Year 1 RE: building a Sukkah
Today we looked at the Jewish festival Sukkot which lasts for 7 days. Jewish people celebrate Sukkot to thank God for helping the Israelites escape from Egypt with Moses. God gave Moses the power to part the Red Sea so that they could escape. During the festival, Jewish people build a Sukah which they live in for 7 days as a way to reflect and thank God for all that He provides, including food. This links with our own Christian festival Harvest as we say thanks for the food God gives to us. We then built our own Sukkah using chairs, ribbon, sticks and leaves. Year 1 even created a paper chain to decorate their Sukkah. It was lovely to see the children all working together and sharing ideas.
Harvest Appeal
This morning we launched our Harvest Appeal for this year by hearing from Bishop Philip about his Pedalathon on 17th October where he will be cycling to visit and pray at a school or church in all 14 deaneries across the Diocese. We will be supporting Bishop Philip's Harvest Appeal for Christians in South Africa by joining in with his pedalathon over the next few weeks, including half term. We are encouraging our school family to cycle on bikes or scooters just like we did for the Big Lent Walk and we would love for you to send your photos in and the distance. Donations can be made on parent pay shortly. Our RotaKids are also supporting Darwen Asylum and Refugee Enterprise (DARE) and Darwen Rotary this Harvest by creating Winter Warmer boxes filled with toiletries, packets or tins of food and warm clothing for DARE families, the elderly, isolated, poor and vulnerable people in our community . They are also collecting winter coats for the homeless and poor through Darwen Rotary club. Please send in any donations and thank you in advance for your generosity. We then sang some of our Harvest songs for our Church Harvest Festival this Sunday 12th October at 11.00am- all welcome and our school Harvest Festival on Thursday 23rd October led by our WOW group and Reception, Years 1 and 2. All welcome.
Year 1 - Fundamentals - Jumping for Distance
In today’s fundamental skills session, Year 1 focused on jumping for distance. We followed various teaching points including crouching with knees bent, swing arms back and forward, explode forward and push off from toes. The children quickly developed their movements using the theory of uncoiling like a spring. We finished with the challenge of can you jump as long as you are high?
Year 1 Golden Time
This afternoon Year 1 had a special golden time. Over the weeks they have been working really hard to fill up their kindness bucket. We had so many children sharing how they have been kind at playtime or during lessons. To celebrate we watched a movie with biscuits and juice. Well done Year 1!
Year 1 English: Question Marks
In our English today, we looked at sentences that need question marks. Year 1 understood that if a sentence is telling you something then it just needs a full stop, but if a sentence is asking something it needs a question mark. We practiced using actions for question marks and then they independently fixed some sentences in their books with the correct punctuation. Well done Year 1!
Fundamentals in Year 1
In our Fundamentals Skills session today, we looked at a range of elements which included both side gallops and rolling a ball. We warmed up to music from the Jungle Book where the children moved around like big bears, scary black jaguars, mischievous monkeys and slithering snakes. Next we practiced our galloping, concentrating on moving in different ways with a lead leg and facing forwards. Following on from these we used the dodgeballs to develop our rolling of a ball. The children aimed to get the balls in the hoop, with many aiming and predicting as they went along. What a great first session we had in Year 1!
Year 1 Art: experimenting with colours and materials
Today we chose if we wanted to create a cold landscape or a warm landscape. We then reminded ourselves about warm and cool colours so that we could create a background for our landscape. We experimented with watercolour to see how we could use colours and blend them together. Then we looked at different materials and discussed how we might be able to use them on our landscape. For example, cotton wool for a polar bear or green crepe paper for plants in the desert.
Year 1 Science: Animal Diets
Today we became scientific poo detectives. We examined the poo of a lion, cow, bear, rabbit and wolf to decide if they are omnivores, carnivores or herbivores. For carnivores, we were looking to see if there was meat in the poo. For herbivores, we were looking to see if there were leaves in the poo. For omnivores, we were looking to see if there were leaves and meat in the poo. Year 1 correctly identified the animal diets.
Whole School Worship - Agent Ananias
We learned about a very special mission given by God this week in worship. God directed Ananias, a disciple in Damascus, to heal Saul of his blindness and baptise him. Despite Ananias's fear due to Saul's reputation as a persecutor of Christians, he obeyed the Lord's assurance that Saul was a "chosen instrument". Ananias laid hands on Saul, restoring his sight, and then baptised him, marking his dramatic conversion from persecutor to the apostle Paul, a key figure in spreading Christianity. We reflected on what we learned from the story and the children shared their thoughts, including that we should trust God’s choices, and that everyone has the ability to change.
Year 1 Geography: Signs of Autumn
Today we took a trip to Whitehall Park to spot some signs of Autumn. The children did a brilliant job at finding conkers, acorns, yellow and orange leaves, berries and empty branches. We tried to stay really quiet to spot a squirrel but we had no luck. The children loved collecting the conkers and acorns too!
Year 1- Fun on the Park
After our brilliant walk finding signs of Autumn, we had to celebrate by playing on the park. We are so proud to see Year 1 showing kindness to each other and respect to other members of the public too. What a fun afternoon!
Year 1 Art- Materials and their textures
Today in Art, we looked at different materials such as cardboard, bubble wrap, buttons, plastic etc and used some new vocabulary to describe their texture. We decided if the material was rough, smooth, bumpy, soft or hard. Then we matched our materials to their describing word independently. Well done Year 1!