the fishing boats, how they weigh and sort the fish and the Harbour Master's office.

We had lunch on Breakwater Beach and then went and explored the Golden Hind. We are now 'Sir Francis Drake' experts!

One child said "This is the best trip I have ever been on." 

Another child said "Wow, I didn't know that female lobsters had that many eggs under their body!"