Apologies!!! Back for the last couple of weeks in Year 1...

Firstly, may I apologise to all those avid 'Year 1 Bloggers', I have been experiencing 'technical' problems and have had trouble both downloading the pictures and accessing the Blog site. So, without further delay, I will briefly allow Year 1 to fill in you in, with regard to what we've been up to since we've been gone from the cyberwaves!


We have fairies at the bottom of the garden, (and not just fairies, but goblins, pixies, elves, giants...) well, not just at the bottom of the garden, but in a corner of our classroom! We made some fantastically creative fairy gardens and have lots of fun playing in the fairy glen.

In Number work, we having been measuring using rulers, weights and measuring jugs. Here we are concentrating very hard while we use our rulers to measure things in centimetres and use scales to weigh objects around the classroom.

In Literacy, we have been reading, writing and acting Traditional stories and Fairytales as part of our Fairy themed topic. Here we are acting out some traditional tales in groups...

... well, quite traditional - have you ever heard of a two - headed Little Red Riding Hood before?!

We chose our own props to make our acting more interesting and 'real'.

Year 1 were fantastic when they performed their May Day dance. Miss Welton was so proud of them, especially as she has two left feet! We enjoyed the dancing very much and were very impressed with Year 6's May Pole dancing.

We learnt a lot during Healthy Schools Week, especially during an A-Life workshop. The whole school took part in a morning of workshops and we learnt all about how to eat healthy foods, drink lots of water and take regular exercise. Did you know that one glass of Coke has 8 SPOONFULS of sugar in it! Mr Adams, who taught the workshops, told us all how important it is to brush your teeth properly, two times a day.

In the afternoon, we did an exercise session with Mr Adams. It was hard work! We were all sweating and out of breath, but we enjoyed it very much. It was good to get the blood pumping around our bodies.

Finally, we all had a great time on Sports Day. Miss Welton couldn't be there, but we all tried our hardest at our races. As Aimee said, ' it's not about who wins, it's all about having fun and taking part'. The whole class were given a Star of the Week certificate for trying so hard and for being such good sports.

A good fun musical week and Mrs Thwaites first day back (written by the children)

As part of our topic, a vet came into the classroom to tell us about the work that they do looking after animals and making them better. We dressed up as a vet and looked after an elephant - not a real one of course!




This is the composer Prokofiev, he is famous. He does the music for Peter and the Wolf. Somebody who writes music is called a 'composer'. Peter and the Wolf is a piece of music with some characters: Peter, a wolf, Sonia the Duck, a bird, a cat and grandpa. The music is the voices of the characters.




Here we are lying down with our eyes closed and listening to the music and thinking about the characters using our imaginations.

We had Mrs Thwaites teaching us on Thursday. Here we are writing short stories and using musical instruments for the animal characters. We were very good at this.

Here we are playing our instruments and writing our stories.

Here is a short video of one of the groups telling their story and playing the instruments.

We hope that Mrs Thwaites had a lovely first day back with Year One.

Down on the Farm...

In our ICT lessons, we have been making slide shows of the life-cycle of frogs.We took it in turns with our ICT partners to draw the stages of a frog's life; beginning with spawn, then tadpoles, tadpoles with legs and finally frogs. It's great fun to turn our pictures into fast moving slide shows. Miss Welton is very impressed at how well we can use the computer programmes independently.

We are very good and patient at taking it in turns at the PC and waiting for our partner to finish.

The tadpoles have now been introduced into their new home and seem to be doing very well. We are all fascinated to watch them growing bigger and bigger day by day and we have two children in the class to be tadpole monitors and tell the rest of the class of any further developments. The tadpoles have legs forming now. When their legs develop, they will also develop lungs, which means that they will have to rest above the water to breathe in air.


We have enjoyed working with Year 4 to weed and tidy up the garden beds so that we can sow some seeds. So far, we have planted baby tomato plants and Rocket salad leaves. We will also plant some flowers and hanging baskets and maybe some purple-sprouting broccoli. At the end of every school day, the Helping Hands in Year One must remember to water the beds well.

We have been enjoying PE lessons this week. We are practicing our gymnastic skills - balance, weight distribution and throwing. Here we are practicing our under arm throwing. Miss Welton says that we are getting very good and some of us may make The Olympics one day!

Here we are practicing our balancing and coordination skills on the gym apparatus. Miss Welton says that we look like a lot of cheeky monkeys!


We had a fantastic time at the Windmill Hill City Farm. It was a very long walk there, but we were really well behaved and didn't complain. When we got there we split into two groups and were shown around the farm by Beth and Craig the farmer. We met Rosie, the pregnant sow, who is going to have her babies any day now. Craig told us that a mother pig can have as many as 15 baby pigs!!



We met the largest bunny rabbit called Haggrin, he was the size of a small dog! We were allowed to touch all of the animals - the pigmy goats, chickens, chicks, hens and lamb.


We got to look at the baby chicks growing inside of the egg in a dark room with a special red light. It was a very fun and interesting day. After we had had our packed lunch, we were allowed to play in the playground and then it was time for our long walk home.



We have written fantastic Recounts of our farm trip. We have sequenced the events and remembered to use WOW words to make the writing more interesting. When our grown-ups come to look at our work for the Farm topic at the end of term, we know that they will be very proud of the work that we have done.

Spring is in the Air!

With Spring truely sprung, it's been a busy time of it in Year 1.

Together with children from Year 4, we've been weeding and tending the garden in preparation for planting vegetable seeds. We enjoyed it VERY much and can't wait to grow delicious fresh and healthy vegetables.

Whilst we weeded the beds, we discovered many, many 'Mini Beasts', including lots of Moth chrysallis's buried in the soil. We are going to keep them in a container in the classroom and watch what happens.

With the beauty of Spring outside, we have been making things to bring Spring into the classroom. Here we are making cherry blossom branches to hang at the windows...

...and colourful sunny pictures to put on the walls.



On Friday afternoon, 'Alex the Diver' came into Year One for the afternoon to talk about Diving. We really enjoyed discussing all of the underwater sea creatures that live under the sea. Alex showed us pictures of the Parrot fish, Trigger fish, Conga Eels, Clown fish and other creatures that he had seen. He had never seen a shark though.

Over the next few weeks we will be planting seeds and introducing our tadpoles, which are getting bigger by the day, to their new home, the newly built pond.

Number Work Show and 'Other Things' (written by Year 1)

We had a maths workshop come into the Luckwell. Craig did a funny show for Key Stage 1. It was a fantastic number work show. He made us laugh a lot.

We have been learning about Electricity in Science. Here we are having a really good try at making a Complete Circuit.

In Number work we have been making change from 10p and 20p. We have been playing fun games on the Interactive White Board...

... and playing shops with each other.

Monster Fun!!!! (written by Year One)

It has been a fun week in Year One and we have been happy that Spring is on it's way at last!


On Red Nose Day Miss Welton took a picture of the Year One crazy, fantastic monsters.


Here we are being very scarey!


Here is a picture of us finding caterpillars for our Science experiment because it was Science week - Caterpillar Chaos! We learnt all about camouflage for animals.


In PE we played a game of Pirate Treasure for a competition with the rest of the school and Ashton Gate school.



Here is a picture of us taking it in turns to have a go on the obstacle course that Ian from Bike It made for us. It was fab and cool!

Here we are riding our bikes in the bottom playground as part of out topic this term.

Year One's assembly went very well.

We sang the 'Govinda Jaya' song, displayed our Indian artwork and shared out poem about a train journey through India. We were so good at singing the song, that the class were given a Singing Certificate and a Star of the Week certificate!

On Friday, Lynn, from Brace's Bakery, came into the classroom to demonstrate how bread is made. He told us where the ingredients to make bread come from all about the history of bread and bread making and how to have a healthy diet.

We helped Lynn to make the bread dough, kneading and pounding it to make the yeast in the bread mix rise. We put the dough in a warm place to watch how the yeast made the dough rise before it is cooked in the oven.


We were lucky enough to be given a loaf of bread each to take home with us AND a goodie bag of things to colour in and games about healthy eating.

Next week, we are looking forward to bringing our bikes into school as part of our bike topic and a man called Ian will be coming in to talk about the History of bikes and how bikes work.