Holly Class - Maths week and Remembrance

This week has been Maths Week, England so we have made a special effort to make lots of time to enjoy lots of lovely maths activities this week in Holly class. Year 1 have learnt how to use a part part whole model to help with their addition this week. We went outside and drew huge part part whole models on the playground (you may have seen them, we thought they looked a bit like aliens!) and practised using them practically first. Towards the end of the week we have been writing down and recording the numbers sentences that they have helped us to answer. Reception have been showing off how they can recognise numerals using the banana fans and making sure that all our toy cars are parked properly in their numbered spots. As you will see from the photos, we also enjoyed a whole morning of 'Whatever Next' themed maths challenges on Tuesday. After enjoying the story, everyone took it it turns to work through the challenges which included counting how many stars were in the sky, building shape rockets, measuring the bears with cubes to see which was the tallest and counting how many spirals were left by rockets shooting to the moon in a turn taking game. As well as this we have had great fun playing some outdoor maths games and have enjoyed reading lots of maths themed stories this week.

We had a very happy coincidence on Monday morning when we spotted a fire engine just outside our window so popped into the hall where the windows are a little lower to have a closer look! A few moments later another one arrived and we watched with interest as the firefighters went about their work. We were then very lucky as the firefighters invited us to take a little look at the fire engine and they told us a bit about their work. 

This week we were also learning about Remembrance Day in readiness for a very special assembly in school on Thursday morning. Mrs Morgan and I were very proud of how well the children sat and listened during the assembly and then joined in by singing a song with the other children in school. The children have shown great respect and care when learning about why Remembrance Day is important and the significance of the poppies that many people have been wearing. We shared a lovely story called 'Peace Lily' about a girl who becomes a nurse in the war and afterwards we made our own poppies to create our own poppy field of remembrance just outside our classroom.